Imablog Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.

Big fat couch potato

I did absolutely nothing today except watch over 11 hours of Lord of The Rings: Extended Special Edition. All three of them. Back to back. Short pauses for bathroom breaks and food.

It was fantastic. Can't wait to do it again.

The first decisions of 2005

Our first decision of 2005 is to buy a house. After much discussion and consideration we decided that if we have to spend $182k, then it's going to be on a house rather than a condo.

So for the past few days we've been browsing through the online MLS and the real estate section of the paper checking things out and seeing what's out there and the kinds of prices we can expect. Mostly small and expensive or not-so-small and really expensive in the areas we want to live. If we want big and cheap, that means living farther away and a longer commute than we want to deal with. We did find a few places that look interesting enough to check out later this week. The wife's parents are also planning on making a trip down on the weekend to have a look around with us too.

We've also been working on a list of items and features that we want in a house and ranking them by importance to us. I'm sure this will be an interesting process.

Talk about your big bathtubs

There's a neat photo in the January issue of Physics Today that shows just how big the Super Kamiokande neutrino detector is. I'd heard that it was big, and even when I saw the pictures from the shattered PMTs incident, I never realized just how big it was.

There are more pictures that also show just how big SK is. Those are some guys in a raft at the far right of the this image. They're cleaning the huge PMTs that make up the light detecting system of SK.

Biometrics

USCIS (formerly INS) does this thing now that they call biometrics, where they take a digital photo and fingerprints for any of your immigration related things. Problem is not all of their offices can do the biometrics thing.

So yesterday, I had an appointment at the Charlotte NC ASC (Application Support Center) which was the closest place I could go for the biometrics thing for my EAD application. Charlotte NC is a 3 hour trip (200 miles). Here's how the day went.

0830: Drop the wife off at school and head out on the road to Charlotte.
1130: Arrive in Charlotte. The ASC wasn't too far off I-77, so it was pretty easy to find. Get in line, person says I need to come back closer to my appointment time. :P. Head off to find a place for lunch.
1230: Back at the ASC. Hand the person at the desk my paperwork and passport. She stamps it, paperclips them together and hands me a number. Go sit down and wait for staff to come back from lunch.
1330: My number finally comes up. Head over to the computer, right index finger gets smushed onto the fingerprint capturing thingy, then I sit down to get my picture taken.
1345: All done, processing person stamps my paperwork again, then tells me my card will be mailed.
1350: Fill up the car and head back home.
1700: Arrive back home.

Argh. Could have had all this done the old fashioned way in Charleston and had my EAD card right then and there. Instead, it was a 6 hour round trip for something that took 15 minutes to do. And I didn't even get my new card!

*sigh*

The fact that they can do all this stuff digitally is great though. I just wish it was available at their local offices so I don't have to spend the whole day travelling just get something that takes 15 minutes to do.

Half way to decrepit

Tomorrow I will be 35. A few years ago, I thought people who were 35 were old. Now I'm one of those people. There are days where I start feeling the years. Lately that's been happening more often than previous years.

This year I'm determined to get back to the more active lifestyle I had when I was in my 20s. I think having a dog around will do a lot towards that. What I really want to do is get back into cycling, but that will probably have to wait at least another year until we get a little more financially settled after getting this house. In the meantime I'll have to settle for getting back to the running thing. Maybe I'll try for the Cooper River Bridge Run next year. I've always been more of a 5k person though. Never really been much good at the 10k distance, but there's always a first time for everything!

Yes, Bridge Run 2006. That will be a good goal to shoot for.

Referer spam

Lately I've been getting a lot of referer spam: hits to web pages on the server using spammy HTTP_REFERER URLs. Most of them for some reason are hitting non-existent scripts and pages, but there are a bunch of them hitting things like my photo galleries and such.

It's gotten to the point where the Referring URL stats collected by Awstats is pretty much useless because all the 'Links from External Pages' is nothing but a list of spammy URLs.

Not entirely sure what the point of it all is. But I'm not the only one.

I wonder if there's a way to tap into the MT Blacklist database to block them. Something I'll have to think on.

Tron 2.0

No, not the video game.

From SciFi Wire comes news that Disney is remaking TRON. Should be interesting to see what kind of story they come up with and the liberties the screenwriters take with the original TRON concept.

Random Med Student quote

If you look hard enough, you can always find a free lunch

The new Battlestar: Galactica

Like many other sci-fi geeks around the country I was tuned into SciFi's Battlestar: Galactica. The series started off with two episodes back to back. It's part drama, part sci-fi series. Watching the LowDown show that came just before the gave me the distinct impression that it was going to be more soap opera/drama than pure sci-fi. More like B5 than separate standalone episodes like the original BG series. The tone and style was set by the mini-series, and continues in the series. Cylon infiltration, sabotage, spies and traitors. And that was just the first two episodes.

I'm going to enjoy watching this new series. With it sandwiched between Stargate: SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis, Friday nights are going to be a veritable orgy of sci-fi.

One thing I do find odd is how religious the new Cylons seem to be. Somewhat unexpected for a machine intelligence. Maybe we'll discover the reason behind it in later episodes.

You can even read Ron Moore's Movable Type powered blog to find out his take on the episodes.

All the Far Side you'll ever need

I'm having a delightful time reading The Complete Far Side, an absolutely monstrous collection of all the Far Side cartoons. This thing is massive. 2 volumes each weighing in at 4.5 kg each. A lot of the cartoons are in full colour and all of them are hilarious. Comes in a solid hardcover binding with an equally solid slipcase. Even if you've got all the Far Side books, this one is well worth adding to the collection. The occasional editor's notes and reader letters sprinkled in add some additional insight and humour to the collection. It's so nicely put together you feel like you should be wearing gloves while reading it so you don't leave any smudges on it from your grubby paws.

Now all I need is The Complete Calvin and Hobbes and life will be good.

Counting bits

The Christmas tree and Snowman have been put away on the shelf to wait for the next holiday season. But thanks to my brother, I now have this sweet binary clock sitting on my computer.

Although I'd seen the action shots posted at ThinkGeek, I was still surprised at how small the clock was. For some reason I was thinking it was a little bit bigger. But it's a decently readable size at about 9.5x9 cm. Some rubber feet would have been nice to keep it from sliding around, but those are easy enough to find and put on yourself.

Setting the time is easy enough with the two buttons on the back for setting the hour and minute. Just press the buttons to increment the counter by one until you get the correct time. And if you're a real geek, you've already got at least one clock that syncs with a stratum 1 or 2 NTP server somewhere. Pressing both buttons at the same time will reset the seconds counter so you can get the clock synced to NIST time.

The LEDs are surprisingly bright and easy to read even in a brightly lit office. Instructions on the box and in the manual show you how to read the digits. Easily visible from almost any angle too (except from behind). Doesn't take too long before you're able to decipher the lights into numbers. All it takes is a little bit of practice. Keep the box around for a quick reference while you're learning.

It will be fun watching my colleagues stare at it trying to figure it out.

I think we found one

After a weekend of doing a lot of driving around checking out places with our realtor, we found a place that we decided to put an offer on. We saw a lot of places that we were interested in, but most of them already had contracts written on them already so they were out.

The one we decided to put an offer on isn't too far away from where we are now. Our realtor wasn't able to get in touch with anyone from the selling agency over the weekend so we won't find out until this morning if it's still on the market or not. It's a pretty big place at the end of a cul-de-sac. It'll take us pretty much to the edge of what we can afford, so it'll be tight for the next couple of years until our credit cards get paid down. But after that it should be smooth sailing barring any unforseen financial calamities.

Financing has been secured. Next step is to have the contract reviewd by a real-estate lawyer, then drop it off with our realtor and 'earnest money' check and hope someone hasn't already beaten us to the punch.

Update: Gave the signed contract to our realtor and went over to the selling agency with her to check out our various options for things like flooring and cabinetry. Haven't chosen anything yet, that will be Saturday. The selling agent didn't seem to think there would be an issue with the builder signing the contract, so I think we just bought a house!

ECMAScript/Javascript menus

Just an entry to remind me of an interesting ECMAScript (formerly Javascript) menu system.

Found at 456 Berea Street.

Peering through bars

Along with the condofication of the apartments, there's a lot of other stuff going on. A number balconies are being completely rebuilt, new landscaping, people driving around slow gawkingchecking out the place and installation of a gate. That's right, it's going to be a gated condominium community.

So now I have visions of us driving in late one night and suddenly finding the gate closed and locked and having no way of getting in. Whatever code we need to punch in to get in is tacked to our door (our usual way of getting messages from the apartment people) but of course we don't know that because we haven't been home yet.

That would probably suck.

Running the gauntlet

There's so much construction going on around the hospital that some days I feel like I should be walking around wearing a hard hat and safety vest or something.

There's construction on the ground work for the new hospital being built near the parkade I'm in, construction going on for new sewer lines up the block, construction for rerouting utility lines on the walk between the parkade and the hospital, construction for the new cancer center building next door, construction on the ground floor of the library, construction for a new parkade on the other side of the hospital. Construction here, construction there, construction everywhere! Some days it looks like there are more construction workers here than there are patients.

Everywhere you look there's a piece of heavy machinery lumbering towards you, or a crane dangling several tonnes of precast concrete slab over your head, or those blue sticky pads for picking dirt and dust off your shoes. Hammering, drilling, banging and thumping here and there. It just never ends around here.

Spilling the financial beans

Applying for a mortgage loan involves a lot of rummaging and running around, as I'm sure anyone who's been through the process knows very well.

We opted to do our mortgage through E-Loan. So far the people I've been speaking to have been very friendly, helpful and provide most everything that needs signing electronically. And there are forms up the wazoo. Of course the signing thing still needs to be done on the dead-tree version, which means faxing it back to them. We're in the processing and approval stage now, so there's been a lot of paperwork that needs to be printed and signed. Hopefully everything goes through smoothly.

The Choosing

Met with the selling agent today to go over our choices for the house innards. Chose stuff like wall colours, cabinets, flooring, tile and carpets. It all went reasonably well, although a few things we want will depend on the cost. If it comes in over our budget, then we'll have to eliminate some of the upgrades we asked for and go with the standard choices. We have things prioritized though, and nothing will be really hard to give up. Besides, we can always go back in a year or two and have things re-done the way we wanted.

After that it was a stop at the house to measure out a few areas. Drywall's been put up so finishing shouldn't be too much farther away.

A trip to Sears netted us a swanky new refrigerator and washer/dryer thanks to the wife's parents. All within budget (barely) too.

Next thing on the list to deal with are some forms that need to be filled out by the Payroll folks, setting up an appointment with the appraiser guy, going to the tile place and the lighting place and getting some insurance quotes.

Somewhere in all that I need to do taxes too...

House pictures

Posted some pictures of the house in various stages of construction. The drywall is up now so the house innards are starting to look more like house innards.A little bit of paint, some floors and a few lights and it'll be ready to move in!

Today we head over to the tile place and pick out some tile for the kitchen and bathrooms.

PHP security

One of the problems I've run into while writing up some of my little PHP web scripts is how to make them reasonably secure. Everybody talks about how code need to be made secure, but so far I've found it difficult to find actual examples or guides on just how to write secure code. Maybe it's just the non-programmer in me that has a hard time with this.

So I was somewhat pleased to hear about the formation of the PHP Security Consortium. Hopefully this will become a good resource for people like me (as well as more experienced coders).

Founded in January 2005, the PHP Security Consortium (PHPSC) is an international group of PHP experts dedicated to promoting secure programming practices within the PHP community. Members of the PHPSC seek to educate PHP developers about security through a variety of resources, including documentation, tools, and standards.