Trying Out Posterous

I'm giving Posterous a try for blogging. For now, go to

http://bellhops.posterous.com/

to see new posts. If I end up digging it, I'll migrate my postings from here.

Excessive Fluffy Cuteness

Sophie's Babtism

We went to Sophie's baptism today. It was a nicely done baptismal service (not that I'm an expert or anything). Needless to say she was very much doted upon. She was dressed in a super fluffy dress and sleep through much of the hubbub.





-- Posted via the SnarfffPad

Busy Busy

I've been busy as a bee, lately. Between learning new work stuff, including taking an Intro to SQL class, and doing much socializing, I have barely had time to myself. Even been making it to quite a few movies, including "Prince of Persia" (meh) and "Iron Man 2" (fun). And lots of reading! I finished the last two Stieg Larrson books, "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest", "The Guernsey Literary & Potatoe Peel Society", and the latest from Elizabeth George, "This Body of Death". All of them were good reads. I'm now reading my friend, Deb's, most recent romance novel, "Tempting a Proper Lady" (sheesh, it's making me blush!) and after that I plan to give "The Passage", by Justin Cronin, a shot. Add to that a bunch of comics I've downloaded via ComiXology on to my lovely iPad, and, well, yes, lots of reading material.

Oh, and I purchased a beautiful work of art while visiting some artists as part of Open Studios in the Santa Rosa area this past weekend! I'm so excited. I'll post a picture once I have it -- have to go back up to pick it up. The artist is Rik Olson. Got something for my slacker bro, too.

Bunch of Random Catch-up Pics

Just a bunch of pictures to share...

Some pictures from a recent visit to the Peace Garden in Santa Rosa while my Uncle Jim was in town...

Lucy, Uncle Jim and Tamara



Random pics of the park








A bookmark we came across when we stopped at the Sebastopol Farmer's Market



Pictures from along Sweetwater Springs Road in Sonoma County







And love...

Thuy and Sophie gazing into each others eyes... *sigh*



And friends...

A jet-lagged German, soon after telling everyone at the BBQ that he won't pass out like he did at the poker game the night before...



Bill sharing his love at the BBQ



Eee chomping down on the last of my Contessa ganache cupcakes



And finally...

Because, well, just because kittens rule...

The Daily Kitten

Heya!

Tasty!

Do you hear any snoring?

I didn't put her there!

Strrrreeeeeetttttttttccccccccchhhhhhhhhh.........

Ack!

Um, I am at a loss for words...

Want One!

My newest niece, Sophie!

OMG

This Just In!

Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome, Sophie!

One of my oldest and best friends and his wife celebrate the birth of their first child today: Sophie. 6 lbs, 12 ozs. Yay! I'm an auntie again!!! Wish I had a pic to share, but I know she is just beautiful!

The Goats are Back!

We had a nice Earth Day event on campus last Thursday. While all the folks at their tables promoting sustainability, recycling, power saving, etc. was cool, it was the baby goats that made it all worth while.

Zipper unable to Zip-Up

Zipper was disappointed Monday evening when she attempted to stow away in John's carry-on bag. Not happy to be parted from John for any length of time, Zipper decided she would hide in his bag, revealing herself once he arrived on the east coast. Sadly, when she tried to zip up the bag she realized her efforts were being foiled due to the lack of opposing thumbs. She's hoping John won't notice when he shoves the rest of his stuff in the bag.

Oh, Come On!

This much cuteness should be illegal!

Comcast Addressing Mental Health Issue

Just an update to my faithful readers who are waiting with baited breath on an update to my recent Comcast excitement.

First, let me just note that since Wednesday, my connection has dropped more each day with such consistency that I all I can say is I'm actually glad I blogged about the issue and Comcast responded so quickly. I say this because after Wednesday night, if I had been left to calling on my own, I know my angst would have been at a high level. Which just goes to show, you should NOT wait until a problem is so bad that you are so completely frustrated you just want to take the perceived source of the problem -- in this case my moden -- and throw it out the window, before you call for help, regardless of the vendor. And let's just also note how many times I've said that to my own customers when I was managing the Help Desk and how even now, when I hear someone at work complaining about a tech problem that's frustrating them I ask, "Have you reported this to the Help Desk?" and they say, "Uh, no." So here I am, typical human, failing to practice what I preach. Of course, this doesn't help much if the vendor is totally lame and has a history of giving you the run around (which I will confess has NOT been my general experience with Comcast, even if they are an evil corporate giant, which I just so happen to own shares in, but only by accident).

But I digress, so back to the story...

As I noted in an short update to my original posting, Comcast, via Sandy from their Executive Customer Service Center (or something like that), made arrangements for a technician to come out and check my network (or, as CO likes to say, my intrawebs). My time slot was for today, between 9:00 and 11:00. The technician, a very nice young woman (I love that, girl tech power!) showed up sometime around 10:00, temporarily saving me from my compulsive zombie killing on the SnarfffPad (I had planned to play some WoW but shock, my connection had dropped!). I left her to her own devices, keeping out of the way in the kitchen and being productive in going through the gynormous pile of mail I had been accumulating.

She goes about her technical machinations and soon tells me that it looks like the problem is outside (whew, I was really dreading the "well, I can't find anything wrong with the line so it must be your ----." (where ---- is my modem, or my router, or just me in general). She then goes outside and does some more technical stuff and comes back to let me know she's got it working for now but that she's going to have some other tech come out to check the line out on the street. This might cause an interruption, but once that's resolved I should see no more dropped connections. Then, just in case there are issues, she provides me with her supervisor's contact information should the problem start to manifest itself again.

We shall see what happens over the next few weeks.

As to Comcast's blog-stalking behavior, it is paying off so far. The original comment to the post, from Mark, was very nice, even if he did miss my not-so-subtle reference to the problem with my phone number not being associated with my account. He and another colleague responded to my e-mail very quickly. Sandy from the Executive Customer Service whatever office was very polite and friendly and responsive (I expect she will be checking in with me on Monday). The tech today was more of the same. So, for my own personal experience, at this point I'm content, with no immediate plans to move to DSL -- unless my network goes down again :-) And you know if that happens, you'll be reading about it!

Until next time, Comcast...

And just speaking of zombies...

Wha'?

I'll never understand cats and their crazy box obsession.

Comcast Causes Mental Health Issues

Okay, so maybe it was my fault that I decided to use the Comcast online help instead of calling. But I figured, how hard will be it be to get my Comcast uername so I can log into my freaking account to see if there is any freaking way to update my new cable modem MAC address online through, oh shock me silly, their customer account interface? I swear, I really should have kept the transcript of the discussion with the person who was helping me. First, they need to lose some of those lame auto answers. Ugh. Add to my angst that none of my recent phone numbers seem to be on Comcast's record of me. Finally, after much back and forth and delays and my revealing my under-things -- ok, I really just mean my cable modem's MAC address -- she finally reset my password and revealed my top secret username. Great. So then I think, well, I've got the person right here, let me ask her how I can register my new modem's MAC. She tells me -- which I confirm a second time, as I find it hard to believe -- that I have to go down to the Comcast office in person. I also need to return my existing modem (which I own) so I don't continue to be charged for using their modem (which I am not charged for). I said thank you and disconnected.

I then did what I should have done in the first place. I called them, navigated through the annoying phone tree to tech support, and got a VERY NICE GUY on the other end who hooked me up in just a few short minutes. Yes, lesson has been learned.

Now the only outstanding issue is whether this new cable modem -- a Linksys CM100 -- will provide me with a more stable and reliable connection then my old modem (a surfsomething motorola, which has been loyal until the past x-months or so). I would like to point out that as I was doing my taxes via TurboTax (yes, I waited until the last minute, shut-up) my connection dropped 3 -- count it, 1-2-3 freaking times! Ya'll know how cranky I can get. Well, imagine me cranky and then magnify that by a factor of 20 and you might have a sense of how irritating my night has been. I take full responsibility for my crankiness.

But the VERY NICE GUY who hooked me up made it all better. In fact, I will go to bed imagining him whispering sweet techno-nothings in my ear. I anticipate sweet dreams tonight.

UPDATE: Thursday a.m. - woke up to, surprise, a dropped connection. Had to do the usual unplug, wait 60-seconds, replug. Maybe I should start considering moving to DSL.

UPDATE: Thursday p.m. - as you'll note from the comments below, Comcast has discovered my humble little blog. I guess my blog title gave them some pause for concern. They are being very helpful so far and have scheduled a tech visit to see if they can get to the root of my intermittent dropped connections. I will, of course, update Bellhops with the breaking story of their efforts. And for those of you who may be thinking my blog title overly dramatic, it wasn't when I wrote it! As if filing your taxes at the last minute isn't stressful enough.

And a shout out to E for hitting the 6-month mark - if you don't know what I mean I won't be telling ya so don't ask. Here he is back in the day (2006).

Not Really an Early Adopter

As I've been getting a lot of slack for getting an iPad right after its release and how I'm such an early adopter of technology I'd like to clarify a few things...

My 1st iPod: gift from my Slacker Bro
My Wii: gift from my Slacker Bro
My 1st iPhone: gift from my Slacker Bro (and the lovely SP)
My DVD player: gift from my Slacker Bro
My Roku box: gift from my Slacker Bro
My flat screen TV: hand-me-down purchase from my Slacker Bro
My Kindle: gift from my Slacker Bro

Are you sensing a pattern here? While I enjoy embracing new technology and do get pleasure from the occasional tech toy, the real tech geek, the real early adopter, is my Slacker Bro. I'm just super lucky he loves me enough to hook me up with all this techno goodness. Oh, and though I may have broken down and gotten an iPad just 2 days after it's release, I don't see it as some revolutionary device, but rather an extension of an already proven user interface made popular with the iPhone and iPod Touch...

As to other news, the keynote speaker at SunGard Summit 2010 was Chris Gardner, the man behind The Pursuit of Happyness. He was a great speaker; engaging, motivating, inspiring. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to hear him present.

And just because...

-- Posted via the SnarfffPad

Friday Night: Me & the SnarfffPad

So, here it is, Friday night and I'm chilling out at home watching a Clint Eastwood flick and catching up on some blog postings via my new RSS Reader (FeeddlerRSS) that I just downloaded from the App Store. Well, downloaded about 2 hours ago and now that I'm all caught up with my feeds, capping it off with a little of the CO.



I would have preferred being at Taraval Osaku-Ya with MamaJ snarffing some salmon rolls and guzzling some chilled sake, but a late afternoon migraine interfered with those plans. The SnarfffPad has been comforting me.

As have the kittens in all their cuddly goodness. Speaking of kittens, it seems Katja is happy to use the new giant scratching post as a lounging so ace, but not for actual scratching. So typical.



SunGard Summit starts this weekend so I shall be spending several days immersing myself in workflow sessions in the hope of learning something useful. I actually enjoy Summit. My creative work juices always get flowing. If only we had the time, money and resources to implement all the things we'd like to!

Continuing my assessment of the BlogPress app I'm using... Auto save isn't impressing me. I accidentally tapped on the post listing on the left of the screen and not only was I not prompted to save before leaving my draft but the draft didn't save automatically - at least not recently. My post was already four paragraphs and only the first one had been saved, and that not even the complete paragraph. Haven't figured out how to ad a link without hard coding the html and I'm still cleaning the post up in the actual Blogger interface after I post via BlogPress. Not ideal, but using the app is still better then trying to do it all in the Blogger web interface.

-- Posted via the SnarfffPad

1300 Deliciousnesses

Went to 1300 Fillmore (not an iPad friendly website) for drinks after work with my friend and co-worker tonight. Yum. Wine, hush puppies, duck rillette, friend chicken... Sigh.

And I think I made an iPad convert. She's not a tech person and ended up being very impressed with the simplicity of the interface. She's a good candidate for this device because she travels a lot and is looking for a light, easy tool she can use on the road.

And a pic for your viewing pleasure... A pup on the lookout. Lucy and I came across this cutie when we stopped in Occidental for brunch one weekend.



-- Posted via the SnarfffPad
(cleaned up post posting)

Look How Pretty!

Okay, I'm trying out BlogPress in the full on create and post via BlogPress mode. I did notice last a night that I couldn't quite figure out how to edit a post after I posted it so I ended up going back into the Blogger web interface to do that. But the key thing right now are pictures...

Oh, look, it's my pretty little iPad at work. Please disregard my messy desk.




Oh, look, it's a jay-walking mountain goat!




Oh my goodness, kitty paws! Shocking!





Update: So, there are some spacing issues I can't seem to resolve in BlogPress. I'll either have to live with them or edit some other way. Also, when I look at the HTML it isn't as clean as I would like, but I suppose these are small prices to pay. Clearly pictures loaded fine. Even typing on the idPad keyboard wasn't too terrible, though of course it cannot compare to the standard keyboards. I'll continue to make use if BlogPress and see how it goes as I user if more.

My iPad Cans and Cannots

So, now that I've been using the iPad for all of, oh, one day, below are some of my observations. To naysayers and Apple-haters, I say, get over yourselves. Buying a new gadget comes down to like, need and want... If the iPad doesn't float your boat, doesn't meet your need, or you don't want it, well, don't get one -- hello! Sheesh!

Cans:

• Watch movies, both those I have stored locally or streaming through Netflix. Quality is great (as long as the video itself is good) and streaming is fine as long as the connection is a good one. I actually watch movies on my iPhone and iPod quite a bit, so this is really nice for me - no need to hold the thing right up to my face. I know I'll be happy when I'm on that 11 hour flight to Holland in the fall.
  
• Update my blog, with a little workaround (see below for more on this). I can't promise I'll blog MORE because I have the iPad, or that my blogs will be more interesting.
  
• Read all my Kindle books, mostly (see below for more).
  
• Play kick-ass high def Plants vs Zombies and Scrabble.
  
• The usual calendar and email stuff - the interfaces of both are really visually appealing and functional on the iPad.
  
• Web browsing: way way way better on the iPad then on the iPhone -- bigger and faster and generally cooler, mostly (see below).
  
• Type: I've seen a lot of critiques about the digital keyboard, but it's really just fine for what it is. I'm a touch typist -- I can type over 100 words a minute -- but I never expected that sort of capability on the iPad. If I want to write a novel, I'll do it on my computer (I sure as heck wouldn't buy an iPad so I could write a novel on it -- hello, function!).

Cannots (either I really can't do it or I just haven't figured it out yet):

• Upload pictures for my blog via the Blogger/Picasso web interfaces -- I have to use a workaround of emailing the pic to my blogger account, then copying the url from the automatically created blog and then deleting the automatically created blog and going to the blog I'm actually writing and pasting the link there. An annoying work around, but tolerable for now as I'm hoping I'll either find a solution or, if not, Google will provide one. Basically, if I'm in my blogging edit window and I click on the button to insert an image the button used to navigate to the image is not usable. I could still update the blog the same way I did on my iPhone, which is just doing it through email, but I like being able to preview and do other things that are easy to do in the blogging web interface. Or I could use a 3rd party app like BlogPress.
  
• Read my Kindle books outside in the sunlight. I knew this wold be the case -- afterall, it's the case with my iPhone and with my MacBook Air. But still... maybe I can try some sort of protective cover to help minimize the glare? We'll see. For now, the Kindle stays.
  
• Okay, I know Apple is thumbs down on the whole Flash deal, but still, it's so widely utilized on the web not being able to use it when surfing on the iPad is a bit annoying. Perhaps this will be the push web developers need to establish alternatives.

Still to explore:

• Hmmm, how will I do my off-line travel journaling? Not using the built in notepad - that app still irritates me. I'll have to look around for options.
  
• GoogleDocs? Still not sure of the solutions for creating and editing Google documents since I've read that you can't create GoogleDocs via the web interface. I've heard of some Memeo app to view them off-line, but I'm more interested in creating and editing them online and off. A good app would be a GoogleDocs app that lets you create and edit on your iPad and synch to your GoogleDocs account when ready. While I don't plan to write a novel on my iPad, I do like to journal, especially when I'm traveling, which points me back to the first bullet in this section.

Confessions:

• Yeah, okay, the fingerprints looks way worse on my iPad then on my iPhone. Guess I'll just have to carry a little iPad cloth in my purse.
  
• Not sure if and when I'll buy a book through Apple's bookstore. I'd just as soon as keep using the Kindle app or my actual Kindle device. The exception might be books that have maps. I love stories that use maps and frankly the Kindle versions of these have crappy suck-ass maps that you can barely read (example, George R. R. Martin's series "A Song of Ice and Fire" - awesome maps, completely unreadable on my Kindle device or via the Kindle app on my Mac). If the iPad/Apple versions of these books have good maps, that could be a motivator for me.

Worth the ridiculous dollars? The Snarffable Jury is still out.

Are you asking yourself, "Hey, Snarfffable, did you write this freakin' monograph on your iPad?" Um, no, not this time... but only cause I was in front of my computer when I decided to start jotting down ideas on what to write. But, I did edit it on my iPad and post it via the iPad with the app my Slacker Bro found for me called BlogPress.

iPad: I'm Not Proud

Ok, it's true I told myself I would wait until the summer before I would consider getting an iPad. And yes, it's true that I now have one and it's only day 3 since the iPad dropped. And yes, it's true that I'm not proud. But I am pretty darn giggly as I sit here blogging about my new freaking iPad - from my iPad! I'll have to wait a bit before I can provide any real feedback on the little thing, but so far I'm digging it. Got a bunch of pics loaded, movies, updated apps, email and calendars set up.

Here's my home view with a background from my London trip photo collection:

The iPad may not be the be-all-end-all, but I think it has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to new apps designed specifically for the device. More later!

ZOMBIES!!!!!

I'm on a bit of a blogging kick right now. Not sure why, but enjoy it while it lasts.

A few months ago my Slacker Bro hooked me up with a new game for my iPhone. He wanted me to have it so much that he sent me an iTunes gift certificate for the very purpose of me getting this app. By now I suppose you must have guessed that the game somehow involves zombies. Clever you are! The game is called Plants vs Zombies and I have MASTERED IT! When the zombie revolution comes, I'll be ready with my seed pods! Just hang with me and you'll be good!

Just some pics to wet your zombie-killing appetite...

The brightly colored initial load page. From the moment I saw this page, I knew this game would suck me in deep. The bucolic plants, the dastardly zombies! Something must be done!



Zombie-killing plants in action. Notice the nice zombie head -- it is vital that the zombie head be separated from the body to ensure full destruction of said zombie.



My happy victory over a horrible mechanical zombie-construct intended to place all manner of zombies on my rooftop with the intention of eating my BRAIN! But my cleverly planted foliage have once again protected me and my beautiful brain.

A Rare Commercial Gem

It's rare I see a commercial that not only makes me laugh but also makes perfect sense. In this Snicker's commercial I see myself and many of my friends (you know who you are) who don't handle hunger well. Enjoy!

Don't View at Work!

Shocking belleh-exposure by the ever adorable Khoma. Per The Slacker,
Khoma was, like, "This is how I posed for the PlayGirl magazine shot.
In the buff and altogetha."

Friends and Puppehs!

What is it with my friends and their darn adorable puppehs?



I actually got to see Cooper today. A very well behaved pup, indeed.

Sasha's Missing Picture

Ooops, I forgot to upload this vital picture!

Puppy Love

This is Sasha. She is a sweet pup who loves using her soft little puppy tongue on any bit of your face she can reach. Much to my amazement Sasha and the felines managed to tolerate each other.

Update: Ooops, forgot to include her pic -- but it's there now (http://bellhops.blogspot.com/2010/03/sashas-missing-picture.html)

Toes a la Edwin

Oh la la!!!