SwimFinsSF

OK.. this is cool

I’m sitting on an f-ing Airplane and can get to the internet… Lufthansa has wireless networking on its flights (at least on the 747 I’m sitting on)… Man I love the Germans! ;)..

Oh yea… I’m on a plane on my way to Germany… I have to be in Amsterdam next Thursday for work and then off to London as well for meetings.. So Kevin and I decided to tack on a week at the beginning and go to Berlin. And, conveniently enough, it happens to be the weekend for Folsom Europe.. How convenient… ;).. So i’m gonna be in Berlin till next tuesday with Kevin at which point he has to head back to the states.. I’m gonna go to either Cologne or Hamburg for two nights before heading on to Amsterdam… I’ll be in Amsterdam for IBC for a few days before going on to London…

Convenient timing too since the house is a hell hole.. but I won’t go into that right now – it’ll stress me out! :(:(

More stories from the air soon.. they’re serving dinner! 🙂

SwimFinsSF Graph

SwimFinsSF Graph

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Check it out … A purdy little graph of my blog as produced by this tool… Found on Eau de Humanity!..

Woo hoo – i’m amused by silly shit some times… The geeks out there will probably be interested – the rest of you will think i’m a lunatic.. (the black dot on the image is me! ;))

Put a window where a windo should be

08-23-06_1612.jpg

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Check it out… We got a sky light… (And lots of other holes in our house in strange places… But its making progres.. And if you look closely you’ll notice there is electrical work in there for lights and such… Crazy.. I see progress being made… Wee Haaaa

Nuvi 360 Observations

Like I said earlier, I broke down and got myself a really cool toy last week.. After seeing Brian’s and talking to Randy about it I broke down and got myself a Garman Nuvi 360. My justification for getting it was the traffic integration feature as well as our upcoming trip to europe… But in reality its really just cuz its a cool toy and I’m a geek. Up until now I never wanted a Nav system because the fact is I don’t get lost driving around SF or going to work – I live here. But the other features seemed to make it make sense for home and its small enough that I can take it on trips.. So I figured what the hell..

So.. Now that i’ve been using it for a little while here are some observations for those considering it.. Since I couldn’t find good discussions on the thing online I figured I’d share! 🙂

• Interface is very good.. It took me a little while to figure out how to get it to show me maps for a place that I wasn’t currently at because it is always trying to give you directions from your current location. But if you choose ‘Find Location’ and navigate to an address you can then select ‘show map’ at the bottom of the screen.. Thats very cool when you’re trying to look at maps in other states or countries cuz otherwise it’ll try and drive you there which is rough for points across an ocean.. (strangely it couldn’t find a route from SF to berlin..
• Dashboard Mount: This has been giving me grief. First, when I put the power cord into the mount I couldn’t get it out.. still can’t.. which is frustrating since I HATE cords all around my car.. I only want it plugged in when it needs juice. It has also started loosing suction on the window lately – probably just needs cleaning but still.. This is particularly a problem living in a big city where you can’t really leave a cool gadget in sight when parked – taking it on and off is a little troublesome..
• Traffic integration: This is REALLY cool.. shows you both incidents on the freeway as well as red, green, and red on roads to indicate traffic flow.. WAY cool.. Confusing part here is they have a bunch of different models (10,11,and 12) and I had a hard time figuring out which one to buy.. I finally just picked the 12 cuz it looked the least conspicuous and it seems to work.. Only issue I have with it is that it needs the nuvi to be connected to power which means it needs to be in the cradle (kind of a bummer when I got the thing at work and the cradle was at home..)
• European Maps: So this one was wierd.. They have two versions – one that comes on a DVD and one that comes pre loaded onto an SD card.. The one on the SD card, in retrospect is what I should have gotten but I couldn’t tell and got the DVD version. This version requires that you run the maps on a PC and then send them to the Nuvi.. great if you don’t want all the maps but a hassle otherwise (and thank GOD for Bootcamp – otherwise i’d be screwed).. Its also kind of counter-intuitive how to get the right things sent across.. It turns out you have to go into the application and select the segments of the maps in the map browser and hilite them and then click transfer to get the maps over.. There really shoudl be a ‘send all the damn maps’ option or more clear directions..
• Phone integration: This is also cool and everyone I talked to says they can hear me fine.. I do wish the volume went up louder on the thing though – road noise makes it a little hard to hear some times.. I also wish there was a ‘answer with phone’ option for the situations where I don’t want to talk on speaker.. Its probably there but I couldn’t find it..

Overall this thing is REALLY damn cool and I HIGHLY recommend it.. just a little nits that I wish worked differently.. but thats OK.. I’ll live.. still love my gadget.. can’t wait to try it in europe! 🙂

(Oh yea.. and I need to post a link to Technorati Profile so I can claim my blog.. so here it is..)

Quck Pete Update

California Sunset

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Sitting here in Jumpin Java on my work at home day (which is rough when the house is torn up) and decided to take a 10 minute break from work to post a quick update.. (And a pretty picture) ;)..

Lets see.. Whats going on here?

House: its still a mess – and we’re learning a lot. Most importantly we’re learning how best to communicate with each other, the contractor, and the architects about cost and work scope.. It’ll all work out but its stressful..

Work: Well – you know I can’t talk much abou that.. Suffice it to say things are VERY busy right now for a bunch of different reasons. Its all good but man its bad when you wake up in the morning and realize you’ve been having dreams about project meetings and engineering schedules.. thats just not right..

Other: Well – going to europe here shortly which should be fun.. Most of it is for work but I did manage to convince Kevin to come over with me for a few extra days which aren’t work to see Berlin in the summer time.. I’m really excited…

Toys: I got this really cool Garmin Nuvi 360 (I blame Matta and Brian and Randy). The box is about the size of a pack of cards and is a GPS navigation system with a ton of other bells and whistles such as MP3 player, travel guides, traffic tracking, and other stuff.. Its REALLY cool.. I’ll post more bout it later..

Hmm.. Other than that? well not much really… just super busy..

More later

Dude.. where’s my kitchen

Colors of the past

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

YOW… Walked in the door and my kitchen was gone.. not torn up… GONE… They managed to rip the entire kitchen down to the studs in one afternoon… All thats left is a pile of crap in the living room and bare studs.. its crazy.. and exciting.. This shot is of the nasty flooring that was under the fridge, the purple counter tops, and the green cupboards… Now NONE of it is there.. just bare walls..

SO DAMN COOL!.. Can’t wait to see them do that to the bathroom.. granted then we won’t be able to stay here … Guess this is the last night using the old facilities…

WOO HOO