That's right, you heard me. Ol' Judge What's-his-name and the Department of Justice can just forget it. He's untouchable! And as soon as I'm done removing this vile Linux thing from my system and replacing it with Windows XP - the best operating system experience ever, even in Beta - why, all will be well again.

Oh, excuse me, I just realized I haven't purchased Office XP yet. I'm gonna go out and buy a license for me and another for Keri - can I purchase one for anyone else? I mean, since it's the best Office productivity suite ever made, there's no reason not to

SLAP!!!

Huh? Where am I? Has the training started yet? Did anyone find out from the instructor why that water tasted funny? And... hey, wait a minute. "Installing Windows XP"... I didn't start that! Damn it, what's going on?! Where is that freak who turned me into his spider-eating man bitch?!?

Spider-eating?

Well, anyway, I have to go back tomorrow. I'll be sure not to drink the water though. I wonder if there are any lingering effects...

So anyway, yes, I spent the day at One Microsoft Place, Redmond, Washington. Building 25, to be specific, learnin' things about some new products AT&T Wireless is going to be deploying on some servers. Crossing the threshold did not cause my Sun Microsystems badge-holder to smoke, nor the Apple logo on my portfolio to corrode. I think I heard the SuSE-lizard tie tack in the car scream when I entered the campus, though. During one of the breaks, one of my fellow students and I did a bit of surfing from and curious cache-checking. Interestingly, Daynotes.com, RearViewMirror.org, and most of the other Daynoter domains (I didn't have time to check them all, sorry) were all cached in the Microsoft DNS server. I was amused to find that Slashdot.org, Newsforge.com, Kuro5hin, and a few other "Linux-friendly" sites were also cached - we'd been joking that they were probably all blocked at the proxy server and access attempts were logged. Guess not. <G>

We also saw the news that had most of the employees we saw smiling; Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned. (No, I didn't link to a story about it. Throw a brick, you'll find one.) I saw a comment from the DoJ about believing they had enough evidence about Microsoft's misdeeds to prove their case.

Like any of that's enough to fight the Dark Master.

<Daynotes Gang looks at him>

--bator.

Huh? Weird. OK, well, anyway, there seemed to be a lot of discussion of all the things Microsoft has done, and I have to say - I think you're all drawing a lot of crazy conclusions about the Unholy Prince.

<Daynotes Gang looks at him>

--bator.

Damn that water! I think I'd better go sleep it off. See you tomorrow, all...

...with apologies to Xander and the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See the Dracula episode. Xander's lines are worth it by themselves.

Tuesday, June 26 - Just Tuesday

Not much exciting happened yesterday; spent most of the afternoon in a meeting on one of my major projects at work, spent the morning catching up on things that happened to my systems over the weekend, and planning things for the week. Thursday and Friday I will be in training in Redmond; yes, the training is for Microsoft software. What can I say, I bat from both sides; that's why they pay me the big... well, the medium... ok, well, they pay me. <G> (Seriously, the pay is fine. Really. Honest. Would I lie?)

Today looks to be a beautiful Seattle day - grey, chance of rain off and on, with temperatures somewhere in the 70s. Have I mentioned lately that I don't miss Phoenix weather?

Hmmm... let's see... work, meetings, training. Yep, that's about it for right now. Maybe something interesting will happen today. I'm holding my breath.

Monday, June 25 - Yep. Monday. Again. Piffle.

Welcome to another week. I'm thrilled. How about you?

Keri and I took the canoe out paddling yesterday. Started at Utsalady on the north end of Camano island, went around the bay that Utsalady is sheltered by, and went back. Along the way, I learned a few things about canoeing on salt water:

1. Salt water is different. The canoe floats a little higher (whoa, drawing only an inch and a half instead of two inches...), turns a little differently - and the spray from a missed stroke smells, feels, and tastes a whole lot different.
2. On a lake or river, paddling against a current is a chore, but not all that difficult - pick your path, hide behind banks, use winds to help counter them. You can't do that with tides. Unless your path is towards or away from shore (depending on which tide you're fighting) the tide will always be in a useless and annoying direction.
3. Boaters on the ocean (or at least in Puget Sound) are more considerate, less careless, and more intelligent than the average jetskier or inland "recreational" boater. Of course, my cat also fits that description. At any rate, we saw several boats moving around the bay, ranging from 40'+ yachts to 16' Alumacraft outboards, and I never once had the urge to wish for a deck gun on the canoe. (For the record, if I am in a canoe and you're in almost any other kind of boat - exceptions being other canoes, rowboats, kayaks, and non-motorized sailboats - I have the right of way. You have to change course to avoid me. Please note that if I can touch you or your boat with my paddle, or even think about it, you're too close. Please also note that I will make the attempt.) OK, granted, the bay we were in is much larger than the average lake, and we were never actually in the way of anyone. My observation still stands - I also noted that everyone I saw who came remotely close looked right at us, judged our course, and in a few cases even made eye contact to make sure they knew we saw eachother.
4. If you head out at high tide, and come back at low tide, watch for tide pools, clam diggers, and other sources of muck. (My shoes are not appetizing right now. <G>) You also have to carry the canoe much farther than you did to get to the water. Next time, go out at low tide and come back at high; you have more energy heading out than coming back.

Computer-wise, I didn't do much this weekend; set up my Visor to communicate with Mandrake (I'd never gotten around to it before, always used my work (Windows) laptop) using J-Pilot. Turned out not to be too difficult, once I read the right document. The only difficult part is that I don't have a serial cradle; mine is USB-only. The new versions of J-Pilot can do that, you just have to remember to change the device to /dev/ttyUSB1. Not 0. 1. Yes, the second USB interface. Why? Because your Visor (and probably USB Palm Pilots, too) uses both ttyUSB0 and ttyUSB1 to communicate with the system, but the data you're interested in is handled via ttyUSB1. So use it.