Saturday, September 29, 2007

What IS that?


Since I probably don't have any readers left, I can without worry offer $5.oo or a secret-prize to whomever can correctly guess what the above picture is (Sara is not eligible to win). If you do guess, let me know along with your answer whether you would prefer the cash or the prize.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Today: Acatl - Acatl - Chalchihuitlicu: 13-Coatl (snake)


As a year bearer, Acatl (Reed) is the sign of day in the tonalpohualli that gives its name to this xihuitl (year). This sign is associated with the direction of the east.

The 13-day period Acatl (Reed) is ruled by Chalchihuitlicue, goddess of lakes, rivers and seas, goddess of horizontal waters. This trecena signifies the transitory nature of all that we may gain in life: it is a reminder to view success and failure, gain and loss, as matters of fate and not as matters of personal worth. The elementals do not reward nor punishment our efforts but, rather, construct the maze within which we might perfect our hearts. The 13 days of this trecena reveal our hearts to us, based on whether we have decided to live within the house of shadows or to seek the secret of happiness elsewhere. These are good days to travel to new places; bad days to hide in fear.

Citlalicue, Her skirt is Stars, is the provider of the Spirit Soul (Teyollia) for days with numeral 13 (mahtlactli-omei). The volatile for this day is the Parrot (Toznene).

The protector of day Coatl (Snake) and provider of the Shadow Soul or Tonalli is Chalchihuitlicue. Coatl is the day of the snaking river that always changes without changing. It signifies the fleeting moment of eternal water. A good day for humility, a bad day for acting on self-interests.

Another year...

Friday, September 21, 2007

Bidding Summer Farewell



My absence here is a combination of my hectic schedule and mental apathy.

Um...that's all I got.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Caveat q*uech*up

I would like to warn everyone that there is a nasty spamming worm making its way through the cyberworld. The way it works is as follows:
  • You get a message: "Invitation from Xoloitzquintle".
  • When you open it, it sends out a message from you with the same invitation.
  • The invitation is to a "social networking site" that really is some crappy dating service in Britain.
I, unfortunately, fell victim to this stupid trick and had to send out a warning to everyone who had ever corresponded with (I use Gmail and it keeps all that info), some of which are quite important and influential people.

This is a stress I don't really need right now.

Monday, September 03, 2007

I always wondered...

Via Sherri who I bow to in nerdom respect.


NerdTests.com says I'm an Uber Cool Light-Weight Nerd.  What are you?  Click here!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

"Home" Work

Despite our astronomical rent, our apartment has lots of "quirks". Things need fixing and tending to. Over the past couple of weeks I have had to:

  • Deal with the return of "Miguelito" - our unwelcome rodent guest. This involved setting up multiple traps (stick and snap). After several appearances, he seems to have gotten the hint and moved to other quarters without having to lose a limb or worse.
  • Take our fridge apart to figure out why the freezer was working but the fridge wasn't. The problem was that despite the lack of frost in the freezer, the vents between the freezer and the fridge got clogged with ice.
  • Learn how to fix a leaky tub faucet. I still need to get some tools to address the problem, but I think I know how now.

You may wonder why I don't call the "super" (aka the building superintendent who lives on site and should be responsible for these things) and have these things taken care of.
  1. From the stories I have heard from other tenants, he is not very reliable and it often takes several tries for him to get it right. From what I have seen in our bathroom, his work is not very good (it was patched up before we moved in).
  2. Trying to coordinate a visit with our schedules and the dogs is too much of a headache.
  3. I should learn how to do these things anyway.

In addition to these home duties, I have also been training as a iMac repair person. With all the crashes and errors I have experienced, as well as the calls to tech support, I have become a pseudo expert. I think I have isolated the problem: either one of my memory cards is bad or one of the slots is bad.

So my vacation is coming to an end - back to work next week - and I am tied up with home duties. Actually work already started as I have been putting in many hours working on my courses this past week. These four weeks "off" have really flown by. I could use another four.