Friday, May 29, 2009

PPM-Make Is Goodz

Last night, I half jokingly installed PPM::Make and MinGW for Perl 5.8.8 on the laptop and built ORM 0.95. It worked. What was going on with my desktop?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

ATM Eats Ma Check!

Oh, how I hate these old ATM that eat checks in envelope

The Hole Feels Like Home Now

After AT&T opens the tap, now go back to hacking the power outlets/cabling ...

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Leeching Moment - Last Day

Arrived at the hole 2AM in the morning after driving all the way from LA only to find non-working internet. Re-register the modem, no luck. Reboot modem - wait - no packet. Re-register the modem again, no internet. Tired, I decided to go to sleep.

Wake up 6:30AM hoping the people in St Louis have fixed it since they have a head start. No luck, no internet. Call the AT&T Broadband Customer Care, someone run basic test again and tell me to call back in 2 hours since he just files a ticket.

Why new ticket? The little voice in my head query - no time to think, time to work. Suckling the wifi at Starbucks at 7:30AM.

Around 10, I decided that I had enough fiddling with the script, decided to go home and follow up with AT&T. To my dismay, the pipe wasn't working and someone named Renee from AT&T had to hear me screaming like a mad man about their stupid bot closing the previous ticket and demanded her to follow up personally since today is the 6th day of their nonoperational service.

Miraculously, the internet starts working around 11:30 - yay!

Btw, I borrowed Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Gattaca, The Fountain and The Painted Veil from Sunnyvale Public Library.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day

First thing first - sleep - but the AT&T bot woke up me up, I hit the red button and resumed sleeping until Stanley was about to leave, helped him with the luggage.

Caught some sleep - but I had to break for lunch.

Napping again, I need to be on top of my game tonight since we are to leave LA late, forced myself to wake up around 16:30 and drive to Simi Valley.

Had BBQ dinner and we leave for Bay Area at 20:00.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Stella's Wedding

Spend the morning sleeping - break for lunch - and back to spend the whole afternoon with myself, enjoying coffee with Top Gear.

Get out of the house around 3:30, pick up the family and arrive at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center at 5PM sharp.

Ceremony starts around 17:15, tea ceremony, photo ops and reception afterward.

The party ends at 10PM, I help with shuttling the gifts and we hang out at the hotel with the family members until 1AM in the morning. Bone tired ... but happy.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Leeching Moment - Day #5

Last night I arrived home sleepy and hit the hay without checking the status of the pipe. Today, I pay for it.

Thinking that I need to give the people head start, I went to Starbucks and sapped the line until 9. Called the support but they sent me home since they needed me to eyeball the blinking lights of the modem.

Got home, another support team member ran basic diagnostic and he tried to get me to pay for the cavalry to sweep in and fix my problem. A threat to switch to cable tamed him and the little cunt trouble himself by created a trouble ticket.

In mere 15 minutes - AT&T bot called me, telling me that the connection was restored but it wasn't. The support team member rerouted the ticket back to the central office.

Several hours passed, nothing happened, several phone calls to several support members didn't solve the issue. I left for LA.

-- the stupid bot called, but I hang up since I couldn't verify if the pipe was fully operational.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Leeching Moment - Day #4

Work in the hole for the whole day, tinkering with the scripts and wait patiently as packet trickles in via 3G connectivity. AT&T man shows up around noon, having trouble with the wires but solved the problem. Told me to wait 30 minutes for the pipe to be connected at the central office.

One hour later, still no packet, AT&T person told me to hold the horses until 8PM.

Pick up Ida's mom at SFO, and work from Starbucks.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Leeching Moment - Day #3

Same as yesterday, Starbucks and Sunnyvale Public Library.

While perusing DVD, I found several good titles: Pathfinder, Mapping Stem Cell Research (documentary), The X Files 2, The Battle Of Algiers and Donnie Darko (dir cut).

Did I mention I found The Savages, yesterday?

Looks like I'll be frequenting this library, Pasadena Central Library's DVD collection is nothing compared to this one.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Leeching Moment - Day #2

Start my day at 7, went straight to Starbucks. I want to visit it first since I didn't get a seat and electrical outlet yesterday at 10AM.

I figured I could probably get one if I go there earlier, knowing Sillycone Valley wakes up around 9AM.

Starbucks' pipe is the best, using my AT&T account: I get a stable VPN connection (no drop) and a decent bandwidth to the office. Decide to linger for a while until 11AM.

Second and last stop is Sunnyvale Public Library ...

The Cabling in This Hole Is Abominable

Just realized that all electrical outlet is type A. Except two of them, inconveniently located. Also, the phone jack is only available in the bed room.

Time to visit Home Depot.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Leeching Moment - Day #1

Started the day early, went to get my car diagnosed since it is severely overdue for one, Toyota sent me to the street in 1 hr at 8 AM with no vehicle problem, except dirty air filter. Not bad.

Next off to Peet's. Bad news, they only allowed me to leech for 2 hours max. Don't feel like asking for second wi-fi id since the quality of the pipe is bad, got kicked off the VPN several times and the speed is horrible. Fire up the EVDO 3G to finish a recording. Get out to Starbucks at 11 AM.

Starbucks is filled to the brim, with only 2 electrical outlets spotted, and they are all occupied.

Settle for Borders, fire up EVDO 3G again, work till 3PM. Finishing up at Sunnyvale Public Library.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Moving

Scrubbed the apartment clean after meeting with photographer.

Meet with a videographer.

Moved my last stuff out of the apartment (jug of water and mug) - and turn in the keys.

Slept with the light on, even though Mr Shinozaki guarded the door.

Leeching Moment

Since I am not going to have DSL connection for a couple of days (AT&T will connect the pipe next Thursday), I have decided to brave the Sillycone Valley and leech the pipe from friendly sources.