When I was growing up my parents always had a subscription to National Geographic magazine. I was always fascinated with the maps, and looked forward to new ones.
While I was in high school I did a couple of back packing trips to the Tetons and during one I took a one-day climbing school course. The guide was introduced as (then) the third-best rock climber alive. He had completed a frightfully difficult climb at Tierro del Fuego - 4,000 feet up a sheer cliff that was separated from Antarctica by only ocean. The introduction indicated that the details of the climb could be found in a recent Geographic issue. When I returned home I dug through the issues in my parent’s basement and found the one in question. Fascinating. I knew a guy who was in National Geographic.
Sibylle had a collection of National Geographic magazines in her home when we met. She had allowed her subscription to lapse, however. Over the summer we were talking one day about random stuff and I said, “I really like the maps that came with…,” and Sibylle completed the thought by saying, “Me too.” Neither of us said aloud the words National Geographic. We both just knew where maps came from.
A couple of weeks later I got a gift card in the mail from the National Geographic society telling me that a subscription in my name had been given to me by Sibylle. Now I am someone who gets the Yellow Map Magazine.
The new neighborhood that Sibylle and I have moved into is bounded on the east by a pair of railroad tracks, and on the west side by the terminus of a relatively busy state highway.
The highway is slightly noticeable at certain times of the day; the dull hum of tires on pavement can be faintly heard in the background when all else is quiet. The railroad tracks are another story entirely.
The tracks are, apparently, one of the major lines into or out of Kansas City. The parade of trains in either direction is endless. During the daytime you hear the whistle during the approach to one of the nearby crossings, but otherwise you are unaware of the train. At night, the carrying power of the whistle really shines. The distance measuring tool on Google Maps shows that we are approximately 2430 feet from the nearest crossing, and yet the train whistle at times sounds like it is in the backyard. One memorable whistle neatly mimicked the duh-DUH theme used for the shark in Jaws.
We’ve been in the townhouse for about 5 weeks now, and I am slowly getting used to the nightly whistle parade as one train after another makes its way north or south past our neighborhood. Most nights I sleep undisturbed by the wailing two-tone note or by the deep rumble of the engine as it dopplers past our windows. The past two nights have been slightly different, however. The temperatures have been low enough to warrant open windows at night. I have new respect for the sound insulation properties of our windows as a result. The volume of the train in the middle of the night is significantly louder without the few millimeters of glass in the way. I am still able to sleep, but when I am going to sleep, or happen to be awake in the night, the whistle is amazing loud.
To be fair, the apartment we just moved out of had the world’s air circulation fan. When either the A/C or the heat was on, the start of the cycle was announced by a tremendously loud metallic crash - almost as if someone had kicked open a metal door. The fan itself was loud enough to drown out the television or stereo unless the volume was turned up. The first few weeks in that apartment, the start of the heating or cooling cycle woke me up every time. The trains only startle me occasionally.
I can’t imagine what it is like for the poor souls who live mere feet from the tracks.
Earlier today I saw Kottke’s posting about finding 68 cents in his pants, immediately after guessing aloud that there was 68 cents in his pants.
Just a few minutes ago I saw that Shawn Blanc over at shawnblanc.net added his two cents to the discussion, with his posting, Jason Kottke and his 68 cents. Shawn’s posting takes the thought in an entirely new and interesting direction. That of what to post. And what it is like to have people discover you have a blog.
Zanshin.net has always been a place for me to catalog all my 2 cent thoughts, and occasionally one that might be a tad more expensive. I guess I’m not bothered by the rare topic suggestion I get for my site. If nothing else if gives me some feedback about what other people are thinking and what interests them.
Shawn goes on to talk about the moment of awkwardness that comes up when the subject of his blog comes up in front of people who didn’t know he had a site. Many, many years ago I worked as a summer camp counselor, shepherding a cabin full of 8 and 9-year old boys around for a week at time. The first time you share a communal shower with several cabins worth of prepubescent boys, and one of them says, in a stage whisper, “He’s got HAIR!” you pretty much lose the ability to feel awkward at people discovering new facets of your personage.
Hello, World. I’ve got a website.
The Goal I want to be able to read all my email, including my GMail accounts, via the OS-based client on the laptop I am currently using. I have two primary computers, a Powerbook running Mac OS X (10.4.10) and a ThinkPad running Windows XP SP2. On the Mac I use Apple Mail, and on the ThinkPad I am currently using Windows Live Mail (beta).
The Accounts I have five email address I want to consolidate into one, easy to access solution. Three domain accounts, A, B, and C; and two GMail accounts, my primary email address G’ and a secondary GMail account, G’'.
The Setup Following the directions on GMail’s account tab, I configured GMail to read my domain accounts (A, B, and C) via POP3. Using the mail forwarding tab on GMail, I configured the secondary GMail account (G’’) to automatically forward all incoming email to the primary GMail account (G’).
Now, if I was satisfied to use the web interface, I could access all my mail in one place: GMail.
However I want to use the richer text editing features of an OS-based client for my mail. Furthermore, I want to use two different email clients on two different machines. Oh, and I want to download all the messages to either machine so they are in sync all the time. IMAP is the protocol to allow this type of access, unfortunately GMail doesn’t allow for IMAP access. You can configure your desktop client to read your GMail account via POP3, with an option to leave the read messages behind on the server. If you wanted to use a single computer for email, this would be the solution for you.
IMAP to the Rescue Using IMAP is the answer, but not obviously so. I created a new domain email account, call it “I” for IMAP. This account will be the only account my laptops access. Since it is IMAP, each machine will be able to synchronize its list of message regardless of how long it has been since that machine was used for email.
Using the email forwarding tab on GMail again, I created a rule to forward all incoming email from my primary Gmail account (G’) to my new domain account. Furthermore, I configured each OS-based email client (Apple Mail or Windows Live Mail) it to use the Google smtp server for sending mail. Within each client, I also checked the “save sent mail on server” option. By using the GMail smtp server all mail I send, from either laptop, appears to come from my primary Gmail account, and is saved in the primary GMail account sent folder on the server.
What This All Means Any mail sent to one of my five email addresses ends up in the primary GMail account inbox. Mail sent to my domain accounts is ready by GMail, and mail sent to my secondary GMail address is forwarded there.
Any mail in my primary Gmail inbox is forwarded to the IMAP account (“I”) on my domain.
Both of my laptops are configured to read the domain IMAP account, and to use GMail as the outbound smtp server. Any mail I send goes through GMail, gets saved on the Gmail server, and has my GMail address as the reply-to value.
I can now read my mail via the GMail web interface (handy when I’m not at one of my computers), through Apple Mail, or through Windows Live Mail. I see all my mail in either of those places, and all my mail is synchronized regardless of where and how I access it. As an added bonus my mail is filtered through the GMail spam filter before being filtered through my OS based email filters a second time.
For the first time since early this summer, perhaps even as early as May, we were able to sleep with the windows open last night. This was also the first time in years that I have slept with the windows open in my home in a cross-breeze. The apartment I lived in for the last three years had all of its openings on one side of the building, consequently getting any kind of breeze at all was rare. To be able to lie in bed and feel a gentle current of cool air moving through the room on its way from one set of windows to the next was delicious.
The break from the summer heat was good too. After several weeks of high 90 and low 100 temperatures getting up this morning to an outside temperature of 64 degrees was very nice. For its cooler temperatures and crisp mornings, I have always looked forward to autumn. Getting an early taste of it today makes starting the work-week just a little more palatable.
Over the winter, Sibylle and I fell into the habit of having take-out Chinese food for dinner on Sunday evenings. There were a couple of very good restaurants near the apartment (one in particular was excellent) that we could call and, in ten minutes or so, have piping hot Honey glazed chicken and wok roasted chicken to eat. We almost always combined this with a movie on DVD to create what we call “dinner and a movie.”
The expenses of moving, combined with our desire to pay off all our debt as rapidly as possible has made this tradition scare of late. We’ve been trying to eat most, if not all of our meals, from groceries rather than from take out or eating out. Occasionally we splurge and have something from out, but not without being aware of its impact on our budget.
Balancing the desire to have a budget and stay within our means with the need for some reward in the form of a nice meal prepared by others isn’t always easy. This afternoon we remarked that we miss the Chinese take-out on Sunday evening. I know I miss the occasional lunch out at work. But we’ve stayed within our budget consistently for a couple of months now. Which is better, long-term monetary stability, or the occasional dinner from out? Perhaps some of both.
The transition from multiple residences into one required some decisions to be made. What gets kept, what gets sold or given away, can this be stored? Three pieces of furniture were put on the block for sale. I listed them in the mail room of the apartment complex, on my companies Intranet classifieds page, and many, many times on craigslist.
While there were several calls and emails about the furniture, I only managed to entice three people to come and see them in person. None of these people bought anything. In the end the couch and chair were donated to the National Federation of the Blind, and the massager chair will be stored in our basement. What started out as a potential $1500 cash ended up being a lot of work for nothing.
As each day passed and the asking price was lowered in hopes of getting a sale, as more “buyers” wanted to offer me less than half of what I was asking, the furniture began to take on a new significance. Sibylle summed it up perfectly when she said that this furniture has some karma.
Yesterday I let go of the karma, and the furniture. With the help of a friend they were set on the curb and covered with a tarp. The tarp had taped to it a sign designating them for donation to the NFB. By claiming the original asking price on my taxes next spring I’ll realize about as much in tax savings as my final asking price. That it might also help out a worth organization in the process pleases me.
Last week we had a U-Haul truck scheduled for Friday afternoon. After some consideration we decided that we didn’t need the truck so I called on Thursday, before the 24-hour limit, and canceled the reservation. At the time I made the call I was put on hold for several minutes and had a very hurried conversation with the clerk when he came back on the line.
“I need to cancel my reservation.” “What’s the name?” “Nichols” “Okay, I’ll take care of it.”
After I hung up I had the feeling that it was all too easy, that he wasn’t going to follow through. In my email to Sibylle that afternoon I remarked that I ought to call U-Haul back to make sure the cancellation was properly completed. Life being what it is, I never called back.
Last night, while updating our books, Sibylle asked, “What’s this $50 charge from U-Haul on Friday for?” The cancellation had not been properly processed and we had been charge the standard cancellation fee. I immediately called their 800 number and spoke with a service representative. She took down all the pertinent information but wasn’t really able to do anything for me. She said that U-Haul Customer Service would call me back within 48 hours. Since we are on a budget, and a rather tight one at that, the extra $50 makes things even tighter. Not being able to do anything about it was frustrating.
This morning I called the local U-Haul office and spoke to the clerk and he pulled up the transaction on their computer. He said he could see where I called and canceled the reservation - they hadn’t completed the transaction and therefore I was billed the $50 fee. He further explained that only the manager can credit an account, that he would pass this information on to him when he arrived around 9:00 am today, and that it would be taken care of then.
I will be calling back to follow through with the manager this morning.
For the past several weeks I have been trying to sell some extra furniture on craigslist. The experience has been interesting to say the least.
Throughout the posting process, and embedded in every single email you get from craigslist are warnings about scams, imploring you to be wary of long-distance buyers and checks of any kind. When you make your first posting you don’t really pay much attention to these warnings, until the scam emails start to appear in your inbox. The broken English, lack of punctuation or capitalization are dead give aways that this email may not be kosher. The “buyers” willingness to send you a check immediately is another give away.
Most of the local buyers call the number you provided and they all have the same questions. “Is the <item> still for sale?” And, “Will you take <a number less than 50% of your asking price> for it?” Few buyers ever call back, and fewer still show up to look a the pieces.
To be fair we did sell a small, leather recliner within a day of first posting in online, and Sibylle was able to sell a refrigerator. Selling a couch and chair, however, is a lost cause. Furniture that was expensive brand new has almost no value in the used market. Pennies on the dollar. Even though I am not emotionally attached to the pieces anymore, I would like to get some value out of them.
After a showing Sunday where the buyer wanted to give me $200 for the $500 pair, I have decided to donate the furniture. I can valuate them at say, 1200 for the pair (a reasonable value by all accounts) and receive a tax deduction of about $300 next April. That the furniture would then be used to benefit those less fortunate than I, makes it all the better.
The damaged and blackened finger nail finally came off this afternoon. I will admit that it had a little help from me. Washing the dishes certainly helped to loosen it up, and when it was finally hanging by just one corner I gave a gentle tug and off it came.
The proto-nail underneath is about half or two-thirds the length of the nail bed, with a fairly deep crease running across it about mid-way. The crease is likely where the door made the most contact and broke the bone inside.
Having the black nail there was a constant reminder of what had happened, and while I didn’t think it was too unsightly, I was aware that it stood out a bit. Seeing my finger without the black nail is good, only time and patience now will determine how the nail re-grows.