tfl: The Flatiron Life

Contique Update
I was a little worried about the braking in the Contique so I took her to be looked at by my lady mechanic. Melanie examined the brake pads. She said that they look like brand new! I think a lot of my problems are psychological with my car. I am not used to only driving my car once a month or every couple of weeks. Every time I start the car, I hear a squeal here and a rattle there that are probably just normal from not being run enough.

While I was at my lady mechanic I had her mount my front license plant holder. I bought my car in Indiana, and there were not even holes for a bracket. For the last 9 months I have just had my front plate laying on my dash. When I bought my tags I asked about the legality of this display technique. The official response of the SoS worker was “That is between you and the police officer.”

I have also found that Contique is an official term, although this is not why my Contour is named Contique.

Remote Control
I have set up my home network to be accessible from anywhere in the world. To do this I am using the services of Open Domain Server. It is pretty cool. They have a client program that runs a script every so often to determine the publicly resolvable IP address. This address is the address of my router and firewall that sets between my machines at home and the internet. This IP address is then sent to the ODS servers and a name that I have set up with them is updated to resolve to the correct address. I then have set up a couple ports on the router to cut through the firewall to my home machine. Some day I might have a little web server set up at home. I would move all of tomaw.com over to my home machine, but I am not confident with my DSL connection. I am not sure if it would handle the load or if it would have the dependable uptime that I need in a mail server.
I am mostly going to use this home server for fun Java servlet projects that I work on in my spare time. When I have sufficient spare time and actually produce something you all with be the first to know.

In order to form a more perfect trust
AOL Time Warner has settled its anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft by forming an even larger trust. I have been in the minority of the industry and long believed that Microsoft actually promotes innovation by having so many modern industrialists loathing it. As long as Microsoft can produce the cash for the settlement, this is a total benefit to them. They now have dedicated customers in the largest ISP to software and services they were already giving away to Joe Browser.

IU Trustee
Today I mailed in my vote for Robert B. Cummins to serve on the IU Board of Trustees. I would encourage all IU graduates to do the same. Mr. Cummins’ business background makes him the best qualified candidate to help right the University. Ensuring that the University is in a sound financial situation and being sure that the proper leaders are found in the image of Herman Wells will come natural to him from his work in the private sector.
If you have not received you ballot contact the Dean of University Libraries.

Anniversary of the Barron?s Birth
Also, today I celebrate the Founding of St. Petersburg for the 23rd time. I only have 97 more! Some other interesting things happened today as well. Only the third time that the Great Anniversary has been on the same day of the week as the day it originally occurred.

Got Milk?
Gil DeFerran does! He is the winner of the 87th Indianapolis 500.

Book in the Mail
The Reason Foundation sent me a book today. It is Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use by Jacob Sullum. I am sure it will be a great book, but I am not sure when I will be able to read it.

Welcome all, no matter how you ended up here.
I was looking at the visitations stats. Turns out if you Google the internet for “what interesting being a cabin crew” The Flatiron Life is number 8 in the results. (We will likely move up after this!)

A new way to spend time at work..I mean free time
Version 1 and Version 2
Found by The Great Jonah in The Corner.

Sweet Home Chicago
I flew home to Chicago, Mayor Richard M. Daley, today (mile 7068). It feels good to be home. I feel like I have not been here for such a long time. I know not if I should say “It has been 12 days.” Or, “If has only been 12 days.”
The mailbox was absolutely stuffed with mail. Justin received a notice that his car must have an emissions test, which is rather inconvenient for him since he rarely returns to Chicago and rarely uses his car when he is here.