Author: Robert

Robert Belknap has been writing online sporadically since 2001. See the colophon for more details.

Ashes to Ashes

A portion of my dad’s cremains arrived in the mail today. My aunt (in Alaska) mailed them to me in a tupperware container. Several thoughts (a few which seem absurd) crossed my mind as I opened the mailing box to see if there was a letter or anything inside as well. (There was – a small paper origami crane, not sure why.)

Did the post office or any of the mail carriers that handled the package know what was inside? Did my aunt need to get some kind of clearance to ship human cremains? Will I need to deal with explaining what’s in the box at the airport when we fly back to Alaska next weekend? (That’s right, mailed from Alaska to be taken back to Alaska. I know it sounds odd, but it was the easiest way to make sure they get to where they need to go.) I was also reminded of a line from the “Tupperware Song” by The Rock Bottom Remainders. Basically it goes: “I hope that when I die, tupperware makes caskets too.” I guess, in a way, the do.

Anyway, I’ve sealed the box back up and it’s sitting on our kitchen table. I don’t know what else to do with it right now.

Hooray for the Internet Archive

Looking for the street address for a company that doesn’t exist anymore? (One you worked at as a contractor for six months almost 7 years ago?)

Try using the WayBack Machine: http://www.archive.org to search for the company’s contact info on an archived version of their site.

Too bad I wasn’t able to recover an old version of my resume I had posted online the same way.

My blogging email address got scraped.

I’m not sure from where – I’ll have to try to remember where else I’ve used the address I have associated with my blog – none of gossip’s sites display it (AFAICT)

Anyway I just got my first piece of spam sent to it. For those of you that are intereseted (and everyone else who isn’t) it looks like a new variation of the 419 Fraud:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/nigeria.htm
http://www.ulrp.com/inboxer/info/nigeria.htm

Edited on Sep 20th 2003, 16:42 by Hooloovoo

Still Alive

Just wanted to let folks know I haven’t totally dropped off the face of the earth. the new job is keeping pretty busy – (over-time is both a good and a bad thing)

I’ve been really bad about keeping up with blogs. (Both my own, and others.) When I do get home, I usually don’t feel like sitting on the computer, and when I do sit on the computer – I’m more likely to fire up SWG than Firebird. (I reactivated my account last week.)

Nothing much new to report. Jenny, Boogie (my sister), and I will be heading to Alaska in a couple of weeks to go thhrough dad’s belongings and scatter ashes.

Anyway – my lunch break is almost over, so I best be headed back to the lab.

Edit: updating names for consistency

Edited on Oct 2nd 2003, 16:36 by Hooloovoo

Tea Garden Photos

I finally got around to uploading a few photos, these were taken with my digital camera, I only photoshopped one image, can you guess which one? 🙂

I’ll be adding more images to that album, and creating a sister album for the botanical gardens once I get all my recently (and not so recently) exposed film.

I don’t think I’m done futzing around with the Buddha statue yet, but you should be able to get a general idea of what I’m going for.

I guess I should post the link before I forget

One more link, and then I’m really gone…

Here’s one for all you Stargate: SG1 fans…

SGC Dailing Program

I came across it when I was trying to find a screensaver that looked like the computer screens in the SGC when the gate is idle. The link above is the closest I found, and you can prevent random incoming wormholes by hitting the PGDWN key while the gate is inactive, effectively making it a screensaver (which you have to launch manually)

Kind of neat, even if the download is a pain in the a**

What exactly is a "Tape Monkey" anyway?

The official title for my position is: “Data Restoration Processor”

Basically, my job is to restore data from DLT Backup tapes, and get it ready to be processed. (How’s that for a redundant description?)

Being one of the new hires, I get the Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon from 05:00 to 16:00 shift. Which is going to wreack havoc on my circadian rhythm, not to mention the fact that I won’t be able to spend as much time with Jenny.

This situation should only last for a month or so, at which point I can (hopefully) get put on a different shift.

I went to work Tuesday to get set up with building and network access, and to start learning the processes I’ll be using. I’ve also been trying to adjust to a new sleeping schedule. We’ll see how that goes for real tomorrow morning when my alarm goes off at 4:00am.

Wheee!

(Looks like it’s about time to get dinner ready for Jenny, and then off to bed.)

can’t remember the last time he had a 20:00 bedtime

Photo-Day

Jenny and I went and played in San Francisco today. First we went down to fisherman’s wharf and pier 39 to check out the sea lions and do a bit of shopping. I’ll probably add a couple of shots we took there with the digital camera tomorrow after I have a chance to resize them.

Around 2:00, we met up with a couple of friends of ours to take pictures at the botanical garden and the japanese tea garden in golden gate park. I burned through another 4 rolls of film this afternoon, and eventually switched to my digital camera. I’ve got a photoshop project in mind for one of the digital images I took at the tea garden. It shouldn’t take me too long to bang that out tomorrow – assuming I can get my pc to recognize my tablet again. (I think it’s about time for another OS-wipe-and-install)

Not sure when I’m going to get the film developed, I think I’m up to 12 rolls now.

wonders how many rolls of film he would have to shoot before it’s acutally cheaper to set up his own darkroom.

Anyway – I’ll see about posting a couple of the digital images tomorrow after I’ve futzed around with them a bit.