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{ Category Archives } Personal

Review of Tipicos Los Amigos in Sterling, VA

I gave Tipicos Los Amigos four out of five stars when I first reviewed the Papusaria in June of 2010, and again when I updated in November of 2010, and stand by that rating today. Tipicos Los Amigos 46950 Community Plz Sterling, VA 20164 (571) 434-0060 Excellent and very cheap papusas that are sometimes HUGE […]

Review of Blue Ridge Seafood Restaurant, Gainesville, VA

I gave Blue Ridge Seafood Restaurant four out of five stars when I reviewed them on January 13th, 2010; and I stand by that today. Blue Ridge Seafood Restaurant 15704 Lee Hwy Gainesville, VA 20155 (703) 754-9852 This dive is an essential addition to local food. Warm, friendly, run-down building with picnic tables, butcher block […]

Computer Literacy Bookstore turned Indian Restaurant

I attended Sun Microsystem’s DC area reveal of the brand new Java and dancing Duke mascot at a Computer Literacy bookstore in the late 1990s… I just had lunch in the same spot which is now an Indian restaurant called Bombay Tandoor. Memories are funny things, I could actually still see (in my imagination) the […]

Hacking AppleTV for easier text entry

I just updated all my 2nd generation AppleTV’s and to save the current firmware blobs and then re-applied the Seas0nPass jail-break for v5.3 to install XBMC again. Each time I do this (roughly each time Apple offers new AppleTV software) I have to re-enter my AppleID and password through the painfully cumbersome TV remote and […]

Typhoon Approaching Okinawa and Kyushu

In the summer of 1987 I was temporarily assigned to Kadena AB, Okinawa from my duty station at Misawa AB, Japan. During that summer a major typhoon hit the island of Okinawa. I will never forget the fury that nature can hurl at a city in the form of a typhoon. The service men and […]

Sublime Text 2

Every now and then you run into a new solution or tool that revolutionizes the same work you have been doing for ages. As a UNIX and Linux Systems Administrator I edit a lot of text files, and vim has been my text editor of choice for decades. Well, I still use vim habitually, but […]

Resetting iPod Classic

I keep forgetting how to recover my preferences on my iPod classic after I rarely have to reset it, so I decided to capture them here in hopes it helps me (and others) recover after a reset. By the way, a reset is to toggle the hold slider on and then off, then press and […]

Tricks for surviving the cold

* Stay inside, or at least out of the wind, and layers of clothing * Open cabinet/cupboard doors under those sinks against exterior walls so warm air gets in and keeps pipes from freezing * a heating pad can fix a frozen pipe given enough time * turn on gas fireplaces while there is power […]

Taming iTunes 11

I am less than thrilled with iTunes 11, and am trying to figure out how to use it for all the same functions I enjoyed with earlier versions of iTunes. A lot of this is simply look and feel and slowly growing accustomed to new style and process, but in the interim I can make […]

Damn! trojan horse link spammers are getting smarter with their targeting

I got an email today that pretended to be from shipping@new.itunes.com, which of course did not come from Apple at all, it came to my DreamHost account via vopmail.vopmail.willard-oh.com… It looked like a VERY GOOD copy of the emails that Apple does send out, complete with corporate logos and formatting; and claimed to be a […]