When I worked tech support, it was all too easy to assume that the user's perceived problem and their actual problem were completely different, like the person who thinks the ISP is down when they actually left the phone off the hook, or when they're certain they've been victimized by hackers when they accidentally unplugged their mouse.

Sometimes, though, the user is spot-on in their declaration of what they think is wrong, even when it's something as incredibly unlikely as not being able to send emails to people more than 500 (or a little more, call it 520) miles away.

I don't usually point to sysadmin horror stories, because it's just too easy, but I had to share this one. (via Cory via Jef)

As previously mentioned, today was an incredible day. I thought I'd share a few pictures in hopes that it wold help convey the wonder:

(click to enlarge)

Hopefully this helps show the beauty I saw today...

I was making myself some ramen the other day, and I needed two cups of water, but my measuring cup was dirty. I thought to myself that there had to be a way for me to measure two cups of water into the pot without having to clean a dish. After a few seconds thinking...

1. Turn on the faucet midway
2. Put the measuring cup under the faucet
3. Start counting
4. When it hits two cups, stop counting
5. Put the pot under the faucet
6. Start counting
7. When you hit your original count, take the pot away and turn off the water

And, to the inevitable clever reader who says that I'm wasting water doing that, remember that washing a cup takes three times the water of filling a cup, so I saved there, too.

I was up all night working on a presentation I'm giving in five hours (with three hours of class between now and then), so you'd think that some time during the night I might have peeked through the blinds to take a look at the world outside, but no. If you thought that you'd be wrong.

And what would I have seen if I'd looked outside?

Six inches of snow that fell in the last four hours, shutting down elementary schools, but CMU never closes.

I'm puttin' on the snow pants, walking down to the bus stop, and waiting to see just how rugged the Pittsburgh Port Authority busses really are.

I just have this feeling that Winter wonderlands are all the more enjoyable when you actually got some sleep the night before. *Yaaaawn!*

So today is my last day of classes for the semester. I still have a final on Monday, and a final presentation the day after, but as far as class goes, I have my last session of Communication Design Fundamentals in a little over an hour, and that's it.

I'm sure it's partly the snow, partly the fact that I'm coming off an all-nighter, after coming off 4 hours of sleep (6am-10am) on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning), and partly having far more exciting stuff to do than time to do it, but it's literally incredible to me that the semester's essentially over. Incredible, as in not credible, as in I understand the concept, yet cannot give credit to the prospect of its validity. Sure, I still have work to turn in in three of my classes, one of which I haven't started yet, and sure I have a final that could snap me like a tiny twig of logic, but I'm not the only one. A lot of people are in a daze, looking vaguely like they should be passing their yearbooks around for people to sign, but they forgot to make yearbooks in the first place.

Okay, enough with that. Time to enumerate stuff:

There's snow on the ground and lots of it. I checked Weather.com at 4am and saw Pennsylvania covered in dark white (heh, 'dark white' makes sense if you look at a precipitation map). I looked out the window and saw the world covered in softness. Don't worry Ali, I got your snowscaped graveyard picture. I just need to get home to download it. I forgot to bring the cable. The snow's about 5 inches deep; just enough to change a road from a right to a privilege. The forecast is pretty clear for the next week, but the temperature will sway from 36 to 8, so I don't see much of this stuff clearing away before I take off. I hope my car likes its snowbank.

My powerbook came last Tuesday (wow, two days seems so much longer when you were conscious for 49 of the intervening 53 hours), and I've barely had time to give it its due, much less revel in it here. Fittingly enough, I'm typing on it now in the UC center, its frosted silver mirrors the suddenly winterized world just outside the double-paned glass. I haven't had time to install enough apps or docs on it to feel comfortable giving it dominion over my digital well-being, but somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday I'll be loading it up with my 20gig mp3 dowry, 4gig photo tome, and assorted other data vaults. The thing is truly freaking beautiful. I don't know what more I could want in a machine. I can't reasonably ask for faster than a 1Ghz G4, and the screen constantly seems bigger and brighter than this svelte machine should be able to house. Internal wireless is also a dream come true. Joy.

When I brought the box up from the FedEx guy Tuesday morning, I gently patted my newly-old powerbook, telling it that it would always have a place with me. I have an affinity for my portable machines. In contrast, I'm planning on selling my Quicksilver G4 tower, its noise and continuing depreciation outweighing the little unique utility not duplicated by my sibling powerbooks.

I should have treated my sidekick so well. Nestled in my pocket yesterday, it decided to make a plea for attention, no doubt feeling neglected and threatened by the new baby. It decided to deactivate every other vertical line of pixels, and dim several of the others. Cajoling, rebooting, and eventually slapping it briskly (think baby's first breath, not crying toddler over the knee) to kick'start the display, but to no avail. The true irony (if one can extend anthropomorphosis this far) is that the temper tantrum is backfiring: T-Mobile is sending ad advance-replacement my way this morning, and it'll be here early next week, so the sidekick that wouldn't shape up will now ship out, replaced by a new doe-eyed machine that's never known a world without the G4PB. Now I just have to make sure the powerbook doesn't get jealous. Oh, and a name for the new powerbook? I'm leaning towards 'Sendai.'

What else can I tell you? For the first time in memory I have both of my Congresses of Vienna blocked out for a Gaskell's Ball that's still over two weeks away. Not bad for a country boy. Now I just have to make sure I can still dance.

The Great Blogger Diet hasn't been forgotten or abandoned. On the contrary, there's quite a tale to tell on that front; one that might just rival this post in length, and may even rise to the level of the mythic laundry story, so you'll understand that I want to take my time with it. Some time this weekend. (I just want to add how cool it is that searching for that url was so easy

It's amazing how everything's quieter in the snow. It's like hanging tapestries on the walls, all over the world. Busses driving by no longer chug, but shoosh, and traffic moves slow enough that you don't have to look both ways, just walk with the traffic, going at a downstream angle, just like how they told you to escape a running river.

The air is so quiet, and everyone looks like a student. It feels like a weekend on campus, which is just like a weekday on campus, with authority figures removed.

But I still have a few miles to go before I sleep, and more upon my next waking, so I'll cut this short (even though it's anything but). I could write all day, but I need to turn it to more scholastic ends at the moment.

And yea though I had to trudge through powder to get to a packed damp bus early this morn, I do still so love the snow.

Well, not my mouth, but his mouth. This is the most creative (and mildly disturbing) photographic project I've seen in months. Really cool stuff.

In honor of a good, geographically distant friend of mine, I just have to share and say how intriguing she is. Who is she? Well, yes. that's the mystery, I suppose.

It's 3:25am, it's 17F degrees outside, and I'm at Kinko's with my three teammates printing 36 color pages for HCI methods. Between this and next Monday's final, over half the semester's points are just waiting to be won, here on the burgh is right! (where right = really, really cold and late)

Hell yes I'm punchy.

(If you're looking for the piece on my mom's chorus and the singing holiday cards, click here.)

So this is the last week before finals. Of course, I only have one final exam. The rest of my work is finishing final projects for my courses. On Wednesday our final report is due in HCI Methods class, worth nearly a quarter of my grade, to be followed next Monday by the course final, which will be worth more than a quarter of my grade.

On Thursday I'm presenting my final project for Computer Music, a set of code (written in at least three languages) which takes in a logfile and outputs music. I'll be writing up more about this once the project is done, but it's pretty cool.

Later on Thursday I'm turning in my notebook for Communication design Fundamentals (damn I keep wishing I'd posted a lot of the work I've done in these classes as I went along. Just too busy, and now's no exception, but soon I will have a lot more time...), a notebook showing my creative process for each of the assignments I've done over the course of the semester.

Monday the 9th is the aforementioned Methods final, and the following Tuesday and Thursday are presentations for our interactive programming final projects; in my case that's a Director project along similar lines to the computer music project: visual and aural representation of a logfile for easy cognition, only this time augmenting the sounds with some kinetic typography and realtime controls.

The long and short of it is that I'm insanely busy, but just for the next week and a half. Oh, and I'm coming back to the Bay Area for Winter break on December 12th.

(Executive summary: Internationally renowned women's chorus (and my mom) sings holiday greetings to the persons of your choosing, anywhere in the world, for $7-10)

I probably don't post about my family as much as I ought to, and I keep meaning to write about how proud I am of my sister for becoming a foster parent this year, or the rest of my family for their wide-reaching accomplishments, but today I'm writing to tell you how proud I am of my mom, and to let you know about a really cool gift you can get for your loved ones. Yes, this is a plug, but it's a really worthwhile one. If you think so too, I hope that you'll tell your family and friends, and/or post it on your own weblog. These nice folks deserve all the exposure they can get.

My mom's a member of the Verdugo Hills Showtime Chorus, a member chorus of Sweet Adelines International. Along with about a hundred other accomplished vocalists in her chorus, she regularly performs in large competitions. I had the privilidge of hearing them perform at the Buckeye Invitational competition in Columbus, Ohio last August, where they swept all the award categories. They're really good.

Okay Kevin, cut to the chase:

For the past several years, every holiday season, the girls have done singing holiday cards. You give them the name and phone number of the person you want to serenade, and the best time to call, and on December 14th they'll call that person up, anywhere in the world, home, cellphone, whatever, and they'll sing your choice of one of ten holiday songs (repertoire includes Silent Night, Jingle Bell Rock, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, the Hanukkah song, and others listed on the order page). No recordings, no canned anything. The real deal.

The lowdown: Twenty-five singers performing live in four-part harmony (barbershop style): tenor, lead, baritone and base, singing specifically to your recipient. People really love it. It has a very personal touch, and won't be a throwaway gift that'll gather dust in the closet, but a memory that they'll keep with them.

So how much does it cost? Just $7. Less than you'd spend on a doohicky they'd never use. If your recipient is outside of Southern California, it's just $8 (long distance charges included in the price). International is only $10.

Renting a philharmonic orchestra costs $70,000 a day, so having a chorus of highly talented singers spreading holiday cheer for one ten-thousandth of that is quite a deal!

I recommend ordering early. The order deadline is December 11th, as long as they don't fill up before then. If they get enough interest, they may add have a second day, but there's no guarantee.

So that's my plug. They're really great folks, and their specialty is spreading holiday cheer, and they even accept PayPal. I'll be giving singing holiday cards to a slew of my friends this year. Also, they have no advertising budget, so this is all spread word of mouth. If you agree that this is a cool gift, please pass this permalink along to family and friends (weblogs, etc), as my testimonial gives a lot more detail about the service than their order page provides.

Happy Holidays!