October 30th, 2006 by Nina
Yesterday we drove to Ellensburg for my nieces birthday party. She is in double digits now. She liked her Lush stuff which is good. We left at around 2:45PM to get back home. I knew it was snowing on the pass but we have all dealt with it so it’s no big thing. Well, not quite. It took us 5 hours to go over the pass. Yes, 5 hours.
Dear Washington Department of Transportation -
There are these things called “sanding trucks” and they help make the roads safer. I consider you find a few and try “sanding” the roads. Also, please don’t blame this on lack of tax dollars. You know you got caught with your pants down.
Thanks
Anyway, there are a few pictures of the party, the cat and the weather at http://ninaforsyth.org/gallery/2006/10thbirthday/. Tomorrow is Halloween, pay day and ESPP day! It is a happy day.
This weekend I messed with XGL and compiz. It is very cool however the switcher gives me a headache because of the way it changes window colors and such. I can’t seem to turn it off so I will have to wait until it is more customizable. As another note, I did an openssl speed on both boxes and the apple smoked the other laptop. I think it might be related to the SMP kernel on the linux laptop. I am going to mess with it later.
Networking tip of the day -
SYN to server, ACK from client, PSH ACK from client, retransmissions from client over and over == screwed up routing.
October 28th, 2006 by Nina
A large group of coworkers seems to love Ubuntu. I personally whine about not enough FreeBSD but that is beside the point. I decided to give Ubuntu a try tonight on the new laptop. I figured it’d be a mess because laptops, drivers and well blah.
After two hours, every device on the laptop is working including the Dell Wireless card. It was amazingly simple. Would do again, A++++.
I am glad I bought this laptop desk, the Apple is warm and the Dell is shocky. 
October 27th, 2006 by Nina
Work doesn’t seem to every slow down. I am returning to my over functioning self which usually means I end up crying in a managers office. I have a request from one of the managers to cry there first. I hope my over functioning slows down next week. I know Monday is starting with packet captures and Dup ACKs.
My nieces birthday is on the 31st so we are going to go to her birthday party on Sunday. I went to Lush and bought her a bunch of bubble bars which she loves. I just hope no one tells her how girly this is or she will never want Lush again.
I got my new laptop and it is a core 2 duo which is snazzy. It does run a bit cooler than a core duo however warm isn’t so bad when you are always cold. I am considering what OS to put on it. Linux would be best for the work aspect but I feel more comfortable with FreeBSD. I will decide tonight and start screwing it up tomorrow. My goal is to get rid of windows as much as possible (aside from parallel which is sometimes required….)
Getting the new laptop means I had three laptops on the condo for a few days… it also means I had to give one to my mom because she’s sneaky. She has the iBook.
The new tivo series 3 is very cool. If I had 2k, I’d buy two and the service for it. The comcast DVR works decently for the price point of 10/mo. The only complaints I have are - Lack of features like sharing between devices and better UI (of course it has MSFT on the name so what do you expect…) The bugs. The bugs…. and The bugs. When I get rich, there will be two tivos with my name on them. And also an M3.
Anyway, happy weekend.
October 23rd, 2006 by Nina
Since I work in the customer service industary, I am starting to expect to be treated a certain way and if I don’t then I also know how to escalated it. It is not very often that you get more out of the experience than you hoped or imagined. So onto the story…
My Dell laptop died three days out of warranty. Since I have worked at a few places which have warranties, I didn’t expect any help on it. I gave up on it. About two weeks after I had opened a case with Dell, I got an email from support asking if I was still having problems. I said yes but that it wasn’t worth it to me to pay to get it fixed. They replied and said they were planning on covering it anyway. I was a kind of shocked but got over it.
It took me about three weeks to finally ship it back but I did. A few days later I got an email from Dell saying that due to the number of times I have returned the laptop and the condition, they are going to replace it with a new one. I was shocked! It was one of the models I was looking at replace it with even. He said I would have it in about a week.
Now, if that isn’t great service, I am not sure what is.
In other news, I am going to Maui in December. Any suggestions of things to do or places to go, please let me know!
October 14th, 2006 by Nina
Less than a foot away from a lovely laptop and yet I am still posting via my new mda cell. I like it.
October 10th, 2006 by Nina
I have been having some nausea problems over the last two months. Last night it didn’t end until I puked up tuna. I don’t recommend puking tuna btw. Anyway, I went to the doctor today after I said two weeks ago I should go. The doctor thinks I either have an infection in my stomach or an ulcer. I had some blood tests and should have the results on Thursday. I am on some stomach pills to calm it down a bit. I hope it works.
During this, I left the toilet lid opened for ‘just in case’. Not even 5 minutes later, the cat falls in. Argh.
Everyone had a great time at my grandpa’s party. We have gotten a ton of cards and emails from family and friends. I totally want my funeral to be like his.
I told my family they could do whatever they want with me when I die… my sister made the sound of a toilet flushing. We are a very loving family.
October 7th, 2006 by Nina
07:49PM (*@nina) did we just have an earthquake
09:45PM (*@nina) Small earthquake rattles South Sound
I knew I felt something. 4.5 earthquake centered near Mt Rainier.
October 7th, 2006 by Nina
My grandpa’s party was today. We headed to Ellensburg at 8AM. We picked up flowers and balloons. After that, we went to the grave site to read a quick poem and release balloons with seeds in them. The party after is where we all shared stories and cookies. It was a good time and not depressing because he was such a joker. Everyone had happy stories.
I took a bunch of pictures which you can find at
http://ninaforsyth.org/gallery/2006/party.
Also, a bunch of grown adults with balloons is funny looking.