Another Opinion Among Many

I got my walking in this morning, for sure.  I went to the school with Caleb at the regular time (and, on the way home I realized that I made a whole lunch for him when its a short day) and came back to get Abby ready.

Yes – to get Abby ready! Its her first day of school and she was so excited to go.  I sure hope that it doesn’t wear off, as she’s going to need a challenge.  The little sponge! I’ve taken the morning off work so that I could go with her and also get some other stuff done, like get my driver’s license renewed.  Just because I don’t own a car doesn’t mean that I won’t be driving one in the next few years!

In an hour, school will be out and we’ll go get the kids.  Its almost not worth having a day, being so short and all.

Do I hear an echo in here?…

I’ve been playing around with Granular Linux for the last week, and I must say that I kind of like it. I’m not sure if its going to replace the standard PCLOS install that I’ve been using or not. I decided to use a capture application called recordMyDesktop and convert the resulting ogg theora file to mpeg with FFmpeg, so that I could upload it to YouTube for all to see what its like running a full screen video capture while running Beryl on KDE. I just set the effects to random and let it go. Check it out:

The URL to the video is here if you don’t see the video embedded. I used these tools on my Pentium 3 machine with 512MB RAM. It has an Radeon 9550 256MB video card and a slow hard drive controller. Most of the time, these captures are done on really fast machines. I thought that it’d be neat to see a few of the neat things that you can do with Beryl.

Actually, Beryl runs quite smoothly and rotating the cube of desktops is pretty slick. The KBFX menu was a neato add on that the Live CD had and anybody can enable it, but the normal Mandriva way of doing the menu comes out first on the hard drive install. Trying to capture a full screen raw video did push this machine a bit too hard, though.

I’m watching the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno.  He’s got Jessica Biel as a guest tonight and he’s put her on the spot to sing for something that she told him she wanted when she was a child.  It turns out that its one of those little cars that kids rarely get.  So, as an adult, she finally gets one because she rises to the occasion and sings a song.  I now like her even more for rising to the occasion.  Great poise.  And, you do have a decent voice, Ms Biel.

I got this in an email from my friend Richard, who lives near (and in) T.O. and he will attest (along with a few other friends), that this is not really a joke, but YOU’D BETTER LAUGH!

1. You must first learn to pronounce the city’s name: it is T.O.
2. The morning rush hour is from 5:00 a.m. to noon. The evening rush hour is from noon to 7:00 p.m. Friday’s rush hour starts Thursday morning.
3. The minimum acceptable speed on most freeways is 130 km/h. On the 401 or 407, your speed is expected to match the highway number. Anything less is considered “wussy.”
4. Forget all traffic rules you learned elsewhere; T.O. has its own version of traffic rules. For example, cars/trucks with the loudest muffler go first at a four-way stop; the trucks with the biggest tires go second. However, in Oakville, SUV-driving, cellphone-talking moms ALWAYS have the right of way.
5. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear ended, cussed out, and possibly shot.
6. Never honk at anyone. Ever. Seriously. It’s another offense that can get you shot.
7. Road construction is permanent and continuous in all of T.O. and, in fact, the GTA. Detour barrels are moved around for your entertainment pleasure during the middle of the night to make the next day’s driving a bit more exciting.
8. Watch carefully for road hazards such as drunks, skunks, dogs, cats, barrels, cones, celebs, rubber neckers, shredded tires, cell-phoners, deer and other road kill and the coyotes feeding on any of these items.
9. MapQuest does not work in T.O. — none of the roads are where they say they are or go where they say they do and all freeway off- and on-ramps are moved each night.
10. If someone actually has their turn signal on, wave them to the shoulder immediately to let them know it has been “accidentally activated.”
11. If you are in the left lane and only driving 130 km/h in a 100 zone, you are considered a road hazard and will be “flipped off” accordingly. If you return the flip, you’ll be shot.
12. Do not try to estimate travel time — just leave Monday afternoon for Tuesday appointments, by noon Thursday for Friday and right after church on Sunday for anything on Monday morning.

I had to laugh.  This is also true in a lot of other cities that I’ve been to.  The signal light thing is definitely also a Fredericton thing.

You might notice that on the “Post From The Past” that you can now comment on many posts.  I’ve reopened comments (and trackbacks) on all posts after April 1, 2005.  Anything before that is really just me screwing around on Blogger and I don’t want any more comments on them.  There may be the odd post after that date that I may close comments on, depending on the subject and how much spam bait they are.

I don’t know if you care at all that I did this, but I did get a bit of interest in commenting on some of the older posts.  I’ll try to come up with a decent way to include the year in the date on past posts as well, since the date right now is an image.

…or at least new to me…

So, I’ve looked around a bit for a vehicle to replace the Buick and come up with a few options. I have test driven a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire GT and a 2002 Chrysler Neon LE, both in showroom condition. I liked the Neon. Its a big step forward from the 1998 that I drove when testing cars last time I was in the market.  The pric, however, was a bit steep, in my opinion, for a used vehicle.

I’ve also talked on the phone to the dealer that I bought my last car from and what he had to offer didn’t seem appealing to me.  The vehicles were in my price range, but they all had an issue or two.So, that’s not an avenue that I want to pursue, as I want a good, reliable car that will get me back and forth from work and to take my family on the occasional out of town visit.

So, that narrowed the choices down to what I test drove last night.  I got behind the wheel of a 2000 Dodge Intrepid which was in showroom shape.  It had a smooth ride and the 2.7l V6 engine produced decent power.  It was quiet and reasonably roomy as well.  The only thing that I’m a bit worried about is the engine.  There seems to be a lot on the net about this engine not lasting, and I don’t need a new car with a new engine required soon after purchase.  By the way, for the Intrepid owners, pure synthetic oil is supposed to be your savior.

This brings the testing down to a 1999 Hyundai Sonata.  I found it difficult to find anything negative said about this vehicle.  Many reviews praised it as a good move on Hyundai’s part, causing some competition for Honda, WV, and Toyota in the mid-sized market.  This vehicle has only 60,000kms on it, which is another bonus.  It may be a ’99, but its been driven as little as a much newer car.  I like it because the cabin is still roomy, but the car takes up less space on the road, while still driving smoothly and confidently, like a larger vehicle.  The price was better than what else I had been trying out, as well.  I’ve chosen this one, so, if all goes well, it will be mine in a few days.  I’ll let you know.  Maybe I’ll even find a digital camera and take a few pictures.

I’m watching a copy of The Corporation, a film about corporation and its effects on us. So, if you see a few anti-corporate rant or two in the near future, this might have been the catalyst. But, it might not be, as I’ve pretty much already made up my mind.

There was a 3 car accident at the intersection of Maple and Westmorland bridge. The intersection had to be closed down to be cleaned up and I believe there were injuries. I hope that it wasn’t too serious. The cars were really smashed up, leading me to believe that somebody was going way too fast through there, which is normal. The speed limit is 50kmh but many sail through at 80-90kmh (or faster), and the intersection is rough and bumpy.

I got the tires patched on a bike I got for Abby (for free) and a new tube for Caleb’s front. Now the kids both have bikes (and yes, we bring them inside at night now). Abby is loving her “big bike”, although she’s just getting onto pedaling. I remember when Caleb first learned.

Interesting fact about me: I was not taught how to ride a bicycle and never used training wheels. I was visiting my cousin one weekend and tried her two-wheeler, which had either 20″ or 24″ wheels. It was a full sized bike, really. The only reason I, as a child, could get on it was that it was a girls bike. I had no hope of sitting on the seat. I got on and started to ride – just like that! I wish that I could do that with learning to make oodles of money!

Its a nice day. Maybe we’ll take the phrase, “Go fly a kite!” to heart.