Thanksgiving preparations

We're having Kathy's family over for Thanksgiving again this year so today was spent doing a lot of preparation work... we did the big Safeway trip (got there around 5 so the store was not crowded yet - yay), and last night I replaced the dimmer switch that burned out recently with a better one that has a separate slider and on/off switch, plus replaced the bulbs in the track lights. I wasn't able to find CFLs that would work so I just went with 60W halogens for now. Maybe later I will get some different fixtures for the track that can hold a dimmable CFL flood (which seem to only come in the long neck versions of the bulbs).

Also, is it just me or is it really, really annoying that everyone seems to have forgotten about waiting until the day after Thanksgiving to start the Christmas music and decorations? In some cases, Christmas stuff was out even before Halloween.

Recent upgrades

Since my internal hard disk in the Mac mini indicated it was failing two months ago, I switched over to running it off an external hard disk. The internal drive wasn't giving me any problems, but I also wasn't using it. Recently I noticed some strange noises coming from the internal drive so I decided to go ahead and replace it. It seems the best option for the old ATA/100 2.5 inch drives is a 160GB Seagate, so that's what I got. I figured since I was going to have to open up the machine I might as well max it out by getting an 8x dual layer SuperDrive and 1GB of memory (good preparation for upgrading to Leopard as well). I also had to pick up a putty knife to pop the top off.

The upgrade turned out to be both easier and harder than I expected. Getting the top case off was fairly easy, but dealing with the bluetooth and AirPort antennas and the plastic cage that holds the optical drive and hard drive was harder than I expected. Still it didn't take too long and now the mini is running nicely from the internal hard disk.

The other upgrade I did recently was to switch over compact flourescent bulbs from incandescent for most of the lights at home. The 60W and 40W equivalent bulbs work pretty well now (come on instantly, no noise, soft white light). And, they aren't that expensive. A 4 pack was about $7 at Home Depot. This is still more than conventional incandescent bulbs, but the 75% savings on power consumption and longer life end up making them cheaper over the life of the bulb. And less power consumption is better for the environment given that a large percentage of our power is generated from coal power plants.

The only remaining lights that are still not CFL or regular flourescent are two 75W flood lamps on a dimmer switch and a 30/70/100W 3-way bulb in the lamp by the bed. I have yet to find a 3 way CFL that is anything other than 50/100/150W equivalent, which ends up being really huge to be able to put out the top light level. That would be fine except it won't fit in the lamp I have. Dimmable flood CFLs exist as well but it looks like they may not fit exactly in the track light fixture I have.

Daylight Savings

It's cool to get the extra hour of sleep and all, but I am always annoyed by the lack of daylight in the evening after the clocks are set back. To top it all off, the nice "set and forget" wall clock I got last year is now obsolete due to the brilliant idea Congress had to move the dates when Daylight Savings Time changes. Now instead of just having to set the clock twice a year for a dumb clock, I have to change it four times a year since it changes to and from DST on the wrong days now. Lame.

Not a good way to start the day

Arg. My Mac mini internal hard disk is on the way out. By some miracle I happened to run Disk Utility in time to be able to back up all the data. I guess it's time to upgrade it a bit.

Schmap Dublin Guide

One of my pictures from my trip last year to England, Ireland, and Scotland was included in the new Schmap Dublin Guide. It's a picture of Eddie Rockets, a restaurant I thought might have some relationship to Johnny Rockets.

Apparently Schmap looks through lots of flickr pictures to find those they like the best to make up their guide. Pretty cool!

Big News

Some of you have already heard, but I am now engaged! I proposed on Memorial Day weekend. I planned a "mystery" getaway and took Kathy to the Point Reyes National Seashore area and we stayed in a little town called Olema. I proposed after dinner at the Olema Inn and Restaurant.

The date is set for June 21, 2008. More information to come!

OK, I'm officially surprised

So, it turns out the Warriors were not able to execute down the stretch in any of the close games with the Jazz, and they lost the series 4-1 last night. It was sort of painful to watch all those times when they came so close to winning and weren't able to come up with it. What made it even worse was the fact that the Warriors lost their cool in several situations in the playoffs and got themselves fined or ejected. There's just no excuse for that, regardless of what is happening in the game.

On the plus side, I'm still hoping the Spurs can pull it together and advance past the Suns and then eliminate the Jazz on their way to the NBA finals. Assuming the Spurs are out, I would rather see the Suns in the finals.

Warriors make history

After blowing a late lead in game 5 Tuesday, the Warriors came home to Oracle Arena and put together one of the most dominant third quarters I've seen to close out the series and send the Mavericks home.

Everyone at the game got a yellow "We Believe" t-shirt and sign and the effect of this looked quite intimidating for the visiting team. I hope they continue this in the second round. They even hung a huge version of the t-shirt on the outside of the arena.

Apparently the entire crowd stood for the second half and at times it was so loud that it was difficult to hear the announcers' commentary.

At this point, I think it's fair to say I would be surprised if the Warriors did not make it to the Western Conference finals.

Warriors vs. Spurs in Western Conference Finals?

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but is it possible we could see the Warriors in the Western Conference finals? It looks like the Mavericks have their backs to the wall at this point since the Warriors have gone up 3 to 1 and still have a home game left (plus yet another win in Dallas would not be that surprising given recent history).

So, the Warriors would play either the Jazz or the Rockets in the second round. In either case they would have to win on the road but they were 2-1 against the Rockets this year and 2-2 against the Jazz. More importantly they won their most recent game against both teams which was after the big trade.

Assuming the Spurs capitalize on their 2-1 lead and put away the Nuggets in the first round, they would most likely face the Suns in the second round. The Spurs were 2-1 against the Suns this season, winning the most recent matchup. Assuming defense prevails over the Suns high scoring offense, we could see my two fave teams in the Western Conference finals.

At that point I think I would have to give the edge to the Spurs though I did see the Warriors lay down a major blowout earlier in the season against the Spurs at Oracle Arena. Probably sealed the Spurs fate on that one by talking them up to Kathy before the game.

New movie theater

The new Cupertino Square 16 AMC theater opened this weekend so Kathy and I decided to check it out.

I'm not usually a Nicolas Cage fan, but I went ahead and saw "Next" anyway since it's based on Philip K. Dick story. The movie was pretty entertaining and Cage wasn't annoying enough to bother me. I'm not sure why the movie is getting such bad reviews. The ending was not quite what I was looking for, but I don't think that's a reason to skip the movie.

The theater is pretty nice, and only a few minutes drive from home. Maybe even walkable if I was feeling ambitious. I'm looking forward to the former Vallco Mall coming back to life, which hopefully the theater will jump start.

Warriors shine, Spurs disappoint

Well, it was a night for the road teams, at least in the two NBA playoff series that I'm interested in. The Spurs couldn't quite come up with a win. You know it's not a good sign when the big three of Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobili all can't come up with more than 20 points (especially Tony). Hopefully this will be a wake up call and things will change in game 2.

Luckily for me, the Warriors continue to stun the rest of the league, toppling the Mavericks in their first playoff game. So, apparently whatever the Warriors secret was to get three wins against the Mavs in the regular season (two of which were not "given" to them like the last one was), is still working for them. Go Warriors!

Warriors in the playoffs!

Hard to believe, but the Warriors beat Portland last night in the regular season finale to get the last playoff spot. It's their first time in the playoffs since 1994. To give you an idea of how long ago this was... I was still in high school when the Warriors were last in the playoffs.

The more impressive thing is the Warriors beat the Mavericks in all three of their meetings this season, which is something no other NBA team was able to do. I think a lot of that success has to be due to Don Nelson's coaching and previous experience as Mavericks head coach. I'm hopeful the Warriors can upset the Mavs in round one of the playoffs and clear the way for the Spurs to win the championship.

Apple eWaste Recycling Event this Saturday

FYI... free computer and electronics recycling at Apple this weekend.

Community Recycling Event
Saturday, April 21 - Cupertino

Apple is sponsoring a public eWaste recycling event on April 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot behind De Anza 3 (10500 De Anza Blvd Cupertino CA.). Tell all your friends and neighbors about the Saturday event so that they can take advantage of this free recycling opportunity.

All are invited to drop off and recycle their unwanted home computers, monitors, related computer peripherals, TVs, stereos and other small home electronics such as fax machines, printers, DVD players and cell phones (no home appliances please).

Note - Local, state and federal hazardous waste laws prohibit us from taking computer or TV monitors with cracked or broken screens and batteries of any type that are not integral to a computer system.

catching up on flickr

I'm working my way through the last few months of photos to get flickr up to date on everything that's happened. Here's some of the recent photosets that I've added.

Thanksgiving 2006

Christmas 2006

Bethlehem 2006

Ohlone Nursing Christmas Party 06

Texas Trip 2006-2007

Tahoe Jan 2007

Hopefully I can catch up the rest of the way in the next couple days.

goodbye, Ken

Last year around this time, my girlfriend Kathy lost her brother Steven. This year, I lost my longtime coworker and friend of the last seven years, Ken, to colon cancer. His memorial service was this past Tuesday. He was only 46.

Ken, I miss your laugh and your smile. They always brightened my day at work. I will miss being able to ask you for advice or just talk to you. Your time with us was too short. You were one of a kind.

My heart goes out to the family and all who knew Ken and feel the pain of losing him.

Adventures in Gmail Importing

Over the past few months I have been transitioning all of my subscriptions from my Yahoo webmail account to my Gmail account. It occurred to me that it would be nice to get the roughly 500 messages copied over to my Gmail as part of this migration.

I discovered an interesting technique for doing this which involves taking advantage of Gmail's support for checking POP accounts. Unfortunately, Yahoo discontinued free POP access a while back in an effort to force people to use their webmail interface to get more ad revenue. However, it seems that some industrious open source developers decided to write their own POP to Yahoo email gateways. I set up a program called MacFreePOPs, which is a POP server that uses the Yahoo webmail interface behind the scenes to access the data. After I set up Gmail to connect to my computer, it was a quick matter of importing the mail.

A day or two later it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to import my old mail which I don't have space for in my .Mac account into Gmail as well. I have emails dating back to 1994 when I first started college in Microsoft Entourage, which I used to use for mail before Apple's Mail.app. It was sort of a neat "blast from the past" to look through some of these old emails from family and friends as part of this process.

I have imported this mail into Gmail using the following technique, which unlike using Gmail Loader will properly show the original dates on the messages:

1) export email to mbox file (in Entourage, drag mailbox to desktop to do this; in Mail.app, select messages and Save As using Raw Message Source option)
2) convert to Unix line endings since Entourage saves using Mac line endings (using tr '\r' '\n' < infile > outfile)
3) copy to /var/mail/, which is where the ipop3d looks for mail (part of UW IMAP server package)
4) have Gmail log into the POP server on my computer to download the mail

There are a few caveats about this approach that I've run into so far:
- Gmail throttles the POP checking to roughly 200 messages per hour, so large imports take a while
- To get sent mail to show up properly under Sent Mail in Gmail, you must add the email address as an alternate from address in Gmail. It only seems to work if you are able to confirm the address (which was not possible for all of my many email accounts over the years)
- It's a good idea to label and archive the incoming Mail to keep your inbox from getting unwieldy.
- I've found a few really old emails that Gmail renders strangely (missing Date: header shows date Gmail fetched it, text only message shows as an attachment, some attachments don't load), but for the most part everything worked great

AppleTV as an alternative to cable

Last month when my cable bill went up again to about $55 a month (thanks Comcast), it occurred to me that it might actually be cheaper for me to just buy TV shows from iTunes... today I decided to see if this was true. It turns out that the shows Kathy and I watch would cost either $35 or $45 per season, for a grand total of $220 for seven shows for one season. As compared to $660 for standard cable for a year that's only a third of the cost... there's enough savings to pay for an AppleTV in the first year.

Also, I could just copy the video files to my iPod to watch, and there would be no commercials to skip through like I have now with the TiVo.

Unfortunately, this isn't all the TV we watch... iTunes doesn't yet have Smallville or House, and doesn't have much content from Discovery Channel or much variety of sports content, so for the immediate future we're stuck with Comcast. Still, it's an interesting option.