Wet Ramblings of the Dive Boy

OK, I'm back

2010-07-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

Dispite all the big talking about setting up my own blogging software, it turned out I'm too lazy. So I've moved to the 'blogger' servers and the new blog URL is http://ramblings.sagar.org.

Last Post!

2010-04-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

Not sure what happens tomorrow, when blogger turns off FTP. Rather than blogging in the coming months I can focus on installing a CMS on my server @he.net

See you on the other side.

It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression ...

2010-04-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

I don't understand. It's San Francisco! How difficult could it be to find 12 gay men that like softball!

If it was Arkansas I could understand it, they wouldn't have enough eligible participants, they'd have to bring in a couple of hetros to pad your team.

Gay Softball League Sued for Discrimination

Stupid makefiles

2010-04-10T21:36:00.001-07:00

Why do make files have their own language? Why is it that the crucial last step to build your app, as a C/C++ developer, is write a script in an obscure '70s language?

Why can't I write my makefiles in C? I know how to write C, I do it every day! But makefile, I have no idea how or why it works (or doesnt).

Once ever three months I'm forced to crack open a makefile and dick with some obscure jumble on non-alpha characters that dictate the relationships between some .cpp files and some .o files. No wonder I get it wrong and resort to copy/paste of an old 400line makefile from the 802.3 driver I tampered with 5 years ago.

Grrr, taxes

2010-04-04T01:12:00.001-07:00

Tax season again. Spent the whole day trying to figure out "cost basis" for ESPP shares that I bought in 2007 and sold in 2009. Naturally, it being 2010 now, I can't remember what I paid for the shares, what they were really worth, how much commission I paid, how much they sold for, what the price was at the start of the ESPP period, whether I already paid tax on the discount ... fuck it's a nightmare.

Also sold some BT shares that I bought at the height of the dotcom boom. since I bought them they split into two different companies and my broker got taken over twice. What records I have of the purchase are irrelevant, and the records eTrade has don't seem to match. Trying to calculate the cost basis on those took the rest of the afternoon! There's the price I paid for the BT ADR, then the price on the "BT PLC ADR" that they became after the O2 split, which doesn't seem to match the price eTrade has listed as the per unit share. Does that include the Dreyfus (or was it BrownCo?) commission? I can't tell.

It's not worth the hassle! But it was a tax write-off. Sometimes I think it might just be easier to keep all you assets as $20 bills in the mattress.

Another Tahoe Trip

2010-04-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

Took Ben up to Tahoe again last weekend. Drove up Friday afternoon and had Saturday and Sunday playing in the snow.

As with the last trip we stayed in Kings Beach (Ferarri's Crown) and skiied/boarded at Northstar.

Ben wanted to try snowboarding (finally, yay!), so I booked him in for a lesson Saturday morning. This of course meant that I was doing runs on my own.

He said he enjoyed the boarding, but Sunday he wanted to get back on the skis, as he wanted to do the black runs with me. Not surprising really, bunny slopes or back side black ... The boy's not stupid.

Like me, Ben loves going through the trees at the side of the slopes and taking on all the little jumps. There's a chance he could master the half-pipe! Which I've never dared to do.

We didn't get any fresh snow this time and the temp was in the high 50s/low 60s so it was a nice spring skiing weekend, no snow jackets required, shades not goggles.

The icerink in the village (at Northstar) is melted. I was please to see they were using it for a roller rink and they still have a band playing.

Skiing solo was definatly more strenuous than going with Ben. Less time stopped on the hill waiting for him to catch-up, I was more worn-out on Saturday night than I have been on the other recent snow trips. But it was good to do some long, uninterrupted runs by myself for a change.

Worst Google Voice translation yet!

2010-03-26T09:24:00.001-07:00

Hi Lee stiffy. Sharon from. Not the the motive you got me on my face. All I you want to coming fall you all a looking it does. So NickTuesday. Dusty both okay. He's open for you. P Let me know which day you pizza phone number that is 4xxxxxxxx7. Thank you. Byebye.

Got me a Roku box

2010-03-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

Someone at work got this for free with the last TV they bought. As they're not a Netflix customer they were happy to offload it on me for $50, and I was happy to get it for half price.

I've been a big fan of the Netflix streaming since they first started - though I'm less pleased with the quality since they switched over to Silverlight. Up until now, I've had to plug the laptop into the TV if I wanted to watch streaming videos in comfort. Now I have a dedicated box under the TV so I can tune into Netflix more easily whenever I want.

It's also nice that the Roku box supports MediaFly, so I can get to any of my podcasts and play them through the TV too. I've had some issues with video streaming for some podcasts (not all) but audio streaming works great (BBC Newspod, KQED, etc.). I suspect the issue is really to do with my low bandwidth DSL internet connection. I don't think the Roku has much in the way of buffering.

My only disappointment is the lack of Youtube streaming. I've found rather a lot of good content on YouTube these past 12 months, while testing my Palm Pre's streaming capability, so I'd like to have access to all the channels I've subscribed to through YouTube (ITN news, Diggnation, Makezine, infoMedia, ...).

Roku on Amazon.com

Great gig at the Truewinds Folk night

2010-03-23T10:28:00.001-07:00

Paul Kamm and Eleanore MacDonald did a great gig at the folk night on Friday, at Mission City Coffee Roasters.

They harmonize really well. Not heard good, on key, (live!) singing like that for a long time.

Yes, they have a website, but not sure if there's any music downloads there. Just going to check it out myself.

http://kammmac.com/

No more FTP after May 1!

2010-03-23T10:23:00.001-07:00

What am I going to do ?! Blogger will stop supporting FTP posting on May.

I don't want to put my blog on one of their "clever domains". I don't trust them! I like to have my bits in my own bucket!

Busy weekend for the Sagar boys

2010-03-21T22:59:00.001-07:00

Certainly been a fun weekend for the Sagars and a long one!

Ben had his PADI Seal Team program this weekend, so both Sat and Sunday we had to be up early and out of the house before 8.30 to get to Diver Dans. Ben had three hours of dive training each day, similar to the open water diver cert., but simplified a little for the under 10 market.

Saturday afternoon we had a fun "St Patricks Day" party with friends; barbequing and lots of guinness.

Sunday afternoon we went to the movies to see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", which was a pretty good, funny kids movie. Had to hit "Johnny Rockets" and "Yoguart Land" during the course of the afternoon.

Feeling shattered now. Don't know if it's the two mornings in the pool or all the guinness and food!

St. Paddy's Day

2010-03-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Always a good excuse to dust off some old Cranberries & Pogues playlists!

Pity I can't find any of my CDs these days. I just had to drop about $100 at Amazon.com to (re)buy the albums.

Coffeeshop wifi

2010-03-16T09:21:00.001-07:00

... is really flakey these days.

What's going on?

Can hardly ever get online anymore.

I smell a conspiracy.

high carbon footprint

2010-03-05T15:40:00.001-08:00

As muders go, this one has a pretty high carbon footprint!

A woman is stabbed to death by her ex-lover who flew from Trinidad after seeing a picture of her with her new boyfriend on Facebook.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8552740.stm

Fuck you fucking Dell

2010-03-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

Why did you put the MUTE button right next to the POWER button on my laptop. It's fucking retarded.

Rebooting ... Gives me time to rant from my Palm Pre.

Ah those poor Christian Conservatives ...

2010-03-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

You got to give it to those religious right-wing conservatives, they sure know how to par-tay!

http://m.visaliatimesdelta.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100305/NEWS01/3050322/1002&template=wapart

Not only caught sodomizing, but driving away drunk too. He must have been very uncomfortable sat in the back of the police car, with that ample application of lube squelching around in his knickers.

Skiing at Northstar

2010-03-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

Went skiing at Northstar last weekend (Feb 19). Had some great skiing, bit of fresh snow overnight Saturday, meant I could Carve up some powder on my snowboard on Sunday.

Ben's getting really good (for a nine year old who only skis two/three times per year). He did some black runs this year and was having a great time going between trees and doing jumps. I was worried he might hit a tree, but parents are supposed to worry about those types of things ... when they're not hitting trees themselves at least.

Here's some footage of Ben. I'm doing the camera work, sorry it's a bit jerky. Hard to watch the screen and board at the same time.

Beer Wars - the movie

2010-03-01T22:03:00.000-08:00

Wow! I suppose I should have known it, but I didn't realize! The US beer market is just as perverted and corrupt as every other sector of the economy.

Let's get that three tier system working for us again and bring choice back to the consumer.

buy at amazon.com or watch on netflix streaming

This movie is a bit like Supersize me or Who killed the electric car, but for the beer industry.

Down with Busch!

Do university professors have that dream ...

2010-02-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

You know that dream you have, if you ever went to university. The one where you have an exam coming up and you haven't revised, or you have a final project coming up and you haven't done the work?

In my case the variation is that I have the final exam for Dr Unwin's Communication class coming up. In the dream I have never attended any of his lectures - this may be less dream and more statement of fact! I always missed his lesson as it was too early in the morning. Then again, I also missed most of Dr Ward's classes. Strange, as these two subjects were my favorite. Anyway, I've got off topic again.

So, you know the dream. You wake-up in a panic as you think you're going to fail your degree as you didn't do any work and the exam is coming up. It's 20 years since I left uni and I still have the dream occasionally.

I wonder if professors have that same dream still.

OR, do they have a dream where the final exam is coming up and they haven't written the paper yet :-D

Diving last week - Point Lobos

2010-02-14T23:34:00.001-08:00

UPDATE: I have photos posted in the slideshow section. Here is the link

WalMart CCTV footage

2010-02-14T23:33:00.001-08:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Who the fuck thought up the idea of a 47" shelf?! Thanks Ikea!

2010-02-06T14:53:00.001-08:00

Wall studs (joists to you brits) are spaced at 16" in the US. As the yanks like to say "sixteen on center", though that mnemonic makes no sense to me, if it's 16" the 'on center' part seems superfluous, it's also 16 on edges ... but I digress.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of putting up shelves in Ben's bedroom and I pull out the shelves (from Ikea) and they're 47" long. Now, that means I have to put the brackets 47" apart, in fact closer to 46" due to the design.

How does that make sense to anyone? It means one bracket may be in a stud, but the other's bound to be dangling from sheetrock. It's fucked-up. Now I need to figure out if I can get some butterfly mounting things, and figure out how much weight we can put safely on these shelves. No doubt books are out of the question.

Stupid, stupid Ikea.

I am so shallow

2010-02-03T23:28:00.001-08:00

...

Sustainably Farmed Sonoma Wines

2010-01-11T09:14:00.001-08:00

http://www.benziger.com/ :
"Our certified-Biodynamic estate on Sonoma Mountain is beautiful all year long. And the view from our Parthenon can't be beat!"

Not sure if I've sampled their fayres, but I'll have to give it a try now!

I just read an article about their 'Biodynamic Vineyard' and hence green cred.

OK, it's just an excuse to go drink!

benziger.com

'Twas the night before christmas...

2009-12-24T22:09:00.001-08:00

Just finished the traditional reading of " 'Twas the night before Christmas ". Now Ben is tucked-up in bed ( so is Mrs Sagar :-/ ). I just have to wait a few hours for Santa to arrive.

The mince-pies were made this afternoon and are out by the fireplace with a glass of milk. For the reindeer, there are two carrots and a bowl of water on the front lawn (next to the "Santa Stop Here" sign).

We're all ready for Christmas. Hopefully Ben won't wake-up TOO early.

Merry Christmas!

---

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
by Clement Clarke Moore
or Henry Livingston

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly,

That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

---
I think it's out of copyright. Text copied from: http://www.christmas-tree.com/stories/nightbeforechristmas.html