The News
I use the news to track events I wish to remember in greater detail than my brain allows. You can use the links to the right to control how many posts are displayed.
Another 3 months, another post [2007-09-14 16:40:08.070442-07 by 207.162.220.10]
Sept 10 (last Monday) marked two years of married life for Kristin and I. To celebrate, we went on a camping trip from Friday through Tuesday, keeping to the Oregon coast.
We started out by taking HWY 26 to the coast, then turned South. On the first night, we stayed at a county park whose name I can't remember. I probably blocked it from my memory, because the place was pretty lame. It was an insane maze of pothole-ridden asphalt and gravel roads, jumbled together next to the beach. It wouldn't have been bad, except that it was an outrageous $20 a night. For the upkeep they do, it should have been half that. (I'm searching for county parks, and it may have been Barview Jetty County Park. I'm not sure, though.
The next day, we headed south. Going through Lincoln City, I couldn't resist a visit to the local Goodwill. It turned out to be a worthwhile visit: I snagged a Dell LCD monitor on the cheap. It even does DVI.
Subsequent nights, we stayed at Rock Creek campground, which is a few miles south of Cape Perpetua. This was a much better campground setting, so, while it was also $20 a night, the cost angered me slightly less.
During the day, we drove either North to Cape Perpetua and Yachats, or South to Florence. We hiked through a bit of the Cape Perpetua trail system. Unfortunately, we didn't make it up to the lookout until the last day of the trip. On Monday, a heavy fog had settled in, an it was still around Tuseday. We'll have to go back when the weather is clear to see what we missed.
Goings on [2007-06-18 18:10:32.48321-07 by 72.87.46.44]
Wow, it's been a while. How about some quick updates...
As I mentioned in my last post, I'm done with Cingular (AKA at&t). Kristin took over another person's T-Mobile contract. We used Celltrade USA. I'd recommend them if you're tired of signing long contracts for no reason. I got myself a used Sidekick3. Currently, it has only the SK data plan -- no phone service. I'm happy with it. Sometimes I wish I could make calls, though.
Brett, Dan and I are going camping next week. We'll be exploring the netherlands to the north -- I mean, Washington. I'm planning on looping North almost to Seattle, heading East from there, and coming back SE along the OR/WA border. Should be fun, and hopefully I'll write about it. Ha.
I sold my G5 a few months ago. My current desktop at home is a Dell I received in payment for what is essentially contract software dev work. I'll be getting another Mac... eventually. After I get a house.
Houses have been on my mind lately. I'm looking through various real estate listings to get an idea of what we can get for our target budget (<$250K). We should be ready in a year or year and a half. Longer if we want to do 20% down.
This week (I believe) also marks one year at Tripwire. It's been great. I can't believe that it has been that long.
Cingular Saga Part II [2007-02-06 09:43:44.58119-08 by 192.168.254.193]
Well, I finally was able to cancel my Cingular contract without an early termination fee. At least, that's what the service rep told me. I'll be uploading that conversation in due time.
My service was disconnected on February 2nd (aside: one day before they said it would be disconnected, but whatever). My wife just told me that Cingular is now charging us an early termination fee. I don't have all the details yet, but since I recorded all but one of my earlier "conversations" with them, they can whine all they want, but I'm not paying an ETF.
Update: Kristin called Cingular about the ETF. It turns out that in their notes they said they would waive the ETF for one line and discount the ETF for our other line. That's nice; why wasn't I informed of this? During my last conversation with Cingular, they claimed I wouldn't have any ETF -- no mention of this strange arrangement.
Thankfully, the person Kristin spoke with got authorization to waive everything. I'm glad I didn't have to make yet another long phone call; it wouldn't have been pleasent for them, either.
Cingular Not Honoring CTIA Code for Wireless Service [2007-01-04 20:24:28.553675-08 by 192.168.254.201]
Recently I received notice from Cingular that they have changed the Arbitration clause of my wireless contract. Specifically, they have added a statement that precludes customers from participating in a class action suit against Cingular. I find this addition to be unnacceptable, and based upon information from Cingular's website (see point 7), I called to cancel my contract.
As expected, the first person I spoke with was totally unhelpful, and in fact was quite rude at times. Thankfully, he quickly handed my call over to a floor supervisor, who at first sounded like she would be helpful. Unfortunately, after some time of discussion regarding the CTIA code and its applicability to my case, she reverted to the CSR's favorite tactic: Repeat "I can't do that for you" whenever the customer speaks. In this case, it was "I cannot and will not do this for you without further research."
Eventually I gave in and tried to get her direct contact information. She claimed that her phone number would be of no use to me, nor her email address. The only way for us to communicate was for me to give her my email address so she could send a message to me. She said that if her email didn't work she would call me back yesterday or today. Needless to say, I received neither an email nor a call. I'm going to call Cingular tomorrow and try to get her on the phone.
I've uploaded the entire conversation here (MP4 audio). I fail to understand how such a clear statement in the CTIA code requires more research.
Move to Beaverton [2006-08-09 09:51:39.702296-07 by 12.33.18.2]
Kristin and I recently moved to an apartment in Beaverton. It's fairly close to the Beaverton Transit Center and is really close to a bus stop that goes straigt to Tripwire. Thanks to Tripwire's monthly Trimet passes, I don't have to drive downtown to get to work.
In our new apartment, we've been stealing Internet access wirelessly. Unfortunately, that isn't as stable as I'd like it to be. I searched high and low for a good ISP, but my choices were limited thanks to Verizon. They won't let me get naked DSL (DSL without a phone number), so that essentially rules out any third party DSL ISPs. Verizon also doesn't have FiOS available to me. I don't want to deal with Commiecast. Thankfully, I found another DSL option -- Speakeasy. So far they're like having a local DSL ISP (which I love) without the dependency on Verizon. It isn't exactly cheap, but it's certainly cheaper than adding a phone number just to get DSL through Verizon.
In one of their first emails to me, Speakeasy had the following to say about my email account:
Whether this is your first email address or your 1337th, there are a couple basic concerns you should keep in mind:
That's just awesome.
Graduation; Career [2006-06-15 21:06:26.666689-07 by 24.22.123.106]
It's been four years since I began my trip through college. I can't believe it has been that long. Every term, I was caught off guard when it got down to just two or three weeks left. It was the same just recently for the end of my college career. For the most part, I had a great time at Oregon State. Except for the Bacc Core. But my CS courses were great. Even my business administration minor involved plenty of interesting courses and lots of great teachers.
Four years of college also means that I've been working (off and on) at SP Newsprint Co. for the same time. It's amazing how quickly that time has gone by. It's been a great experience for me, involving many different types of projects. I am extremely grateful to SP Newsprint for employing me throughout my college career.
This Monday I'll begin my new career at Tripwire's downtown Portland office. I'm really looking forward to working with the dev team there. I met most of them during my face-to-face interview, and they all seemed like they would be good people to work with.
Student Online Services? Not so much [2006-02-28 22:20:45.264208-08 by 192.168.254.64]
OSU Student Online Services currently isn't.
Scam [2006-01-30 14:10:47.755496-08 by 192.168.254.2]
I just listed my heavily-upgraded G4 on craigslist, and was almost immediately contacted by a scammer. I played along for the fun of it, and this is the latest result: a money order confirmation from USPS!!!!111 That gave me quite a chuckle. I don't know how anyone gets taken by these scams. I mean, it's almost believable, until you get past the first email. I'll post details and all the emails later.
Honeymoon [2005-10-04 13:10:59.260965-07 by 192.168.254.64]
Well, I planned on posting a lot sooner after my wedding, but things like the honeymoon, moving, and school have kept me pretty busy since then. Kristin and I had a great time at the wedding. It went as well as I hoped, with only a bit of lag here and there.
After the wedding, we went to my parents' house to finish loading the car. Several hours later, we headed off to the coast at Cannon Beach. We stayed one night in a cabin provided by friends from church, then drove down to Newport. Since we got off to a rather late start, we only ate dinner before checking in to a hotel.
The next day we got a much earlier start, leaving our hotel at 8 or 9 am. We drove from Newport to Tillamook, where we visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory. They've got the plant set up so that the public can walk in and view a large portion of the cheese making process.
From Tillamook we continued all the way to Del Norte National Redwood Park, where we camped for the night. We got in pretty late and set the tent up using headlights and lantern. In the morning we paid our fee (forgot to during the late-night setup) and got off to another reasonable start.
(...more to come...)
Summer [2005-08-12 16:34:50.436952-07 by 192.168.254.64]
Summer's been pretty normal so far. (So far? It's almost over. x.X) That is, work keeps me extremely busy. In fact, I use my computer only about four days a week, which is remarkable. During school I'm on the 'net or gaming or whatever 100+ hours a week. Once work hits that's knocked down to ~four hours a day, and that's when I find time to get on.
I've got only four weeks until my wedding. Whee! Afterward, Kristin and I will drive down the coast at least as far as Cupertino. I'm planning for about a week and a half of camping, sight seeing, and other such fun.
