Tratttoria

August 27, 2011 FUF Planting

(For more info on Friends of the Urban Forest: http://fuf.net)

Thailand 2010

Honestly, I didn't really have the time or inclination to blog during the trip.  But there were two direct impediments to me doing so.  The first was that my primary method of taking pictures was still my camera. I did use the Nexus One a significant amount, including one whole day in Ayutthaya when I left my camera at the guest house.

The second was figure out how to set up my phone with local service.  Naturally, I only fully figured it out on the second to last day.  Thailand, unlike most countries, has both GSM and CDMA networks.  The GMS Nexus One worked with Thailand's One-2-Call (AIS) service.  I foolishly didn't attempt to set up service in the airport in Bangkok, and instead went to a mall in Chiang Mai, but after some language issues and a lot of walking back and forth with no clear choice out of about 40 cell phone and service vendors I was passed along to a girl who must have spent about 45 minutes trying to configure my phone for 3G service to no avail.  Finally I gave up, and even though I had bought a 3G capable SIM card, just asked them to put some calling minutes on it.

The next day, of all places on the top of Doi Suthep, 3G service suddenly kicked in.  I was pleasantly surprised, and started using it to send emails and snapshots with the camera.  Later that day I took a long bus ride to Chiang Rai, where I was to meet up with my friend Tevra after she crossed the border from Laos.  Close to the end of the ride my phone blipped and I looked down to see a message from my provider saying that my minutes had been used up.  The card was allowing me 3G service, but somehow spending my talking minutes to do it, and at a very rapid rate.  Thus I blew the primary reason I'd brought the phone (for coordination with fellow travelers), at least for the first week.  Afterward I got more minutes, shut off as many "auto-syncing" apps as possible (there's what looks like a master switch for syncing, but I'm not sure it gets everything) and put it into airplane mode when I though I could.  It turns out that while you can turn off 3G service (to conserve power), you can't turn off Edge, and so even with 3G turned off it would just default to Edge whenever a process thought it should be online.

This continued until my last day in Chiang Mai, when I went to another mall and tried to get a 3G service again.  This time I was told, rightly or wrongly, that 3G only really worked in Chiang Mai (surely it must work in Bangkok as well), and that an Edge plan was a better, more economical bet.  Now here's the thing, there are three types of services through One-2-Call: voice (by the minute), 3G  where you pay be the Gigabyte (I think the standard options were .5GB, 1GB and 1.5GB), and Edge, where you pay by the hour.  I think 50, 100 and maybe 200 where options.

The next tricky part comes with paying, and that's something I only finally figured out at the very end.  Fully equipped cell phone/provider stores are somewhat rare outside of malls, and the technical nature negotiating out a cell phone contract with limited English and zero Thai make all of this quite a chore.  In contrast, buying minutes is trivial: you walk into 7-Eleven (never more than half a block away) and tell them your service, and buy a card with a code for adding minutes.

So I tried to buy Edge service at a 7-Eleven, and the girl there referred me to a phone number.  Using the phone number I was able to speak with an English-speaking operator who sorted out what I wanted (50 hours of Edge to cover my last two days in Bangkok, arguably the most important period for me to have a phone) and then she told me what the charge was.  At this point you then buy regular service cards at 7-Eleven until you have enough to cover the cost of the service you've ordered.  When you enter in the codes, the service provider knows to apply the money to the service instead of just to minutes.

Anyway, the next time I'm in Thailand I'll know exactly what to do.

T-minus 30

Standing by the trash can at a "Marina Bar" in LAX, charging my phone, looking very cool, waiting to start a very, very long flight.

My plan is to actually blog as I go, but I've also got some Moleskins and 20GB of compact flash cards, so my traditional trip logging may win out.  Especially if I don't improve at typing on this thing.

Loud Australian at the bar.  All the world's the same really.

Location : Los Angeles, CA 90045,

A New Tool

I'm giving Blogaway a shot as a way to update from my Nexus One.  With luck this will really make going laptopless in Thailand painless.
Still, not seeing a way to add images or links...
Ah!  I get it - you use the menu button.
  
Location : 412 Brush St, Oakland, CA 94607,

Chris and Steve: Couple plant trees for exercise, environment. Charlie Starbuck:

As a volunteer, Charlie Starbuck has helped to plant trees by the thousands on the streets of San Francisco, a city long on charm but short on leafy green trees.

One man's volunteer effort to plant trees in San Francisco

Been a long time.

What I've probably always needed, more than a blog, was a dirt simple way to generate sites. My father's site (The Robber Flies of Crowley's Ridge) is complex enough in its requirements that I'm happy to custom code for it, but something like my abortive travelogues or the new San Francisco Shorin Ryu Shorinkan site (my karate dojo) really need something else, and while Google Pages was too simple, Google Sites fits the bill just about right. Now I'm unhappy with the limitations of Blogger!

New Website

I've just finished my father's website: The Robber Flies of Crowley's Ridge Arkansas, a scientific survey of the robber fly (Order: Diptera, Family: Asilidae) species in the ridge rising out of the Northeast Arkansas delta. robber flies are a largely predatory group of flies, and often operate by elaborately mimicking their preferred prey, usually bees and wasps.

It's written as a field guide to help others who want to identify robber flies in the field, thoroughly illustrated with excellent photographs. There's also a highly informative page covering distribution and flight period (the weeks out of the year that the particular species is active in the air, and likely to be seen): http://normanlavers.net/flight_period.php. I'm rather proud of the formatting for that page.

Having completed this, I'm thinking of revisiting my abortive attempt at documenting my Paris trip of '06 as a proper website instead of trying to shoe-horn it into a Blog format.

New Toy

After the price cut following the MacBook Air announcement at MacWorld + buying refurbished I was able to find a 2.2GHz Macbook Pro that was only about $2-300 more than a comparable PC. That was pretty much worth it for me. Ninety percent of the PC laptops these days are going to stick you with some mutation of Vista, and having Unix without having to worry about hardware compatibilities was a big plus. Also, it will facilitate any tech support I do for my parents.

It'll leave me running a 3 OS network (4 if I ever boot that Indigo2 again), which has pros and cons.

Obviously there wasn't much setup to do, but I did spend most of the day loading free software onto it (after downloading a significant number of updates). To wit:

• Firefox, though I'm trying out Safari
• NeoOffice, OpenOffice for the Mac, not using X11
• The GIMP, alas still wedded to X11
• Eclipse, for coding (hey, Mac OS 10.5 has Subversion!)
  • EasyEclipse for PHP, I haven't tried either of these out yet
  • EasyEclipse for PHP
• MacPorts, I didn't use this for the GIMP, but did for ImageMagick
• XCode, note: pretty much nothing will download properly from MacPorts unless you have XCode installed
• Acrobat Reader, Apple's Preview never seems to be quite sufficient

Specifically for work:

• Cisco VPN Client
• Microsoft Remote Desktop 2.0 Beta

All of this really so that I can be online even when I'm doing laundry (the built-in AirPort card has much better reception than the PCI card I had for the G4 Powerbook, even after I'd added the antenna).

Carnaval SF 2007

Breaking my disappointment streak was Carnaval. San Francisco's one non-tedious parade, Carnaval is generally held at the end of May (26th this year) on the theory that it will avoid the rain and cold of March. Typically, and this year was no exception, this turns out to be a little late, and the brief warm of late spring has been replaced by chill, gray San Francisco summer. I started out at 17th and Mission (where the route turns back towards South Van Ness), but later wandered down past 18th for a better view. One positive of parades in the Mission is that even when the crowd is already four or five people deep, it's never too hard to find a place with a clear view. Alas that probably won't be true in another generation...

The participating groups range from all over Latin America from Aztec-themed Mexican dancers to more standard Brazilian Samba and Capoeira schools. The costumes are uniformly dramatic, and the performers uniformly energetic, and to whatever extent tradition trumps creativity, at least it's a good show. Even the obligatory pirate-themed float was handled with the sort of panache sadly missing from Bay to Breakers.

I missed getting video of some of the better acrobatics, unfortunately, but it's just as well, as I came close to maxing out my card as it was. Always carry extras!

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A bookstore featuring:

Occult Military/ Aviation Sports/ Americana Showbiz Gay/ Lesbian Hunting

Bay to Breakers 2007

A second recent disappointment was this year's Bay to Breakers, which was on Sunday, May 20th. It used to be sponsored by the Examiner, back when that was a second-rate newspaper and not a 5th rate conservative tabloid. Now it's sponsored by ING.

Although a small core of actual runners compete in the race, as well as teams ("centipedes", linked together by a costume, or increasingly a lame set of nylon straps) of runners, most participants are there for fun. Typically this involves either dressing up in a costume, or not dressing at all, or something in between. And while nudity seemed to be up this year (despite the now annual promises by the sponsors of a crackdown) unfortunately creativity was way down. Halloween in the Castro has certainly suffered a similar fate, but in a large part because of an influx of tube-and-tunnel brats, whereas while many half-assed frat groups show up at Bay to Breakers, there seems little reason for people to actively avoid it.

I wandered down to Van Ness and Hayes early enough to see at least one pack of Kenyans (pretty much all the serious runners are Kenyan), and I stayed long enough to see police and fire "sweeping up", although I may have missed some late stragglers. Also, it may be that some groups "start" the race further up, but I still get the feeling that there was not much going on. I remember the first year I went there was a full-sized moving Tiki bar, a full-sized Jabba the Hutt on a rolling "throne", and a two or three three-person MUNI buses, who would stop at every other intersection and turn at right angles, forcing everyone behind them to stop. Nothing even remotely that cool this year. Nothing political, nothing even topical, unless one guy dressed as Spiderman counts.

My feeling is further reinforced by the Chronicle's photos, which seem equally sad. The best group was the Salmon (they run the whole race backwards), but they've been doing that for at least as long as I have been here. there were a couple of Pamplona groups (with a keg or a bunch of a cases in a shopping cart dressed up as a bull), which were clever, but I first saw that last year.

Grumble, grumble. I must be getting old.

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Maker Faire 2007

Make Magazine sponsored the 2nd annual Maker Faire May 19th-20th at the San Mateo Fairgrounds (directly adjacent to the soon-to-be-defunct Bay Meadows; Hillsdale Caltrain station). I made it down Saturday afternoon and snapped a few shots. I was painfully underwhelmed for the most part, honestly, although perhaps I don't have much of an appreciation for the finer points of "making". Many of the creations seemed to be someone taping old computer parts onto something in order to make it "computery". Other things, like fire sculptures, held my attention for a minute or so, but pyromaniac that I am (or is that pyrophile?) there wasn't enough of that to keep me busy for more than a couple of hours.

Some of the exhibits dealt with fabrication, but as I'm not much of a fabricator, I probably didn't appreciate those properly. The Power Tool Drag Races were holding "heats" sort of. My problem with that and a few of the other events/exhibits was that they seemed to have real barkers with microphones standing in front of them. Basically guys whose purpose was to babble constantly and pointlessly. Maybe I was just getting too much vitamin D from all the sun, but they really, really annoyed me.

I happened to be there at the time Uke-y Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was playing, but having seen the show before I continued wandering, only catching a few songs, such as "Starman" rendered on the kazoo.

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A message from our sponsors:

france.paris.the louvre

The Louvre

Building [gallery]

Antiquities [gallery]

Classical [gallery]

Medieval [gallery]

Stabby Things [gallery]

Renaissance [gallery]

The End [gallery]

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Previous: Montmartre Cemetery	Up: Table of Contents	Next: Building

france.paris.the louvre.end

At the end of the second day, late (the keep the museum open until 9pm on Fridays), I exited one of the halls between a pair of bas-reliefs. One of them suddenly held great resonance for me.

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Previous: Renaissance	Up: The Louvre	Next: Coming Soon!

france.paris.the louvre.renaissance

I also didn't spend much time in this section. It's a popular one, mind you. I suspect it's always popular, but these days you can rent two different audio tours for the Louvre. There's one that's for people who are interested in specific pieces of art, and then there's the "Da Vinci Code" tour.

I've mentioned that the size and labyrinthine nature of the Louvre makes it really easy to get lost, but the Louvre has a very simple organizational principle. That principle is: if you are not in the room with the Mona Lisa, you must be lost. To address that principle, there is (at least) one sign on every unused surface in the Louvre with the image of the Mona Lisa and an arrow, pointing you in the direction of the room with the Mona Lisa. This may sound like exaggeration.

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Previous: Stabby Things	Up: The Louvre	Next: The End

france.paris.the louvre.stabby things

While my interest in Medieval and Renaissance art is not what it probably should be, a good chunk of my time was devoted to the Louvre's superlative collection of early metalwork (and some stone). In early times, metal was hard to come by and worked with great difficulty, thus used only for those things which mattered (and matter) most to humanity. Namely opening big, gaping holes in one another.

There are a few exceptions to this, of course, but only a few.

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france.paris.the louvre.medieval

I'm not much into Medieval art, especially (insofar as one can be especially not into things) painting. Truth be told, this was about the point when I gave out. I'd put two good days into hiking about, reading carefully, stopping to play the audio guide, taking lots of pictures, and I was basically walking modestly quickly at this point. The Renaissance and after received equally short shrift. I've save those for my next trip to Paris, I tell myself.

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Previous: Classical	Up: The Louvre	Next: Stabby Things

Box Blogging: Addendum

(See the original Final Thoughts.)

There were a couple of actual final steps to undertake. First was getting all the old data from my previous computer -- second was actually putting the case sheathing on.

My plan all along was just to move the hard drive from the previous computer (I have too many computers to say "old") to the new one as a secondary drive, then move data (or not) at my convenience. Since the previous machine had been bought with the expectation of using it as a server when I was done, I had actually installed XP on the smaller, secondary drive on that system, an 80GB IDE.

I'd put everything in place to run, but now I needed to pull a lot of stuff out, due to the tight fit of the larger components.

From New Computer

I also had to move the boot drive down two slots. I had kept the two "close" plugs on the IDE cable down by the board, and so the top HD slot was the closest (as you can see here):

From New Computer

I also wanted to keep a space between the drives for heat reasons.

From New Computer

(Both machines open and adjacent.)

Getting that second IDE plug to attach was tricky, involving careful folding of the cable. I actually went ahead and unplugged it from the DVD-R first, which helped. It just barely worked, which was a huge relief.

From New Computer

Here I've plugged everything back in. Actually, I hadn't noticed, but the power/reset block had come loose during all of this, and the video and sound cards had to come back out for that to be replaced. I got a bunch of trash bag twist ties (remarkably few came with the various computer components I had bought), and used those to create some kind of order for all the cables, particularly the cables coming out of the power supply, which had a tendency to wander over and obstruct the CPU fan.

From New Computer

The next issue presented itself when I started putting the case exterior back on -- the DVD-R was too deeply recessed. Observe the two angled "clips" (for lack of a better word) between the drive front and the case front.

From New Computer

I couldn't push the drive past these from behind, so unplugged the drive, and pushed it in from the front with the case front on.

From New Computer

The final product is pretty nondescript (blogger spell-check says that's one word, not hyphenated...) but satisfying. And "Armed with Honor"!

From New Computer

But I have to end with the kick-ass mouse I bought. It's got some ungodly resolution for sampling movement, or some such thing, but I bought it because it comes with a little case full of weights that you can use to "balance" the mouse for optimal feel.

From New Computer

A'ight. That's it. That's all I've got.

Box Blogging: Final Thoughts

(But what was the process of Construction like?)

Well, I plugged it in, fired it up, there was a shower of sparks and some white smoke and then nothing. I walked calmly to the bridge, and tossed myself over the suicide barrier.

The End

Actually, it fired up smoothly. Not only did this not happen with my last build (I mentioned the whole power switch cable nonsense earlier), but it must have taken me at least 3 more hours just to get to that point, fussing with screws, dropping screws, screaming "Screw this!", getting the rails backwards, putting the drive on the rails backwards, too far out, too far in, getting the CPU fan on backwards, threading tiny cables onto tinier pins, etc. From the time I got the last box from UPS (around 1pm) to the time I got the first POST was about 3 hours.

From New Computer

Installing Windows (I did a full format -- I assume that helps pick out bad blocks from the get-go), getting all the updates (it took some persistence to get to the point where they would let me download Service Pack 2), installing all the drivers, getting the updates for the drivers, getting the MAC address for my ethernet card so that I could add it to my router -- I was done at about 9.30pm (just in time to catch a bite to eat at Le Cordon Bleu).

From New Computer

And it was all for this -- Far Cry with everything at Very High, 1920x1600 (turns out the screenshots are lower res -- 1600x1000).

Now to deal with the aftermath:

From New Computer

From New Computer

Fin

Okay actually, here's an Addendum