Emil's Wicked Cool Blog

I just changed offices and so I've taken the opportunity to try out a new monitor setup. My primary machine is a laptop and I have a external monitor, so I've always enjoyed the extra real estate of an extended desktop, at least when I'm in the office. However, I was finding the setup of limited use the way I had it, with my monitor above the laptop. After moving to the new office, I put the monitor to the (left) side of the notebook, and now on day 2 I'm finding it to be very comfortable and useful. Biggest downside so far is that it's on the left side, so I almost expect it to be the primary monitor (I assume this is my cultural expectation since I read left to right). I'd rather have it on the left for other reasons, and I don't want it to be considered the primary to make it easier to dock/undock the laptop without running.

Just a quick Friday rambling...

I noticed that atom feeds from blogger in Outlook 2007 appear to be broken. All posts (at least on my machine) show up with a date of 12/31/2006. This help file shows you how to get to an RSS feed, which works correctly in Outlook. Note that the trick does not work with the old style blog URL (http://example.blogspot.com/atom.xml), but only with the new style URL available only with the new blogger (http://example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full?alt=rss).

This post helped me figure out the new URL. Unfortunately, all I've seen in blogger help is how to embed the URL in your template rather than a help file telling you what the URL actually is. For reference, here are the URLs for this blog, which I'll add to the template shortly:

Atom 1.0: http://emilsblog.lerch.org/feeds/posts/full
RSS 2.0: http://emilsblog.lerch.org/feeds/posts/full?alt=rss

We are taking a family vacation to Casa Manana in Bucerias, Mexico, just north of Puerto Vallarta. We originally applied for Kathryn's passport back on January 18th, and were given March 15th as the date for the passport to get here in the mail. Due to the recent changes in travel regulations, we expected it would take longer, but we decided 3 months (12 weeks) was plenty of time, and we did not need expedited service. The web site currently claims processing times of 10 weeks, although I believe at the time it was saying 8 weeks.

March 15th flew by, so we checked the status online around March 29th. The site said that we'd get the passport April 9th. This was pretty close to our April 15th departure, so I called on April 3rd to find out if this was a problem, and if so, what I could do about it. When I called, I literally got "all circuits are busy, please try again later". A redial later, I got through, and the phone menu starts with, "We are currently experiencing unprecedented demand for US Passports. We have added staff and are working overtime to make sure that no travel plans are effected. If you are not traveling in the next two weeks, PLEASE, hang up. (then something to the effect of "it will be ok")". Option 1 and option 3 later, I'm told, "all our agents are busy, we can not answer your call at this time".

Several more redials later, and I actually get into the queue. I wait a relatively short 30 minutes and the agent tells me, "oh, you're in good shape, this is in book print". I asked what that meant, and they said that it stays in book print for a day and then someone physically compares the passport to the application, a process that also takes a day. Then it gets shipped out priority mail (2-3 days). The woman told me that with Easter and everything, and "you know how the government is" (I love that coming from a government employee), that I should see it Saturday or Monday.

Monday goes by, and no passport. Tuesday goes by, and no passport. So I check the status online after the mail came, and now it says that it shipped, but it's estimated to arrive "on or about 4/14/07". Umm...we leave on 4/15, so what do they mean with that "about"? So, I give them another call on Tuesday (April 10th...5 days before we fly). After the prerequisite redialing and 30 minute wait, I get through and they said I should be in good shape. It physically was on a truck on April 9th, so I should see it Thursday or Friday (April 12th or 13th).

The story does have a good ending, as the passport has arrived today (April 11th). Talk about cutting it close, though...

As a quick postscript to a long post, Kathryn got one of the new RFID passports, and it's really fancy. I think they did a very good job with the design and artwork, and I can only assume it's less subject to counterfeiting. I'm not sure how well the face recognition will work with Kathryn when she's 4 years old, though.

So after receiving Kathryn's passport, I had to deal with the fact that it will expire, and that I have to remember to renew the passport when it does. I believe that software definitely has a half-life, so I had to question the use of Google calendar, which for our family is at calendar.lerch.org through the Google apps for your domain service.

While I like the service, will it still be what I'm using when my passport expires in 2014? What's the alternative reminder system (on or offline) that I can expect to be using at that time? In the end I decided that if not using Google calendar I would be migrating the data to whatever would be in use at that time. Since reminders work via SMS, I'm also assuming that the reminder system migrates to whatever is in use.

I guess the fall back is to just check the passports before travel, but the general issue still exists. Given the transient nature of systems (software or process), what assumptions can you make to ensure that you get when you expect in 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years?

I was just forwarded a link to the cool site of the day. It's a mashup combining happy hour information with Google maps. Awesome.

The current URL will still work, but I've set the blog up so it can now be accessed via emilsblog.lerch.org.

Our family blog is at blog.lerch.org.

Google maps launched a way to annotate and save your own custom maps. I've started a map of my overall travels, and one specifically focused on places I've been in India. I see this being a big project, but it would be nice to have URLs to pictures, etc. at each site.

More tangible value for this can be seen in the map I've done to show where to park and how to get to Bethany Community Network meetings.

Cool.