jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2012-02-27-0304Z

That taco joint in Tijuana whose name used to be Taco Bell is now Tacos El Chile Volador, "flying chile tacos". As mentioned, it still has dollar beers and dollar plates of tacos, 3 tacos per plate.

Enjoying La Paz, even though some of the noisy elements of Carnaval are still in town, blocking large parts of the malecon and assaulting the ears. [comment]

2012-02-24-0121Z

Yesterday I felt cured. I'd had a beer and tacos at the Tijuana taco joint that used to be Taco Bell but now has some lame name I can't remember. Still $1 a plate of 3 tacos and $1 a beer, though. And a jukebox that blasts out enough decibels to shatter glass a block away. Anyway, I didn't get a headache from that beer, so yesterday I had the equivalent of about 4 bottles with no repercussion. The ceviche at Hotel la Perla is still excellent, a complete meal for about $4.

I have to consider the possibility that my tooth is the source of infection. If so, I may need a root canal. Ugh. [comment]

2012-02-22-1733Z

The Mexican equivalent of the TSA just liberated from me the chain of my trucker's wallet, my original Vise-Grips, and a wine opener. I said, disfrute mis herramientos, y gracias por robarme.. Effers. [comment]

2012-02-21-0332Z

The Capitol Corridor train stopped for a few minutes so I tried to check my email, but it seemed to be blocking port 443. Fat lot of good that will do me tomorrow if that's the case on my train.

Caught the end of the ACSnet Monday night guided net on the 146.910 repeater. Tried to check in, but apparently nobody heard me from Oakland although a guy successfully checked in from Ukiah. He probably had something better than an HT with a rubber duck antenna though. [comment]

2012-02-21-0202Z

Had the best collard greens of my life at Everett and Jones. That with a cornbread muffin was just over $4, and filled me up for now. [comment]

2012-02-21-0119Z

Met Funk and Pastor Preston at Oscar Grant Plaza today. There was also a keyboardist in the Sacred Space whose name I didn't get. I got the impression they were wary of me, so I wasn't quite at ease, but hopefully I didn't make too bad of an impression. These guys have been through a lot. [comment]

2012-02-20-2252Z

Enroute to SF, thinking about how nice it would be to have a human-powered bus, with plenty of room for bicycles and luggage, between the city and Santa Rosa. Having its southern stop in Sausalito and having passengers walk or bike over the Golden Gate would obviate having to get special permission to use the freeway. In fact, I could probably save a few bucks each bus trip now by taking the Spencer Ave. exit. [comment]

2012-02-20-1926Z

This illness is an odd one, ratcheting up the pain of the headache for even a small alcohol intake. Guess I'd better teetotal for a couple of days. That might be easier as I'm enroute to La Paz, BCS, later this afternoon. Then again, a beer at one of the San Diego brewpubs, or a killer margarita boat at Casa de Bandini, might be too tempting to pass up. [comment]

2012-02-18-1932Z

I keep having weird dreams about the documentation for a subway or some other train which I haven't been able to figure out how to read. They were produced from text source by a Python module called format2 whose own documentation is too dense for me to read.

My headache/toothache/sinus problems aren't getting any worse, but no better either. At least the pain has dropped back to manageable levels. [comment]

2012-02-17-1954Z

A mild headache I'd had for 3 days, along with a slight pain in the molar that was once anchoring a bridge, exploded last night into a head-throbber, with chills and clogged nose. This morning is somewhat better. Going to see if I can live on water today, and give my system a chance to fight it.

It could very well be related to the pizza I was eating earlier this week. It was tasty and filling, but I felt a little weird both times after eating it. [comment]

2012-02-13-0643Z

So much for my idea of using the computer keyboard as a piano/organ keyboard. Crappy laptop matrix often only catches one out of 4 keys. [comment]

2012-02-12-0552Z

Jogged about 3.5 miles today in Sebastopol along the Joe Rodota Trail, then back along Highway 12. Looked at a bunch of cool but expensive HPVs at Velo Verde, found a loquat tree, rosebush, and prickly pear downtown near Hopmonk (the rose hips were ready for harvesting, nothing else) and had way too much coffee at various places around town. A very pleasant day overall. [comment]

2012-02-10-2244Z

Client on vWorker kept demanding more and more work on an $87.50 job, so I had a showdown with him: pay up or take it to arbitration. He paid up.

Jogged over 2 miles for the first time since the injury. It felt good. Slice of pizza at the creamery went up to $2.50, but still a good deal. Now having an ECC (evil corporate coffee). [comment]

2012-02-02-2247Z

Just ate the last of my chorizo from last year. Delicious. I'll have to look up when I made it, but it lasted about 8 months with no refrigeration, not even airtight. [comment]

2012-02-02-0451Z

This train has an AP with SSID megahoc.v23, but it won't issue a valid IP to my iPod. Haven't tried with my laptop.

Guess I'll go back to the lounge car and drink water, and watch the cities go by in the night. [comment]

2012-02-02-0143Z

Passing dozens of working oil pumps. It seems all the gold isn't gone from California after all. [comment]

2012-02-01-1132Z

Got the wifi job finished on time thanks to lots of help from the people at City of the Sun. I wish I could have done better, but hopefully it was a net improvement. Still, there was one point where we were getting 1.1MB/s across the backbone link, and after I lost that, the best I could get was about 220KB/s. And that was after an hour or so of fiddling with the antenna.

Spent some hours in Deming with Sean, who's been following my blog for years but we'd never met until yesterday afternoon. He drove me out to the Cabinet, a little piece of art in the desert reminiscent of Burning Man, or perhaps more, Slab City. Then to the Deming brewpub for a Pancho Villa Stout, quite tasty. I went back solo, later, after finding out my train would be late, and had a pint of their amber ale, which I liked even better, and was $1 off thanks to Happy Hour I guess: $3. [comment]

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