Tralfaz

Month: November 2013

  • Getting Spoilt – MacBook Air edition

    In July, I splurged and bought a Mac Book Air. My MacBook pro was a little aged, and I wanted to go for a smaller, lighter laptop, yet I didn’t want to go too small. Plus I am a Mac person.

    I have been using it pretty heavily, and it has been super solid. It has enough storage, it is fast enough, and while I would like the retina display, I am really grooving on the 12+ hours of battery life I am getting on it.

    My macbook pro is semi-permanently attached to a sweet 24″ monitor, and my Drobo for backups, and the Mac Book Air is my walking around computer.

    This last weekend, I was moving websites to my new hosting account (see ‘A Bad Day – Webhosting“) , so I unplugged the MBP and relocated to the couch. Oh. My. God. That thing is friggin HUGE compared to the Air. Yes, it is a 15″, and it is from the generation before the Retina display, but compared to the Air, it is heavy, huge, and cumbersome (it also has a quadcore processor, 16G ram, and a terabyte of disc).

    It honestly felt how I thought a 17” laptop felt. Too big.

    Nope, I don’t think I will be going back to that monstrosity. It will remain my stationary system until it dies, then I will probably replace it with a Mini.

  • Memories of my Mother – Malt-o-meal

    One of the memories I have of growing up was eating Malt-o-meal. For those who are unaware, it is a hot farina of wheat cereal. We didn’t eat it often, but what I “liked” about it was the lumps. They were like finding nuggets of chewy goodness in every bowl.

    Malt-o-mealEvery time my mother made malt-o-meal, it had lumps. Sometimes they were small, sometimes they were large, but they were always present. I just assumed that malt-o-meal had lumps in it.

    Then I moved out, and years later started making it myself. Surprise, there weren’t any lumps. No matter how I made it, as long as I followed the directions, I had creamy, smooth hot cereal. No lumps.

    I began experimenting with it, and it turns out that while stirring is important, the secret to lump free malt-o-meal is to slowly add it to the boiling water, while stirring the water. You pretty much have to just dump it all in at once to get lump formation.

    What a strange memory of my Mother, lumpy Malt-o-meal.

  • A good ride

    I haven’t been able to ride for a few weeks. My left foot was strangely painful, and the cycling shoes made it far worse.

    Today I sucked it up suited up, and headed out into the chilly (50F) morning. I put on an easy 21 miles. Didn’t set any speed records, and I didn’t want to push it too hard.

    The result is good. No pain in the foot, and my hand was OK too (it is a mazing what 800 mg of ibuprofen can do…)

    I may head out again tomorrow.

    My shoes are going to be replaced though. They are 12 years old, and are thoroughly shagged. The problem is I have wide feet. 11.5 EEE to be precise, so I had to order up a pair of cycling shoes. I am sure that they will improve the situation as well.

    Looking forward to heading out tomorrow. Good to be back in the saddle.

  • Finally a Friday

    I don’t usually celebrate the coming of a Friday like many people do, but it has been an outrageously busy week, so I am thankful that it is a Friday.

    I have wrangled with powerpoint, struggled to do deep competitive analysis, and put together training material next week. Couple that with a heavy load of meetings (strange, as I have been good at staying away from meaningless meetings) and I am fatigued.

    Add to that learning that my left thumb has severe osteoarthritis, and it has been a bummer of a week.

    Oh, and today is day 7 without coffee or caffeinated beverages.

    Not sure how I am going to recharge this weekend. I will try to see if I can cycle tomorrow (my left foot has been painful), and I will do some more website migration (still trying to empty out my MediaTemple account). But I need to NOT check email this weekend. So I will leave my laptop at home, me thinks.

    TGIF indeed.