Fake

Tech / / Leave a Comment

I got another call from an Indian credit-card scammer today. I had some time, so I decided to play along.

Before he asked me anything at all, he gave me the usual spiel: he has reviewed my credit card history and sees that I pay at least the minimum every month, sometimes more, but that I still can’t make much progress towards lowering my balance. All lies, of course; he’s not really looking at anything. But I agreed with everything he said, and gave him a fake credit-card expiration date and a fake phone number when he asked for each. And then he instructed me to read off my credit card number to him.

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Cheese

Adventures, Jill / / Leave a Comment

Jill and I have become cheese-curious!

Growing up, I had only ever known slices of American and sharp cheddar, mozzarella that comes on pizza, and Parmesan sprinkled from a can of Kraft. But then one night at the Yachtsman Steakhouse, Jill and I decided to order an artisanal cheese sampler. Our eyes, and our palates, were opened. Especially, this was the first time I ever tried blue cheese; the veins of blue mold in it had always put me off, but I closed my eyes and – wow. Where has this flavor been all my life?

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Protest

Adventures, Jill / / Leave a Comment

Today I attended a counter-protest at Planned Parenthood. I’m glad I was there to be a part of the group supporting the clinic, but for a few reasons I was somewhat disappointed by the experience.

I decided to go when Jill told me about it. She’s fed up with the direction that our government is headed; never before has she felt motivated to take a stand, but she felt that now is the time to do something. So when she heard that Nessa feels the same way and was going to support the local Planned Parenthood during an anti-abortion protest, she immediately volunteered, and as soon as I heard that, I volunteered too.

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Away

Disney, Jill, Travel / / Leave a Comment

Jill runs (or walks) a lot of 5K and half-marathon races with her posse, the Sparkle Sisters. (See sparkleskirts.com.) A few times each year, she’ll go away for a weekend at Disneyland or the Space Coast or even at the nearby Disney World resorts with her friends.I stay home alone with the cats and the dog, and I take advantage of the time to tidy up and tackle some home projects.

This is the first time we’re doing it the other way around, though. She and her friends ran the Pro Bowl 5K at the ESPN Wide World of Sports this morning, and they’re running the Celebration half-marathon tomorrow morning. So Jill and seven of her friends are staying at the house … and I decided it was my turn to get away.

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Rogue One

Movies / / 2 Comments

The film Rogue One didn’t sit well with me. It was a hodgepodge of all the best bits from other Star Wars films, but beneath the surface, it just didn’t have substance.

Now that some time has passed since the film’s release and I’ve had a chance to think about it some more, and now that more people have seen it so I’m not at as much risk of spoiling it, I’ll go into some more detail. (Spoilers do follow.)

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Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, 2016

Disney, Jill, Travel / / Leave a Comment

Our annual trip to Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.

I was maxed out on vacation time at work (couldn’t accrue any more until I used some), so taking the week off worked out perfectly for me. Jill and Eve had walked the Space Coast Half Marathon together on Sunday morning, so they were definitely ready for plenty of relaxation too.

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Train whistle

Disney / / Leave a Comment

A long while back, I took the “Magic Behind Our Steam Trains” tour at the Magic Kingdom. The guide told us what the various steam locomotive whistle signals meant, and I jotted them down. I finally decided to post them here so they no longer take up space on my notepad.

  • Four notes, coming into station: “Here Comes The Train”
  • At the station, two notes and a bell: “I’m Here”
  • Two notes when ready to leave: “Let’s Go”
  • Three notes, when the engineer needs to back up: “Let’s Go Back”

 

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Time and space

Macintosh / / Leave a Comment

My MacBook Pro has a 500GB solid-state drive. (Technically 512GB, I suppose, but it reserves all the rest to replace blocks as they fail. I’m okay with that.) When I first got this computer, I decided to allocate 380 gigs of that to Mac OS, and the remaining 120 gigs to Windows, because I like being able to dual-boot into Windows when I want to help someone with Windows or play a game.

Turns out that I don’t use much storage on the Mac side; I prefer to keep most of my data on my desktop, where it’s more secure. But meanwhile, Windows games are big and I have a bunch of them (darn Steam sales), so I was running out of room on the Windows side.

So I decided to shrink the Mac partition and expand the Windows partition, to give them each 250 gigs.

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