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

Sacramento, California

News ·Wednesday October 18, 2006 @ 23:10 EDT (link)


Moon
Blazing Trees We took Alaska Airlines flight 390 from SEA to SMF, arriving on time just after 1900. Bob's wife Jill and son Raven were there to meet us, and he came through the same terminal about half an hour later; it was good to meet Jill and Raven and see Bob again. The GPM (Guest Profile Management) group at Hilton seems to be progressing well, didn't sound like there was anything too exciting in the pipeline, but always plenty of work, and Peter's trying to convert everyone to Java and I hope he fails (nothing personal, Java's just a crummy way to code). Anyway. We drove back to their place in Roseville just to pick up a few things, then headed over to their condo in Truckee* in two vehicles so Jill could head back early. Nice condo, three stories, entryway, our bedroom and Raven's and a bathroom on the first, living quarters on the second, their bedroom on top. It was late enough when we got in that we didn't stay up long.

* Origin of the name: Indian guide was saying "it's okay" in his language so that the white explorers would know he wasn't hostile, but they thought it was his name so they named the town that.


Jill, Raven, Bob We did some light hiking Saturday morning through nearby woods, to the condo "village", taking the two dogs, Molly and Maggie, with Bob and I taking many photos (which reminds me, need to copy them off; now doing so in background). Later we introduced Bob and Jill to the card game Euchre (and I just learned that the dealer's partner having to go alone on ordering up the dealer is a Canadian variant). I also put together some Lego spaceships with Raven, we watched some Mythbusters episodes, and SpongeBob SquarePants, since we'd never seen the show (it's not bad). Sunday they made us pancakes and Jill and Raven headed home; Bob took us around Lake Tahoe, with, of course, many stops to take photographs (which reminds me, I need to process the photos I just copied from my camera). Many beautiful vantage points decorate the lake, which is mostly in California and partly in Nevada (so this was also our first time into Nevada, whose demarcation is indicated by the upspringing of casinos).

We were all set to be in good time for our flight back at 1945, when tragedy struck: there was (reportedly) a head-on collision on US-50 ahead of us (I can't find a link); some people that ran ahead said there was a five-car pileup, but there was no evidence of that. We were about a mile and a half back from the crash, and there were perhaps another 10 miles of cars coming the other way; it delayed us two hours and caused us to miss our flight (we raced to the airport and got there at 1925, but the ticket agent wouldn't give us tickets; at least, though, she waived the $100 fee to change the ticket to 0700 Monday morning). So we crashed at Bob's, and observation of his TiVo system made me again desire to build a MythTV system, more about which later. We got up at 0500, flight left 0700, paid $66 for parking, and slept a bit and then RAS'd into work.

To catalog DVDs, I'm purchasing a WLS 9000 laser barcode scanner (works for Joel) from eBay (cheaper, and the model has been discontinued, current one is about $350). I'm hoping to pick it up from the seller tomorrow in Seattle, in fact (for speed rather than to save the $10 shipping). When I get it I'll set up an HTML::Mason-powered page to enter barcodes, view our collection, search, etc., using DVD information pulled from DVDspot, a free site that tracks DVDs by UPC and provides relevant information such as title, length, cover art, aspect ratio, etc.


Polarized mountain Slow day at work today, so I finished Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck; good story, somewhat sad ending) and started on Virtual Light (Gibson). Played a few games of Warcraft, too, but didn't win any; sometimes that's the way it goes. I was doing well as undead but for want of a Necropolis at my expansion, the game was lost.

About the MythTV system: we stopped in to Hard Drives Northwest, where I'd gotten my Acer laptop a year or so ago, and custom ordered the system: AMD 4600+ 2.4 GHz box, 320 Gb HD, 2 Gb RAM, Hauppauge PVR-500 (dual tuner) capture card, nVidia 7900GS TV-out graphic card, no monitor, keyboard, mouse, or OS; should be ready by the end of the week. I hope it's sufficiently quiet, but if not, there's a decent article about replacing fans with heat sinks etc. to quiet it down.

And finally some Fark links: here's one on a letter to a Senator who wants to become an illegal alien for the tax benefits and one on a judge who orders a woman to stop breeding at the state's expense.