Author: cdwan

Town kills pigs for mating with dogs.

This is how it goes down, man:

NAIROBI, July 9 (Reuters) – A Kenyan mayor ordered more than 500 pigs to be shot dead because they were mating with stray dogs, the East African Standard reported on Friday.

The big success of the day was getting my cell phone to function as a modem. I’m using the USB data cable, plus some software from “Smith Micro” to be online while on the train. It’s pretty cushy. I won’t claim that I’m anything approaching the envy of my fellow commuters…but it’s good to have the option. On the other hand, it burns precious, precious wireless minutes. I suddenly use a remarkable number of these minutes. Until DSL turns on though, it’s going to be my night and weekend lifeline.

I spoke with a truck driver today: My stuff is on a truck, and heading my way. I’m supposed to put trash cans out to block parking space for a 50 foot truck on Monday morning. I give 70:30 odds that it gets delivered on Monday. Between now and then, more painting.

Updated pictures on the second page of the painting section. Now we have the purple and the blue visible.

http://chris.dwan.org/pics/RI

I just got a call from the movers! My stuff is in a truck on the way here! Monday morning! Woo Hoo!

Updated pictures on the second page of the painting section. Now we have the purple and the blue visible.

http://chris.dwan.org/pics/RI

I just got a call from the movers! My stuff is in a truck on the way here! Monday morning! Woo Hoo!

Originally published at chris.dwan.org. You can comment here or there.

Pictures from the trip, and the initial phases of the house rebuild.

http://chris.dwan.org/pics/RI/

Discovered this morning that the washing machine will sometimes vent large amounts of water onto the floor, which flows through into the basement. It made me sad.

There is a man snoring loudly in one of the comfy chairs in the cafe. He’s been here as long as I have (all day), sleeping most of it.

We have hot water.

Current estimates: Furniture and the Internet arrive on Monday.

Based on two days of observations: My savage commute

So, I want DSL. I want DSL really, really badly. I’ve spent a total of about 3 hours on hold with Verizon today, trying to establish whether or not I have an order. Tech support suggested (in what I’m now convinced is some sort of malevolent joke) that I cancel the order and resubmit. Customer service and sales actually have a loop in their menu system that lets you bounce back and forth until you tire of the game. Finally, I got a number for “customer advocacy.” This number went straight to “on hold” music, where I held (while mucking about and installing a cluster) for about an hour and a half. Suddenly, there was “Regina” (I assume that phone support folks, like dancers in Vegas, adopt stage names). Regina was the bomb. Regina told me that I will be online on the 12th. All praise Regina!

Doom on freakin’ Verizon. DOOM ON YOU, VERIZON!

Originally published at chris.dwan.org. You can comment here or there.

First day at the new job. For those who haven’t gotten the memo, I’ve joined the BioTeam. It’s a very small company based in Boston which started off two years ago providing consulting and professional services to life sciences researchers, and now has a software product (called iNquiry, the capitAlizAtion is sO nOt my fAult) which is resold by Apple on their workgroup clusters. By very small, I mean that my hiring in increased the company by 25%. I’m employee number one and team member number five.

Today was a pretty standard first day at a startup, from what I’ve read. Got the password for my email account, and laughed out loud that there were already 407 messages in it. Welcome to the support ticket system. Then, it turns out that there’s a trade journal for which we write a monthly column. It’s due on Friday. Guess whose turn it is to produce the 800 words on a topic of his choice. But wait, the master image for our product appears to be corrupt. We need a quality control system. Anyone written one of those before? Chris, what can you bang out before the fedex drop deadline?

In all seriousness, they hired me because they were successful enough and busy enough to need help. In this freakish economy, being wildly busy is a rare benefit, and I’ll take it any day over the alternative. I just need to adapt back to the 220 volts of industry from the 110 (or maybe lower) of academic life.

We already have a namespace collision: Five people, and I’m the second “Chris D.” Sadly for me, he has seniority.

The house still has no hot water, the furniture is still in Saint Paul. On the other hand, the bedroom is now a very impressive shade of purple. I think it’ll be very cool looking once we get the tape down and the drop cloths off the floor. I can tell that Jen is nervous that we’ve ruined our new house.

Originally published at chris.dwan.org. You can comment here or there.

Days improving. We’re on to the manual labor part. That, I can handle.

We have a house