::::: : the wood : davidrobins.net

My name is David Robins: Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner, libertarian (voluntaryist), and student.

This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.

Intermezzo: betrayal and backstabbery

News ·Wednesday December 27, 2006 @ 10:11 EST (link)

While all this was going on with the house, there was some drama in the EFnet #c++ talk channel. Channels such as this have channel operators, or "ops", who maintain order in the channel; usually "op" status is given to experienced users with domain knowledge; evidently someone screwed up in this case. "ZorbaTHut" (an IRC nickname; on EFnet, nicknames are limited to 9 characters) and a few other disgruntled #c++ ops waited until they knew most of us would be away (for example, Lisa was out visiting her dying grandmother) and then took over the channel in mid-December, ejecting most of the other operators.

ZorbaTHut ("Zorba")'s betrayal was a spoiled child's tantrum; the act of an infant who wants to rule the sandbox, throwing feces at anyone who disagrees with him. I believe the main issue that caused him to attempt this takeover was the rejection of his badly-coded 'bot (automaton for information retrieval), which I ended up cleaning up (essentially a rewrite) and which had been installed in the channel. (As an aside: Zorba apparently used to work for Google, but one questions their interviewing standards if that code is typical; he'd have a much harder time getting a job as a Microsoft Office developer. He "quit" to start his own company, without funds or much of a plan.) I have logged a later (January 4) discussion about the takeover; here are some salient quotes:

<ZorbaTHut> symmetry, sorta, yeah. the current admins got tired of the previous admins. that's why we have notabot, not calcme :) <ZorbaTHut> (and why it uses my codebase :P) <czth_> if you'd've been brought up proper you'd've learned "thou shalt not steal" <czth_> yeah, your stinking full-o-crap codebase

<_Stinger_> who was overthrown? <czth> most of the existing ops, it seems <ZorbaTHut> stinger, basically raph and mind, with a little collateral damage <czth> the honorable thing to do would have been to step down as op, of course, rather than backstabbing the rest of us.

<xor_mind-> Where you abusing your power or something? Why have not been reopped czth? <czth> xor_mind-: because i know some of the people zorba doesn't like <czth> boy, that sounds really mature when it's put that way, doesn't it zorba me lad?

<czth> never have i abused ops <ScratXP> do you need ops <czth> do you need Internet connectivity? <jey> czth: I agree that it sucks in your position

I think jey summed it up nicely, although he's part of the ~~Vichy regime~~problem, rather than being part of the solution. Anyway: some Internet politics for y'all to enjoy.

A Risky Christmas in Pullman

News ·Tuesday December 26, 2006 @ 23:17 EST (link)

Pollocks December 23-5: Since power was back and the house was somewhat secure, we took up Honey's uncle and aunt's kind invitation to spend Christmas with them in Pullman. Their kitchen and dining room was being remodelled (everything was out, from fixtures to cabinets, and they'd put in new wood flooring and wooden posts for the stairs to the basement, but no railings yet), so cooking was being done in the basement with a Crock-Pot™ and a microwave.

We played several games; to Honey's cousin Will's delight, Risk (uncle Dave and I beat Honey and Will, by managing to take over two continents (Indonesia and Asia), and then arranging our men so as to give one of us the troop bonus for each, and then noticing that we win by just taking out either one of the opposing team's armies, and focusing on Will). They introduced us to Guillotine, a fun card game where players are executioners and have to collect noble heads, and in turn we brought Stock Ticker, a Canadian game simulating a very simplified stock market. We didn't play Scotland Yard this time, but for Christmas they got the U.S. equivalent, New York Chase, upgraded to give detectives helicopters to aid in the search (kids these days have it so easy...).

They gave us a Canada provinces puzzle (logos and symbols in the shape of a Canadian flag); we were empty-handed, given the tree-in-roof crisis and all. We headed back Christmas day; we'd bought chains for Snoqualmie Pass on the I-90, but although the web site said they were required, the road signs did not, so we didn't use them.

Martins December 26: We called my uncle Graham and aunt Wendy who had invited us up for a Christmas dinner on Boxing Day (December 26); we thought we wouldn't be able to make it, because we needed our contractor (Jim Cameron of Cameron Construction, who's been absolutely great so far in taking care of cleanup and temporary repairs) to come out and shore up the tarps against some leaks, but we were able to arrange to leave a key for him and head up to Abbotsford by 1100. We're grateful to our neighbors who called the contractor (we'd given him the number) when they thought the tarp was leaking; he put up a temporary tarp that night and then put up another tarp and set up some fans and dehumidifiers while we were gone. And he was as good as his word; things were drying nicely when we returned.

Honey hadn't been to the (many) Martins' place in Abbotsford before, so she got the tour (complete with THX sound in the games room); excellent dinner and conversation; Ashley and Sean (please excuse if you spell it another way) were there, and Jordan and Liz, and of course Graham, Wendy, Chris, and Vanessa, who is expecting an addition in May; we wish them best of luck. We left that night and got back by midnight.

Blind Assassin, Treasure Island, Pattern Recognition

News ·Friday December 22, 2006 @ 18:22 EST (link)

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

—Lamentations 3:21-3

December 20: Went to work to check messages, then to the house, cleaned up more insulation and fished out more valuable prizes, which we moved to another bedroom. Thought we smelled gas outside by the gas line, near where the tree fell, so called Puget Sound Energy who promised to send a technician sometime that night; he didn't need us to be there, so we went back to the hotel. Power was restored to our place at about 1950; we'd been following the PSE status page (and the King County road alerts page), and called the neighbors a few times to check. We ate at Outback that evening; we'd only been eating about once a day. We stayed at the hotel overnight, since the house had no heat and we weren't sure if the power would remain on. But at least with power we could return the following day.

December 21: PSE had left us a note on the door that they had turned off the gas and would need to install a new regulator (no charge to us) but we needed to remove a tree that was leaning over the gas line. We called Alpine Tree Service, the same opportunists we'd been using (remember, we hadn't seen an invoice yet and they'd been very slippery about telling us their rates), and they came out and moved and cut up that section of the tree. Even though the tree was out of the house there's still piles of branches in the driveway, about 50' of (very thick) ivy-covered tree in the back yard, itself hidden by a veritable forest of still-connected branches. After Alpine came we called PSE from a neighbor's place and they installed a new regulator and relit our pilot lights and ensured all was well.

I booted up the computers—Internet wasn't up until later in the evening, which meant we had no phone until then either—and was skimming some CNN Money lists (via Fark, I think); I found an item about removing oneself from credit card junk mail lists and called 888-567-8688, 3 to be so removed (they need an SSN, but CNN's fairly reputable so I risked it). Writing on January 5, 2007, I don't think I've seen any credit card spam in the mail lately, so perhaps it's working. CNN Money also advises keeping six months income in savings (not just three as I'd heard previously) if we start relying on just one income.

December 22: Browsing Micronews today, the Microsoft internal weekly newsletter (which just renamed itself to something utterly forgettable and will be coming out daily, or not at all and it'll just update a site that nobody will ever read, or at least far less people than read the weekly digest): How Not to Come Home from the Christmas Party tells the woefully sad tale of a (presuming from the photo) faddish couple who—horrors—had no power in their house after they came back from a party, and then got locked out of Microsoft and had to sit in their car. Please. If you're going to cover the windstorm, don't pick a peripheral inconvenience.

Also in this issue, in the letters to the editor: "Can I Opt Out of Child Coverage?" [Regarding the Dec. 8 Micronews: Half-Million-Dollar Babies]: I'm glad the $500,000 babies are healthy and the parents were able to focus on taking care of them without stressing over the bills. But as a child-free employee, I will never incur the birth cost, parental leave or child-care expenses. I'd be thrilled to opt out of such coverage.

The response blathered a bit, failing to either get the point or to the point, and eventually vaguely said "this change is something our team is working on." I remember asking a similar question at athenaHealth in Boston, and the response being equally vague, because how can anyone (save baby-eating Satanists and terrorists) not worship the almighty baby?

Books: While without power, being mightily scarred by having to watch TV with commercials, I finished The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood) and the deservedly classic Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) and am now (January 2) starting on William Gibson's Pattern Recognition (yep, of Neuramancer fame).

No room at the Carlton Inn!

News ·Tuesday December 19, 2006 @ 22:22 EST (link)

I've just been shuffling some papers from our "disaster folder": scraps with notes about calls made and responses, all the way back from getting the tree out to getting a contractor; a copy of our insurance policy; a printout of a Word file I made up at work with similar notes last week; a contract from the contractor that's been doing the cleanup (and we think we'll use him for the rebuilding too, provided he and the adjuster can converge on an estimate); a MetLife claim folder; an envelope with copies of receipts thus far; a note from the gas company; a printout of an Excel spreadsheet with our interior claims; and a partridge, resting comfortably in a pear tree.

December 18: Still at the Carlton Inn; drove to Microsoft in the morning, to check my mail and phone messages, and make some calls, since we still don't have power in Duvall. Had a message from MetLife; our claim has been farmed out to a Texas company called Tailored Adjustment Services, and would be handled by a James Davant. We managed to get through to him around noon, gave him some phone numbers to reach us, and he said he'd try to get there this week. We also had a message from the tree-owning neighbors' insurance, who were trying to clear themselves (and they managed to; given the tree was dead and the windstorm was extraordinary).

We got stiffed at the hotel; when we came returned that evening, laden with bags and KFC. We'd extended our reservation that morning, but when we got in we found a sign on our door saying that they'd given away our room; when we checked with the front desk, we found that the guy who'd been on the front desk hadn't put our extension into the computer, and he'd done the same to several other people too. On talking to the other clerk we learned he was related to the owners, which was probably the only reason he still worked there.

We stalked out and ate our KFC in the car, but then came in to get our bill, and the manager offered to put us up in a room with no heater (it was having new a new climate control unit installed), and gave us the room for the night free. It wasn't too cold, really, and it beat sleeping in a car (or a house with a tree through it and no power).

December 19: We went over to Microsoft; we had several recommendations for contractors (from the MS home owners' list and from a lady Honey used to work with). Made some calls, including to the adjuster, who said he wouldn't be able to get out to us before Christmas, and to some of the contractors, mainly leaving messages.

At the house I put my 8x10 tarp over the hole in the wall (the roof was covered with our large tarp but the gap in the wall would still let driving rain through), and I gathered several more garbage bags of insulation from the bedroom (about eight now), sifting carefully to recover what we could. We thought we'd lost the phone handset that was on the dresser (but we found the base unit), but then thought to look in the near-empty garbage and found it safe. We left at about 1600 as it began to get dark, and went back to Microsoft to check message and print out the Word document I'd made with various contact numbers, phone cards, and a short log of people we'd contacted thus far. Back at the hotel we watched Charlie Brown, played some Sequence and Boggle, ate leftover KFC, and worried about our house.

A windfall for the tree companies

News ·Sunday December 17, 2006 @ 22:00 EST (link)

December 16: We called several tree services from the hotel, and eventually Alpine Tree Service agreed to come out; we met them at the house at 1030. They climbed onto the roof from the top deck and removed brush and cut off branches (which they threw into the driveway; good thing we got the cars out first) until they could get to the main trunk, which they sawed up until it could be removed with ropes. They covered the opening with a tarp that Honey picked up at the local hardware store, still leaving a side gap which I covered with a smaller tarp later. They left after the tree was out, without removing the brush (they're trying to maximize jobs while the getting's good), but it turns out that was a good thing as they were overcharging horribly and we later called them back and told them we'd have someone else take care of the brush removal.

We spent the night at the hotel again; the house still didn't have power, and heat leaching through the gaps rapidly, even with the door closed (and recall the bathroom door wouldn't close since the skylight was resting on it). Lisa was around so I drove the three of us to a nearby Fred Meyer, which was open despite being without main power, and we bought food and games. We played three games of Scrabble at the hotel (the second without using the bonus squares), and I won all of them.

December 17: We didn't do much today—I suppose you could say we rested. We'd been going over to Microsoft to make calls, and look on the net for power outage status etc. (at this point they were still predicting Friday or Saturday for power restoration in Duvall). We left a message for James "Andy" Andrews at MetLife, whom we'd been told was our adjuster (turns out he wasn't, they farmed it out to another company, but now he is again).

The night the roof fell in

News ·Friday December 15, 2006 @ 11:27 EST (link)

December 14: It was, indeed, a dark and stormy night. The power went out at about 2030 Thursday night and we went to bed around 2300 with the the wind tearing around the house, whistling horribly; eventually we sunk into fitful sleep, and then the roof caved in with a great tearing and we were choking on clouds of insulation and looking up at a midnight-blue gash in what used to be our bedroom ceiling. It was 0230; it was pitch dark (with all the grues and pits that entails); I rolled out of bed and helped Honey out my side since hers was blocked, and we ran into the hallway, holding onto each other for dear life. Still filled with adrenaline, I went back in to retrieve some clothes and my big Mag flashlight, which was standing on my side table but was now buried under it. Neither of us had our glasses, and after a couple of checks, still uncertain about how stable the room was, I gave up the search and we went into the street; I had on a pair of jeans I'd fished out of the ankle-deep insulation, and a dressing gown; fortunately my keys, wallet, etc. were in the pockets of my jeans. We went into the kitchen to get a drink and try to clear out some of the insulation.

A neighbor—the one whose tree had fallen, one street over—had called the police, so they were just coming down the street as we left; I waved my flashlight to signal them over. They put us into the back of their car and gave us some water; I was able to vomit out some more insulation and breathe easier. We were transferred to an ambulance, which took us to Valley General Hospital in Monroe. Honey was checked out for a bruised nose (thankfully not broken) and I had some scratches on my back, which they gave me a tetanus shot for; I'm not sure if I got them crawling off the bed, or from diving under my night table/cabinet. Valley General discharged us after determining damage was superficial (God be praised), but let us stay in a room overnight, on narrow (twin? hah!) hospital cot.

December 15: In the morning we washed up as best we could in the adjoining shower, and strolled down blearily (no glasses, if you'll recall) to the nurses' station; they directed us to another desk where we attempted to call a cab, but were thankfully diverted by a lady named Lynn from the hospital foundation, who took us to breakfast in the hospital cafeteria and also paid for our cab (I remember the meter showing about $40 when we got to our house). The power was still out, of course, but we were able to survey the damage for the first time: a large cedar (100-150') had broken off and had sheared right through the roof and bedroom wall, and was laying across the bedroom, from the lower far right corner of the room to the upper left, over the bathroom, with a collection of smaller branches reaching all the way to and over the front porch. The tree had knocked the bathroom skylight down so that it rested on the door and had pierced through the next bedroom's wall; the bathroom was also full of insulation. The other (en suite) bathroom was fine, except for a light knocked askew (but it still worked); there was a crack in the ceiling of another bedroom (the one the skylight had poked through). Our first problem was retrieving our glasses; fortunately I was able to lean over the bed and find them in the rubble. In the daylight it was a nightmare of downed trusses (seven in all, we were to find out later), beams, shingles, drywall, and tree branches. Fortunately the structure of the lower floor didn't seem compromised, but not knowing this I went into the bedroom with some trepidation.

We got our cars out of the garage, and then visited a neighbor that had a generator, and used their phone, since ours is VoIP; we called a friend in Monroe, who was able to get us a decent rate at a hotel in Kirkland, the Carlton Inn; we also called our insurance, filed a claim, and they told us to go ahead and get the tree removed, called our families again (we'd called them at around 0400, which wasn't as bad as it seems for them since they're both on Eastern time, which made it 0700 there), and started calling tree companies. We left for the hotel before it got dark; the hotel still had no power, but we met our friend Lisa there and played some card games using a Pinochle deck our friend had (that explained why it was so cheap...).

At about 1700 I decided to sleep some in our room, Honey woke me up and said she and Lisa were going to hospital to get some X-rays of her face and chest to see if anything was broken, because she was feeling pain. I woke up at 1900 and they still weren't back, so I took a book to the hotel lobby and brought their candelabra over to a table and read. After some hours (2130) I called Lisa's cell phone and they said they were almost finished; they got back at 2200. Power was restored to the hotel at 2237, and we went downstairs with some of the hotel staff and management (it's somewhat of a family business) and they made us hot chocolate; friendly people, nice place. We called MetLife again from our room, but still no word on when the adjuster could come out.

(Of course, I'm not writing these on the actual entry date above; this entry was written December 28; I'm just using the entry dates to track the events.)

Precursor to a storm

News ·Thursday December 14, 2006 @ 19:43 EST (link)

My laptop has five USB devices (USB card reader for work, flatbed scanner, barcode scanner, and external keyboard and mouse) and only three slots, so to remedy this issue I picked up a D-Link 7-port hub; worked out of the box, no more swapping USB devices, plus room for three more.

We also got Timecop (another Grebel loss from the move; they keep turning up), Stargate SG-1 season 2, Doctor Who season 1, and have ordered E.R. season 6.

Honey's dad's back at home, but then they wanted him back at the hospital for a few days, which didn't make him very happy at all, but now he's home again.

The MS06-069 Microsoft security patch was grossly incompetent, although it may be Adobe's fault (the fix is for their software, but I think we're distributing it because we bundle it). The fix didn't work, even after a reboot, so it keeps trying to do the same fix. Eventually I uninstalled Macromedia Flash—it's a useless piece of junk anyway—and the warnings went away. I'd've just ignored them, but they were preventing me from VPN'ing into work. Imbeciles.

It's been rainy and windy, with a storm warning.

And expect a large technical article fairly soon, since I've been doing some interesting compiler acrobatics to clean up Word's object model of late.

Stupid Progressive commercial

News ·Sunday December 3, 2006 @ 01:04 EST (link)

Just a wee rant about one of Progessive (insurance)'s commercials I've been hearing a lot on the radio lately. They end it with something like "If they're this helpful before you're a customer, imagine how helpful they'll be afterwards"; an attempted a fortiori construct. Clearly, as advertisers, they know they're lying (and not just because their lips are moving); if not they're stupider than even I could imagine. It's not that that annoys me; it's the pure brazen barefacedness of it all. Like a politician, all insurance companies care about after they have your (vote, money) is (re-election, renewal)—i.e. getting more money—and minimizing the amount of money they have to shell out, i.e. keeping the money they've already got. The statement is backwards: they work hard until they get you as a customer—not after. I also don't mind the fact of it; of course they want to make money, they're a business, that's their job. And unfortunately the claim is too airy to sic the gutted remains of any truth-in-advertising laws on them.

Oh, and a few remarks about Toyota of Kirkland. As you may have read here, we recently purchased a 2007 Toyota Corolla from them, trading in Honey's 2000 VW Golf for it, a beast we were happy to get rid of; we were also very ready to walk away, so perhaps they really did give us more for it than they wanted to (but I doubt it). However, the Golf was titled in West Virginia, and (a) Honey's grandfather's name was on the title, since he helped her get the loan and (b) there was a lienholder (United Bank), although a few weeks before purchasing the Toyota we'd paid off the loan in full. We first had trouble getting the title from United Bank; they claim they sent it but it never arrived (we paid off my car at the same time; different bank, title arrived just fine, although it was for Massachusetts; that'll probably be trouble down the line), but eventually we were able to get a signed release of interest from them which was acceptable in stead. Next, we needed to get Honey's grandfather to sign over the title to them; this was more trouble—not at all because of him, but because of how badly Toyota of Kirkland handled the whole deal.

First, a discourtesy; they sent the title paperwork, but no stamped envelope; rude, but not a huge deal. He signed it and sent it back, but they didn't receive it—or at least they claim they didn't. They called my wife several times and harassed her; I suspected they were trying to welch on the trade-in (we had to sign two sets of loan papers, one without the trade-in, in case it didn't go through, and unfortunately I don't think there's much we could have done if they'd've tried to renege, even with the Microsoft's legal program). It was a bad time for them to be making threatening phone calls, too, given Honey's dad's pending heart surgery. Anyway, either because we persisted (we were getting bounced around their finance department trying to get them to send new paperwork) or because mail was slow because of the snowstorm (also, the old finance manager quit during the whole deal, which didn't help much), eventually the title from Honey's grandfather "arrived" and all is well. Just be careful to read the fine print when you deal with Toyota of Kirkland.

This sordid tale reminds me of something my dad and I saw in Waterloo when I was there for school: a jeep, driving around the city, with a sign strapped to the back:

We Will Never Buy Another Vehicle from Bustard Chrysler

I'll bet thousands of people saw that sign. I wonder how much it affected Bustard Chrysler's business? Takeaway: don't annoy your customers—even if you do get the sale, you may lose more than you gain. Sometimes it's best just to back off. Until Toyota of Kirkland called us to say the trade-in paperwork was finalized, I was not very far from making my own sign.

Blizzarding in Abbotsford

News ·Thursday November 30, 2006 @ 02:53 EST (link)

As promised, we drove up to Abbotsford, BC this Saturday; we left around 1500, fairly uneventful trip—border was good, just asked where we were from and where we were going and if we were leaving anything—but shortly after we got into Canada it started snowing. Hard. Looking forward through the windscreen was like looking out of Ten-Forward on the Enterprise at high warp (how's that for a geeky metaphor?) I took over driving and although we missed one turn (badly signed highway), we got to Grandma Martin's at about 1815, came in and talked for a while, and then headed over to Swiss Chalet (Canadian family restaurant) for three of their festive specials.

We were there for about three hours; we watched the snow come down by the glare of the outside street lamps as darkness settled in. On the way back to my Grandma's place we stopped at the her bank, then stopped in again for a few minutes; she was a little worried about us getting back and offered to let us stay overnight, but we decided to drive home. I drove back, since I've a fair amount of experience driving in snow in Ontario... seems most Americans (and, according to AT, British Columbians too) have trouble driving in snow. There was one skid but I grabbed the wheel and steered into it and all was well. It took about the same time going back as getting there, but there was no wait at the border, so the driving time was probably a little more. When we arrived home there was no snow in the east side.

On Sunday and Monday, the snow came to Seattle; I went in Monday and left around 1800. It took me an hour to get out of the parking garage—cars were backed up to the first-second floor ramp, and not moving much at all as people were creeping out of every building on 36th Way and wedging themselves into the creeping line. We snaked our way to the WA-520, but after that traffic was only about as bad as it would have been on a normal day but an hour earlier (i.e. 1800 traffic at 1900) and the rest of the drive was slow but uneventful; even Novelty Hill and Stephens Road weren't bad. Tuesday was a snow day, much of the campus was closed, I worked from home.

Update on Douglas Hedrick (Honey's dad): he went to the hospital to get his heart trouble checked out on Wednesday, and the doctors determined that he'd have to have open heart surgery; stents would not suffice (they tried putting one in but it gave him pain and they realized there was a second 99% blockage behind the first). I left work early to be with Honey and VPN'd in later on. The surgery is scheduled for Monday, but will be done sooner if required; he's in the critical care unit at the Richmond, VA (Virginia) VA (Veterans' Association) hospital.

Speaking of VPNing: VPNing into MS is like using a 28.8k modem right now. I hit shift and it gets relayed 3 seconds later which means I get 0 instead of ) or [ instead of { and redraw is so slow you can critique the gnomes' brush strokes. Argh. And the connection process is pretty random, too; sometimes you get through, sometimes it attempts to count to infinity, sometimes it bluescreens, and sometimes it needs a reboot because, as I believe I've mentioned a few times already, the Windows OS has many a pile of fetid horse dung hiding in its nooks and crannies.

We're watching House, Stargate SG-1 season 1, and various items on the MythTV machine which is now pretty full so is starting to auto-expire some shows, which is fine; if they're important we can tag them not to expire. I have another 120 Gb HD I can put in (since I elected to use Linux's Logical Volume Manager, I can add it to the logical partition and it will grow seamlessly), but I need some longer screws to put it into the silent-mount chassis.

Fixed a bug in the pH internal parser for these pages (actually not the parser itself, which is a rock solid C++ XS module, really, but in the pH::Journal module), where it ignored element content of "0", since it was checking an iterator value for truth (and "0" is false in perl, either as a string or a number) rather than definedness.

A race to destroy buildings

News ·Friday November 24, 2006 @ 19:03 EST (link)

Played a (purported) level 3 undead in Warcraft (I was also playing as undead); it looked like I was going to lose; he'd foregone any sort of teching or other upgrades to mass fiends; he almost wiped out my army (and my base) a few times, until I made him portal out by attacking his hero, who got to level 9 by the end of the game. I had an expansion for a large part of the game, so had managed to tech fairly well. Toward the end of the game he was calling on me to give up, but when he came in for a final assault on my base I sent the rest of my army, including a catapult (meat wagon) to his base, and started destroying his buildings. From there, it became a race, which, to cut a long story short, I won. He wiped out my main base, but I had several buildings at my expansion, which I'd rebuilt several times (and eventually built a necropolis there). He'd started to expand too, but his buildings were just starting and I wiped them out to win the game. I'll bet he was pretty upset, but he annoyed me so the win was very sweet.

(The original) RtError is almost gone... (from 700 to 0 in three days). Now it's just an error return, not a longjmp.

We're going up to Abbotsford tomorrow to take Grandma Martin out for her birthday.

Thanksgiving—plans to go anywhere fell through, but a good time was had by all nonetheless, although we miss our families.

The Office 2007 ship gift was a digital picture frame, which I recently set up. All seems well, except there's a little purple arrow in the top right corner that I can't remove; since it's there when the unit is powered down, it could be a sticker, but it doesn't seem to be removable. It's reasonable for what it does, but the manual and setup pages are written in Engrish, that is, badly-translated English chock full of lovely bloopers. You'd think they'd've been able to distribute the cost of a few hours of an English speaker's time among all the units sold without taking too large a hit to the bottom line. Seems that kwaliti is job #1!

Note that just because I work for Microsoft doesn't mean I like Windows. Frequently it shows itself to be a truly lousy piece of software. For example, using Linux I've never had to reboot unless I'm upgrading the kernel. Windows forces reboots for the stupidest things; the latest was because it had got itself into a crap-all-over-itself state when I tried to VPN into work: I managed to get a partial fix by killing one of the random SVCHOST.EXE items in the task manager, which bounced the PPTP protocol service (daemon), but the system still didn't have enough marbles to let the VPN client work, so it went on its merry way counting a timeout to infinity (I know this because I forked off another quantum thread and timed it).

Task manager is also an idiotic application; it should try to find a "true name" of sorts for particular OS-related running tasks (e.g. don't say RUNDLL32.EXE; that's a wrapper for just about any DLL in existence; tell me which DLL; same goes for SVCHOST.EXE), and also (optionally) pull a secure short descriptor from a reliable online source, e.g. "PPTP network service".