resistance to persistence

My friend Vik is growing a moustache - and moustache only - no beard, no goatee, just a stache for the month of November. It’s to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer. For the month of Movember (not a typo), guys grow the most serious moustache possible and gather donations. I just did. Wouldn’t you like to donate to a worthwhile cause?

a damn fine moustache

clean crisp fonts - great for design work

i came across this link today for some free fonts - and this collection is very good. A lot of clean, crisp fonts, perfect for design and architectural work. There must be close to 50 fonts here. Grab these while they’re available.

Windows Automatic Updates can sometimes cause problems and more headaches than it’s worth. It’s no doubt important to keep the latest updates installed for security purposes, so this may not be for everyone. I know of a case where every time a windows update is installed, it stomps all over the internet connection which results in a call to the ISP tech support to get things back up and running. So for this person…here’s how to turn off Automatic Updates.

#1 Right-click My Computer, #2 Select Properties

#3 Choose the Automatic Updates tab

#4 Turn off Automatic Updates

I’ve officially got olympic fever and the only cure is lots of tv. Unfortunately with a new baby, tv isn’t something I get to watch much of the time. I caught some swimming the other night and it’s always exciting. Track and field is good to watch as well. And this is the first year to watch them in high def and it makes such a difference.

This morning I was so pleasantly surprised on my walk to work through the office towers that tvs have been set up in the lobbies to watch the games (it would be interesting to see the productivity decreases during these two weeks and everyone staying up late to watch). One area in the photo even went as far as setting up bleachers for people to sit and watch. Very nice to see. I wish the olympics were every year.

I’ve seen a lot of folding bikes this summer. Much more than I usually see. The same with mopeds and scooters. High gas prices and warm weather combine to get more people out of their cars. I was contemplating getting a scooter but don’t want to pay for a years worth of insurance but only drive it for 4 months due to the weather.

I’ve got about 30 minutes of walking (13 minute walk + 13 minute train + 17 minute walk) each way to work and thought about cutting that hour a day of walking down by having a bike. I can’t take a bike on the train during busy times but I think I could get away with bringing on one of those small collapsing bikes. A compact lightweight bike might give me back 30 minutes a day x 3 days a week commuting (I work from home some days) x 30 weeks per year (won’t ride in sloppy weather) = 45 hours. 45 hours saved!!! That’s some serious return on investment. Think of what your (hourly salary is x 45 hours) - (cost of bike) and it’s a worthwhile investment. Time to go bike shopping.

is it june already? time flies. the new baby has kept us busy and exhausted. but she’s a blast.

the summer heat is on the way. got ceiling fans installed yesterday. we had to hoist a 10 foot ladder up 3 stories through the balcony so we could install the fan in the high ceiling. makes a huge difference with the air.

why is each potato tagged individually?

no time for the gym lately. disappointed. maybe soon i’ll squeek a few hours in there.

pottery barn - i should get this for free at least

likewise with the photoblog…not much editing or shooting going on. lots of baby photos mostly.

a scooter would be nice - except i don’t want to get flattened

garage sale on the weekend. our entire neighbourhood was in on it. made $110. woohoo. quickly spent it on takeout meals through the week. at least we got rid of some of the stuff we didn’t need anymore and gave it a good home.

someone didn’t want their cassettes anymore

got to go out for a movie last weekend - ironman. i knew it was one flick i definitely had to see in the theatre. j stayed at home with the baby and i hit the theatre with her bro. so great to be out. contemplated napping since i knew it was 2 hours of rest i could use, but the movie was great and kept me awake.

another pimped out minivan. definitely a trend i’ve spotted

tv viewing is slow but has consisted of “the first 48″ on a&e and lots of mma on hdnet. between ufc and all the hdnet fight shows, i’m backlogged. and saw a mike tyson best of retrospective. that guy was crazy. lots of 1st round knockouts. watch his early fights and see why he was so amazing.

dell.com shipped me this tiny mouse in this huge box. at least they didn’t use the foam peanuts

also saw the latest launch of the shuttle in hd…amazing. got to see the astronauts getting suited and boarding…much more real than just watching a blip of a shuttle take off the pad. hdnet is a great channel.

another bird fell victim to flying into a large tower

earth hour is this saturday at 8pm. register online at wwf.ca/earthhour or earthhour.org to let them know you’re participating so estimates can be kept for those involved.

i plan on turning out the lights, lighting some candles and relaxing. i’m going to try turning off as much electronics as possible, even turning off the computers. maybe i’ll do some battery-powered PSP gaming.

I bought a MacBook Pro on the weekend (post to follow soon) and I’m moving my life from my PC to Mac. Previously, I did everything on my Mac Mini, except for all my email and surfing which I did on my PC laptop. Now that I’ve got a portable Mac, all of my life is going on there.

I use Thunderbird for email on multiple accounts (blainekendall.com, Gmail, a few Yahoo accounts, a few other domains,etc). I managed to find some tutorials on easily moving mail accounts from the PC to Mac. But there was just one problem…Yahoo POP access. A few years ago, Yahoo started charging for POP email checking. They want you to go through their web pages (for advertising revenues). Thus YPops was created to continue giving POP access by running a small server on your local machine and screen scraping your email out of Yahoo. Sadly, it was Windows-only although the source was available for those who wanted to try to convert it to Mac/Unix/Linux,etc. Not being able to check my Yahoo mail except for on a webpage was just a hardship I’d have to deal with.

Until today. I did another search and found something that claims to solve the problem. MacFreePops looks to do the same thing as YPops, yet runs on the Mac. I’ll definitely be giving it a shot tonight. It’s the one remaining thorn in my side keeping me from a complete transition.