Every time I visit the Mediterranean I wonder why-oh-why am I not living somewhere on its shores, preferably in a country with outstanding cuisine and an abundance of high-speed trains / lowcost airlines delivering you to its door. This trip I was barred from going to the obvious choice, Italy, on the basis of variety being the spice of life. Where else to go?
We were plunged into an existential vortex of doubt and despair, pondering godforsaken purpose-built resort complexes because they offered free childcare. Greece / Turkey seemed a bridge too far, especially after the transatlantic flight.Oscillating between France and Spain, the strength (or lack thereof) of the dollar got the best of us and we went for Spain. Beautiful beaches abound on the Costa Brava, where the pines roll of the hills into secluded bays. But the tapas got the best of us; there's only so much jamon one can take, even in 10 days. That aside, it was a good time.
So back to the asphalt jungle that is the US, presumably I would be longing for the cutesy Eurostreets when I got back. Did I heck...
For years I rejected the whole micro/nanobloggery that was facebook-twitter, but after viewing kt's addiction -- she has 500+ "friends" on it and a habit that runs to the minutes-rather-than-hours-between use. So recently I relented on facebook. My twitter account became activated, active then hyperactive during the esri conference in Palm Springs. I don't consider myself to have an addictive personality but before I knew it I was checking twitter on the phone before and after flight etc. It had gone too far. Somehow, not seven days on from the onset of twitaddiction, I watched this take on the phenomenon and abruptly stopped. It was all a bit trashbathartley. But I suspect this is but a pause for @ppenn...
Lots and lots and lots of bambini photos, including Keystone Kiddiehaus fun in Summit County and a great slobbering Dr Evil Shot in Denver's Children's Museum.
If this isn't one of the most hilarious, on-the-money depictions by none other than weirdmeister David Lynch then, um, you haven't been where I wasn't.
Boons
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Moo Cares?
A long time ago I used to get all riled up when people called Denver a no-good, ho-dunky cowtown. That fire no longer burns, although it does occasionally crack & smolder. It was not exactly a ringing endorsement of the place I'm calling home, but the NYT offered up this piece about America's love affair with the West, citing Denver as the place most Americans would like to live. Of course, the survey is tainted with the perturbing, although not unexpected, news that people here seem to prefer McDonalds over Starbys and that they prefer the suburbs to the city.
Anyway, back in London a few years back I was going to learn the ultimate ponce sport that is fencing. Learning the sport here has been a fraction of the cost it would have been there; but that may be correlated to the quality of the tuition. If only the language of fencing were Spanish, not French.
This season has not been a prolific snow season compared with yesteryear, but we did manage a weekend in Keystone before heading to SF for Alexis and Kim's wedding.
Cheapskate Offsite Backup
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Adrive helps the skinflint
The problem of offsite backups has vexed me for some time. If the house was burgled by some maniac disc-stealers, or simply burned to the ground I would have lost all my 40,000+ photos from the last 10 years. Not a necessarily good thing. I had tried various techniques, like stashing a hard drive at Tonks' place or work but this just turned out to be too laborious. Besides, what if the San Andreas fault migrated a thousand miles eastwards and swallowed Denver? Same problem -- history would lose the photographic gems from the last decade nonetheless.
So I tried Mozy -- 5$ / month seemed like a great deal. And so it was..._unless_ you're running windows 2003 server as an OS. Elephantdrive? Forgetit, bloatware written by some highschoolers who've rejected compsci for hackery. Carbonite? Asifimgivingmoney4ayear. So my options were limited, confined by my operating system on one side and my desire to spend <6$ /month on the other. Then Santa delivered, with 50GB of free remote space on Adrive.com . My music is 38Gb and my photies another 10Gb, so it won't last forever but it's a good start. Combined with open-source snazzy backup for creating incremental backups and it's a semi-workable ersatz solution. So there.
A few photies from a babysitter-sponsored night on the town (975 and Left on Lincoln/Sutra) with the girls.
Inner Communion
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Time Squeeze
No updates in a coupla months. Parenthood (or parenthood of infants) does not leave a lot of time for childish thoughts, although it does leave a lot of time for childish photos. To wit:
Home 
For years I rejected the whole micro/nanobloggery that was facebook-twitter, but after viewing kt's addiction -- she has 500+ "friends" on it and a habit that runs to the minutes-rather-than-hours-between use. So recently I relented on facebook. My twitter account became activated, active then hyperactive during the esri conference in Palm Springs. I don't consider myself to have an addictive personality but before I knew it I was checking twitter on the phone before and after flight etc. It had gone too far. Somehow, not seven days on from the onset of twitaddiction, I watched 
