Nom de Plume

I believe they term our neighborhood “transitional.” I found out what happened last night. From the Seattle P.I.:

Someone shot at an unmarked police vehicle late Thursday in south Seattle and officers were searching for a suspect, Seattle police reported.

The shooting was reported about 10:15 p.m. on Rainier Avenue South at South Fisher Place. No officers or the vehicle were hit, police Sgt. Deanna Nollette said.

Police had a K-9 unit at the scene. Officers were looking for a suspect with a pitbull puppy, she said.

Tonight Harry and I went for our tromple in Madison Park, and when we came back started noticing all the police cars with blazing lights. I’ve never seen so many in one place. The entire Safeway block is surrounded; there are at least 30 police cars along with a helicopter circling overhead. And of course, there’s NO NEWS OF WHAT’S GOING ON.

I tried to read this while Dave was here working on the kitchen. He’s a great guy, but I was feeling very scattered. Not only was I reduced to wandering Seattle like a homeless person, but I was without office, without any place uncluttered to sit (in truth, the house looked like a bomb had hit), and without any peace amid the hammering and drywall dust. All this is to say that I got midway through the book, put it down, and never picked it up again. In short, dear reader, this was an abandoned book. And I am perfectly willing to admit that there were external circumstances that contributed to its abandonment.

However.

The mess in the house matched the mess between the covers.

I am ambivalent about Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Marisha Pessl does a fabulous job of capturing a certain mood and feel. She has a keen eye, and is truly witty. At the same time, I found the novel incredibly disorganized. The story moves along in fits and starts–and when the plot is moving forward, it’s a great read. But there are pages and pages devoted to nothing more than setting the mood with arcane references and intellectual acrobatics. To this end, every paragraph has several long parenthetical asides; my feeling is that if one relies so heavily on parentheses that a quarter of the book is devoted to them, one should consider better organization. Ultimately, Special Topics lost me.

It’s too bad. There was so much good stuff there–but it could have used some ruthless chopping.

Apparently, Vonage is expecting its customer base to go the way of its stock price–that is to say way, way down. How else to explain the title of its mass e-mailing? Yep, introducing the “Vonage Alumni Newsletter.”

I have been reduced to roaming Seattle like a homeless person.

Steve burst into the bedroom at 7:30–far too early when one stayed up until two reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics–and shook me awake. “The electrician is coming in two hours. Can you clean up the basement?” Meanwhile, Dave was finishing framing the bank of windows we’re putting in over the freshly reporcelained old kitchen sink and the dog was whining that he hadn’t been fed in HOURS.

So I cleaned up the basement, ignored the fine dust on everything else in the house, got dressed, and started out the door. “Oh,” said Steve, “I forgot. Those carriage doors on Craig’s List? Can you go look at them?” (Yet another project–the garage. I remain hopeful that it will be turned into my office.) I went; they were a mess. Now, I’m sitting in All City Coffee in Georgetown. Right outside the window is a matched pair of pet goats on dog leashes.

Thanks for all the lovely comments.

And to commemorate, let me post pictures of what the kitchen looks like now.

I’m thinking about retiring the blog.

I’ve kept this thing going for over three years now. It’s gone through several iterations, chronicled the ephemera of my life, and I don’t regret what is, after all, an exercise in narcissism. But these days, it just feels pointless–and frankly, I’m not having fun with it anymore. More to the point, I have the sneaking suspicion that blogging is keeping me from working on the novel.

I don’t know; maybe this is just a phase. Maybe I’m just depressed.

I don’t have the energy to write reviews. So here we are again with one-word reviews. I might be able to muster up a couple more words.

Amazing.

The jury’s still out on this one. It’s wonderfully written, but frankly do I care? Not so much.

Decent historical kiddie lit.

Enchanting.

This series is truly a delight.

Totally, completely, absolutely FUN.

Completely underrated.

I was going to post a bunch of demo-in-progress kitchen pictures, but really … why bother? This is what it looks like now:

The plans are:

1) All new appliances, for one.
2) A really funky farmhouse sink that we got at Re-store. It’s being reporcelained as we blog and is going approximately where the existing sink is–though at 51 inches will take up a considerably larger amount of space.
3) You see that taller window at the end? That’s going away, and the fridge is going there. But wait, you say! Getting rid of windows? Actually, we’re adding a bank of four windows over the sink instead.
4) The stove is staying where it is, but will be flanked by cabinets.
5) Steve’s brother is coming out next week to do some of the above, and will also tear out and replace the ceiling.

There are lots more ideas floating around Chez Smunshi, but we’re not terribly organized about the process. Some neighbors are also redoing their kitchen and we goggled at their beautifully rendered plans. Ours consist of some chicken scratch on graph paper.

This was the kitchen before we moved in.

To tell the truth, we added a lot more color to the room–but it probably looks its best here. The tenants who lived here were apparently anal (to put it politely), and were a LOT cleaner than we are. We painted the walls and put down slate floor. Also added wainscot around the room.

And the problem is that you can see how crooked everything is–and if it’s not crooked, it’s just crap. when everything was white, it at least looked, well, clean. We’ve been living with this for two years now.

Until two weeks ago, at which point Mr. Demo decided it was “time to commit to redoing the kitchen.” I can’t complain about Steve having problems with commitment; he dragged out a chainsaw and sawed off half the counter.

Keep posted, and I’ll show you what the kitchen is looking like today.

I was sooooo looking forward to getting Brambleberry’s Karma type essential oil blend (based on the Lush perfume). I even devised a special recipe. But when it came in the mail — and I had stupidly thrown caution to the wind, buying the 4 oz size — it didn’t do a thing for me. It didn’t smell like my perfume bottle at all. It wasn’t a sprightly. But I was committed; the oils were all measured and just needed to be warmed up. So I forged ahead:

6 oz coil
4 oz oo
4 oz sunflower
6 oz palm oil
8 oz crisco
4 oz cocoa butter

123 g lye
8 oz fresh carrot juice (instead of water; adds a lovely orange color)

3 TB Karma type EO blend
2 TB grapefruit FO (trying to recapture some zing)

I made it yesterday morning and cut it in the evening. I think I hate it–but of course, there’s no telling until it’s actually used.

Forget accounting programs, printer drivers, and all that other junk that doesn’t work. what I really needed was a podcast receiver that would. After googling around, found Happy Fish; its programmer Will was looking for Windows Vista 64-bit testers. And it works! And it’s free! Besides which, Will is a really nice guy (and I think must also be a designer, considering the super slick way HF looks). Download here.

Basic batch + 2 TB bitter almond fragrance oil and 1 TB ginger EO + vanillin sprinkled on top.

So named for the combination of frankincense, myrrh, and patchouli.

7.5 oz coil
2.5 oz olive butter
1.5 oz shea
10.5 oz oo

3.75 oz lye
8 oz water

1 TB frankincense powder melted with oils.

2 TB patchouli
1 TB clary sage
1 tsp carrot seed oil

Topped with frankincense and myrrh tears.

I’ve been using QuickBooks Professional 2004 for the past couple of years, mainly because my mother gave me her copy after she decided that she hated it. I don’t particularly love it, but it’s been functional–which is why I haven’t switched despite having a copy of SBA 2006. I figured that once I switched to Vista, I’d change over to a product that can create invoices in Word rather than the cumbersome PDF.

And lo and behold! Microsoft made the lite version of SBA’s successor free! It was all I needed. Woohoo. So I installed it on the new machine and copied over the QB file to import data.

Didn’t work. Apparently, you need an instance of the program itself to transfer. The data files aren’t enough.

Okay. So I went ahead and installed Office Accounting Express on my old PC. Did all the file transfers, works like a charm. YAY. Transferred the company file over to the new machine.

Didn’t work.

Okay, so found message board with support guy saying that the best way is to create a backup, then reinstall the backup on the new machine. YAY. I’m almost there. I followed instructions. It was all working. And then, it …

Didn’t work.

Okay, so NOW the problem is that the SQL database doesn’t exist. Well, that’s what I’m assuming. What the message SAYS is that my SQL server, which was installed as part of the damn program, is not set to allow remote configurations. I suppose that’s all essentially the same thing: it doesn’t exist because it can’t be configured remotely.

Please, somebody, just hand me a gun. Vista 64-bit is going to be Vista, in 64 bits. Then, so am I.

Update: five minutes later.

Oh Jesus. Okay, so I decided to change permissions in SQL Server Express. Found a handy dandy little technet article, followed the instructions … and then found out that I needed to install SP2. Do I have the strength for this?

Update: the next day/

I’m glad I didn’t start installing stuff. I posted a message on the help forum and someone kindly told me to restore it to a different name. It works now.

I’m one of those people who is a lot less knowledgeable about computers than I like to think I am. In other words, I am A-OK dinking around with things I have no business dinking around with. For instance, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cleaned up my registry to the point of having to reinstall the OS. But hey, it’s all an adventure, right?

And so, when it came to buying a new laptop this time around, I decided to go with an ODMed machine. Don’t know what an ODM machine is? Here, read this. I should say that my last laptop was great–the HP Compaq NC6000. It was solid and had fantastic battery life. (And my HP XE2 from 1999 is still alive and kicking; even though it only runs Windows 98, Steve uses it regularly, though he will now upgrade to my new old laptop.)

After months of obsessive research, I finally decided to go with the Compal HGL30, which I bought from discountlaptops.com. The specs are:

14.1″ WXGA (1280 x 800) Glare TFT Glossy Display
Core 2 DUO 2.16 GHz Processor (Merom/ T7400 / 4 MB L2 Cache / 677 FSB)
Upgrade to Artic Silver 5 (AS5) Thermal Cooling CPU Compund Paste
nVidia GeForce GO 7600 (G73M) 256MB VRAM
2048 MB DDR2 (667 MHz) Corsair Memory (1 GB x 2)
80 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM) - SATA (Hitachi)
8X DVD / 24X CD-RW Combo Drive w/ Software
Internal 56 kbps Modem (V.92)
Internal 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
Internal IntelPRO 3945ABG Wireless Ethernet/Lan (802.11 a+b+g)
Smart Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell / 10.8V x 7200mAh)
3 in 1 card reader for SD/MS/MMC
S-Video, VGA, 3 USB 2.0 Ports

And then of course, I had to install Windows Vista Ultimate and Office Ultimate. So my little mini-review of the machine itself is intertwined with Vista experiences. And in no particular order, they are:

1) I like the laptop. The screen is amazing. I had this open side by side with my old NC6000 as I was transferring data, and my faithful old laptop just faded into obsolescence before my very eyes.

2) The CTRL and FN keys are reversed; this is messing me up, though I suppose I’ll get used to it.

3) Even with the Artic silver upgrade, the handwrests get pretty warm. But the fan works so I don’t think this is much of an issue in terms of function. But I don’t particularly like it.

4) I’m not sold on the keypad, which seems solid, but a little springy for my taste.

5) This shipped with a BIOS that was 6 versions old–and of course running Vista 64-bit puts a kink in things. The Compal web site has the most current versions–though it’s hard to figure out which it is–and THEN the zip files are password protected. HMMPH. I got mine from Bizcom instead.

6) Am I an idiot? (Don’t answer that.) I didn’t even realize this was 64-bit. This is a Vista issue, but can I tell you? There is NO SOFTWARE (non-MS) that works with this. I am trying to find a podcast receiver program, and NONE OF THEM WORKS!! This is a problem. Also, the IKEA kitchen planner software doesn’t work either, which is another issue, but deserves its own post as it concerns Mr. Demo wielding a sledgehammer stop a sawed off kitchen counter.

7) No microphone. My NC6000 had one built in, and I used it often enough for interviews. So I have to buy one. Not a big deal–they’re ten bucks–but it’s yet more stuff to lose/misplace/not be able to find it when I need. I would happily trade in the webcam for a microphone.

Media Office, which does use the webcam, seems supremely useless to me, as are the buttons on the top righthand corner dedicated to it. And there’s no external volume button. Again, not a big thing, just a minor inconvenience.

That’s about it for now, but I’ve only been running this for three days. I’m sure there will be aand lots more. All in all, though, I am pleased. (Knock on wood.) Especially considering that I’ve spec’ed out similar machines from HP and Dell, which would have cost a minimum of a grand more.

Update***
The speakers STINK.

The Easy Transfer cable for Vista? It’s a whopping 40 dollars. 40 DOLLARS.

I’m doing it the hard way.

Allow me my delusions, will ya? I managed to find the latest bios (not as easy as one would think, let me tell you, because it’s not on the compal web site) for my new laptop. Then, managed to create a bootable flash drive, and updated my bios. Whew. I need a drink. And I don’t even LIKE booze.

And if you go by how my grandmother pronounced Kiki, it actually rhymes.

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