my so-called blog (redux)

So I’m currently trying to slack off a bit here. I spent the majority of the day getting a G4 tower set up (G4/667) and installed to replace my PowerBook. The PowerBook is a much faster machine, but I decided that I’d rather have desktop space than speed. Most of what I do is text editing anyway. Not exactly demanding. So, I did that and I’m still doing that currently, while doing odd and sundry things to the code I should be working on anyway. Firefox’s Bookmark Synchronize extension (it’s not really Firefox’s but it works in Firefox) and .Mac address book syncing rock.

Contracting seems to be picking up a bit.. might have to really rework an old project and get it going again and stuff. Good times. The resolution to travel more seems to be working out.. I had way more to write about but I’m tired enough to have forgotten it.

I forgot to bring my camera on sat so there were no good pictures of me taken. (that’s the official excuse.) otherwise a good time seemed to be had by all.

I’m full-on into coffee geekdom it seems - my parents got me a Briel Charmonix pump espresso machine for my birthday, which I have been having quite some fun with. nothing reinforces “starbucks sucks” more than making your own espresso. however, an espresso machine that’s actually halfway decent requires properly ground coffee, and after the starbucks ground me some that was coarser than what I use in the reg. coffee maker, I got a cheapshit mr. coffee grinder. grinds well enough. also bought a french press, so now I have three ways to make coffee. furthermore, I drink way too much coffee now. if that wasn’t bad enough, my favorite coffee roasters do a scheduled delivery service, which we signed up for at work. I’m thinking of doing it at home too - it’s actually more cost effective in the long run - and getting beans so I can have freshly ground coffee more often. and then maybe I’ll open a coffee shop to recoup some of this money I’m spending.

in less caffinated news, I’ve been trying to work out a way to deal with Apple Mail plugins and iCal/AddressBook synchronization. I figure if I can couple this with an interface to OWA (perhaps powered by Mail) I can write a set of plugins that will allow you to have less shitty Exchange support on Mac OS X. one can hope. that said, these projects tend to fall to PTS. at one point I was going to learn java and/or ruby.

I’m also thinking of redesigning the site too… maybe even building a portfolio of sorts.

there’s a couple of things I don’t like about FireFox 1.5 on Mac OS X, and one of the big ones is that the textareas don’t seem to work with the built-in spell checker. kind-of annoying.

in keeping with the resolution to try to travel more, I’m taking a weekend off and going to visit some friends in texas. actually going somewhere where (a) my family doesn’t live and (b) I’ve never been to. should be fun. plane is absolutely packed though, not excited about that.

my parents got me a nice espresso machine for my birthday. now I need to buy a good coffee grinder or some nice espresso grounds for it.. it’s a good sight better than the other one I had (which was a freebie with a toaster or something) and I don’t want to muck it up with drip grounds.

otherwise: had a good time w/ the midtown group on sat night. the monkey is quite the fun. also looking forward to the gathering on friday at celtic crossing - we’ll be drinking, officially because of my impending birthday.