June 2006 Archives

"Half Speed Ahead!"

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Sometime last week we moved an aquarium in under the stairs at our house. A couple days later I was reaching in for something, I forget what. When I stood up, the steel staircase was occupying the space my head was entering - fast. Bang! For a moment I wasn't sure if I was going to make it standing on my feet.

Over the weekend I slept and slept, but thought it was just exhaustion from a long week. Monday I didn't take a nap and by evening time I was so nauseous and dizzy that standing up was uncomfortable. (Not to mention the headache).

And I am so tired. I feel a bit like Bartlet in the 6th season of the West Wing (we just watched that a few weeks ago) who had to pace himself to far fewer hours of productivity than he liked. At least I don't have to run a country!

The doctor says the headaches are probably from messing up my neck more than it usually is. My bad balance when I get tired is supposed to be because I got my otoliths whacked out of place. (My doctor called them ear crystals. I forgot to ask what they are really called, but Vani found a page describing something similar). Why am I so tired? A mild concussion I guess.

Usually I can keep myself awake and convince myself that I'm being productive for far too long into the night, but this week I've been done and then some after 4 hours or so. Going down the stairs in the evening (like right now!) takes an appalling effort and leaves me feeling completely defective.

It's very odd and frustrating to be at a loss of mental (from the tiredness) and physical capacity (exhaustion, bad balance and clumsiness), even if relatively mild. Even if my condition is not only incredibly insignificant in comparison but temporary, it gives me a new respect for the family and friends of people with say Alzheimer's. Yikes.

Back to bed for me... It's been hours since my last nap. (And apologies if I have been harder to reach or get to do anything than usual over the last week).

Treo 650 woes

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I got a Treo 650 sometime last spring. I love the features. Or rather, I love having email and Jabber on my pocket sized mobile internet device. Extra bonus: "Proper" keyboard for SMSes! Lately Life Balance has been a favorite too. The web browser is not exactly great, but using the Treo as a modem for the laptop makes up for it. What about the phone feature? Sure, it's pretty nice. The address book works well and syncs to the mac (I use missing sync).

What's not to like? It's been incredibly flaky. Not so much with the random reboots, but frequent, far far far too frequent lockups. My best theory is that it when it lost GSM coverage it'd Just Not Recover, in particular if it was trying to do some GPRS traffic.

Pretty much every time I'd leave the house I'd have to restart the phone like that to make it work. We have (slightly spotty) coverage at the house, but on the way down the hill there's a little while with no coverage at all. After getting down to Hollywood proper (with plenty coverage), the phone would claim to have coverage, but not receive any calls or let me place any. Turning the phone module off and on would make it recover. Hello hello? Heeellooo?

I read about the 1.20 firmware update some time ago, but I didn't pay much attention as it was only "out for Windows" and past firmware upgrades didn't seem to help much anyway.

I installed it a few days ago and woah -- it's like getting a brand new phone. Well, not really, but it hasn't crashed once on me (yet). Yay!

There's something curious about how a piece of software or a gadget completely loses your confidence when it's unstable or unpredictable. Don't think fixing those minor bugs in your software or on your website is worth it? Think again. Those little bugs makes your users and customers not trust the features that are working great either.

Early birthday presents

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Vani has been getting me early birthday presents through the week (my birthday is today!), including very not-safe-for-work (but not like you think) curiously strong magnets!

New fridge!

In raw weight the biggest early birthday present came yesterday, when these four guys brought us our new refrigerator. They tried to deliver it a few weeks ago but needed to come back with more people to get it down the stairs.

It is "counter depth" and apart from looking out of place in its shinyness, it fits the space in the kitchen rather well. The old one wasn't as tall or wide as the space, but was sticking out a few inches too much. Shiny. My first ice-maker!

Our old dishwasher was 25-30 years old and we got a new swedish one too that I finally finished installing last Saturday (bye-bye strange-installation-of-the-old-one). I must be getting used to this house thing when I get slightly excited about new appliances. Only major disappointment: The curiously-strong-magnets doesn't stick to the curiously-shiny-surfaces of the fridge and dishwasher. What's up with that?

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This page is an archive of entries from June 2006 listed from newest to oldest.

May 2006 is the previous archive.

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