Happy Holidays

Okay, seven months later, I pick up my blog again. Blogger just got out of beta, so it's not a bad time to do it.

A lot has happened in 7 months, but I think I want to keep this a now thing and not a then thing. And now it is Christmas Eve eve eve, and we're looking forward to a good holiday. Warm, rainy, but filled with good food, good friends, family, laughs and love.

I wish for all of these things for everyone.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, and Happy Kwaanza! May peace be with you, and all the joy of the season to you as well.

The 5th of May

So here it is, Cinco de Mayo. Of course, it's not a holiday I celebrate, but I love the simplicty of the name. It's like the 4th of July, which almost no one calls by the official "Independance Day" name. Probably because that's also now the name of an Aliens-attack-Earth movie with Will Smith. Here's to the Mexican holiday, and I hope that it never has a summer Alien invasion blockbuster named after it.

Other random thoughts:

1. OS installations are really annoying. I've attempted a Solaris 10 x86 installation this week, and configured the system only to be told that Solaris could not format the disk. I've had a CentOS 4.3 installation started, only to stall at the "Formatting /boot" progress bar.

Argh.

*This* is why I haven't upgraded my laptop to Fedora Core 5. Well, that and apparently the latest batch of FC5 updates pretty much disable your system. I think I'll stick to my current OS until I have some compelling reason to change.

2. Canon is da bomb! I just got a Canon PowerShot S80 camera. Amusingly enough, I also acquired a Pixma i6220 color printer in the deal, as due to the rebates for purchasing both, I get a free printer and an extra $25 off the camera. On the same day I managed to snag a 512MB SD card and a 128MB SD card for a grand total of $2.77 (Staples.com - after rebates and a $25 gift certificate). So it was a good online shopping day.

Anyway, the camera is *awsome*. Our last camera was an S30 - same series, about 3 years old. I loved that camera, but as we are going on some big vacations coming up, I wanted the ability to be able to crop photos without losing too much detail or printability. So the S80's 8 megapixels should keep me happy for quite a while. It's got plenty of preset modes that seem to work great. And though the Pixma isn't the top of Canon's photo printer line, I tried a direct print from one of my new photos and it looks great!

I'm definately looking forward to taking tons of pictures, and being able to print them in my craft room for scrapbooking! Now I just need some more 4x6 paper. I wonder if the Canon will print well on HP photo paper. Hmm...

3.

Okay, there isn't any 3. I just didn't want to leave it at 2. Here's to the 5th of May, the upcoming weekend, and homemade popsicles.

Oh, and if you have any Coca Cola mycokerewards.com codes (red caps from bottles, points on 12-pack can boxes), please feel free to send the codes on to me! I'm collecting for a PS2. Or maybe a PSP. I'll hold off on saying where to send it - if anyone ever actually reads my blog and wants to send me cods, I'll get the info to them later.

Mur!

Tracking

So here I am, sitting at work while waiting eagerly for a parcel delivery at home. My husband and daughter are out of the house, so there's a little bit of panic setting in - what if FedEx attempts to deliver while there is noone home? Will I be able to pick it up at the sorting facility? Will they try to deliver it later today? I don't want to wait until tomorrow! I want to play with my new toy now!

Ahem.

Anyway, while I know it's not really economically feasible now, how long do you think it'll be before we can do real-time tracking of parcels? More than just "The box is on a FedEx Truck and out for delivery" but a mash-up between the FedEx Tracking and Google Maps. Imbed a small GPS unit in the shipping label, and off you go. Cheaper still, have a trackable GPS in each FedEx truck, and associate the packages in that truck with that unit. When the package is dropped off, the association is broken, but if there's noone there to sign for it, it stays on the truck.

I really like this idea. It allows you to watch your packages drive around the city while you wait impatiently for your toys... er packages to be delivered. And if it doesn't get dropped off, it allows you to watch your packages continue to drive around, while you are helpless to intercept or receive them.

And for those of us who have honed anticipation to an art form, that, in the words of Martha Stewart, is a Good Thing.

DaVinci Code

Okay, so I read the DaVinci Code over the weekend, and while it was an enjoyable book, it was an odd experience for me. My normal genres don't really include this sort of contemporary maybe-fact-based fiction, and the style was not one that I generally read on a day-to-day basis. The constant flashbacks caused continuity problems for me, but overall I would recommend the book.

However, there are some problems, mostly stemming from the upcoming movie.

1. Tom Hanks? Come on - the main character in the book was described as having a deep baritone voice, and looking like "Harrison Ford in tweed". That doesn't say Tom Hanks to me. But I'm sure he'll do a spectacular job - he's that good an actor.
2. I don't know who they've got playing the female lead, but in all the publicity pictures I've seen, she's a brunette. The fact that Sophie was a red-head (or at least auburn) was a minor yet critical plot point in the book. So I think the casting director must have slept through his book-reading.
3. Now, granted, this book has been out for 3 years and I'm just now picking it up ($4.25 for a paperback at Costco was too good to pass up). But from all of the previous publicity, the TV shows, etc. I thought that the code was actually written by DaVinci and was evidenced in his paintings/art/folios. The book was good, but the media seemed to misrepresent it.

Now, the funny thing is - this is just the kind of book that I've got rolling around in my head. Now, if I write my book (about an archaeologist with startling theories that a secret society and the church are trying to keep from going public), *I*'ll probably get sued by Dan Brown for plagerism! Granted, my archaeologist is most likely to be planted firmly in the 24th century, if published, it'd be categorized Sci Fi imprint, and is unlikey to get any of this sort of wide press and media attention...

Maybe a lawsuit wouldn't be such a bad thing. Or maybe I should wait a few more years...

Some places I like to visit

In honor of my new blog, I thought I'd put up a few links to pages I tend to frequent. So, without further ado...

These are a few of my favorite links (apologies to Julie Andrews):

Slashdot - Cool site with user-submitted articles on cool new techy stuff. I've haunted this site for ages.
Digg - New site I've started monitoring. Like slashdot, only user-moderated. Pretty neat, and stuff usually hits it first.
Walt Disney World Information Guide - Everything you've always wanted to know about Walt Disney World but were afraid to ask. This is a great site for lodging information, dining information and menus, attraction status, etc. Always one of the first places I go if I need information about Walt Disney World.
Mousesavers - Second place to look for Disney info, and the first place to look for info on saving money at Disney or on Disney-related kitch.
The Disboards - Great online discussion forum on Disney-related topics. I really like the Rumors board.
NetDirector - Open source tool to help System Administrators configure their servers and their services. Not only does it have a nifty AJAX-based web GUI, but it manages multiple servers concurrently! Brought to you by Emu Software.

Wow! My first blog

Alright, I never thought I'd get into this blogging thing, but due to events mostly out of my control, here I am! A blogger! Who knows where it will lead? Fame... Fortune... A free cup of coffee?

Wait, I don't really drink coffee.

Oh well.

Anyway, I intend to try to keep this updated frequently. For those who know me - Hi! It's great to see you! Haven't chatted in ages - how're you doing? How're the kids - do you have any yet?

For those who don't know me, I'm Mur! It's a rather odd nickname given by an old (as in a year older than me) friend in high school. Most folks don't call me that, but it's been my online name since I can remember, so I'm sticking to it.

I'm currently working for a Linux-based software development company, which offers an open source product to help system administrators make their life easier. I travel (yay!), usually without my family (boo!) to far-off places such as Toronto, ON and Syracuse, NY. Maybe someday I'll even see exotic Charlotte, NC!

In my spare time, I do a variety of things. I read. I play with my 4 year old daughter. I write notes with ideas for the great american sci-fi novel that I promptly misplace for years on end (though the ideas continue to circulate in my brain. Somehow, they never sound as good once they make it to paper). Mostly, I haunt Disney-fan newsgroups and bulletin boards to keep up on the current rumors and news for Walt Disney World - my favorite place on earth! (well, next to my awsome house, I suppose).

Okay, I'll admit - I'm *nearly* Disney-obsessed. My husband would certainly say I am, but really, I only think about it once every 15-30 seconds or so (which is better than what everyone knows men think about with even more frequency). Right now I'm planning a multi-family, multi-generational trip that should be very fun! And half of the fun is in the anticipatory planning - things so exciting as, where will we eat? What rides do we want to ride? Where will we stay? And the ever-popular, What time is the 3:00 parade? (which really does depend on where you're sitting on the parade route - it could be as late as 3:30!)

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the blog. I'll try to keep it entertaining. Maybe if I can keep this up, I'll be able to hone my writing skills so those sci fi book ideas don't fall quite so flat once they're out of my head and down on paper. Probably not, though - I think I probably tend to ramble too much to write any sort of novel. Who knows, though. You might some day see the following book in Border's:

The Extra Ultimate Idiot Nit-Picker's Guide to Walt Disney World on a Dime for Dummies
by Mur!