Markus’ Blog

Looks like summer is here. And for real. It was going quite slowly this year, especially compared to Europe. In mid-May temperatures were still in the 15°C range for the most part. These days seem to be a matter of the past, though.

This is the current forecast according to Environment Canada.

Of course, they are “lying” as far as the temperatures are concerned. Temperatures are measured at Vancouver Airport which is surrounded by water and thus quite a bit cooler that the rest of the Lower Mainland.

We’ve been talking about getting a portable air conditioner at home for this summer season ever since we moved in. I think we’re going to follow through on that pretty darn fast. Our condo tends to get quite, how shall I say it, “warm and cozy”. Fortunately it’s at least East facing. This means early morning sun (it’s really hot in our 2^nd bedroom as early as 6:30am), but at least it’s cooling off a little during the day. — Not enough, though. We definitely need some artificial “help” with the temperature in our place.

Today we got our new HP 2605dn laser printer. We bought it online about a week and a half ago from Costco where it was on sale for a really good price.

Setting up the printer was really easy. Also, it seems to be working very nicely, both, from Windows 2000 as well as Unix (using CUPS with the PostScript driver and a custom PPD for the HP 2605dn).

The benefits over the old HP 990C DeskJet are:

• higher print speed
• better print quality
• network connectivity (the printer hooks up directly to the LAN)
• better Unix support (due to native PostScript)

So far, I am very happy with it, and I think Brigette is, too.

In part, it’s been a good trip so far. Very busy, though, but I guess that’s what business travel is all about. I talked to many people, gathered lots of information and found out that I’ll be busy as hell for weeks to come — even after getting back.

All the information needs to be put into proper documents, some designs need to be clarified, more information needs to be gathered, and once that’s done, the designs needs to be implemented. Exciting stuff, but also quite a bit of work.

The downside is that my boss’s boss keeps suggesting how me and my Vancouver based team mate should be coming down to San Jose more often (roughly every other month instead of every 3-4 months). It’s starting already. The last time I was down here was less than two months ago.

The trip today had its good sides and its not so good ones. The not so good ones included a delayed flight — surprise, surprise. And Alaska Airlines’ hunger for data.

Fortunately we left “only” 40 minutes late (8:05 instead of 7:25) and we were able to make up about 15 minutes, so we were delayed by 25 minutes in the end. Not great, considering that the plane was just sitting in Vancouver the whole time that we were delayed (boarding didn’t start till 7:25/7:30 for whatever reason), but not too bad either. I consider everything under an hour not too bad. It could have been 3+ hours like last time.

I’ve decided I don’t like Alaska Airlines, though. For the first time ever, at checkin time they thoughly pre-screened me. They looked at my passport and not just for ID purposes. They entered passport information into their computer system, checked my customs form and entered my hotel address as well. This has never happened to me before. Unless this is due to new security regulations that were implemented within the last month, Alaska Airlines are data junkies. I don’t like that so much. They are an airline, not a government. What do they need my passport number for? At Vancouver Airport it’s not like they are running the risk of having to fly me back if I am denied entry to the US. I have to go through US immigration before even leaving Canada. So that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

However, clearing immigration itself was a good experience). There was no doubting my words, no second guessing, no asking the same questions two, three times or any of the other unpleasant things I have experienced before. It is possible, it seems.

Hertz was nice to me, as well. They gave me another Hyundai Sonata, which I quite like. No Chevrolet Cobalt crap this time.

I’m almost off for the day. Getting tired. I got up at 4:45am this morning. Yeppers. That bites. I’ll guess I’ll have dinner somewhere in downtown San Jose tonight. We’ll see what I can find.

So we got four quotes to fix the damage I inflicted on the left front fender and bumper.

The quotes came in between $757 and $933. My initial gut reaction had been “that’s going to be around $1,300″. Well, I was obviously and luckily over with that estimate. I’d rather have been off more, though. Brigette was surprised by how much it was. I think she was guessing in the $400-$500 range.

Now, we gotta pick a place and a time to get it done. Lucky for us, all four places provide courtesy cars free of charge and I liked two of the four places we went to.

My last trip to San Jose was only just over a month ago, so I was estimating the next trip would be some time in July or so, maybe August. — I was wrong.

My manager asked me Wednesday if I could come down for a day or two this week, but that didn’t quite work out due to the short notice. However, next week it’s going to happen. It’ll be Wednesday through Friday again, but I’ll be flying on Alaska Airlines this time, not United / Air Canada. We’ll see how that goes.

The other difference is that this time I’ll be going by myself again. The last two trips were with my co-worker.

I am hoping that the flights will be better than our last experience coming home. I’d much rather have it smooth and eventless like the last flight down.

I switched to Wordpress 2.1.3. Except for a minor issue in the side bar that now causes an SQL syntax error, it seems to have gone perfectly.

Did I mention that I love upgrading Wordpress via Subversion?

One command, that was it — other than going to the admin page and clicking the link to upgrade the database.

Update: The SQL syntax error is now fixed. The blog roll categories are no longer accessible through $wpdb->link_categories, but are now in $wpdb->categories (with a link_count bigger than 0).

$ svn switch http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.1.3
U wp-rss.php
U wp-login.php
U wp-comments-post.php
U wp-blog-header.php
U wp-rdf.php
(Read on …)

In one of my more glorious moments I managed to scratch/dent the front bumper on the driver’s side yesterday afternoon as I was backing up. I am not very impressed with myself. Especially, since it was very stupid and totally avoidable. I’m hoping it’s just the bumper and there’s no other damage. (The odds are not too bad that that’s all.)

I don’t know yet how much it’ll be to fix it, but I do know that it’s a needless way to spend money. If I am lucky, it’ll be less than $1,000, but you never know. Car repairs get expensive quickly.

Gotta take the car to a few body shops to have the damage checked out. They have to see it in order to be able to provide a quote. It’s a big pain in the rear, but it makes sense, I guess.

The other big pain in the rear is that I have to take time off work. None of the body shops seem to be open Saturdays. Hopefully these memories of hassles and wasted money serve me well and cause me to be more careful in the future.

Translink’s Trip Planning feature can be very entertaining.

Say, you wanted to go from Fraser Street and 33^rd Avenue to Fraser Street and 49^th Avenue, so a whole whopping 16 blocks South. It’s real easy, probably takes about 20 minutes to walk. Fortunately for Translink, the obvious option is first one they provide.

The simple way (4 min. travel time): the take #8 bus South.

The second option (40 min. travel time): take the #8 North/West, the #3 South and the #49 East.

And to top it all off, there’s a third (57 min. travel time): take the #8 North/West, the SkyTrain South/East and #49 West.

I’m just glad they are stopping after three options. Otherwise they’d suggest going via White Rock next. LOL

As has been implied here, I agreed to attend another Josh Groban concert in Seattle on August 18. This is in addition to the previous concert on March 28 in San Jose. But not only that, Josh will be performing in Vancouver on August 17 (the day before the Seattle concert). Of course we’ll be there, too.

What am I doing?! Accompanying my wife three times, so she can see and listen to her future husband perform?

I must be crazy.