Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

Wow, 20 blurkers forced into the light. Well done folks.
As promised, here is a picture of Michele in the new car.

It’s a been a light week for weblogging and heavy week for work. The company is trying to get it’s shit together, but it’s not easy to turn the wheel of the ship. A few of us try to sneak into the wheelhouse and spin the wheel until someone tells us to stop.
The good thing about work today was that I got to play with the HDTV Tivo. It is quite sweet. The picture loks great adn they are recording the full ATSC data stream, and aren’t compressing it at all. It’s probably a year away from being in stores, but I lust after it already. The picture is quite tasty.
I also had a chance to play with the Series 2 Tivos with the new features. We don’t watch enough TV to justify to have two, but the access from the internet is enticing.
Lastly, I got the door prize at the meeting. It was a Wristlinx wrist FRS/GMRS radio. I tried it out with Zoe a bit but everything was distorted. I think that they could have been too close. I’ll try it again tomorrow outside.
Linkage:
We had the Superbowl party on Sunday and Brad wrote up the story of the broken window.
My wife, Michele appears to have her weblog groove on.
Via Rebecca Blood, here is the crayon stain removal page.

I’ve got an all day meeting on the glories of Media Asset Management. I know, I know, you are all jealous.
Until then, I have something for you, yes, you, the loyal Cruft reader to do.
I check the referrer logs of the site religiously and see that the site gets viewed by many people. Yet, most of you are strangely silent.
A few days ago I read this Geekychick.net post about blurkers. In the post she defines blurkers thusly:
Blurker (BLUR-kur): n. 1. One who reads many blogs but leaves no evidence of themselves such as comments behind; a silent observer of blogs. 2. One who reads many blogs but has no blog of their own; a blog-watcher or blog voyeur.
I fear this describes many of you. Today, your job is to raise your hand and say hello and emerge from blurkerhood.
Click on the Comments link below and post answers to these three questions.
1) What is your name?
2) What is your quest?
3) What is your favorite color?
Special bonus question: What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
I expect plenty of answers when I check the weblog tonight.
Don’t make me post your IP addresses…

Howdy readers. I’ve neglected the weblog for a few days. Real life does tend to take priority. Over the weekend I often thought about things to post, but I didn’t take the time to post.
On Saturday we prepped for the Superbowl party and got to repair the deck step that got broken at the last party. I enjoyed the task of drilling into masonry and using lead anchors to mount the replacement step. Tools = fun.
Michele and I agreed to take a break from throwing parties for bit. Since Christmas Eve, one month, we had thrown 4 parties (Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, Zoe’s Birthday, and Superbowl Sunday) and helped run a geocaching picnic. Whew…
Sunday, before the party, Michele told me to go get a haircut. She made the arrangments for me to go to a ‘men’s salon’ in the nearby Paseo mall. Whatever. I walk in and say, “I’m Mike and I’m here for my haircut”. The lady greets me and hands me a clipboard. Linda like a new patient at the doctor’s office. She asks me to fill it out. There are questions like ‘What types of salons have you previously visited?’ Types of salons? WTF?!? ‘What products do you use in your hair?’ I put in the stupid goop that Michele buys for me somewhere. Who knows what the name is? I tell her I’m almost out of hair goop, and somehow by magic, new goop appears. Sometimes it changes a bit, but she assures me it’s the same thing.
The one good thing about the haircut is that they put a hot towel on my face. Boy o boy, that feels good.
Soon enough I was back in party mode. The highlight of the party was the turducken. Here’s the story of the turducken for you to enjoy.
Today I had to deal with the effect of the Sapphire/Slammer SQL worm at the company. I got the call at 7AM that all company systems were down.
ALL. SYSTEMS. DOWN. A fargin nightmare…
I’ll go into that fun later. Time for sleep now.

I got home from work today and the package from Tekgems.com was here. Jason Defillippo pointed me to the $11 Winamp remote earlier this week.
After 5 minutes I had the thing working. Fucking fantastic! Michele is stoked and I’m the hero.
Life is good.

I’m home from the meeting and can write a bit more.
The gathering was interesting and I’ll probably go again. I had brought my cantenna along. I wasn’t sure exactly what the meeitng woudl be like and thought it might be useful. As it turned out, the reception in the IHOP was good and I didn’t need it.
Many people wanted to look at the cantenna and ask me questions about it. I tried to explain what I could, but I’m not sure how clear my explanations were. A reporter from the LA Times asked me a few questions as well. Who knows, I may end up in the paper.
I mentioned that the cafe.com people spoke about their business. It was interesting, but hard to follow since I was on the side of the room and couldn’t follow along with the powerpoint slides he was talking from. There aren’t any cafe.com sites near Pasadena right now, so I doubt I’ll be using it anytime soon.
The next presenter was Cliff Skolnick of the Bay Area Wireless User Group (BAWUG). He had driven down to Los Angeles to discuss what the Bay Area folks were working on. He discussed there work on developing a free network of 802.11 access points for use by the general public. He mentioned several sites that I need to look into a little more including freenetworks.org, nocat.net, nodedb.com.
After I do some reading I’ll have a better opinion of what these guys are up to in San Fran.

So I’m sitting at the IHOP in Pasadena at the Southern California Wireless User Group (SoCalWUG) meeting. They (we) have taken over the entire back room of the IHOP and have converted it a wireless heaven.
The room is packed with well over 50 people. They are discussing the recent stories of the GPS jammer and the idea that Michelin is going to put rfRFID tags inside all their tires.
7:42 – Now the cafe.com guy is talking. They have a hotspot network in LA.
7:57 – Eating pigs in the blanket. Drinking coffee.
8:06 – Cafe.com talk continues. Mmmm, strawberry syrup….
8:23 – Cafe.com guy telling us that Starbucks & Boingo are evil.
8:36 – People are saying that 802.11b rules and that 802.11a sucks.
8:43 – 20 minutes of laptop battery left. Many questions for the cafe.com now.
8:51 – They are giving away a couple Wifi cards and a Belkin WAP as door prizes.
8:54 – Cliff Skolnick of San Francisco Free Networks groupis explaining about free networks.
9:00 – Running out of battery. I should have brought a fully charged battery. Later.

Plenty happened today. My eyes have been acting up again and I could only wear a contact in my left eye. I got about halfway through the day at the office before I couldn’t face staring at the screen for the rest of the day. The idea of driving home in the dark this way was unappealing too. I headed home to give my eye a rest.
Michele had decided that the car she wanted for the last month was no longer the car she wanted anymore. I had been ready to buy it and had done tons of research on it. She went on a test drive and told me that the BMW station wagon was what she wanted instead of the Volvo. I was tired of dealing with “we are buying a car soon” issues and decided to pull the trigger. I knew all the issues involved, called the dealer and cut a deal.
We are now the proud owners of a BMW 325i station wagon. Pics to follow when I have a chance.
After the kids went to bed I stumbled across an $11 Winamp remote for Michele at Jason Defillippo’s weblog. I think Michele will dig it.
I recently stumbled upon the Southern California Wireless Users Group and they are having a meeting tomorrow in Pasadena. I think I’ll go and see what it’s all about. With my cantenna, I should fit right in.
In other news, Mister P. is going to jail.
Brad has converted to using Movable Type. Bravo!
Alright, time to go close my eyes.

Martin is making me laugh. I’m laughing hard…

Earlier in the day, I bottled the beer. The girls helped me out and I ended up with 40 12 oz. bottles. In a week I’ll crack one open and give it a taste.

The sample I tasted wasn’t bad, but flat beer never tastes quite right. I’m hoping the bottles get a good head on them.
In other news, President Bush’s tax plan appears to bankrupt Social Security by 2017. Nice going.
OK, time to watch Man vs. Beast with Martin…

The girls are tired from all the fun of the weekend. They are lounging about today. They have to take turns on who is in control of the TV in the front room. Mira cried while waiting for her turn to watch a tape. Once it was her turn, Zoe got upset and began to cry too.
I carried her to the back room so she could watch something else. She was all teary eyed as I told her should could watch anything she wanted. She said, “It’s all boring!” I told her should could watch Monty Python. Instantly she cheered up.
My daughter loves Monty Python. I’m doing a good job.