I googled my name the other day, and boy was I surprised when I stumbled upon this. It’s a PDF version of the 2005 Addison-Wesley & Prentice Hall PTR Catalog for Unix/Linux, the one that I have blurbs in! I never thought I’d get my hands on a copy (and I’d still love a paper copy).

I was so excited when I saw this on page 4 (about Unix Shells By Example):

I squealed with delight when I saw this on page 12:

Cool.

And you know what else is cool? In this 16 page *nix catalog I’m not the only woman quoted, there is one other!

We went fish shopping today. But not at the normal local pet store, we decided to drive out to Lancaster to go to That Fish Place.

It’s huge, and worth the hour+ drive to get there from here.

Armed with our fish compatibility charts we picked out some fish.

Two Silver Hatchetfish

And Two Emperor Tetras

The photos do these fish no justice, someday I will post more when I stop sucking at taking pictures of fish, or get lucky.

And I’ve updated our fish website to reflect the change in our little community.

Besides the fish supplies we picked up, we also bought Caligula a feather toy on a stick that he’s going nuts over %)

I tried out Readerware at the recommendation of a few people, since I was looking for something that I could catalog all my books and media with.

The short review? It’s probably the best software out there to do it, but it’s not the best software I’ve ever used, and the Linux version is a bit buggy.

Ultimately I wanted to use the Linux version, since booting into Windows just to go through my collections is a pain, and would leave me never using it. So I wanted to figure out how to use the cuecat in Linux.

I did some googling, found 2.4 kernel drivers for the cuecat, information about modding the cuecat so it doesn’t encrypt, the cease and desist order from the company making the cue cats against the people “hacking” it and other information that was useless to me concerning the 2.6 kernel. Certainly people didn’t abandon it, did they?

Nope, piped up in channel and said that it was treated like a normal keyboard input device. D’oh. He was right, too right. I booted into Debian with the USB cue cat plugged in and Debian thought it was my keyboard (my keyboard is Ps2). I had to unplug the cuecat for it to see the right keyboard. Luckily when I plugged the cat back in it didn’t take over my keyboard *phew* And guess what? It works!

.C3nZC3nZC3n2Chf2Cxb2DxnY.cGen.ENr7C3r6ChTZChrZDG.

Cool.

So I get Readerware installed with the default java packages it comes with (figured there wouldn’t be compatibility issues this way, and I didn’t feel like installing java). It starts up with only a font error (which I’ll look into). The look and feel of the program needs some work, it’s unimpressive and sometimes not very intuitive. It’s one of those programs you can tell was written with java.

Now with my working cuecat, I choose the autocatalog feature, scan my first book and it crashes with a whole bunch of errors, seemingly stemming from an issue with the stupid noise it makes when you successfuly scan a book (error log here). Lame. And you can’t even turn that noise off, as far as I can tell. maybe it’s a problem with my sound? Maybe it’s a problem with that default java install or some path somewhere? I don’t know, and I still didn’t want to install java system-wide, maybe someday I’ll manage to figure out the issue. But for now? I booted back into windows.

The windows version is slightly cleaner looking, but identical otherwise. And I can export the data from the windows version, and import it into my linux install. Yay! The import and export functions on this are pretty nice, you can export as HTML, CSV, Tab Delimited Text, Palm and a few other formats I’m not as familiar with.

So I got to scanning my books. All my books. The majority have barcodes that Amazon (which I used for lookup) picked up with no problem. Some were older books that I just found a comparible ISBN on Amazon for and used. A couple books are so old that I couldn’t find ISBNs for immediately, but I’ll keep looking, might just manually enter them. So how many books did I manage to get entered? 247 paperbacks and 99 hardcovers (stats for hardcovers only say 46, but one “book” is a 54 volume set that takes up quite a bit of space in my livingroom, the “Great Books of the Western World”).

Scanning books is the funnest thing evar! Ok, maybe not, but I had a lot of fun, I’m such a library geek sometimes.

I had less luck with scanning my VHS and DVD movies. So mostly I just went on amazon and looked up their ISBNs.

And now for the results:

Paperbacks
Hardcovers
VHS
DVDs

Hopefully I can debug the Linux version eventually. But I’m so happy to have this inital cataloging finished %)

We decided what to do yesterday afternoon, go to Hershey Park!

Because it was afternoon already, we planned to grab some half-priced “after sunset” tickets, which let you be in the park from 5pm until closing at 11 (the times change seasonally). There were definitely more people than I expected, and it was hotter out than we thought. Spent a lot of time walking around, went on a few rides, paid $2.50 for a 20oz bottle of bad water (ok, I’m a water snob, it was Aquafina, icky).

The best part of the trip was visiting their Zoo America part of the park. Maybe we should have just gone to a real zoo instead %) But it was cool, got to see cute wild cats, wolves, snakes, Bison, prairie dogs, and a whole lot of scary birds (I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw the Golden Eagle with a, wing span of 7 feet!). And it wasn’t crowded in that part of the park, very relaxing.

I guess I don’t like amusement parks. I come to this realization almost every time we go to one. I love rollar coasters, but standing in line for an hour for a 60 second ride is insane, especially when it’s hot out. And there are too many people in general, walking through the masses is so yucky.

The line for the chocolate factory tour wasn’t long, so we rode on that before we left. Ended up getting out of the park around 10pm.

On the way home we stopped at Unos in Exton for an 11pm dinner, we were both so hungry, eating in the park is absurdly expensive and we didn’t bring much cash.

Got home around midnight, I was exhausted and went right to bed. Mmmm sleep.

Well, we finally saw March of the Penguins. We went with Bob, , , and , and had hoped that and would get there on time, but they were coming all the way from DE and didn’t make it %\

The movie? It was great! I think it’s the first nature documentary I’ve ever seen in a movie theater, and I wasn’t disappointed. The cinematography was great, script for narration was great, music was great. It was oh so sad when penguins died (especially the babies!) but they made up for it by showing lots of cute surviving penguins. The only problem was the kids in the theater, I forgot how annoying they could be, I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been to a rated G movie before 8pm.

After the movie we hooked up with and and got a table for 8 at Max and Erma’s across the parking lot from the theater. We had fun. Well, at least I had fun %) The service was lousy, but it was late so I can understand it. The food was good though, and the company was great. We all went our separate ways around 11:30. But before we left let me borrow a couple of books and her cuecat to use with Readerware, yay!

And our plans for today? I spent the morning cataloging our books and movies (I’ll write more about this in a separate entry). We had plans for the evening, but are starting to rethink them, and now we’re in plan limbo. They are so many great options for a beautiful Saturday afternoon/evening in the summer!

I got my first check from Google today. $112.80.

Woo!

Last night was fun.

I got home around 5:30 and went upstairs to hide in the air conditioned computer room because it was so hot. I checked online to see the temperature, the reading at 5:29 it was 92 degrees.

Then the thunderstorm came. Our UPSes beeped, internet connection shuddered, and the thunder shook the house. At 5:59 the temperature reading was 78! I like this kind of thunderstorm.

Bob showed up around 6:45 and we arrived at Ortino’s Northside just before 7, it was still raining. So everyone who had shown up for the BBQ was shuffled inside the restaurant’s bar area. Luckily it started clearing up around 7:30 and they were able to wipe all the chairs and tables down and put us out on the patio.

It was a beautiful evening! Still a bit humid, but the temperature was a comfortable high 70s. After getting settled at our table, a woman asked if she could join us. We told her she could of course, she told us that she was suppose to meet friends, but they couldn’t make it, and she decided to come anyway because she loves wheat beers. Cool.

So we started getting the beers. It was great. They were all really light ones (I don’t have the list here with me… d’oh), great for summer drinking. And the conversation was great. The woman who sat with us was really interesting, well travelled, and smart. And she loves beer and lives just a few blocks from us!

Around 8:30 they brought out the food, BBQ chicken (not my favorite, but I’ll eat it), baked beans, really good macaroni salad, and corn on the cob. It was a good dinner, and the beer they brought out continued to be good.

It was a long evening, around 10 they brought out the dessert, a summery lime creme pie, great with the last couple of beers. We didn’t leave until around 11, I made sure to swap contact information with the woman we sat with, it’d be so great if we could hook up again sometime.

I didn’t get to bed until after midnight, definitely didn’t drink enough water. Woke up around 6am with a killer headache, but Advil and a couple glasses of water had fixed that before I got out of bed a second time at 7:15 to get my ass out the door and to work %) It was worth it.

I haven’t been in the best mood, I know it’s because of the heat. I’ve been getting headaches daily from going in and out of air conditioning, so I’ve been downing the Advil a bit more than I should. And I keep bumping into things. I’m naturally clumsy, but normally I can pay close enough attention to what I’m doing to avoid getting bruises. Not this week. Just 10 minutes ago I banged my knee on a bar under my desk that I usually manage to avoid. Yesterday morning I tripped on Caligula while going down the stairs and slammed my left arm into some of the molding on the wall, now I have a bruise on my arm just under my elbow where I rest my arm on my armrest.

Bleh, last I didn’t even feel like playing games last night when Michael asked %( But we did go out to get some cherry waterice from Rita’s last night. It was good, especially on such a hot night!

They say today is the last day of the killer heat, tomorrow we’re only suppose to have a high around 80. Much nicer than today’s high forecast temp of 97.

</complaining>

Tonight we’re heading over to Northside for the beer tasting and BBQ that I mentioned a couple entries ago. I’m so excited. We’ll be meeting Bob at our place, and driving up to be there when it starts at 7. Yummie. If anyone else wants to swing by (do we have any other local beer-loving friends?), the tickets for the event are $28 at the door, which includes all the beers we’ll be trying and dinner.

Our new dryer should be arriving sometime on friday. Michael wrote about our adventure purchasing it. In short, Lowes in Oaks was understaffed and the employees were clueless, we ended up buying it at Sears Appliance and Hardware in Collegeville, where we successfully got them to pricematch the dryer at Lowes. Even better, delivery from Sears is cheaper than Lowes, and they’ll hook up and test the new dryer, and haul away our old one.

Yay I can clean my clothes on Friday! Good thing, I’m running out of clean socks, and I hate going to the laundromat.

I really wasn’t going to complain about the heat. But today it’s in the mid 90s, heat index over 100, humid, sunny. And our fire alarm here at work went off.

We were just outside in the parking lot here at work for over a half hour.

Fire trucks came.

It was a false alarm. Triggered by guys doing maintenance on the AIR CONDITIONING.

I think the next time someone suggests that we go bowling I’m going to need to pass. My right leg is killing me, and my right arm isn’t doing much better. I really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning %)

I hung out with , her sister, her sister’s husband, and their baby yesterday afternoon. Had some lunch, and went to the bowling alley around 3 for their sunday afternoon special.

I had fun, but bowling alley people are a strange sort.

There were a couple young, skinny girls (probably 12 and 14) and a young boy (10 or 12?) in the lane next to us, they were pretty annoying, and I couldn’t believe how the girls where dressed. Both in tiny t-shirts and shorts, one of them with a shirt that said “Jesus is my Homeboy” *rolls eyes* Well, if I ever have a daughter she’s not going out the door wearing so little, at least not when she’s 12! I don’t care how hot it is outside!

Then there was the group down a few lanes that was very loud. “Think they had a few drinks?” Nita grinned and said. Yah, I’d say so.

And you can’t forget the bowlers that take it all very seriously and believe that mistakes they make are always the fault of the person in the next lane, or a slippery spot on the floor, or a loud noise, or simply the laws of physics hating them for a moment (using sarcasm? who me? *grin*).

Anyway, I predictably did the worst out of everyone when all the games were added, didn’t matter much though, I am not a terribly competitive person when it comes to something like bowling. Especially when two of the people I was playing against owned their own shoes and balls %) I was just there to hang out with friends.

I drove home around 5:30, found Michael in the laundry room with a broken dryer he explains here. So we need a new dryer. Fooey. I’m not surprised though. I’ve hated that thing since we moved in, always squealing when it run it, having to make sure it’s not on when we have guests. On the bright side we can afford to replace it immediately, and the washer is now running great! %)

Oh and I also called my sister Heather yesterday, it was her 22nd birthday. She seems to be doing well, but had no one to spend her birthday with, which was quite a bummer. So we talked for about an hour about cars, work and the family, it was a nice conversation and it was good to hear from her, we don’t talk often enough.

Hrm, guess I should get back to work now.