The Net Monkey

This was posted on the men’s room door the other day.

I have no idea who put it up there, but I love them for it.

I’ve started using Quicken Online.

Its one of those online financial aggregators that connects to the web sites of your accounts and pulls all the data together into one interface. The only other one I’ve tried is Mint, and it wasn’t capable of accessing my checking and savings accounts, but Quicken Online does it without any problem. They were even able to access my Health Savings Account, which left me surprisingly pleased.

It’s a recently launched tool, so I’m expecting some great improvements down the road. I hope they add support for more than just bank accounts and credit cards. I’d love to have my student loan and 401k accounts in there.

Tonight I started an electronic filing cabinet.

I got a Canon 4400F scanner for Christmas this past year. Not only does it allow me to take high quality scans of my old photos, but I can import regular documents directly into PDF documents.

So far I have imported all of my old tax documentation (forms W-2, 1099, etc.), as well as stuff I need to make a travel insurance claim for my delayed baggage during my trip in Italy. I like the idea of not dealing with FAX machines, and just using email.

Having electronic documentations means that I can rid myself of paper copies. As long as I have a backup of my data (and I do), I don’t have to worry about losing anything. If I need paper copies, I can simply use my printer.

Easy pie!

I saw Cloverfield last night with my friends Jon, Greg, and Carlos. I really enjoyed it, and I’m still thinking about it this afternoon. It’s scary! I definitely recommend you go and see it, as you’ll be in for a fun time.

It should be noted that we sat in the very back row of the theatre, which probably kept any of us from getting motion sickness due to the hand held camera footage. On the other hand, I don’t usually get sick from that kind of stuff anyway, but sitting in the back of the theatre certainly helps, according to what I’ve been reading.

This was a hoot at the office!

This morning when I got to work, I sat down at my desk and started feeling a bit of discomfort in my lower abdomen. I was bothered by this because about two years ago, I had laparoscopic surgery to have my appendix removed, and the doctor told me afterwards that he found a very small hernia. It wasn’t anything serious in there, and said that I should have it checked whenever I visit the doctor. The pain led me to think that something was up with the hernia since my pain seemed to be in the right location.

I immediately running through all the consequences in my head. I was first a bit angry that I might have yet another hospital visit. I’ve had two of them in the last two years: to have my appendix removed and an emergency room visit due to a worst-pain-ever kidney stone. I was like, “Oh, please! Not AGAIN!”

I knew that if I had surgery, I’d end up having to fork over a lot of money. Insurance will only cover so much. I would prefer to use the money elsewhere (such as paying down my debts), but it’s my health and it isn’t worth sacrificing. The other thing I dreaded was that I’d be out of the office for the rest of the week, at least. The idea sucked because I have a lot of shit to do, but it certainly isn’t that big of a deal. My boss is very understanding and would prefer that I heal.

So, you know what bothered me the most about possibly having hernia surgery?

Since someone would be coming into my condo to pick up things for me, including Bess, I was concerned about the slovenly display of candy wrappers on the table next to the sofa, the boxes of opened Christmas gifts on the living room floor, and the dirty kitchen from last night’s cooking fun. I actually considered stopping by my home before going to see the doctor in order to clean it up. God forbid someone like my father saw my messy home!

Anyway, the pain turned out not to be anything serious. You want to know what was wrong?

After about 30 minutes or so, I farted and suddenly felt a lot better.

Recently, I decided to change the password on my instant messenger accounts to something much more secure than the one I’ve been using for so many years.

After changing my passwords on the web, I went updated the accounts in Adium on Mac OS X Leopard. It all seemed normal; however, Adium prompted me to re-enter my passwords when connecting to any of the changed accounts. I would type in the new password, select the option to save it, but it just wouldn’t stick. Happened every time.

I remembered that Adium uses the Mac OS X keychain, which is a built-in password and certificate store. You access it via the Keychain Access utility. Once in there, I searched for “Adium” in the search bar and found my password entries. I changed the passwords, clicked Save Changes, and it still didn’t work.

At this point, I wasn’t sure what to do next. Obviously, something had to be wrong with my keychain for the Keychain Access utility to not even work, let alone Adium.

After doing a little research on Google, I learned that Keychain Access has a nice feature called Keychain First Aid to diagnose and fix problems. Sure enough, it found something wrong, and was able to fix it fast.

My problem was that the owner of my keychain file wasn’t set to me. Since I didn’t own the file and the permissions were apparently set so only the owner (who wasn’t me) could make changes, Adium and Keychain Access weren’t able to update my passwords.

I’ve no clue why there was a problem with my keychain file and this doesn’t explain why I’ve not had problems elsewhere. None-the-less, it’s fixed the problem and Adium can now log into all of my accounts just fine.

Yay!

Thanks to Joe.My.God. for this one.

While browsing the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, I stumbled upon some old diary entries I made of my trip to San Francisco and the Macworld Expo several years ago.

You’ll find them posted under the archive for January 2002.

I arrived back from Italy this past Monday (Jan. 7) and finally feel like writing up something about the vacation.

On this trip, there were six of us: Me, Lisa (sister), Jim (brother-in-law), JD and Andrea (who are neighbors of Jim and Lisa), and Rey (who works with Jim at the university).

Here are some of the highlights of the trip.

Florence

I love Florence!

We stayed in an apartment right on the Arno River near Ponte alle Grazie. This put is very close to the center of the city, including Piazza della Signoria, the Uffizi, great shopping, etc.

Of note while visiting Florence, the original David sculpture by Michelangelo is absolutely stunning to see in person. It’s one of the most beautiful works of art I’ve ever seen, and I can’t believe it was sculpted just over 500 years by an artist in his twenties.

According to Frommer’s, one should buy leather while in Florence. So, I did. There were tons of leather shops, but there was this one which sold Piquadro, which is a local Florence brand. I bought myself a wallet, which is a dark brown with a blue trim around it. It’s hot. I also picked up a new toiletry bag, but it’s a different brand.

We were in Florence for New Year’s. According to what we read, if you don’t have any specific place to be, you should go out to one of the bridges over the Arno. So, we went outside a few minutes before midnight and brought in the new year. Lots and lots of fireworks were going off around us! It was a bit scary, actually, because people were being reckless and the fireworks seem to be much more powerful than the ones here in the USA. Some of them reminded me of pipe bombs.

Our stay in Florence was just for a week. For the weekend after, JD, Andrea, Lisa, and I ventured off to Venice, while Jim and Rey set their sights on Sienna.

Venice

Lisa and I stayed at this little hotel in Venice fairly close to the San Lucia train station. The room was small, but had been recently refurbished so everything was new and clean. None-the-less, we had a great view outside of our window.

The really big highlight of Venice for me was Piazza San Marco. It’s huge, and at one end is St. Mark’s Basilica. I was amazed at this place! The original structure was built to the house the relics of St. Mark, which the Venetians stole from Alexandria in the early 800s. The current building (below) was consecrated in 1094.

That’s my sister Lisa on the lower right.

Inside the cathedral, the walls and ceilings seemed covered entirely in mosaics, depicting the various stories of Jesus. I can’t imagine the amount of time it took artisans to do this work, as I’m sure it’d take years even with today’s technologies.

We were also able get some fantastic views of the piazza from up on the basilica.

Inside the basilica were the Horses of St. Mark. These were once at the Hippodrome of Constantinople and were sent to Venice in 1204 as part of the loot after sacking Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. I love stuff like that, so I was all excited about seeing them. They looked fantastic, for having been cast around 200 AD.

Food

A good friend told me that it would be difficult not to eat well in Italy. Boy, was he right! We ate well, for sure. JD cooked a lot, and having an Italian heritage certainly showed.

For New Year’s we had a wonderful dinner.

After going outside for ring in the new year, we had a sweet bread with powdered sugar sprinkled over the top. It was somewhat like a panettone, but without the fruit. Not quite sure what it was called, but it was delicious and took a few days for us to eat it all.

Alitalia

Alitalia lost my luggage! Alitalia sucks!

The first mistake was somewhere at JFK. I don’t know if this was Delta’s fault or Alitalia’s, but somehow my luggage made its way to Atlanta and on the next flight to Rome. It arrived the day after me; however, it stayed in Rome for five days. No one knew where it was and no one was able to tell me if I would even get it.

I eventually had to buy some clothes in Italy. Thankfully, I had travel insurance that with delayed baggage coverage! On the other hand, in Italy, the sizes are smaller, and there I was this stocky American trying to find clothes on New Year’s Eve right before all the stores are getting ready close. I did manage to find some clothes that fit, though.

Finally, my luggage was to arrive in Florence. I went over to the airport to get it, but was told that the flight was canceled, but there was another flight due that evening from Rome. No one knew if my bag would be on it or not, so I decided not to wait around for it.

That night, I heard from the airport folks in Florence. My bag was there! This time it was for sure. I went to the airport the next morning, and finally got it. I was happy, but the whole ordeal set me back €80 (about $120).

Thankfully, on the trip back to the USA, my luggage wasn’t lost.

The most infuriating part of the whole experience was Alitalia’s inability to help me. Every time I called, the most they could tell me is that my luggage was supposed to have been on some flight from Atlanta. Eventually, it sounded like they believed the luggage to simply be lost. So, I was a bit surprised that my bag even showed up. Turns out, they have some major issues down in Rome. My bag sat there for 5 days before they did anything with it.

I’m all about the carry-on luggage next time I travel to Europe.

Asians & Surgical Masks

There are tons of Asians visiting Italy. I don’t know why (and I hope someone can provide a definitive answer here), but lots of them were wearing surgical masks.

What’s up with that? SARS is so 2003. Surely, they can’t be worried about that?

Conclusion

Overall, I had a great time!

I wish i could have seen Rome, but it just wasn’t in the cards this year. Honestly, I think spending another week abroad would probably have been too much, so I hope that some day I can take a trip just to Rome and check it out.

Photo Set: Italy - New Year’s 2008