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Bram Smits
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Bram Smits" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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03:22 am
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One year
Not much posting lately. Sorry about that, very full life at the moment.
Last year just before I went on holiday I met someone through a dating site. I went over there, it clicked, we kept in touch while I was traveling, and two days after I got back we saw each other again. We've been seeing each other a lot since, and have gone to spending more than half our time together. Yesterday, the 28th, was a year since we first met. Our anniversary, so to say. We celebrated with a very nice sushi dinner at Okura.
I love you, Harri.
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03:43 pm
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Happy new year!
Happy New Year and best wishes to y'all!
Yes, I'm still alive, still skimming LJ, and up to my proverbial eyeballs in work, so not as much time to post as I'd like. Short update: Boyfriend (Harri), work (freelance consulting, no more perm contracts for this boy), cars (a lot), bikes (still riding, looking for a younger bike, ST1100/1300 kind of thing), whatever else just ask me.
Take care,
Bram
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03:50 pm
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Solaris 8 patchcluster request
Yeah, I'm still alive, and doing freelance contracting. Yes, outside of Optiver, my employer for the past 2 years. I'll do a writeup later.
For now, would anyone just happen to have a copy of the 14 september 2006 Solaris 8/Sparc Recommended Patch Cluster?
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02:27 am
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gun control...
...is hitting what you aim for.
Maybe unusual for a european, but I fully agree that if you rob someone at gunpoint, you should expect getting shot&killed by the intended victim as a normal occupational hazard. One, possibly two criminals who won't reoffend, ever. At least not in this incarnation.
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09:58 pm
[Link] | [20070628 2200 Denver, CO] Back in Denver again. After last entry I took a little tour down I70, up to Winter Park, then through Rocky Mountain NP and overnighted in Fort Collins. What's going on, lots of hotels expensive or booked full! Anyway, RMNP very nice, highly recommended. It was foggy when I left Denver, better when I crossed the mountains going towards Winter Park, first half of the park was actually pretty sunny, and after Alpine visitor center, crossing another high peak again going back east, I was also back in the the fog/clouds.
Today down from FtCollins to Denver, spending the afternoon at the zoo. Nice place, lots of "natural environment" enclosures, good portfolio of animals. After about 4 lots of animals were being brought back inside for the night, so fewer exhibits actually had animals in them anymore.
Pictures will come later, the in-room network here at the Four Points is down for maintenance so I'm typing this on the wifi in the lobby.
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11:50 pm
[Link] | [20070626 2350 Denver, CO] A couple of easy driving days. Sunday leaving from ( Ouray ) and driving along the ( million dollar highway, )
so called for the valuable ore used as roadbed fill. This led me to Silverton, a town designated as national historic tourist trap district. Lots of old buildings, period shops, and cars, bikes and ( the Durango&Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway )
Then on towards Pagosa Springs, to position myself for Great Sand Dunes national Monument the following day.
Along the way to GSDnm I came across a seemingly unused stretch of train track filled with lots of "all purpose spine cars", a railroad cargo cart suitable for semi trailers, containers, and who knows what else. At first it was just amusing to see them, forming a rust-brown fence along the highway. Then more, and more. I'm guessing about 20 miles of them, interrupted for railroad crossings... Assuming around 20 tonnes weight per empty car there must be millions of dollars of scrap metal there, although they looked like it should be possible to recommision them should you ( be so inclined )
I'm sure it's not economically viable, nor do customers desire rail service for trailers anymore, but I think there's part of the answer to high diesel prices and congestion right there, slowly rusting away in the southern Colorado desert.
Great Sand Dunes is nice, white sand dunes right in the middle of dark grey and red rock. It is a rather special ecosystem, the NPS website can give you a lot more info about that. A complex water system runs through it, leading to a surprisingly cool mudflat where visitors are allowed in. It also has some nice unpaved roads open to 4WD cars, so ( I did some of them )
Unfortunately this rental Jeep has too little ground clearance (and for my taste electrics aren't sufficiently waterproofed) for some of the stream crossings, so I had to turn back eventually. Would love to do this with a properly prepared vehicle.
On to Colorado Springs, east of the rockies again for the first time in more than 3 weeks. Also the first rain and thunderstorm for weeks, and quickly dropping from high 70s through '90s down into 50's and 60's. Chilly! On to ( Garden of the Gods park )and of course that drive no true car nut can miss, up ( Pikes Peak )Too bad about it being somewhat cloudy, still a nice drive. Rocky Mountain NP tomorrow if the weather cooperates.
Priceline screwed up tonight, booking me into a hotel that had no rooms available. Fortunately the receptionist there managed to find me something else and get them to honor the priceline price -- seems there's some sports tournament here in Denver and everything's booked solid. It's quite busy everywhere, but I snagged the Four Points for thursday evening when I knew last week I'd be there then. Friday evening I'm staying with friends here in Denver.
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11:33 pm
[Link] | Odds and ends
billboards:
[Nevada] "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" (images of dice, women, cocktail glasses)
[Utah] "What happens in Sevier County, you can share with your friends back home" (images of wholesome outdoor activities)
[Oregon] "Lottery games should not be played for investment purposes" (on a billboard with a digital counter showing the current jackpot)
Jeep:
'07 Grand Cherokee. 3.7 V6, powerful enough. Automatic gearbox, unfortunately lacking the high/low gearing and locking diffs. Instead it uses the traction control and ABS systems to detect wheel slippage and counter it. It works, but especially yesterday when I was playing in loose sand in Great Sand Dunes national monument I would've prefered to just lock the diffs rather than getting a wee bit of wheel slip, hearing the familiar clatter of the ABS pump, getting on again... Some more ground clearance would've been nice too, powering through the sand I occasionally felt it bottom out. Oh well, it's a rental, if it'd been my own it would've been slightly modified by now...
I've now had the '07, '05 and '00 Grand Cherokee, and there sure is a lot of progress. The '00 still handled like a truck (as in, not all that well on twisty roads) but that V8 sure was nice. The '05 had much improved handling, but the old 4.0 inline-6 was thirstier than the V8, and somewhat sluggish. The V6 in the '07 feels more powerful and lively, has better fuel economy (getting about 19.8 mpg average, it does a lot better on constant highways but mountains and city driving really kill economy), and handling is again improved over the '05. It does seem a bit smaller though when parked next to an older model -- it's recently had a redesign, and it seems to have shrunk a bit with the Commander having become the next size up. It's also more rounded off, looking less like a proper SUV and more like a posermobile.
Wireless:
why is it that about every 3rd hotel seems to have trouble keeping their wifi operational? The mid-range hotels seem to be the worst; low end and independents just have an access point/router hooked up to a DSL line and that seems pretty solid. High end has invested in systems that work and people who know how to keep them up. Midrange (BestWestern, HolidayInn, etc) deal with the likes of Guesttek, Nomadix, and so on, and that doesn't work seemingly as often as it doesn't. C'mon guys, it isn't rocket science. And lose the access servers, usage agreements, etc -- it adds a layer of complexity that serves no useful purpose.
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11:00 pm
[Link] | [20070623 2300 Ouray, CO] Drove from Delta up to Grand Mesa (nice unpaved USFS roads), then down to Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP (north rim), and down to Ouray. The sounds quicker than it is, there's some really nice twisties on ( that route. )
I'd love to do this on motorbike one day, although I will be wearing proper biking gear, unlike a lot of the Harley riders I see out here. Heck, even helmets aren't mandatory. Oh well, we can always use more organ donors I guess :-)
Ouray is called the Switzerland of Colorado, and you ( can see why. )
Even the town is done up in a faux alps style. I'll try to shoot some pics here tomorrow, it was sort of getting darkish when I got here.
On the way in I got briefly stuck behind a herd of cows, but was quickly guided through it by ( the local cowboys )
I'm sure I'm disappointing some of you when I state, for the record, that there was no "Brokeback Mountain" interlude for me here...
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11:01 pm
[Link] | [20070622 2300 Delta, CO] After staying with friends in SLC for a couple of days -- good people, good talk, good food -- I'm on the move again. SLC to Delta, CO today. As I didn't want to just blast down the highway I told the satnav to sent me via US40. Which it did, and then decided that the fastest way from US40 to US6 would be to do 35 miles of unpaved road through Uinta national forrest.
Hey, I don't mind, it's one of the reasons I got the Jeep. Which finally ( looks like a proper Jeep... )
Great scenery, from lush valleys to arid desert. Highly recommended.
I'm not sure though what is going on around here, most hotels are full or overpriced in the Grand Junction / Delta area...
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12:25 am
[Link] | [20070616 2300 Boise, ID] On my way to SLC. Took it easy this morning, so got a fairly late start. Hilton hotels is nice, very comfy bed, bathrobes, coffee and tea, the works... But why can't they sort of throw Paris Hilton out of the family? She's the mainstay of news channels these days. In prison, out of prison, back in prison, prison nuthouse... C'mon, she's just another drunk driver. I don't give a shit. She's probably getting a slightly harder sentence now due to her high profile, but then again she's got away with a lot of shit too, so that evens out. Karma's a bitch, and it doesn't even give good head. Maybe Paris Hilton does, didn't she videotape herself doing that? Oh well, maybe she can keep Scooter Libby company.
Here's some free legal advice, worth every penny you paid for it: don't drink&drive, don't violate your probation, and likely you won't be going to prison for DUI and probation violation. This message brought to you by a citizen in favor of common sense. I'm not a lawyer, don't even play one on television, void where prohibited, past earnings are not inidcative of future results.
And as to Scooter Libby, isn't wilfully revealing the identity of national security assets very close to treason? Where's the firing squad? At least the judge thinks the appeals have little chance and ordered him to report to prison when called up, no bail during the appeals process. Now lets see if his cronies (particularly one GWB) use their tricks to keep him out.
Anyway, back to your regular scheduled travel commentary. Portland was a lot quicker to drive this morning than yesterday, that was mayhem. I know Portland was busy, but I didn't remember it being this busy. It was also quite cool -- after being used to daytime highs of 100+ and nighttime lows of high 80s in Sacramento, 63 isn't warm.
Today was spent driving down I84 to Boise, with a detour for the historic highway through the ( Columbia River gorge. )
Along there I also found the cheapest gas I found so far, 2.91. Still, happy to back in Idaho where we can pump our own gas rather than having to wait for a bunch of kids to finish fuelling your car (or rather, all the cars in front of you...).
Then on through the plains and hills of ( eastern Oregon )
Tomorrow 84 to 15 to SLC... Should be there for dinner.
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01:19 am
[Link] | ObMountShastaPicture ( behind the cut )
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12:10 am
[Link] | [20070616 0100 Portland, OR] Drove up to Portland to view a couple of cars here and make contact with a shop that handles quite a few of them. Mildly promising here. Threw the motel6 price at priceline and got the downtown Hilton. Nice view from the 11th floor. Shame about having to pay extra for parking and wifi, but nice to be able to park the car after that earlier meeting and just walk to dinner, Powells (didn't think I would go to PDX and skip Powells, would you?). Portland is one of those rare compact towns in the US where most everything in downtown is actually walkable. Wouldn't want to live downtown, I'm too much a child of suburbia for that, but as towns go I find it pretty nice.
Had dinner at a Lebanese restaurant, Habibi on 1012 SW Morrison. Good food, very attentive waiters, many vegetarian options. I had a combination plate, pretty nice, and Baklava for desert. Baklava was very good - lots of nuts and not too sweet, not smothered in honey like some commercial ones are but just enough to make it juicy and tasty. Recommended, and by the number of people who seemed to know the owner there's a good cast of regular patrons.
I will be heading towards Salt Lake City tomorrow, probably stopping somewhere around Boisy for the night. It's a nice drive so it'd be a shame to blast on through the night, and I think it's nice not to arrive at some ungodly hour too often -- did that to M&J some years ago. They don't seem to mind, but if I can avoid it...
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11:52 pm
[Link] | [20070613 2350 Sacramento] Friday: Las Vegas to Los Angeles via Lake Elsinore. Picked up a wiring harness for M's car from DB; then to LA for dinner with L&R.
Saturday: highway 1 up the coast to Salinas. some ( pictures behind the cut )
Sunday: Onwards to SF. Green Apple Books in the afternoon, couldn't miss that... On to B for car talk and dinner, and to deliver and pick up a lot of parts.
Monday: Junkyarding in the bay area. Got a pretty good load of parts, and a decent case of sunburn. Guess that sun is deceptively harsh even though it's only upper 70s out there. Met M&P for dinner.
Tuesday: SF to Sacramento via Ukiah to view a car. Didn't buy it, it wasn't quite what the owner had described on Craigslist. Nice drive though, up 101 and the across on 175/29/20 to I5. Large temperature differences, from 80s in the bay area to 61 across the bridge to 92 across northern California to high 90s in Sacramento.
Today: Hot. Just not touching 100, although it might do so tomorrow. Quick trip to the pick'n'pull in Rancho Cordova. Took it easy the rest of the day. Saw D&B again, dinner with D.
Internet access finally seems to be working again in the hotel; it crapped out around 2210 last night and it took them until this evening to get it running again. I have no idea what it is with Air2Data -- they were also unreliable in Salina, UT. I'm not entirely sure what it is with these convoluted internet access schemes anyway -- it's free wireless. Just get a big pipe, a router and a bunch of access points handing out IPs from their own pool. I see no need for a server to be in that loop, nor for stupid "user agreements" that you need to click on before your access works. Just another single point of failure. Oh, and why don't these A2D people have a backdoor into the system? If it craps out they can't reach it either, and need the hotel to reset it or send out a tech. In my world, rule one of remote locations is having a secondary, independent mode of access in case your primary goes down.
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10:32 pm
[Link] | 2 sample pics, both around the 10mm end of the zoomlens (comparable to about 16mm on a traditional camera), not cropped or processed except for a resize.
( Pics behind the cut )
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10:15 pm
[Link] | [20070607 2215 Las Vegas] Yesterday Denver, CO to Salina, UT. Nice drive, even though the weather conditions changed a lot along the way. From high 80s in Denver to low 30s, snow and hail through the Rockies and mountains of Utah, and high 40s in between and in Salina.
The 10-20 zoom I bought a couple of weeks ago is fast starting to become my new favorite lens. It's on the camera most of the time.
If you have to stay at Salina, exit 137 has more choice of motels than exit 140, but Richfield has more and cheaper choices than either. Super8 is servicable but otherwise unremarkable, on a big parking lot/truckstop near the highway.
Today, Salina to Las Vegas via Zion NP. Great drive, some great scenery. Seeing lot of motorcycles, more than in past years it seems. LV has become more expensive, and service seems to have gone downhill a bit. Buffet at the Excalibur used to be good (especially if you're vegetarian), now it's down on vegetarian choices and quality, and up on price (15.99 plus tax). Not worth the trouble anymore I think. Staying at the Palace Station, nominally cheap but with a mandatory "hotel service charge" (coupons and a shuttle you don't use) and wireless is 10.99... Yeuch. Oh well, no bullet holes like I once found in my room at the airport motel6 here, and I;ve got a room at the good side of the courtyard so not much traffic noise either.
On to Los Angeles tomorrow.
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12:42 am
[Link] | [20070605 1400 Newark] The flight from Amsterdam yesterday was late due to a mechanical problem (gear down indicator light) before takeoff. Then the INS was their usual efficient selves [35 minutes] and baggage reclaim even more so [45 minutes] so I ended missing my connecting flight. Rather than being in a nice Four Points in Denver I got to stay at a HoJo in the middle of the Continental employee parking lot in Newark... Early flight out was overbooked already, so I'm on the 1430 but without an assigned seat. This one's going to be bloody full too. And of course it'll mean I'll be last on the plane, so the overhead space is probably going to be taken already, and guess who's going to get the middle seat... Lost a whole fucking day this way. I'll try to avoid Newark in the future -- it's inefficient and compared to the Southern and Western airports every employee seems to be between disinterested and rude. I didn't do any shopping obviously, so I'm drinking tap water. That stuff's heavily chlorinated, I can't imagine how any enviro-freak could with a straight face suggest drinking it rather than bottled water. Safe it may be (although I doubt it can be very good in the long term), but it tastes awful.
Somehow the layout of EWR reminds me a lot of ATL -- wondering if it's the same architect.
I've always wondered why they even care about bringing fluids on the plane anymore -- flying out of Amsterdam there is an obvious security hole that would make it trivial to smuggle just about any liquid on the plane. Same for the shoes -- is anyone really going to be so stupid to make a shoebomb that would be detectable?
Getting my trip planning together a bit; So far I'm aiming for Vegas on the 7th, LA on the 8th, SF on the 10th and 11th, Sacramento on the 12th or 13th, and Salt Lake around the 17th.
[20070605 2205 Denver] I was the second to last one on the plane, but I didn't do too badly: an exit row window seat, so at least I had legroom and could sort of sleep against the side of the plane. Denver airport is nice. Very spacious, seems pretty efficient. Seeing the "Frankfurt" sign near another gate I'm really thinking that maybe next time I'll just throw in the extra couple of bucks and go directly via Frankfurt and bypassing the eastern US altogether. Whether it's IAD, JFK, EWR, ATL, all a bleedin' mess. Philly is sort of OK. Got myself upgraded to a Grand Cherokee again for not too much money. Nicer than an econobox sedan at least...
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01:48 am
[Link] | One definite disadvantage of being put on leave is that suddenly you're without a laptop. That is not nice 2 days before going on a trip. A quick trip into town and 1149 euros later I'm the new owner of a brand new 2.0 Ghz macbook black. It is sucking down updates as I'm writing this on my desktop system. Yes, it's a lot of money, and it's last months' machine (current is the 2.16GHz model, which as far as I can tell is identical except for an 8% increase in cpu speed and a larger disk), but it saved me about 300 euros over buying the current one, it saved me from having to drive all over the country to deal with dodgy sellers, and it's here right now.
On a related note, searching internet also caused me to call "M" (anonymous crime tipline) -- one ad I followed up on by phone was answered by a dodgy sounding character, asking way too much money for a used one, and upon my expressing my disinterest confided that he'd just bought a new one for less, and he could get me in contact with the seller. "But this one is legal, and the other isn't". I asked him outright if that meant it'd fallen off a truck somewhere, and he answered that indeed it had.
Now I'm not goody two-shoes, and I don't give a rats ass if an otherwise legitimately obtained item was brought into the country without filling in all the paperwork customs would like to receive, but I have a serious dislike for people ram-raiding shops and hijacking trucks which are the two most common modes of theft around here...
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02:22 am
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Looking for another gig
Meet the new Bram, gainfully unemployed.
Basically I didn't really get along with my manager, and as my contract would be up for renewal by the end of August, and I'll be on holiday until after the mandatory 2 month notice period will have commenced, we had a chat today in which is was declared that my contract would not be renewed, and I shall be on leave effective immediately as is standard company policy.
As I was going on holiday that means no immediate change of plans, but I will be available as of mid July / early August. Unix (primarily Solaris and Linux) admin with a good background in networks as well; looking to get back into contracting/freelance work, although for the right company a long term or permanent position would be considered as well.
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02:55 am
[Link] | quiet busy day today. Pretty busy weekend with working on the workshop move, celebrating my own birthday (*) and V holding a belated party for her birthday.
So I slept in today, did a lot of websurfing in the afternoon trying to hunt down good prices for flight tickets, rental cars and hotels. Then a quick trip to the travel agents only to find out that the fare search engines had missed out on some fuel surcharges.
Anyway, back home, to dinner, and then out to the workshop to get a move on with parting out a car that a banger racer wants to pick up probably Thursday, reducing the number of cars around the workshop by another one. A pretty productive evening of ripping bits out of a car, with a good pile of bits to show for it.
Just finished booking, so here's the itinery:
04JUN2007 CO71 1330 AMS 1555 EWR CO228 1740 EWR 2005 DEN
30JUN2007 CO498 1423 DEN 1753 IAH CO46 1910 IAH 1150+1 AMS
I've also booked a rental car, with the fairly cheap cancellation insurance so if I find a car in Denver that I want to buy, drive and ship home instead I'm only out $10 on the rental.
And Priceline got me a Four Points in techcenter north for $50, so that should hopefully be a decent nights' sleep.
(*) yes, I've flipped the 6th bit, managing to not get myself killed for 32 consecutive years...
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07:17 pm
[Link] | I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the US is starting to look a lot like Stalinist USSR:
As you go about your daily activities on behalf of your Bureau or Office, please be alert to the need to
remove all picture and statements from Ambassador Tobias in light of his resignation dated as of April 27, 2007. You should carefully review any ongoing projects such as Websites, reception room walls, printed publications, brochures, PowerPoints, newsletters, etc.
A good old-fashioned purge! Yee-haw!
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