The Canadian Rockies
Ah, vacation. For me, they are few and far between. This year's vacation is
a trip to the West side of Canada. In particular, the first week is in
Alberta and the second in British Columbia.
For the last several days I've been based out of a condo in Canmore. The
view out of every window is to looming mountains. We've driven around a lot,
having visited Banff, Jasper, the Columbia Icefield, and many mountains in
between. I particularly enjoyed Lake Louise (pictured), for its almost
stereotypical portrayal of the Canadian Rockies. With generally co-operative
weather, being out in the mountains is about as good as it gets.
In a couple of days I may be saying the same thing about Vancouver and
its surroundings...
[
] | posted @ 06:09 |
link
RIP Mazda
Yesterday marked the end of my good old 1994 Mazda Protegé's life. It got
traded in for a newer Mazda.
She was starting to show her age of fifteen, with rust creeping out of
various creases, a cracked windshield, brakes that were worn all the way,
and a hopelessly loose clutch. When the sad moment came, she had 273406km on
the odometer; a little short of the three hundred thousand I hoped she would
conquer.
I am as saddened as anyone can be about saying good-bye to their first
car.
Rest in pieces, old friend.
[
] | posted @ 03:28 |
link
Hello iPhone
For the past several weeks I've had the pleasure of replacing my old Nokia
cell phone with an Apple iPhone 2G.
The unit was given to me for free, quite dead, and with a missing cover
piece. It was stuck in a strange mode where it kept rebooting and the USB
connection was unresponsive. It didn't look entirely promising.
It took a lot of work (around 20 hours of it), but eventually I traced
the problem to the fact that every piece fits very tightly inside the
casing, and once it was dropped on a corner, something gave way and wasn't
contacting. The likely culprit was a ribbon cable that connects the bottom
of the phone to the top. It took about 6 complete reassemblies to get
everything contacting right, but after that, the unit just worked. I
upgraded to the latest OS, unlocked, and jailbroke it. A new cover piece was
obtained from eBay for a very reasonable price.
I'm quite happy with this phone. I don't need the 3G model since I don't
have a data plan, and I'm always near an access point anyhow. The apps are
generally well-written, and I find I use it more than I would have expected.
[
] | posted @ 03:59 |
link