Backups and other life-changing events

One of my mantras is too many backups is never enough. I am a huge fan of Leopard and Snow Leopard due to their inclusion of Time Machine right in the O/S. However, one always risks getting caught out in the cold. It just so happens that I spent several hours the last week or [...]

Marina di Ragusa, Porto Vecchio and Back to Work

I have been quite remiss in not making any posts since – OMG! – June. We spend two weeks in southern Siciliy in a beach community called Marina di Ragusa which is about 1 1/2 to 2 hours south of Catania. It is a fantastic little town with an excellent (and clean!) beach, lots of [...]

My favorite live albums

I got to thinking about my favorite live albums so in no particular order: (my initial draft got eaten by Firefox so this one is a little shorter and perhaps more concise)

The Neville Brothers – “Live on Planet Earth” -  a classic New Orleans jamboree with lots of classics, fantastic singing and music [...]

It might turn out to be a good year after all

I am feeling cautiously optimisitic today. A patient (well OK not that patient) 6 year wait seems to have borne fruit. We might be able to expand our apartment sideways which will buy us at least enough time to get kid one and (hypothetical at this point) kid two through day care and kindergarden in [...]

Happy Holidays

Sorry for the drop in writing lately. Family events and holidays oblige. What’s happening with me? Well,
Reading: Vol 2 of Blotner’s biography of Faulkner. Fascinating. Sad that some of the greatest American writers of the 20th C (Faulkner and Hemmingway in particular) were heavy, chronic alcoholics. I didn’t know that Faulkner was hospitalized several times [...]

One of those days

It’s been one of those days when you open the fridge and like 3 bottles of sauce fall out of which one spatters on your suit pants. Ok, so I am exagerating but at least it’s a Friday. Unfortunately, the weather is rather grey and will likely remain so. The positive side is that I’ll [...]

Another Monday…

Whew, was looking at some huge outer joins today. I really needed some more coffee! So, another week is starting. Rainy morning didn’t help. Further market slippage in Hong Kong and Toyko didn’t help either. Ho hum. Guess we all need to strap in and prepare for a very bumpy landing.
Wish I had more to [...]

Middle of second week – treading water

So, middle of second week @ new job has come and gone. The laptop screen is now ghosting old windows under current ones and giving me really annoying vertical lines all across the screen. Yikes. And the remote access for my MBP is not working. According to Apani, it is my company’s VPN that is [...]

First day at new job

Hmm. So, let’s just say I was a bit underwhelmed by the IT aspects. New laptop is underpowered and had a busted network card. Internal bureaucracy feels a bit stifling but then perhaps that’s just a first impression. Well, in the words of Howard Jones, “Things can only get better”, right?
Uh uh oh oh oh [...]