Recycled Electrons - Blog of Keith Horowitz

So Christmas day Sunday, but we don't do Christmas. And a day off Monday. No real plans until Sunday evening for Channukah. My toe finally feels well enough for a hike. Blodgett Peak has been calling to me for months - especially since I learned there was a geocache on top. So I get up a bit early - early for a day off from work - and head out for a hike. I don't know how far I'll get - but I want to at least get to the top of Blodgett Peak. I've got about 8 geocaches I can try for, depending on how I do. A couple are up in Pike National Forrest, past Blodgett Peak. It is slower going than I expected. I spend more time than I wanted looking for the first 4 geocaches - I only found 2 of them. The trail is Icy and muddy. It is not a great trail - it is not well prepared like the trail going up Pikes Peak. It is very easy to lose the trail - subtle paths seem to go off in many directions. In many places, the trail seems to go up very steep, loose gravel. Step...

This weekend we went to the Light Zoo in town. It was snowing, as it had for over a day, lightly, and one of the sets of friends who was supposed to go with us wimped out. It was cold - but we were smart enough to bring along hot chocolate, so that helped. It was fun to go to again. It seemed like there were a few more lights, but a few less electric animals.

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I've been reading it to my eldest son for the last month or so. A half-chapter or a whole chapter a night, a couple of times a week. We got near the end last night. So tonight I started reading a little early. Luckily, they are off school, so he was able to stay up a little later so we could finish the book. I won't say much about it, to avoid spoiling it for anyone. I enjoyed reading/listening to the earlier books. This is the first one I've read. I must say, I do not like the writing style for reading out loud. Almost all the cues for character and intonation come halfway through a quote, or at the end. Very hard to know how to read a line. I must imagine that the people who make the professional recordings must have to pre-read and re-read a lot to get it right.

I like popcorn. Microwave popcorn is fine by me, but I prefer the light popcorn. The regular is too greasy. But when I'm at work, I like a mini-packs - I don't need a full regular-sized bag. But they don't sell light-minis. I wish they did. So I have to eitehr get the minis or the light. Greasy, but the right amount, or the right flavor/texture, but too much for an afternoon snack. I supposed I could just eat some of the regular-sized, light bag. But when the popcorn is there, it is hard to resist finishing it. Dangerous food! Popcorn manufacturers: I want light, mini microwave packs!

Yesterday I dropped my Palm PDA into water. It flickered on and off. The screen got this glitch that spread out from the middle. Eventually it turned off and would not turn back on. I dried it as quickly as I could. I spent a bunch of time opening it up so I could dry out the insides. It was really hard to open, as the screws were this special hex screws. I managed to work them out with my Swiss army knife. But it seems it was too late. I could not get it to work. I am not sure it is worth having it repaired. I looked online for a new cheap palm. But the one that was on sale a year ago, with MP3 playback ability, was sold out everywhere. It looks like I'd have to pay at least twice as much for a Palm with MP3. The one I killed didn't have MP3, but I'm determined to have MP3 in my next one. And I use my palm a lot - for tracking my hours at work at a minimum. So I'm feeling kind of lost without it. But E-Bay to the rescue! Same model as the one from last y...

Well, I've spent quite a few weeks with this idea about doing a puzzle cache. Where seekers have to solve a puzzle to find the final cache. But it was more than just a puzzle - it also teaches how some computers can store data in a safer, faster way, called RAID-5. So I made a RAID-5 cache . I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out the best way to do it - and making charts and tables to go with it. And today, I was rewarded by the first person to find it. He said he even learned from it! Yay! The only problem is that the coordinates were a little off - and now I either have to put a note to that on the website, or recalculate all the clues and replaces the 4 clues! Yikes!

I just wrote up a bit about archiving emails: Techchatter Entry I also talk about Outlook seeming to have a memory leak when doing a bunch of Drag-and-drops.

Dear Circuit City, I wanted you to understand why you lost my business the other day. We came in for a new set of cell phones. It was our second time in. The first time we had met a woman who answered all of our questions politely. When we came back in, the man at the cell phone area seemed to dismiss whatever we had talked about before with the woman who worked there. We still had a number of questions. Most of them had to do with cost. We wanted to make sure that the phone and services of the plan covered our needs without costing a bunch more. We were interested in the phones that cost a little more that to lowest-end, free [after rebate] model. I looked closely at the features and costs, and tried to understand the deals. It seemed that the listed prices of the phones were not the cost, but how much the end price of the phones, if you took a 2-year plan, and after you got the rebate. The actual cost of the phone, if you did not take the 2-year plan was in much smaller print...

We went to Salt Lake City for thanksgiving. My step-mom moved there this year. We drove up I25 and over on I80. We had 2 laptops, a DVD player and a game console. The DVD has the ability to be a TV for the game console - but the wires did not connect. So when we stopped at the halfway in Rawlins, WY - we hit a Radio Shack for an adapter. The trip over went pretty smoothly. The kids took turns watching movies - sometimes 2 movies at the same time. You would think that would be a problem - but we kept the volume down. We stayed at my step-mother's. The only problem was my allergies to fur. You see, she has 2 dogs. But I've learned I can kept it under control with anti-histamine. The problem is that anti-histamines make me sleepy. But I've learn by taking smaller doses of liquid, I can try to balance sleepiness and beating getting sick. I managed not to get sick from allergies this visit - but I did take a few naps. Thanksgiving was nice, but not too busy. We wer...