Pictures from LOLCats and I Can Has Cheezburger. Blame these images on the suggestions from friends.
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Jan 212009
Jan 202009
I am working from home today using a virtual private network (VPN) connection. I can then connect to my desktop Windows work machine using remote access. All of these connections are done through browsers so it’s pretty straightforward.
Unfortunately, the VPN system we use is primarily setup for Windows and not Macs. Once I had heard about the weather forecast yesterday evening, I grabbed one of the IT guys to help me get my Mac laptop working on the VPN. We were (mostly) successful, enough so that I felt I could reproduce the results on my Mac desktop at home.
I tried for quite a while to get the VPN to work using Firefox and Safari and failed. Even though the VPN works through my portable, I wanted the monitor real-estate of my desktop.
I installed Parallels 3.0 so I could create a virtual machine with Windows XP. Unfortunately, Parallels doesn’t recognize the external USB DVD drive. (The internal DVD-RW causes system issues when it’s used other than for booting the machine. This is being worked on.) I tried several Windows installation disks, and each time, Parallels did not recognize that a disk was in the drive. I verified that the virtual machine’s settings said to use the external drive and to boot from it.
And then I saw the option to use an ISO image instead of a drive. Using Disk Utility, I made a DMG image of the Windows XP Pro Upgrade disk. I then used the command line utility, hdiutil, to convert the DMG image to an ISO image that Parallels could use:
hdiutil convert /path/to/filename.dmg -format UDTO -o /path/to/savefile.iso
I started a new virtual machine and used the new ISO image as the DVD drive. And you know what? It worked.
Once XP was running, Internet Explorer connected to the VPN without any hitches. Except I still got an error message when trying to access my desktop system. After a lot of instant messages, I tracked down a friend who was at work. He checked my machine — and discovered that remote desktop access was turned off. He turned it back on and I was good to go.
This work from home day could not have happened without the help and support of the gaming group at work. These guys are programmers, IT/IS, and tech support. They checked my machine’s IP address, provided suggestions, and helped me resolve the VPN-related issues. I owe them brownies!
Jan 202009
I’m watching the inauguration ceremony and my absolute favorite classical musicians are playing in an ensemble: Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGills playing a composition by John Williams.
Wow. These are incredible musicians, probably some of the best in the world. And John Williams? LOVE his stuff. I love the bits from Lord of the Dance in the composition.
The oath of office for the president is being administered. Can you imagine hearing the roar of several million people? Oh he is nervous. He’s fumbling over some of the words. But he made it through.
Mall with millions of people...
Woohoo!! President Obama! Here’s hoping the next four years are better than the last eight.
Jan 202009
I woke up this morning to a phone call from the vet notifying me that Stella’s evening appointment was canceled due to inclement weather. I looked outside and smiled.
View from my porch this morning
I am so glad that I am setup to work from home!
Jan 182009
Sunday morning was the weekly riding lesson. My last riding lesson was last Sunday and it went well. Unfortunately, my back hurt so much the morning after I had to stay home from work.
Last night, I went to the company holiday party. Three hours of walking around in heels plus moving boxes out of my storage unit meant my back was a mess this morning. I took 400 mg of ibuprofen and rubbed my back down with sports cream before going out to the barn.
I warned my instructor that I might not be up to much riding before my lesson. We decided to focus just on walking and getting Isis to whoa.
Well, Isis had other ideas. I don’t know if it was the drop in temperature, because she is coming into heat, or what. I walked Isis once around the dressage arena and Isis immediately started her bouncy I-wanna-go-fast trot. I corrected her a few times by circling. Unfortunately, Isis was not calming down. I couldn’t ride like that today because of my back.
Jan 172009
At about 9:00 this morning, I woke up and saw water pouring down next to the bedroom window. I thought it was caused by a strange rain storm, so I went back to bed.
I woke up this morning to the sound of a police officer pounding on my door. I scrambled up, grabbed my bathrobe, and answered the door. The officer asked me if I had heard a fire alarm (nope, no alarm in here) or noticed sprinklers going off (nope, apartment was dry).
Apparently, the cold weather caused the a sprinkler pipe to burst and pour water down my patio roof. Luckily, no water came into my apartment (or so I thought at the time). The firemen were able to get the sprinkler water turned off until the apartment maintenance people could fix the issue.
Jan 072009
The vet saw Kasane today at lunch. The good news is that the way we were treating her foot let her actually heal more. She may have had some thrush, but that appears to be mostly gone.
The vet ended up cutting away a good part of Kasane’s frog on her front left foot. We need to wash the crevasse between her hoof and frog every evening and keep an eye on it. We’ll use an anti-thrust treatment once or twice per week as a preventive. It may take up to 4 months to completely heal and regrow the tissue on the frog.
The foot soreness may have been caused by an abscess that broke through on her heal or it might have been something she stepped on. (The vet leaned towards the idea of an abscess.) The healing process was exacerbated by the shape of her front left hoof: her left leg is offset when it comes into her hoof. This causes the inside wall of her hoof to be more upright. Her conformation may change (or potentially get worse) as she grows. Right now we have to keep her trimmed on a pretty tight schedule and see what happens. The farrier has already said that she’ll need to be shod before I can start riding her.
Kasane's foot after treatment
Here’s an interesting thing: the vet said she thought Kasane was getting ready to have a pretty big growth spurt. Yikes! She’s already taller than Isis!
Vet fee was $125. Ouch.
Matt Smith was announced as the new Doctor today. Yup, I’ve never heard of him either. Even my British friends were scratching their heads and hitting the Internet to find out more information about him.
The new Doctor was announced during a special episode of Doctor Who Confidential, which can be viewed in the UK from the BBC web site but not in the US. YouTube has excerpts of the Doctor Who Confidential episode.
I’m not sure what to think. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens as Mr Smith takes on the mantle of the Doctor. I hate to see David Tennant leave, but he has had the role for a proper amount of time (four years, as opposed to Christopher Eccleston’s one year).
According to the BBC, the new Doctor will be announced tomorrow. Who ever it is, will have to fill a huge role made popular by David Tennant’s portrayal.
David Tennant’s Doctor has become one of my favourites, second only to Tom Baker.
Here’s hoping the new one is as talented.
If you haven’t seen this, it’s a classic sketch with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, just before she took on the role of Donna in Season 4. I found this video of the sketch on YouTube.
Initially, Donna was a really annoying character. As the season progressed, she grew into a character who could match the doctor, be his best friend — and finally wasn’t a love interest (unlike Rose and Martha). I won’t go into the ending, but suffice it to say that the end of Season 4 isn’t very happy.
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