andrewsavikas

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2008-08-11T22:44:00.001-04:00

I heard yesterday that we haven't had 3 days in a row without rain in Boston since April(!!). That is certainly abnormal. One side effect has been eerily healthy flowers in neighborhood window boxes and planters. Here's a sunflower plant just down the street that in the past few days has now grown taller than me (note the traffic signs for reference). This is not something you usually see in a city sidewalk planter:

A Week of First-Home Fun

2008-08-07T23:35:00.002-04:00

Audrey and I bought our first house in June, and all was going swimmingly, until last Monday.

First, after noticing it was growing unusually humid around the dryer, we discovered the dryer vent tube was completely severed. Who knew there was a company called "Dryer Vent Wizards" -- that does nothing but service dryer vents? Angie's List, that's who knew. So far the Angie's List membership has been one of our best purchases.

Replacing the vent line involved cutting holes in the floor and in one wall. The ceiling was feeling left out, but wouldn't be for long.

Next up was a wobbly toilet -- didn't seem urgent, but with dinner guests coming next week, I didn't want to take any chances. FYI, "broken flange" isn't something you want to hear from a plumber (also found on Angie's List). Because the basement is finished, they had to cut a large hole in the basement ceiling to get at the problem. Three hours and nearly $900 later, problem solved.

And then tonight while troubleshooting the icemaker that hasn't worked since we moved in, I was tracing the water line feeding it and found myself standing in a puddle near the HVAC system. Good times. Took a bit of sleuthing, but we traced the problem to the drain pipe, which was completely clogged with ... wet lint -- apparently resulting from the previous owner running the dryer with a broken vent line. Second-best investment in the new house: Wet/Dry vac. Sucked the drain pipe clear, and all is now well.

At least until tomorrow...

Wow, I guess we picked the right time to go back to grad school

2008-05-24T12:06:00.001-04:00

While looking up some loan info from MEFA (Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority), I spotted a notice on their website that they're suspending all federal education loans (and consolidation loans):

Effective July 1, 2008, MEFA is suspending all Federal education loans, including the Stafford Loan for undergraduate and graduate students, PLUS, and Graduate PLUS. Additionally, effective immediately, MEFA will not accept any new Federal Consolidation applications. The unprecedented disruption in the capital markets coupled with federal changes has prevented MEFA from securing funds for its federal education loan programs.

Audrey and I literally would not have been able to go to grad school without MEFA loans. Certainly illustrative of the widespread impact of the current credit crisis.

BTW, for an amazing look at the reasons we're in this mess, check out "The Giant Pool of Money" from This American Life.

Taking Charge

2008-04-06T17:48:00.001-04:00

Telling someone to "show some initiative" sounds patronizing. I suppose another way to put it is: "be your own best cheerleader -- to yourself, and to those around you". Still sounds hokey, but it's true. Here's two recent posts on the subject.

First, Seth Godin, on the difference between getting and taking:

Many employees do the same thing at work. They wait for a boss (hopefully a great one) to give them responsibility or authority or experiences that add up to a career. A few people, not many, but a few, take.

And Scott Berkun, who took the plunge of self-employment after realizing he'd really been waiting for his own permission to act:

No one will tell you what you’re capable of. No one told me to quit. No one told me to write books. None of the interesting things I’ve done started by someone telling me “you should do X.” or even “you are capable of doing X”. I’d been thinking about this for years but was waiting for some message from above to show up like the billboard in L.A. Story, saying “Scott. Now is the time. The universe has your back. Go do it”. But I’m still waiting for that. I’ve learned that not having support from others is not a reason not to do try something. I have to do the work, so my belief is enough.

I Guess You'd Call it a Freeze Mob

2008-03-20T14:07:00.001-04:00

200+ people simultaneously freeze in Grand Central Station.

Beware the Chair

2008-02-13T16:08:00.001-05:00

As someone who spends entirely too much time hunched over in front of my laptop, the occasional reminder to get off my ass more often is A Good Thing.

In a story amusingly titled "Our office chairs are slowing killing us", the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the dangers of spending so much time sitting down:

New Australian research shows that half-an-hour in the gym will not make up for the waist-expanding damage caused by spending the rest of the day sitting.

I should probably know better by now.

My New Security Blanket

2008-02-10T15:34:00.001-05:00

When I was a toddler, like many other little boys, I grew very attached to a particular blanket, and insisted it join me just about everywhere I went. It was, of course a phase (unlike many adults, I don't still have the darn thing). But I've recently felt myself similarly exposed, this time when working without a particular tool: version control.

I'm not saying that I am as enamored of this particular technology as I was that square of cloth; just that when I find myself without it, I get anxious and worried, like something very important is missing.

I just started putting together a few slides for the opening remarks for tomorrow's TOC conference, and I'd barely gotten the first few slides sketched out when I felt a nagging sensation like I was driving without a seatbelt. (Or toddling without a security blanket for that matter.)

In reality, I hardly ever need to revert to an old version of a document. But having an infinite history of a project means the ability to work without the fear of irreversible catastrophe.

While I'm not ready to take things quite as far as some do in putting their electronic lives in version control, these days I rarely work on any document or project of significance without checking it into Subversion. The latest version of the Macintosh operating system actually includes a similar feature baked right in, so you get that same infinite history for free with the OS.

For now, I'm going to stick with Subversion, in part because I'm still running Windows, but also because SVN lets me access my files from anywhere. Sure beats a blanket...

Is that Eagle Man?

2008-02-06T14:42:00.001-05:00

Readers from the Chicago area will remember Eagle Man from a series of TV commercials in the 90s (he even has a Wikipedia entry).

It seems I spotted a relative at the Waldorf=Astoria in New York today, looking rather dapper:

How British Journalists Get it Right

2008-02-05T23:45:00.001-05:00

It's not uncommon for me to have trouble falling asleep at night, and something I've done since I was very young to help drift off is listen to news radio.

As a child growing up just outside Chicago, that meant WBBM ("Newsradio 78"; I can't help but hear that in jingle form in my head). But when I got to college, there was -- surprise! -- no 24-hour news station in Champaign, Illinois.

The local NPR affiliate did, however, carry the BBC during the overnight hours. Because I was both involved with student media, and a student of media, I was particularly attuned to the contrast in interview style between the reporters on the BBC and their US counterparts. Stateside, reporters are just not very good at asking tough questions, but more importantly, I find them almost universally terrible at calling bullshit. Our media is just too obsessed with maintaining the precious illusion that there are "two sides to every story."

I was reminded of this while reading The Economist today when I came across the following (sorry, behind a paywall), which you'll never see in a US newspaper or newsmagazine (the emphasis is mine):

Florida's popular governor, Charlie Crist, tried to persuade the candidates to back a federal subsidy for home insurance for people who live in hurricane-prone places like Florida. This is a terrible idea. By making it cheaper to build in risky areas, it would ensure that more houses are destroyed in future hurricanes.

Isn't that refreshing?

Regularly Use Multiple Computers?

2008-02-05T00:40:00.001-05:00

Different machines at home/work? Desktop and a laptop? You need Google Browser Sync for Firefox. Syncs your history, bookmarks, and passwords among multiple computers. Pure awesomeness.

Online Backup: Set it and Forget It

2008-02-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

One of my computers has recently escalated its ongoing insinuation that its hard drive is about to fail catastrophically (the noises are getting weirder, and the crashes more frequent). The last time this sort of thing happened, it was a terrifying, miserable ordeal, culminating in a (successful) data rescue using a bootable Knoppix CD, and my copy of Knoppix Hacks.

This time, I'm merely resigned to the machine's fate, and am happy to merely wait out the final days.

What changed? Online backup. About a year ago, I installed Carbonite (see also Mozy Backup, or for the more adventurous, JungleDisk). Since then, my entire hard drive is automatically, incrementally, backed up over the Web (the data is also encrypted). Ah, Serenity Now.

(BTW, I have no affiliation or connection to Carbonite; just a satisfied customer.)