Tarraguña's Blog

Inspired by facebook, Veronica Belmont and Sarah Lane I decided to do the 25 Random Things posting.  I have joined the other 5 million or so people who have done this meme.  Great.

**List is “to date”.  I fully reserve the right to change my mind, attitudes, like, dislikes, and the past as I see fit according to my self given poetic license. 

• 1. I love chap stick but rarely wear make-up.
• 2. I can not spell worth anything in the English language but make up for it in German and Spanish. I even seem to remember the accent marks. Scary.
• 3. Dyslexia manifests in me as I can never tell the difference between right and left if those words are spoken in English. Say “right” and I will consciously have to think about which way is right. Say “rechts” or “derecha” and it is on.
• 4. I would have been a spy but I realized that as I hate being cold (not snow, just cold) I would have totally caved in the interrogation room if they exposed me to cold for a long period of time. Pull my fingernails out, electric shock, water board me, whatever. It would be the cold that would have me singing like a canary.
• 5. I always misspell the word tomarrow.. I mean tomorrow.
• 6. I studied at the Universidad de la Habana and I loved living in Cuba. But then again I could leave whenever I wanted or needed to as opposed to the Cuban citizens who are not allowed to legally travel. This restriction is placed up them by their own government. Other governments do this and want to say to them “hey if you have to keep people in your country, you must be doing something wrong”.
• 7. I play bass guitar in my band.
• 8. I have a small home recording studio that I love.
• 9. I have owned 3 different motorcycles: Honda Rebel, Kawasaki Ninja and Suzuki Boulevard.
• 10. I love to Scuba dive and will one day probably become a Master Scuba Diver.
• 11. I love to travel, and I am really proud of my gypsy lifestyle. I have lived in Sevilla, Spain; Galway, Ireland; Graz, Austria; Oldenburg, Germany; Havanna, Cuba; Calca, Peru; and various cities in the USA. Please stop me now or I will talk about all the neat differences in living in different countries…..
• 12. I am slightly more introverted when living in the USA. It feels so foreign to me sometimes like I don’t recognize it nor am I sure how to interact in corporate america. I feel like a foreigner.
• 13. I write a lot. Blogs, Websites, Journals, Songs, Lyrics, Snippets to expand later. I hope to write a novel or whatever those books are the are about 250-300 pages. I would like to write one that opens peoples minds, blows their minds in a good way.
• 14. I feel really lucky to have met my husband. We get along great. I hope nothing changes that. I at least will do everything in my power to protect it.
• 15. I am getting bored with this and only want to do 15 random things. Maybe I will update this post later…..

Ok uh seriously wpToGo software for my new G1 phone why are you not uploading pictures correctly? Gosh

Ok uh seriously wpToGo software for my new G1 phone why are you not uploading pictures correctly?

I have loved my new HP 2133 Mini Note computer for the last couple of months.  So much so that I have failed to post anything about it.  If you would like to install any version (distro) of linux I would suggest searching over the internet to see if someone else has already wrote up some instructions, tips and tricks on how to do it.  More than likely someone has unless you are getting hardware or the new distro early.  I installed Ubuntu 8.04 and used the wiki at ubuntu’s site.  Here is the link for installing the latest 8.10 Ubuntu.

I received my HP 2133 Mini Note on September 26th 2008.  The picture below is not the best quality but in my hast to rush open the packaging I would not sit still for a picture or allow for any appropriate lighting settings. 

(arrival of my new HP 2133)

It came with XP and Vista.  My plans for this computer was to put all kinds of operating systems on it and have some fun.  Since it does not have a CD drive and I also did not have any external drives I had to go to Fry’s and buy one.  It did not cost too much.  I remember when they cost quite a bit.  So I proceeded to load up XP and Vista.  It came with XP installed but in order to do it correctly I had to wipe it, partition it and then install XP and Vista.  I got both running well but who cares.  Linux was what I was after.
(running Vista and killing the CPU)

I eventually got all three; XP, Vista, and Ubuntu Linux running on my HP and I LOVE IT!!!!!!

Above are my Mac PowerBook G4 running OS X and Ubuntu 6.04 (the last distro that supported Power PC architecture) and my HP 2133 Mini Note running XP, Vista, and Ubuntu Linux 8.04.

And I just have to show off a little bit of my home recording studio below.

I will have to add the guitars and such at a later time.

Last Wednesday September 10th we saw Cheap Trick, Heart and Journey in concert.  It was amazing.  They all played really well, the sound was great and it was fun.  We ran into an old friend and sat with her and her mom.  It was great to see them again.  I love Heart and I have been listening to them non stop since the concert. I love bands that really can play their instruments.  And when you look around and see everyone else singing the songs with the band it is a unique moment.  I wonder if either band new when they wrote some of those songs that 20+ years after writing them audiences would be still getting into the songs and loving it.  I am in awe. 

How to think like a computer scientist: Learning Python
Convert Flash (.flv) to AVI (.avi) or MPEG (.mpg)
The True Cost of Ownership of any Car
How to stream music or audio from your website
for this one I even set up a test of some music I just made up quickly.
Storm Pulse.com hurricane tracker

I am starting my OS project and that is to install as many operating systems as possible. This week I installed Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) on my PowerBook PPC Mac G4. Now I only have 2 OS on my computer; Mac OS X Leopard and Linux. I hope to get the HP 2133 Mini Note and use it to test as many OSes as possible. Below are some great links about Operating Systems.

FreeOS.com The Resource Center for Free Operating Systems
Freebyte’s Guide to Free and non-Free Operating Systems
OS History list of operating systems
Vintage Operating Systems
Ubuntu Forums “Are there any OSes not based on unix that are open-sourced?

I used to think of the structure of a loan to be that; a) entity needs money b) entity who has money sees opportunity to let other entity use their money in return for paying back the money borrowed along with an additional fee ie interest. I think we all understood the game as banks and lendors make money off of interst.
Then the lenders got smarter. They set up a business model where it does not matter if loans get paid back. They nickel and dime everyone to death. Miss your payment date by a day and it will probably cost you $50.00. I can’t wait until everyone realizes that their stuff won’t make them happy and it is better to live without the credit card debt.
I carried credit card debt while I attended University as it seemed unavoidable. I feel so much more free and lighter now that I have paid them off. It was not easy though. Once I graduated and started working I made it a priority. And I still make it a priority to keep very little on them and have them paid off every month.
This post was inspired by the New York Times article “Given a Shovel Americans Dig Deeper into Debt” and it has some nice figures on how late fees and APR have increased to account for the fact that loans are not getting paid back.
You always have to keep in mind that Banks, large corporations and CEOs will always make X and it increases every year X+2 and this happens reagardless of how their business is doing. Thus you always have to keep your eyes open.

I spent too much time on that damn SimpleViewer wordpress plugin today. I have a feeling when I get home and mess with it on my mac it will work beautifully. I found 2 great links today that I have to share. The first is Living Freesytle and the second is the Cult of Productivity. They are from the same website but they are worth the read.

I have been spending a lot of time getting my archives in order. I mean the archives at Tarraguña not the ones for this blog. Working 10-12 hours a day at the “day job” does not leave time for all of the neat things I want to do. I don’t know how people do this for 50 years and then retire. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. (see the bar graph on the left)

The husband and I have been looking at recording gear for the band. This site I found today is great at explaining some of the basics that you need for home recording. We are looking to get a keyboard (maybe one like this) an external recording interface (maybe like this)to go with our Macs. It is so hard to decide on what to purchase. I hope we will have something to share very soon.

I hate it when I find good links and then loose them. Here are what I looked into today but did not have time to really absorb.
How to Create Your Own WordPress Theme by Jonathan Wold
Recording Technology History
Recording.org Forums
TweakHeadz Lab Guide to the Home and Project Studio

We had lunch with our friends Creighton and Bobbi today. It was nice to see them again. Over the last semester I had only seen Bobbi once. Back when I was in university with everyone I used to see her almost daily. Our friendship has had to re adjust to our differing schedules; her being a student and working nights on the weekends and me working in the 9-5 world. I watched the show Numb3rs today. I really love how they show a group of mathmeticians gathering and figureing out problems together and bonding over math and being on the verge of discovering “it”. I always wanted to have a crew of really smart sort of nerdy people that we could all gather and banter and be on the verge of something big. It has not happened yet. It is hard to get 2 people I know to clear up an hour so we can meet. Everyone is too busy buying stuff and working for the stuff they just bought that the commercial just convinced them of fullfillment if they only buy it. Pretty soon people will hire people to have fun for them as they have to be working all the time. The new OUTSOURCING, fun.

I am really enjoying this week. I have cleaned and organized my apartment. It is looking a lot better. I have also placed some things to sell on craigslist.org. I don’t really need the money but I do need to get rid of the items. I am also reconstructing all of my websites. It is taking a long time. I have the linux project website up and running. I am watching Oprah now. It is a pretty good show. Well I guess I can’t say that as I don’t usually watch Oprah. It is all about female body issues. Suzie Oerman is on tomorrow. I will have to try to watch.