Monday, February 04, 2002
I submitted a Slashdot story this morning, after seeing that nobody else had posting anything about the story that ran in this past weekend's Globe and Mail about Rogers thinking about hiking rates for high-bandwidth users.
I wouldn't mind so much, but Rogers seems to be throttling back service in other areas. I got an email from a colleague over the weekend saying that in his area, Rogers is killing sockets for passive ftp connections after a few minutes. They also changed things so that I can no longer use my handy Linux router to network our Internet connection throughout the house. If there is a rate hike, I really hope Rogers offers more in the way of services that high-bandwidth users like myself would appreciate, instead of just charging more for less... (Likely a forlorn hope, I know).
A much-needed quiet, uneventful day. I got to work cleaning up the party decorations and moving furniture back into place, and treated everybody out to a meal at the local Licks at lunchtime.
I had some time to myself, so I got cracking with my writing, submitting a reservedly positive review of Macromedia HomeSite 5 (in a nutshell: a lot of incremental improvements, but a disappointing lack of additional support for PHP or improved CSS editing, and no single major improvement; still a good program, but I left with the feeling that Macromedia has missed out on taking HomeSite to the cutting-edge of current Web development with this release) and putting the polish on the latest installment of the Building An Arcade Cabinet articles.
I initially had some trouble downloading the pictures from the digital camera to Erika’s laptop (which is where all the digital pics reside), and I also found out that yet another PC Card dongle is half-way munched. The machine is getting increasingly flaky – I should probably nuke the hard drive and reinstall Windows, though this led to a discussion about getting a new machine sometime in the near future – perhaps a desktop machine hidden behind the couch with a flat panel display that can be whipped out along with a keyboard and mouse. So we agreed that once my current Dell machine was paid off, I’d get this sort of setup for Erika’s use. I think it would prove more durable in the long run.
In the evening after putting Vanessa to bed I sat up to read some more of Uncle Tungsten. An absorbing and enjoyable read.
Oh yeah, the SuperBowl was on today. Big deal...
Saturday - Vanessa's 4th Birthday Party
Annie needed a feeding at around 4 o'clock this morning, close enough to the usual time I get up to head to work in Oakville so I couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up and decided to work on "Vanessa's" computer, a clapped-out old 400Mhz Celeron machine I've had for several years, and the flakiest machine in the house (it tends to freeze for minutes at a time for no discernable reason. It's not a memory problem -- likely it's a cheap motherboard that's at fault).
Earlier in the week I found a "Kitty"-shaped CPU case on sale, and I decided to get it to house the old beat-up machine. I managed to successfully disentangle all of the parts and cables in the old unit, and then found that the motherboard is of an older type incompatible with the new case I had bought for it. Doh! Oh well, here is my excuse to get a better machine for Vanessa to use...
Vanessa's birthday party started at 11:30. In keeping with the party’s theme, several kids came dressed-up: there was a dragon, a couple of knights and several Princesses, including Vanessa. Erika had everything pretty much planned out: the parents drop off their respective kids, the kids then help make their own lunch (mini-pizzas), and then play games like “pin the tail on the dragon” and “go fish” for small prizes in a little castle, then the birthday cake, Vanessa gets to open her presents and finally the parents get to pick the kiddies up. On the whole I’d say the party was a success, though with a dozen kids things got a little bit out of hand at time – we agreed that the next party wouldn’t have so many kids. My main duties for the party was picture-taker, Annie-minder, occasional waiter and “heavy” when some of the kids were getting out of control. At the conclusion of the party, after all but a couple of the local kids had gone, Erika, Jean and I all shared a welcome bottle of red wine along with our lunch.
Vanessa of course cleaned-up present-wise. Big hits with her included a Barbie car and a doll that could “drink” from a bottle and “lick” lollipops. This led to a discussion between Erika and myself about culling her seemingly ever-growing collection of toys.
Vanessa was tired, as were we, so after Jean left we sent Vanessa to her room for “quiet time” and Erika and I both bedded down for a much-needed nap.
Afterwards we had a pretty quiet time ourselves. Vanessa was perfectly happy playing with her new toys, and Erika and I just vegged out for much of the evening.
Friday - Type O+
A good day at work, as I managed to get a couple of major projects finished and out of the way: a revamp of the RemoteMedia site (a password-protected site), and putting the finishing touches to a staff-listing mechanism for the Internal DV site. Learned more about PHP in doing both projects, so a bonus on that account too.
On the way home, I started into Oliver Sacks' "Uncle Tungsten", which Michael had loaned to me. I devoured the first 30 pages by the time the train got me to Union Station. It's a very well-written autobiography by the neuroscientist famous for "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat". Review to come (and soon, at the rate I am going through it).
I had a blood donation appointment in the afternoon that I went to. I'm type O+, a popular blood type, so they always want my blood. Turns out that this is my 19th donation since I first started during my University days. The donation was uneventful, and I found that my blood pressure is still within the "normal" range, which is always a good thing to hear. I do wish that there was some sort of "express" way of having to deal with all of the personal questions: "no, I have not slept with any prostitutes, done injected drugs, or spent 3-months in Europe since my last donation (or ever, for that matter) since my last donation a couple of months ago".
I got home to discover that Erika and Jean had managed to finish their work decorating the living room and dinning room for Vanessa's birthday party the following day. The theme was "princesses, knights, castles and dragons". Faux torches decorated the walls, their "flames" made out of red and gold foil paper, a decorated castle was stuck to the dinning room wall, and lots of furniture had been moved about (or out to the shed) in order to make room for the festivities tomorrow.
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