Posted: October 30th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: health, sports | No Comments »
I had lunch at this place called “J’Bo’s” today. J’Bos is one of our regular lunch places. Their signature dish is called the “Cheddar Bomb.” (btw, cheddar bomb is something quite different in the urban dictionary.) The cheddar bomb is a 1/3 pound hamburger with a 1/4 pound of cheese on it. It is served with a side of cheese fries. Although I have had that once before, I went with a regular burger.
Tonight was our team dinner. The team chose to go to a Brazilian Churrascaria. When I was working at KPMG, one of my clients did not have any extra office space. They signed an agreement to have the auditors sit in a Mexican Churrascaria in the building. I listened to really bad Mexican music on a very unergonomic chair for a few weeks. I left with a backache and a distaste for the Big Four. I hate Churrascarias now, but I decided to go with the flow rather than fighting it.
Arkansas is a pretty obese state. According to this article, it is tied for ninth place in a list of fattest states. It is very unhealthy for me to keep consulting here. The food is very good and very unhealthy. I get little or no exercise while I am here, since I choose to play golf rather than go to the gym. It is very hard to pass up free golf.
All of the bad choices I have made has had two effects. I now weigh 10 pounds more than when I started this project 9 months ago. Secondly, I have two extra inches of body fat around my waist.
I need to start making healthier choices and start exercising more.
Posted: October 25th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, sports | No Comments »
My younger brother took me to game six of the ALCS. I think it was the first time I’ve ever seen a grand slam at Fenway.
Separately, I have a few friends who work at Jordan’s Furniture. Jordan’s had a promotion where they would refund the cost of any furniture bought in March 7 and April 16, if the Sox won the World Series. My friends are not rooting for the Sox to win because of the potential financial impact. I think they must be mistaken though, since the article says Jordan purchased insurance to cover any losses from the promotion. Relax guys, your bonus is safe.
Jordan’s is owned by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.b). I have BRK.B in my portfolio. I’m pretty sure it must have been Berkshire that underwrote the promotion. So does the rest of the world, which has lead to a ton of press stories about how Warren Buffett is rooting against the Sox.
Posted: October 22nd, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
I suffered from a severe scarcity of information on my flight from Boston to Memphis this morning. It started like any other Monday, except that when I got to the airport to check in, I was presented with my first economic choice. The airline offered to send me to Northwest Arkansas via Minneapolis because the flight was overbooked. I decided to say no, and forgo the airline coupon, because I wasn’t sure what time the next flight to XNA was if I missed the planned connection. That happens a lot!
Once I was on the plane, they announced that the flight was overweight and that five passengers needed to leave, otherwise the flight would be canceled. They also announced that passengers flying to Northwest Arkansas could have an alternate flight that got in at 4 PM (a delay of 5 hours!). So my second economic choice was whether or not I should get off the flight for the collective good or try to stick it out and see if other people took the (unknown) bait. I have no idea what the reward might have been if I had gotten off the flight at that point. Two people finally left and apparently that was sufficient to allow the flight to depart.
Lastly, before landing it was announced that they would be coming in with a lot of speed and that there would be ambulances and emergency vehicles near the runway. Needless to say, I had a few questions at this point, but no other information was provided. Once we landed, we were told that the flaps on the plane did not work. That was the first informative datum the airline had provided me the entire flight.
Today’s flight was my first brush with an air disaster, atleast to my knowledge.
Posted: October 21st, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology | 1 Comment »
Tracey had a bizarre issue with her Apple Mail this week, identical to this one. It started with a flood of messages from the POP server. The server had a message in queue with zero-bytes and it prevented her from downloading the remaining messages off of the server. I’m not sure which came first, the flood of messages or the fubar’d message.
The obvious solution to the problem is to go in through the webmail and delete the offending message there. The less obvious solution is to right click on the Mail account, click on “Get Info”, and delete the empty mail message from the list of emails on the server. Once the bad message is gone, the rest of the messages should come flooding in.
I’m not sure why everyone is crazy for all the Apple products. In my unofficial job as IT support for friends and family I spend just as much time dealing with Mac issues as I do with Windows issues. (When it comes to Linux issues, I rely on the professionals.)
Posted: October 19th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, technology | No Comments »
I put in a routine Amazon order last week. I need to get a new phone system for the new apartment, so I ordered this. At the time, Amazon was fulfilling my order, and I had a total cost of 69 dollars plus shipping. When I submitted my order, I was told that it would actually take until the end of the month to receive the phones. Since I am getting free shipping, and I already have corded phones, I’m not in a huge hurry, so I just figured I’d wait.
Yesterday I got this email:
We’re writing about the order you placed on October 12 2007 13:30 PDT (Order# xxxx-xxxx-xxxx). Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below has changed, and we need to provide you with a new delivery estimate based on the new release date:
“Philips CD4402B/37 DECT 6.0 Dual Phone Bundle” [Electronics]
Estimated arrival date: 12/31/2007 – 01/03/2008
What the @##@? Waiting two or three weeks is very different than waiting a two or three months. So I did a quick internet search and found out that another retailer (
Beach Audio) was selling it for 61 dollars online, plus shipping. Then, just for kicks, I decided to check Amazon again. The
SAME retailer (
Beach Audio) has them at Amazon for 59 dollars plus shipping. So, I ended up ordering through Amazon anyways.
With such an amazing supply chain, why is it that Amazon couldn’t get me the lowest price and delivered to me within a reasonable amount of time? I’m beginning to suspect that their systems may be in some need of overhaul, even if it is just to make it much more consumer-friendly.
Posted: October 17th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology | No Comments »
Way back in 2001, when I was working at Molecular, I set up a testing lab for UI and compatibility testing. (An aside: I just checked out their website and find it funny that they are now an “Internet Consulting Firm” offering “Business Process and Digital Strategy.” They also have some Digital Strategy positions open.) If I remember correctly, the lab consisted of about 5 desktops which ran a number of VM machines with different browsers.
Now that GreenSpotStudio.com is launched, I am getting reports of bugs with various browsers. The problem is that I don’t have access to the 20 or so virtual machines I had set up at Molecular. Most of my friends run Firefox, and if they don’t, I laugh at them. I’m sure Safari and Opera are great browsers, but designing for the 3% that uses these browsers seems like a big waste of time.
That being said, I want to make sure the User Experience across browsers is fairly consistent, since the site is pretty low technology. I was looking around for an online validation or compatibility service, but haven’t had any luck. Any suggestions or thoughts on automating the process of compatibility for stylesheets and code would be greatly appreciated!
Posted: October 14th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, stuff | No Comments »
In addition to my move, I have spent an inordinate amount of time working on a new website for Tracey. It took a lot of effort for me because my web development skills are not that good. I haven’t built anything for a long time. I still need to put up the credits page, but to summarize, I ended up using textpattern on a LAMP stack. I had some graphics assistance from Tracey’s friend, Paul O’Hearn.
This is version 2.0 of the website. I expect to continue working on it, and Tracey will be launching a new line of jewelry for the store. It has been a fun project, and I will continue to learn LAMP and about development tools/process.
Go check out the website (and buy stuff) at greenspotstudio.com!
Posted: October 12th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, technology | No Comments »
Redhat and Novell are being
sued for patent infringement.
Plaintiffs IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corp. claim to have the rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412 for a User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects issued Dec. 10, 1991 along with two other similar patents.
Defendants Red Hat Inc. and Novell have allegedly committed acts of infringement through products including the Red Hat Linux system, the Novell Suse Linex Enterprise Desktop and the Novell Suse Linex Enterprise Server.
I’d just like to point out that the same
patent troll licensing company
sued Apple for the same reason earlier this year. Next on the list…Sun Microsystems, and pretty much anyone else who allows you to switch desktops. I wonder if the
FSF will get sued over
GNU Screen.
Posted: October 11th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business | 1 Comment »
The world knows that the Chinese Yuan is undervalued. The Economist had a recent article that says that the European Union will start making noise and putting political pressure on China to pull the Yuan up to a reasonable level.
The Yuan is pegged against a basket of currencies, but is allowed to float at .3% a day. Since this “soft-peg” was put into place, the Yuan has done a straight-line appreciation against the US dollar. Using simple math, I calculated that the Yuan has an annual appreciation of about 35%, assuming 200 trading days per year and that it hits the limit every day.
This would indicate that the Yuan is a great investment for people holding dollars. However, I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to find a fool who will take the other side of that trade without a significant risk premium. Consequently, to invest in the Yuan, you need to buy hard assets in China.
The easiest investment in China would be to buy Chinese stocks, but the Chinese stock market looks overvalued and is a minefield that I want to avoid. Other assets, like real estate, seem like they would be very difficult to acquire and hold. Another option is to purchase Chinese bonds preferably longer-term government issues with reasonable interest rates. Unfortunately, the Chinese government does not have many bonds outstanding, with the exception of “Panda Bonds.” Also, it seems as if it is illegal to repatriate Yuan income from those bonds.
Alas, it seems that the only viable option would be to purchase Chinese corporate bonds. It may still be difficult to repatriate the income from those bonds. Of course, “TANSTAAFL“! There is a lot of geopolitical and country risk to this strategy.
Posted: October 3rd, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
I moved to Boston…and here is my itinerary for the next month. More updates soon!
Tuesday, October 09
Northwest Airlines Flight 5741 Economy
From: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
6:30 am
To: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
8:50 am
From: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
9:35 am
To: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
10:50 am
Friday, October 12
Northwest Airlines Flight 2996 Economy
From: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
5:05 pm
To: Detroit Wayne County Airport, MI
8:24 pm
From: Detroit Wayne County Airport, MI
9:05 pm
To: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
10:54 pm
Monday, October 15
American Airlines Flight 1049 Economy
From: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
6:35 am
To: St. Louis Lambert-St Louis Int’l Airport, MO
8:30 am
From: St. Louis Lambert-St Louis Int’l Airport, MO
9:00 am
To: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
10:10 am
Thursday, October 18
Northwest Airlines Flight 2996 Economy
From: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
5:05 pm
To: Detroit Wayne County Airport, MI
8:24 pm
From: Detroit Wayne County Airport, MI
9:05 pm
To: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
10:54 pm
Monday, October 22
Northwest Airlines Flight 5741 Economy
From: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
6:30 am
To: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
8:50 am
From: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
9:35 am
To: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
10:50 am
Thursday, October 25
Northwest Airlines Flight 2996 Economy
From: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
5:05 pm
To: Detroit Wayne County Airport, MI
8:24 pm
From: Detroit Wayne County Airport, MI
9:05 pm, Thursday, October 25
To: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
10:54 pm
Monday, October 29
American Airlines Flight 1049 Economy
From: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
6:35 am
To: St. Louis Lambert-St Louis Int’l Airport, MO
8:30 am
From: St. Louis Lambert-St Louis Int’l Airport MO
9:00 am
To: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
10:10 am
Thursday, November 01
American Airlines Flight 3997 Economy
From: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
5:25 pm
To: Chicago O’Hare Int’l Airport, IL
7:10 pm
From: Chicago O’Hare Int’l Airport, IL
8:10 pm
To: Boston Logan Int’l Airport, MA
11:25 pm