vpilf.com

I saw that McCain is going to pick Sarah Palin as a VP. I thought I’d check out http://vpilf.com/ on GoDaddy and see if I could register it. You do the math.

ANYWAYS, I realized that the domain name was taken. And it was taken recently. And it is anonymously registered to a company in Arizona. It’s probably irrelevant, but I just figured I’d share my conspiracy theory with you.

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc.
(http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: VPILF.COM
Created on: 04-Aug-08
Expires on: 04-Aug-09
Last Updated on: 04-Aug-08

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration VPILF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599
Fax — (480) 624-2598

Domain servers in listed order:
NS47.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS48.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

Computer Fail

A beautiful “fail” of my computer. The fan has been going, and I think the computer just overheated. This is the second IBM laptop that died on me in the last year. This one was fully depreciated, like the last one, so I’m not too worried about it.

On the bright side, I was able to back up right before it failed.

Condor’s Quill

Ed Murphy did a great job of summing up the work that I do. Every answer that comes out of my mouth is “it depends” or “let me look into that for you.” I don’t want to be a weasel, but at the same time, I am deathly afraid of committing to something that I’ll be asked to deliver.

You desperately want to avoid getting locked into a fixed figure because you still have no real idea how complex the problem your being asked to solve is, but that is what the client and the others are asking for.

Unfortunately, Ed has been the recipient of many of our waffles. (Ed: You never did get that document about converting from Unix/Solaris/Red Hat to SUSE Linux)

For some reason the IT Services delivery process reminds me of my brief experience shoveling pig manure in upstate NewYork during the rainy season. You need the willpower and perseverance to shovel pig manure for as long as it takes to get the job done. “Done” is a relative term of course, because there is always more pig manure and mud left to shovel.

Titos Handmade Vodka

I bought a bottle of Tito’s Handmade Vodka from my local liquor store just because I saw it and I was curious. Since it was around 15 dollars, I didn’t think it was a big purchase to make. I was just looking to buy some vodka so my friend (Andrew) wouldn’t complain that we were poorly stocked every single @#$#ing time he comes to our place. I’m honestly not very fond of Vodka and I’ll stick to good beer.

I will say that this is the greatest alcohol discovery I have made recently. The previous one is the Ipswich Summer Ale, which is pretty darn good, but not as good as their regular ale.

I’m not a very good reviewer of anything really. But I will say that this vodka is drinkable straight out of a shot glass. My neighbor usually can’t drink vodka shots, and he thought that these went down like water, and the vodka had a pleasant taste. Tito’s isn’t watery or light (It is 80 proof); it just tastes good, which is something I never expected from a Vodka.

Airplane Mechanics Are Crazy

I snapped a few photographs of airplane mechanics on my way to Northwest Arkansas this week. It did not really occur to me until after my flight that they were working on the engine immediately before the flight. I really hope that it was a routine repair, and not something unusual.

In the photograph above, you can see two mechanics working on something. The way they are sitting is sort of interesting. It almost looks like they are having lunch. The photo below is my favorite though, because it reminds me of Dr. Strangelove.

I should just stop worrying and love to fly.

Silver Ring

Tracey showed me how to make a silver ring. The ring was made for a friend of mine who is getting married tomorrow. It isn’t the wedding ring that he is giving to his fiancé. Since he is Jewish, he was told by his Rabbi that he could not have any diamonds, stones or patterns on the ring. Consequently, he wanted two plain silver bands for the ceremony.

Tracey showed me how to cut the metal to size, anneal the metal, bend it into shape, and solder it together. She also showed me how to polish it. This ring isn’t perfect though because there is still a slight amount of firescale on it. But it would take way more effort than it is worth to remove all the firescale, just so it could be worn once for 10 minutes!

Ukulele Article

There is a great article on the Ukulele revival in the NYT. You can read about it here.

KDE4 Feeds

I have been using KDE4 for a few days now. There seem to be a number of bugs with saving KDE4 savings, atleast with OpenSUSE 11. I’ve found the desktop to be very different than the previous release of KDE. I’m really excited to see where it goes.

There are a few Plasma applets that allow the user to put RSS feeds on the desktop. Also, Kontact also has a feed reader (Akregator). IMHO, there should just be a centralized repository for RSS feeds, rather than having to update several different caches.

Bling

Tracey is making rings like crazy, and she decided to let me walk around with 13k worth of wedding bands.

Fort Point Channel

I find it sort of funny, in a cynical and depressing way, that the Boston Globe has a special section about the gentrification of the South Boston Waterfront. The section has the tagline “Coverage of the Fort Point Channel’s revival.” The real revival of that area occurred in the 1980s when the artists took it over.

I guess that area now is home to the ICA which I hope to go see in the coming weeks.