living a cliche

Helping Ben move his stuff into the basement. His lease for the room he is renting in a house in NE Portland is up in a couple of weeks, and our months-long search for a house for him to buy (with room-mates) has not been successful (although we have had the pleasure of viewing some genuine dumps during the search).

We do have an offer in on one house, but the bank is dragging its feet making a decision and we ran out of time, so my 22 year-old son is moving back home, 'for a couple of months'.

We'll see how it goes...

painful, but not awful

I replaced my ailing 8525 with a Tilt (thanks, again, craigslist). I had dropped the 8525 and it had fallen victim to the common 'White Screen' flaw.

It involved reinstalling my favorite programs (i.e. hunting thru saved emails to find the one with the ridiculous registration code) and insuring that my POP3 email and calendar sync was working correctly.

Then, after all that, a Google search informed me that there was an updated ROM for this phone, so I did that upgrade, and then had to do all the above all over again.

End result: I think I once again have a reliable phone, this time with some additional cool features (like GPS and a much better camera) and (most important) a lot more available memory PLUS a 4 gig storage card (up from 2).

Now, I just need to have AT&T unlock it for me, and I am good-to-go for using it in Spain.

As to why I don't get an iPhone like everyone else in the world, it's simply because I support programming I've done for Windows Mobile devices, so that's what I need. Yes, I could probably get a cheap iPaq for testing (in fact, I had one and sold it - DOH!), but I just can't see myself giving Steve Jobs the satisfaction of buying into his dream of world conquest.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

i've decided to be happier

Despite all the recent studies predicting a looming global environmental catastrophe (see recent posts), I am going to concentrate today on thinking good thoughts about my tomatoes, peppers, and squashes.

ho hum

who cares?

listen to the experts

Hansen on the Waxman-Markey bill. It ain't pretty.

the power of Google's Search engine

This morning, I Googled the search string:

"Can't find project or library" and "trap" and "Access"

because I need to find out how to trap this error in Microsoft Access. Google pointed me to a page that did indeed relate to Microsoft Access compile errors, but look at the sponsored link at the top of the page:


I guess programmers might also need assistance with the other kinds of 'traps'.


UPDATE: 5 minutes later.

It just keeps getting better. As I drill down, I now see that "Mr Rooter Plumbing" has been joined by two other enterprises related to traps:

i'm bad, i know it

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Isn't it ironic?

Watching all the tv news coverage of fireworks shows across the nation, there were several shots of workers transporting many large boxes to staging areas.

Each box was clearly stamped 'Made in China'.