My spinach salad smoothie

My wife and children think I'm disgusting. I think what I did was genius. Maybe I'll be the disgusting genius?

I took leftover spinach/strawberry salad, put it in the blender with some Naked Juice Blue Machine, watched it turn completely green (which caused my wife to comment on how disgusting it was), threw in a few ice cubes, and viola!  Salad through a straw.  And it tasted GREAT.  

I know people have been putting spinach, broccoli and other veggies in their smoothies for a while.  But this was the first time I took what was otherwise a perfectly fine salad (with some slivered almonds as well) and drank it.  

I'm inspired.  I love my Vita-mix, and for a long time wanted to try a full week of nothing but smoothies/juices and this may just be the kickoff that I need.  I think the next experiment is a full 1-pound bag of spinach with some berries.  

Mac Love with CD recovery

Our babysitter gave us a CD of pictures of our children, but the CD was scratched.  And our babysitter has shipped off to join the Navy, so realistically there is no way of getting another one burned until later this year.

So I tried some CD recovery.  Of course I Googled for it but the best result was for a product called AnyReader, which was Windows only.  I tried it, and it hung and got stuck and recovered only the first 5 files or so (which were easily read by the OS).

So after some more Googling, I found a way to do this on my Mac.  Here's what I did:

• Installed Darwinports from http://darwinports.com
  
• Installed ddrescue from http://ddrescue.darwinports.com/
  
• Identified the mount point of the cd with:  $ mount
• You can also find this information with: $ sudo dmesg
• Unmounted the CD with:  $ sudo umount /dev/disk5s0
• Ran ddrescue with: $ ddrescue -v -b 2048 /dev/disk5s0 diskimage.dmg logfile

Prior to getting it to work, I did have to kill the Finder copy going on, which was just kill -9 pid where pid was the process ID for the Finder process itself.  If you use top -u -s10 you can see the process, or I generally use ps -ax | grep Finder which shows the Finder process and your grep request

Then I went to sleep.  And I woke the next morning to find a mostly recovered CD.  I was very pleased with the results.

My Mac rocks!

Outlook efficiency

I'm back on Outlook at work, and yes, I really, really miss Gmail as my work e-mail, but that's a topic for a different day.  One thing that I find really productive about GMail is the single key to archive a message ('y' for those of you keeping score).

So how can I do this in Outlook 2007?   I'll give you the code, but you'll have to monkey with the Macro security settings (now that they are already set up, I can't reproduce the steps until I try this on somebody else's machine, which I will do shortly).

First, create a folder where you are going to move all of your mail.  I call mine "Archive".

Then go to "Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor"

Then type the following code in:

Option Explicit
Sub MoveItems()
Dim Messages As Selection
Dim Msg As Object ' Since we can't be sure what has been selected.
Dim NamSpace As NameSpace

    Set NamSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")

    Set Messages = ActiveExplorer.Selection

    If Messages.Count = 0 Then

        Exit Sub

    End If

    For Each Msg In Messages

      If (Msg.Class = olMail) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingRequest) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingResponseNegative) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingCancellation) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingResponsePositive) Then 

          Msg.Move NamSpace.Folders("Mailbox - David Pinkus").Folders("Archive")

      End If

    Next

End Sub

PLEASE Replace the "Mailbox - David Pinkus" above with your actual mailbox name.  It's usually pretty obvious from the folder structure.

Also, I only included a few other types above, you may get items that you also want to move.  I included the elaborate constant names for readability, in case I wanted to do something else with these objects.  

So you're almost done.   Save what you did and return to Outlook.

Then go to "Tools > Customize" and choose the "Commands" tab.   You should see your Macro listed.  Click and drag it to one of your toolbars where it will become a button.  

I rename mine to "Muuve" and put an ampersand in front of the first "u" so that the button becomes "Muuve".  Then  you can simply press Alt-U and move the message to your Archive folder.

I'm still getting a "Macro warning" the first time I run it during a session, but will eventually get around to fixing that...

Mirror Photography

Getting a decent shot in a mirror is always a struggle. The obvious culprit is the flash, so more often than not you just take the picture without the flash. But what if you have a point-and-shoot camera that does not have any manual controls? If you use the "No Flash" setting, you get shutter times that you can't really hand-hold; and if you use the flash setting, you get a huge reflection of light in the mirror, washing out your picture. The shot at the right was the best of about 7 attempts, some with no flash (too blurry), and others with an attempt to redirect/block the flash with varying degrees of success. Now I don't think having a glowing red finger is the best approach, but the light it throws back on my face, coupled with the relative balance of light throughout the rest of the picture, along with my daughter's expression, made this one my favorite.

My new Drobo

Wow, I just noticed how long it has been since I posted.  I have lots of things going on, but need to make a better effort of getting my thoughts up here.  The topic of the moment:  Storage.

For one, where are the 2TB drives?  We've had 1.5TB drives out now for quite a while.  I'm wondering if one of two things isn't about to happen:  A major leapfrog, like to a 3TB or 4TB drive, or they've hit a real problem with scaling out bigger storage.

I received my Drobo the other night.  Amazon had an amazing price, along with a $50 rebate.  I also picked up 3 1.5TB Seagate drives, so I have 4.5TB Raw and 3TB net, but of course we all know how we've been defrauded by the drive makers who decided that a kilobyte wasn't 1024 bytes, and a megabyte not 1024^2 bytes, etc.  So instead of a terabyte being 1024^3 bytes, it's 1000^3 bytes.  A difference of 73,741,824 bytes, or 70.325 Meg.  So instead of 3TB RAID, I have 2.79TB according to the operating system (actually less for some overhead).  No matter, it's plenty for now, and one more disk will give me another 1.4TB and the Drobo will magically acknowledge it.  

I hope.  It didn't like when I put drives in starting at the bottom; so I started with 2 at the top, then added a third, and things seem OK for now.

Of course the net of all this is that I want to reconfigure how my Mac drives are set up in the first place.  I have one 340, and 3 750's, and didn't like my original config of one boot drive, one Boot Camp (NTFS) disk for Windows, one Data disk, and one Time Machine disk.

I'm thinking of taking my 3 750's and setting up a RAID configuration, but have to research if I can boot into this.  I'm also insanely paranoid about my photographs, and almost want them on two separate RAID volumes, in addition to being backed up with Mozy.  I'm sure that's overkill, but even moving them to the Drobo is giving me a little angst.

So next steps are to figure out internal RAID on the Mac, including the boot drive.  Once I get a plan there, then probably use the Mac configuration for my Photographs (backed up with Mozy) and Virtual Machines, and use the Drobo for all Videos so that I can serve them throughout the house.  Music I'll probably keep local as well.  I'll stick all of my old other hard drives and PC files onto the Drobo for safe keeping, then do some major dupe detection with them.  I think I can probably shut down my PC and/or put it somewhere for the kids (although they also have a MacMini)...

OK, I'm rambling for now.  Next steps are to:

Move my Photos to the Drobo temporarily

Convert my Boot Camp VM to a non-boot-camp VM, stick it on the Drobo.

Convert my 3 disks into a single RAID array.

Then figure out if I can copy my boot disk onto that array and boot from it?

Alternative is to get an external time machine volume for my boot disk and just time machine that.

Reminds me, I need a time machine volume for my wife :)

OK, I'll do the Drobo Photo and Boot Camp migration now; that'll take time

"That's because she's not a boy"

This past weekend my children didn't listen when it was time to get off the Nintendo Wii. They had just gotten a new Star Wars Lego Wii game and were pretty engrossed in it. As my wife was getting upset about it, my 3-year old chimed in and asked if he could play with my iPod touch. My wife was a little frustrated and in an angry moment exclaimed (for the Nth time) "Ugh, I hate the Wii" (she really doesn't, she likes Wii Fit).

As she stepped away, I looked at my 7-year old and quietly commented "Mommy doesn't like videogames".

He immediately said, so matter-of-factly "That's because she's not a boy."

He's so right. :)

Hotel learnings, Pt. 1

This is what I've learned after two days of getting hotels on the road, coupled with a lot of other knowledge along the way.

Hotwire is good. They get great deals on unused inventory. We stayed at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. Hiltons though, in general, are over-rated. This was considered a four-star hotel, but the room was decidedly two to three-star at best. The only four-star feature of the hotel was the doorman and the lobby bar. I knew when Hotwire said they had a four-star property downtown for $59 it was going to be a Hilton. A quick visit to the Hilton site, showed a $199 rate, so I feel pretty vindicated. My biggest issue with Hilton is they nickle-and-dime you for everything. Internet is $9.99 / day. Parking was $16/day, or $24 for valet. I couldn't leave my car for 10 minutes to unload, and had to drive to the parking garage and then schlep my stuff across the street.

I had considered using my Starwood or other points, but $59 for a 4-star hotel seemed like a better cash exchange.

Tonight we're staying in a Baymont Inn, and honestly the room is just as nice as the Hilton. Perhaps the bedding is of a lesser grade, or the mattress not as high-end, but the room has everything, AS WELL AS a fridge, which the Hilton did not. You can't possibly expect to get 4-stars and not have a minibar, in my humble opinion. Oh, and this hotel has free internet and free parking, right outside my window, for $69. And my children are just as happen. I booked this hotel on the travel site from my company using my corporate discount (we are allowed to use this discount for personal travel). Its the same rate as a AAA rate, but I don't have my card and didn't want to be asked for it. Add the free breakfast tomorrow, and I think its overall a better deal than the Hilton, and my kids like this one just fine (I asked them and they didn't have a strong opinion).

Now I'm also setting a precedent with $60 and $70 (+tax, license, dock-fee and registration) hotels, versus $40 hotels, but I've seen those, and I've stayed in those, and they are scary. I don't need to save $20 or $30 and be in a dump.

Kayak.com, Expedia, and Travelocity are also excellent, as is word-of-mouth. I'll add more details as I know them. Oh, and all things considered, the Hilton was barely worth it at $59 a night.

OK, we'll see what happens with Oklahoma City or perhaps Amarillo tomorrow night (or Elk City or Clinton), depending on what time we get out of here, health of my kids, and bathroom stops.

Update from the middle of America

Literally. We're in Rolla, Missouri. Take a look at a map of the US and you'll see it's pretty close to the center.

It's also very close to where we stayed last night, St. Louis.

Now that might be fine, if, for example, we had a ton of activities in St. Louis, and then maybe did some other ones along the way. But that's not what happened. My oldest son got sick; like a flu with a high fever. So we were just able to get out of the hotel this morning by noon. Then we did the following routein:

1. Drove for a while.
2. Stop to go to the bathroom.
3. Repeat.

He was really feeling sick, so at the last stop, a Steak and Shake (I've never actually been to one before) in Rolla, MO, I asked him if he wanted to keep going or get a hotel and sleep. He said "hotel", so I asked the waitress for a recommendation and she actually knew of a great one that was safe, nice, and reasonably priced. A few validations on the Internet and I wound up booking it through our corporate travel department for $69, and it's actually very comfortable. It's the Baymont Inn & Suites in Rolla, and includes free breakfast, which I learned this morning saves a minimum of $10 since you aren't even tempted to go to the Starbucks in the lobby, even if you have a room full of food. It probably saves more if you have no food in your room. Ah, that reminds me of a post I need to do about saving money on hotels on the road.

So we are 416 miles from our start, with 1396 more miles to go. If my oldest son is healthier tomorrow, we can hit the road reasonably early and go for a long day, since there's nothing major along the route. Regretfully we've abandoned the route I was hoping to take, which was through Memphis and then Arkansas. I'll have to visit Memphis another time. For now we're taking the most direct route, albeit with some diversions on to the old Route 66.

OK, the kids are eating pizza (delivered from Imo's and its surprisingly good). My oldest son is feeling better, so I think we're going to brave a quick Walmart trip after pizza. Then I'm going to put them to sleep, do some photo processing, charge my camera gear, and plan tomorrow's route... But first some hotel guidance... (next post)

Lessons learned when road-tripping with a 7 and 5-year-old...

Today started Day 1 of a multi-day journey home; specifically from Chicago to Scottsdale.

We got a much later start than I would have liked, but it was pouring and traffic was miserable in Chicago, so there was little I could have done anyway.

First lesson was that I bought and brought too much food. This isn't camping, it's driving, and you are never far away from another 2 apples if you need them. Also, my playmate igloo cooler is too small; it only fits 6 drinks, I need more space.

I have this amazing Verizona wireless card and it worked brilliantly in the car. The kids were using their favorite web sites and staying thoroughly entertained. I need to research more how they can both share the same WAN card, since creating a small peer-to-peer network didn't work. I'm sure I can figure it out after a few minutes online.

I need to buy a bathing suit, chapstick, kid-safe shampoo, and a CF card reader since I seem to be missing mine.

So what did I really learn this first day?

Visiting the Lincoln Museum in Springfield was kind of heavy. The kids were definitely traumatized by the exhibit depicting a slave auction. They also weren't particularly into the period pieces nor the history of the civil war in general.

This post got auto-saved, so now let me update everything with Day 2. The agenda has dramatically changed...

How do I get my 5-year old to be in a picture?

Aaron refuses.
I used to as well as a child. Now I regret it, but I think I
understand his brain.
I'm thinking of resorting to bribery, but he hasn't told me what he
wants yet. I'm not going to get mad about it. That *never* works
with him.

More later