Over the 4th weekend, I took a couple of days off (Thursday and Monday) to drive my dogs from Tucson, where they were staying at a pet lounge, to our new home in San Jose, California. The drive was fine, we rented a big Dodge Grand Caravan, as we wanted there to be enough room for the boys, and all the crap they need (beds, food, water, our bags, etc). Although Barbara was worried that it would...
I travel a lot for my job, so I try to NOT fly when I don’t need to for personal things. However, sometimes it is essential. Alas, as it is often around holidays or other “busy” times, I often get to see some insanity. Today is one of those days. First, with the merger between US Airways and American Airlines, my Star Alliance gold lever no longer gets me perks on US Airways...
At work, we are being split into two companies. A week ago, my computer was supposed to be migrated to the new domain. So I followed the directions to the letter, and naturally it failed. That night, I had a nightmare. That instead of just switching domains, that my laptop automagagically upgraded to Windows 8. Metro interface and all. <shudder> Fortunately, when I woke up, I found that I...
Not quite yet, but the winds are blowing that Apple will end support and sales of Aperture, their “pro” photo application. A recent story on Wired gives a brief outline. “Photos” will take the lead, and it will be all about getting all your images into iCloud, and managing them there. I had smelled this stink coming for a while. The updates to Aperture have slowed down...
Our timing was impeccable. All through the last year, the housing market in Phoenix was literally on fire. Values were rising, houses were flying off the shelf, and we saw that our home had some serious appreciation. Then we put it on the market. SLAM that door shut. Suddenly inventory went from less than 4 weeks to more than 6 months, and it turned from a seller’s market to a buyer’s...
When we first moved to Arizona, I splurged and bought a Tivo. It was an old one, and it was wonderful. Worked great, super intuitive interface, great integration. Back then it had to call Tivo every day to get the latest listings. In 2006 or so, we went HD, and upgraded to a Series 2 HD, with the cable cards. With the exception of a failed HD in 2012, replaced via Weaknees, it has been wonderful...
What a shock. Where I USED to live, it will be 106F today. Here (Santa Clara) it will be 79. The local people will bitch about it being HOT. I have a lot of DMV stuff to do, alas, California is nowhere near as efficient as Arizona is/was. When I first relocated to AZ back in 2003, I walked into the local MVD office in Tucson at about 11:00AM, took a number, and before I could sit down, I was...
Intro: I recently was relocated from our satellite office to the mothership in Santa Clara. I was expecting it to be different. Of course I had visited before, so I wasn’t a babe in the woods, but it is a culture shock to go from a small ~ 100 employee satellite office to a site with a few thousand employees. 5 buildings, lots of hallways, and a lot of long timers. Observations: Coffee: We...
Well, it is technically a “welcome back”, as I grew up here in Silicon Valley. My job relocated us to Santa Clara, and over the last week, we made the “move“. The positive is that the movers rocked, and really got our stuff packed and loaded in record time. After spending the weekend on a leisurely drive from Phoenix to Santa Clara (via the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, and Lake...
I own a nice car, a 2005 Honda S2000, and about 99% of the time I wash it in my driveway. With the move and the selling of our house, I have neglected it, so prior to it being loaded on a transport truck to get it to my new home, I took it to the local car wash. Ugh. It reminded my why I prefer to wash it myself. They do a terrible job. The amount of crap they don’t get off is astounding...