weather

Ohio for the holidays

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We’re up in Ohio  for Christmas … brrr!

Last night we checked into the Marriott at the Tampa Airport using their “Park Here, Fly There” package (a one-night stay with up to 7 days of “free” valet parking). This way we didn’t have to use the remote long-term parking lot and not get up as early to make our 8am flight to Cleveland. Once we checked into our room, we went down into the airport proper to grab a drink at Starbucks and people-watch. It was weird being in the airport without any luggage and not having to go anywhere (yet). As advertised, the room was very well insulated so we didn’t hear any of the airport traffic outside. I just wish they had insulated the door as effectively, however, because there were some noisy people out in the hallway pretty late that woke us up.

We had no travel issues to speak of this morning, which was a pleasant surprise. The security line was long, as expected, but we didn’t have any problems or delays. Our flight was smooth and perfectly on-time. Stepping off the jetway in Cleveland we were met by an unpleasant, but not unexpected, blast of cold, northern Ohio winter air. It was mostly just cold, windy, rainy, and overcast … just like I remember Cleveland winters. The rest of the day was spent running errands: picking up the boxes we had shipped up earlier, checking into the hotel, going grocery shopping for Christmas dinner, etc.

For dinner we met some old college friends and their kids at The Pub in Rocky River. The last time I had been down that part of Detroit Road, I think the old movie theater that The Pub is now located in was still a  movie theater! The food was great, though, (I had the Ham and Swiss Pub Pretzel) and the spirits were better (my favorite was the Monty Python Holy Grail Ale, of course!).

The next few days are going to be busy …

Preparations, rehearsal, the ceremony, and the party!

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Whew, what a couple of days! It’s late Saturday evening and my little brother is now a married man. Congratulations, kids! 🙂

Friday morning started with a family breakfast, just the siblings and our parents … something we haven’t done for a very long time (years). The restaurant we had breakfast at was the location for the rehearsal dinner (as planned) so after eating we set up the back room for later that night. Then it was time for some random errands before heading over to the hall where the reception would take place and doing some more prep/setup there. It looked great:

We had a little down time after that, so I helped my brother replace the hard drive in his laptop and also install a new dual-DVI graphics card and wireless card in his PC. We ended up running a bit short on time so before we knew it, it was time to clean up, get dressed, and head to the church for the wedding rehearsal. After the “practice run” we all went back to the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner and a little socializing.

Saturday morning dawned gray and rainy. 🙁 I had breakfast with my brother and the rest of the groomsmen at IHOP (mmmm, pancakes!) and then went looking for orange umbrellas for the wedding party in case the rain continued (couldn’t find any, not even a Cleveland Browns one!). Once again, the morning flew by and suddenly I was rushing to get into my tux and get over to the church on time. It was a beautiful and touching ceremony.

(That’s me, second from the right). By the time the wedding was over, the rain had stopped! It was still overcast, but it was enough to be able to get some outdoor pictures of the bridal party at a local park and on the beach of Lake Erie. Right as we were finishing up it started raining again, but it was time for us to get over to the hall for the party anyway.

The reception was a blast! Great food, great music, the great company of friends and family, and a photo booth (which was a really cool idea)! When the party was over, we reluctantly cleared out, headed back to the hotel to change (my rented shoes were killing my feet by the end of the night!), and then grabbed a few beers with the happy couple in the hotel bar (just in time to see Notre Dame win a thriller over Purdue).

The weekend went too fast … time to head back to Florida. At least we’ll get to see everyone again for breakfast tomorrow before we leave.

First named storm of 2009

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TS AnaIt’s been a slow start to the 2009 hurricane season … we’re halfway through August and just now have the first named storm, Ana.

Of course back in 2004, we had Charley in mid-August and then were hunkering down for Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in quick succession in September, so it can ramp up quickly! Last year, my daughter had a “snow day” instead of the first day of school.

But anyway, here’s hoping the season stays slow, calm, and uneventful.

Brrrrr!

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I woke up this morning and it was 38 degrees outside here in central Florida! It’s not even going to break 50 today. This is one of the coldest winters I remember since we moved down here in 2001.

Yeah, okay, this is nothing compared to what’s going on up north and in the midwest, but don’t you guys care about the upcoming crop of oranges and strawberries?

Luckily we’re going to be back up in the mid-70s for the weekend, which is good because the Florida State Fair starts today.

Super Bowl prep

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I work just down the street from Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and site of Super Bowl XLIII in just over a week.

As the big day approaches, it’s getting busier and busier in the general area. The logos and signage are all over the stadium and the surrounding fences, light posts, etc. There are concrete barriers everywhere, ready to direct the flow of automotive and pedestrian traffic. The newly constructed office building next to where I work has been turned into some sort of staging area for volunteers:

And an entire tent city has gone up in one of the parking lots, I presume to hold parties, dinners, and other related events:

It’s going to be a madhouse around here next week, I can just tell.

Good thing the game wasn’t this week … temps have dipped into the upper 30s here overnight the past few evenings and the days haven’t been much warmer. Steeler fans would have been wondering why they left Pennsylvania to come to Florida. 😉 Don’t worry, we’ll be back up in the 70s for this weekend and, hopefully, Super Sunday.

Galleon 2.5.4 is out

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John has released Galleon 2.5.4. Here’s what’s new, from the release notes:

  • Fix ToGo looping bug on null recording date (1811137)
  • Added user-selectable range for local radar image (100, 300, 600 miles) in Weather app
  • auto-subdirectory publishing for GoBack, avoids the need to do it yourself and also avoids bugs in TiVo folder navigation in older TiVo service releases (Series 3 and HD should be OK without this). (Probably needs some work to handle DOS shortcuts; should be OK on UNIX and OS X.)
  • XML parsing of recording meta-data for non-Galleon-created video files in GoBack areas. e.g. if you post-process .TiVo files into .mpg, just put the XML output containing the show details, in the same format as it comes from the TiVo, into a .xml file with the same prefix. If you use tivodecode to unwrap .TiVo files, the metadata are in the -02-0002.xml file generated with the -D (dump-metadata) option.
  • Enabled store-by-show handling in GoBack server (available on GoBack preferences pane).
  • Fix for linux Makefile (1815568) and init script for distro independence

The items in bold are things I’ve personally contributed to this release, like the user-selectable radar range.

Finally got to use my circular saw

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The day before Hurricane Charley hit back in 2004, I cut plywood sheets to protect all of our windows using my tiny jigsaw (which is all I had at the time), and it took forever.

But now that our new impact-resistant hurricane windows are in (partially paid for by the state of Florida thanks to the My Safe Florida Home project), we no longer need them! This:


has been replaced by this:

The boards have been just sitting in the shed (and garage) taking up space and providing a haven for hundreds of cockroaches, ants, and other creepy-crawlies (shudder). Over the weekend, we cleaned out the shed (in preparation for getting rid of it altogether) and moved all of the wood (after I fumigated to kill the insect hordes) into the garage.

After the 2004 hurricane season I purchased a 7″ circular saw, figuring I would need it at some point when it was time to replace the plywood, not wanting to have to use the jigsaw again. Luckily, I never had the need to use the new saw … until tonight when I started cutting up those old plywood sheets for the trash. Wow, it’s like cutting butter … and kinda fun! 🙂

My enhancement to Galleon’s weather app (officially, this time)

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Last month I added a small enhancement to Galleon’s weather app that allowed for a user-selectable range for the radar image (instead of using the default 600-mile one). I published my source code changes and the new jar file here on my blog.

Now earlier this month, jtkohl released Galleon 2.5.3 which contained a fix for the original radar image bug in that started back in July (one I had also attempted to fix on my own). Well, since I didn’t put my code changes into the SourceForge project, my range selection enhancement was obviously not included in the new release and my modified jar file didn’t work properly anymore. After pointing this out to John, he was nice enough to add me to Galleon’s developer list on SourceForge which gave me access to make changes to the code repository.

I hadn’t used CVS in a long while, so I took some time this evening to re-familiarize myself with it and how SourceForge uses it for repository control. Once I was comfortable with that, I checked out a copy of the code, re-applied my changes, and checked them back in. I didn’t rebuild the entire package, but now the next time a new version is built, my changes should be included.

In the meantime, you can download my weather.jar to replace the one that comes with 2.5.3 or check out my code changes directly in CVS:

  • Weather.java rev 1.27
  • WeatherConfiguration.java rev 1.4
  • WeatherData.java rev 1.25
  • WeatherOptionsPanel.java rev 1.7

Down(pour) and out in the Magic Kingdom

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We’re in Orlando this weekend for our annual Labor Day mini-vacation at Walt Disney World.

The day started out great: blue sky, white clouds, nice temperature. We got up early and headed over the Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) since it opened an hour earlier for resort guests. Once inside, we made a bee-line for the new Toy Story Mania attraction. It was only a 30-minute standby wait, so that was the first thing we did … and it was great! You sit in a four-person car (two on each side) and use a toy gun to shoot at targets in the Midway-themed ride. You rack up points as you go, and your score is tallied on a separate screen. I got the third-highest score of the day (177,000+ points) but since we were there first thing in the morning I’m sure that didn’t last long.

img_2352-sm-707691Eventually we took the ferry from Hollywood Studios over to Epcot, where we had lunch reservations at Tappan Edo in Japan. Mmmm … fantastic! Our chef, Akira (not the Akira), put on a good show and cooked some fantastic food.

Unfortunately, while we were inside at lunch, the rain moved in. Unbenownst to us, this was caused by the outer bands of Hurricane Gustav moving through Florida. Actually, by the time we left the restaurant, the rain had stopped and the day had turned overcast. We figured that would be the end of it. But no, the rain continued on and off during the rest of the day, meaning we spent most of it in our rain ponchos.

Disney is well known for the use of cutting-edge technology in their rides and attractions, and rarely do you see public breakdowns. Well, we ran into one on the newly revamped Spaceship Earth ride. The latest remodel has included touchscreens in each car. During the beginning of the ride, you can select your language, where you’re visiting from, etc. Your photo is also taken. Well, unfortunately the system in our car crashed shortly after we boarded, so I got to watch the system reboot … literally. The BIOS screen was first (with a customized Spaceship Earth logo), then strangely, the GRUB boot loader was used to boot Windows XP (Start menu and system tray on the bottom of the screen):

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I watched as the little wireless icon re-connected to the Spaceship Earth network and eventually the system started working again. Unfortunately, by then we were past the photo part of the ride. At the end, the system asks you questions about what you’d like to do in the future and then builds some sort of customized animation using your headshots in it. Since our system was rebooting and never took the photos, we didn’t get to experience our “customized future.” Oh well.

We finished the day at Magic Kingdom, riding Splash Mountain (we were already wet anyway) and Space Mountain, and visiting the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor (also highly recommended!).

Around 7:45 in the evening we decided to head back over to Hollywood Studios to see Fantasmic. After taking the monorail over to the Transportation Station, and then waiting for the bus, we were informed that the park had closed at 8pm (it was now 8:15pm) since the show was at 8:30 (we thought it was at 9). So we ended up just catching another bus from Hollywood Studios back to the hotel and calling it a night.

By the way, the title of this post is a play on a short story by Cory Doctorow.

“Snow day” in August

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Luckily Fay is going to track to the east of us today, but last night Pinellas county cancelled the first day of school to be on the safe side.

So my daughter has to wait one more day to start the second grade.

Right now it’s just cloudy and stormy looking outside. The Tampa Bay area isn’t even under a tropical storm watch anymore so we’re just expecting wind and rain, but nothing serious.

Now hopefully we’ll have calm weather for the next two weeks so we can get our new windows installed.