7hertz

ohsu tram

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the only perk about M being in the hospital was i could take the tram to see her. i was against the project from the start, but as long as i could take a free spin i thought i should check it out. the station isn't far from my office.

it's beautiful, as trams go. but it's really just for doctors -they can live on the waterfront and work up on the hill (not much for public use?). i'm usually for public projects like this, not for such limited use though. ohsu spent a god portion of the money, but still that doesn't make it good for portland. maybe if we had sky trams everywhere, i dunno.

here are some photos.

hairy potter?

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daniel radcliffe, a.k.a. Harry Potter, will make his theatre stage debut in the play "equus"... i heard this and immediately thought sheer brilliance.

it's the perfect tease for so many of his fans,
think of all those girls, coming of age...

who like ponies.

monday, monday...

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we arrived at the emergency room at 9pm (sunday night). M was in pain, it took a long time for them to schedule her in. i wonder at times if you they wait until you get that totally vacant look just waiting, staring into space, before they take care of you. it was pretty busy and she wasn't bleeding right, but on the floor clearly in pain and vomiting, yikes. well --it wasn't pretty. i don't blame them, jez, what a hard job. anyway, we got bumped up on the list -still it took hours to finally get a bed.

lobot :: complete

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we finished the rpm challenge and submitted the cd!

some rough work on the submission, in a rush to the finish line -but great sounds and interesting compositions. i'm rather pleased with the project, the collaborative process, and our progress.

we'll clean the tracks up in post production and put polished versions on a web site, somewhere soon.

riight, the web site... guess that's next.

paytrust bill presentment service

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ok, i'm getting used to the service. i didn't quite understand a few things at first but it makes more sense now.

friend of mine with the service claims to have *two* addresses listed on his credit card. but i'm pretty sure it just works like this:

rpm challenge :: lobot

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i've been meaning to spend more time on music. playing with a band again has been great (in addition to all the other music projects), but i want to do more composing and recording. seems there's never enough time!

my super geek day

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busy day...

1) my first mail arrived and was scanned in my new "virtual" mailbox. i'm going paperless and i'm really diggin' the service. i'm hoping this will eliminate a bunch of clutter i have, piles of papers around the house and unfiled documents.

2) also on the e-mailbox front, i got my first bill (cable bill) via paytrust and they auto-scheduled the payment based on my rule (less than $20). once less thing to do! --i'm trying to avoid having to log in to a dozen sites just to read and archive my statements, then schedule and pay my bills. plus i can have any bill, not just electronic one's sent and processed, in one place.

3) "hoooney, could you pick up more toner on the way home...?"

my printer sent me an email. (actually it's a thermal and doesn't take toner but you get the picture). i'm working on printing labels at home while i'm at the office, that way i can pick up labels and just go. now my printer can warn me if there's a problem, let me know what's up --zebra's built-in printer server rocks! so nice to be able to "talk" to the printer too (via admin pages) rather than just decipher blinky-lights (moris code) on the front panel.

4) speaking of which, i finally printed my own *genuine* fedex label. not a screen-shot paper-dump from the web but the real deal on my kickass zebra thermal. printed over the net too. woot. oh, i'll miss flirting with the fine customer service folks while i filled out the paperwork tho... well, time to move on. now i can just drop it the boxes off, have them pick it up. a lot less fuss there.

well, there you go. lots of things only a geek would gloat over in one day.

all time best radio stations

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all time best commercial radio stations :
#1) radio free hawaii (was kpoi)
#2) knrk (before/after the clearchannel era)
#3) Live105 / KBPA, (bay area radio, honorable mention here).

all time best public stations:
#1) ktuh (college radio, university of hawaii)
#2) klc (college radio, lewis & clark college)
#3) kopb (npr with a mixture of music, classical/jazz/ethnic/electronic)
#4) kboo (local community radio, wide format)

internet radio mentions:
radio.tabla.com, somaFM, afterhoursDJ.

here's why...

virtual me | my office assistant is a robot

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ok. my office numbers are forwarded to my mobile, my fax line is virtual, all my voicemail processed via email. i control when, who -and how people can reach me.

now it's time to digitize my physical mailbox, and eliminate paper. i don't want to deal with the minutiae of billing, or filing paperwork. i want to get rid of junk mail (don't we all?), not deal with separating the wheat from the chaff there. i really want my mailbox to become the equivalent of an instant scanner!

why?

i still have filing to do from last year. it just piles up, it's no good. i'm not disorganized i swear, well, maybe a little. i'm way more organized that most people i know! plus, i need to keep records for my business (7 years!) and that takes up room. when i need to retrieve something, i have to dig through folders. if i'm traveling i can't read my mail or look anything up (not previously scanned). plus there's a certain liability of having record in one place, with no backups.

holiday travel

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so after years of flying, even around the world once. i met with another one of those infamous, odd travel stories to tell. really, if you fly enough --most any thing that can go wrong, will. i have my share of stories. and this one is up there. say, top five...

world cup

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i went to germany, to see some world cup 2006 games!!

i was really impressed with the fans --the camaraderie amongst rivals. of course, everyone likes to see their team win... but great goals were cheered by all, and the fans really don't talk didn't down to each other. big party. what a great atmosphere.

wheat foods council

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new on my list of people responsible for the shameless "dumbing down" of humanity -- the wheat foods council.

conspiracy theory

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my theory of conspiracies...

if they didn't exist, people would invent them.

new quote

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ok, here's my new quote -- and answer to "it's just like riding a bike"

you can always fall off.

vw bus canopy replacement

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my new vw bus canopy . . .

here's what i did to install it....

internet everywhere

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i've had internet 'everywhere' for years now. yes it's nice. yes, you want this. prices have come down a lot too, which is great. oh, we still need better coverage and speed.

gsm providers, dual lines?

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i have some issues/grips with the gsm phone system, i'm not sure if they qualify as problems or not. the gsm system has some really advance call handling built into the network - whereas the competition doesn't even have these capabilities at all.

re-route cellphone calls/voicemail

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a beautiful thing about the gms system is that you can totally change your call management for voice, fax, data -- forwarding calls to *different* numbers, even for various scenarios (busy, unreachable, etc).

typically you'll want everything to go to the 'system' voicemail - which is really a call center provided by your service provider. this is what most people have, just use the stock settings - and system offered by the provider.

but what i really want is voicemail delivered over the phone, and by email. plus, say i go on vacation, i can have all my calls routed to my house instead, or business partner - not ring my phone. whatever the circumstance, it's up to you. the flexibility is built-in.

getting my voicemail over email is great, especially convenient if i'm working i'm at my desk. if they've already been downloaded i can review them, say on the plane -- or say at burningman where there's no cell tower or phone line in sight ('cept for voip -- and i really don't want to see cell phones at burningman either ~but~ it's nice to get messages).

biannual & biennial mean the same thing dammit!

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some dictionaries assert proper use of language, others just report it. which is why after years of misuse, the word biannual has come to mean *both* twice a year and every other year. the proper definition, the original, is every other year. semiannual means twice a year (literally half year).

all comes straight from the latin. bi meaning two, annus -or- annial meaning year. both annus (annual) and annial (-ennial) mean a year. they mean the same thing.

the term "bi" does it doesn't divide *into* two --it is two. think bicycle (two cycles, or "wheels"), binary (two digits), bilingual, biped, biathlon, bi-provincial, binoculars, bisexual, bifocals (having *two* focal points!), bigamist, bifurcate (literally two fork, to fork or branch into two e.g. becomes two, not divide in half)...

so the bi- prefix on biannual "divides into two"? find me anywhere, where bi means "divide in two". i'll take any example, and not the mere assertion by The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. they punted and got this one wrong.

also, if bi means 'twice', then biannual is "twice year". almost sounds like twice *a* year, but it's not... it's "a twice year". odd way of saying it, but doesn't make the other correct. it's not twice year-ly either. there's no "per" in biannual. it's not "bi-per-annual".

the problem is people have bandied about the terms like biannual incorrectly so much it's losing it's original meaning now. some of the literati acknowledge this and recommend avoiding those terms all together now..

i think some of the confusion stems from the fact it seems natural to rearranged the terms in your head -- take "biweekly meeting" for example, maybe folks are inadvertently associating the "bi" with meeting. it's not bi-meeting-per-week (substituting "per" for "ly") --it's bi-week-per-meeting.

probably even *more* confusing, when you use "meetings" in the plural form (e.g. "biweekly meetings"). it's not because there's more than one meeting in that period, but since all the meetings form a collection, a series. really, i'm only projecting here, when i was confused that's how i started to think about the terms until i thought about it and worked it out.

it *really* gets my goad when people point to biennial saying, "well since biennial means every-two-years, let's have our cake and eat it too and just make biannual mean twice a year, kinda like let's have one term for this, and one for that". grr... truth is, we just don't study latin anymore.

these are the same folks, if you point out the term semiannual already serves the purpose they propose that one evenly divides the year (semi) while the other doesn't. now we're just making up excuses to prop up the wrong definition.

the election

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i can't believe people are so blind. it's the lack of education in our country. you voted for bush? yes, you are just a tool. this has been a very bad week for human rights. and the people who voted for it, have no idea.

i voted for kerry, i think he would have made a great president.

by the way, 51 to 48% is not a mandate. why are republicans so pompous?