Tim's blog - Family

A couple updates

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:58:40 -0500

So when they say winter quarter at Rose is hectic? They're not kidding. I just found my first solid chunk of downtime since I came back to school two weeks ago. What have I been up to, you ask?

For starters, the Festivus, Christmas, and New Year's celebrations that occurred over my last break were all most excellent. This year was the fifth consecutive Festivus celebrated within the group, and it was by far the smoothest a Festivus has ever gone. The Airing of Grievances was trouble-free, the introduction of a white elephant gift exchange went smoothly, and our Feats of Strength involved that classic game Set. For Christmas a few days later, hordes of relatives (from both sides of the family) descended on the house for almost an entire week all told. (Most hilarious was our cousin Keith, who's two and just being ridiculous all over the place. He got an iPod Touch for Christmas. He's two.) Lastly, New Year's went well overall, despite some illnesses on part of a couple of the partygoers. Mario Kart is never so hilarious as when played sleep-deprived at 4am.
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Summer summary (summery?)

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:56:22 -0400

So wow. Summer's gone. I head back to school the morning of the 30th, then dive right in with freshman laptop orientation the 31st and a Learning Center tutor "retreat" (two-hour meeting) on the 2nd. Classes begin the 3rd.

In light of all that, I thought I'd take a moment and recap what my summer was like this year.
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Happy Holidays

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:28:55 -0500

Another holiday season has come and (almost) gone, and I thought it'd be nice to take a few minutes to look back on my week and see what went on.

Christmas was obviously the dominating event of the past few days. Among the big gifts I got were a terabyte hard drive (for the RAID array - more on that in a minute) and a nice new office chair to replace the one I have at school. Rose provided a batch of chairs in all the dorms, but they are pitiful excuses for seating apparati, especially considering the amount of homework and coding that is intended to go on in them. So my parents got me a big new padded black leather executive wheeled chair that I can take with me, and I put it together yesterday and tested it out. It's not quite an Aeron, but it's good.

Another big chunk of my time has been spent working on a new iPhone app. I won't say exactly what it is, but it's a big departure from my previous utilitarian apps, and I think it should be a fairly big hit. I will say that it's an adaptation of a preexisting game, and that it involves pretty much every feature of the device I could get my hands on (accelerometer, orientation sensor, sound facilities, and multi-touch capabilities, to name a few). Regrettably, it's still a ways away from being done. Although most of the functionality is there, a huge amount of polish has yet to be applied. In a few days, I'll hunker down with Photoshop, GarageBand, and Audacity and see what I can accomplish. demonic laughter

Back to the RAID. You may recall that I promised a big, in-detail look at the array around Christmas. This is that entry. Be warned.
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Canada, part III

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:18:33 -0400

We came back from Vancouver to Seattle yesterday. How could you tell? My sisters got back in range of AT&T, rather than Rogers Wireless, meaning the roaming charges associated with their texting and calling habits, so they both got out their cell phones as soon as we crossed the US/Canada border to get in touch with everyone they'd been avoiding talking at while they were up north.

The last few days have been, to say the least, less than exciting. A few more attractions and stores we planned on visiting had closed or moved, shutting down a few of our plans in their tracks. The other fun stuff - the SeaBus, for example - were built up a little too much to be worth it.

Anyway. We'll be back home tomorrow by 9pm, so I can start building my new quad-core machine! And catching up on some work, which isn't as exciting, but it has to be done.

Canada, part II

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:02:25 -0400

I hate feeling disconnected. I don't like the idea that I'm cut off from the world, my friends, my business, etc. So normally I leave my phone on and turned up when I go to sleep, so that I can take calls and answer texts that should come in the middle of the night. Naturally I forgot to change this little habit for the benefit of my family, with whom I shared a hotel room last night.

At precisely 5:56am, my phone rang. At full volume.

My dad answered, in a remarkably restrained mood for being rudely awoken several hours earlier than he intended to be up. After a brief conversation, he turned to me and handed the phone over. "Hello?" I asked.

Turns out it was one of my clients from the Barrington area, who had a problem with a document she needed to access. Her husband had worked on this document, saved it, then shut the laptop without closing Word. This sent the laptop to sleep with the lockfile on the document still intact, but killed the Word process. However, it didn't actually go to sleep; another poorly written process didn't take the S3 (hibernate) signal properly, and prevented the laptop from sleeping. So when she opened the laptop to get at the document, it didn't appear to be open, but was in fact locked from editing by the lockfile (which would've been cleared if the laptop had managed to go to sleep fully).

I managed to take the laptop through an S3 state and back again over the phone, namely by killing the errant process and freeing up the document. I had moved out into the hall by this point to avoid having a loud discussion in front of my still-sleeping family. At the end of our chat, she asked, "Are you somewhere that it's significantly earlier than eight A.M.?"

Hm. Now that you mention it, I am two hours earlier than you. Did I not mention?

In any event, I went back inside and fell asleep again after silencing my phone. We woke up around 9am and set off from Seattle for Vancouver - a two-hour drive to the border, customs, then another hour to the hotel. We managed to leave the Seattle hotel by 11am and made it into the city and were completely checked in by 2:30pm.

We set off for downtown to see the Storyeum, a reenacted tour of some of the early days of British Columbia and Gastown. On the way, we saw the Steam Clock, a big outdoor grandfather-like clock that played the traditional four-tone clock chime using steam whistles every hour. It was a minimal attraction, so we made it to the former Storyeum location by about 3pm.
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Canada, part I

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:25:49 -0400

Any day I make it through a metal detector is a good day.

We flew uneventfully to Seattle-Tacoma on Alaska Airlines this morning, in the first leg of our trip up to Vancouver. The flight took off at 8am Chicago time and landed four hours later, but we lost two hours to the time zone change, so we had touched down by 10am local.

The airline was about the only part of the trip so far that went as planned; both ground-based transportation companies we dealt with today screwed us a little bit. The limo we took from our house to the airport cost more than expected, and - surprise - wasn't private. We wound up sharing a half-hour of very awkward driving with some random teenager from the Braemar area. I don't think anyone spoke a single word the entire drive there.

On the other end, Avis overcharged us for the rent-a-car as well. The parents were getting slightly miffed by this point (to put it lightly), but Laura got really excited when she saw the car. It's a beastly Ford Expedition that seats eight, but only has room for about two suitcases. Luckily we're only using five of the seats, so the other three can fold down for our luggage.

After we got oriented with the car, we headed over to Cheesecake Factory for lunch. As none of us had eaten all day, we overstuffed ourselves, then spent way too much on cheesecake. I personally ordered two pieces, which may not sound like a lot, but Cheesecake Factory has rich cheesecake.

We paid the obligatory visit to the Troll, a giant statue of a monster coming out of a hillside and grabbing a car. It was my third visit, Emily's second, but Laura's first. She was very excited to see it. Now we're headed to my aunt and uncle's house for a visit. We'll check in at the hotel later, get a good night's sleep, and drive across the border tomorrow.