General – Page 201 – Chris Koerner

Going to Portland

This weekend I’m heading to Portland to attend the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) 2008 Fall Conference. (Phew!) The short and long of why I’m going is that I co-authored a paper (pdf) and have been asked to present it on behalf of my employer. Josh, the groovy brains behind this whole adventure, will be joining me.

While I’m there I hope to see some of the city, eat some good food and drink a pop. I’ll be staying at the Hilton in downtown Portland which looks to be very nice. I’m less than a mile from the Panic offices so I might swing by to take a picture or something.

I’ll be updating Twitter and Flickr while I’m traveling so you can see all the cool stuff. I’m also going to (finally) get some use of this iSight and talk to Kari and Jack over the internets.

As an adventure inside this adventure I’ll also be driving 4 hours (each way) to visit my maternal grand parents, whom I only recall meeting once in my life. They live in West Richland, WA which means I get to travel across some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

I’m very excited to get the chance to visit Portland. I’m half afraid I might not want to come back!

UPDATE: ZOMG! There’s an Apple store less than a block from the hotel! I CAN PLAY WIF NEW MACBOOKS?

Don’t Vote

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

It’s Official

Woke up this morning and not only was it still dark out, but it was freezing. From the pitch black of twilight to the warmest part of the day we’re only going to see a 20 degree difference.
Yikes.

9-11

Mmmmelting Macbook Pro

Last night while the wife was out shopping I thought I’d play some Ace Combat 6 (great game, btw). Before I started playing I set my Macbook Pro up in the kitchen to download some files for me. We have this awesome kitchen with some swank under-the-cabinet lighting. After setting up my Mac I had left the lights on for my wife so when she came in the kitchen wouldn’t be totally dark. I went into the living room and quickly became oblivious to the outside world. Now we have 3 cats and they’re often bumping into things or knocking stuff over. So when I thought I heard a small crash coming from the kitchen I thought nothing of it.

A few minutes later my wife came back from the store and I helped her put groceries on the kitchen counter. I took a look over at my Macbook Pro to check the status of the downloads. On my keyboard was the cap to one of the under-the-cabinet lights.

I picked it up laughing to my wife that it had fallen off. How strange. Apparently the heat caused it to warp just enough to fall off the little clips that hold it in.

Then I looked down at my Mac.

ZOMG! The light cover was so hot that it had melted some of my keys!

Luckily enough the only part that was damaged was the plastic keys themselves, the underlying hinges and scissor mechanism was untouched. Even the little rubber buttons were fine.

So for the short term I’m missing a few keys. Luckily they’re not keys I use every day. I checked out a few shops online and replacing these 4 keys is going to cost me close to $40, which is much cheaper than a) Having Apple repair it or b) buying a whole new keyboard.

I’m now concerned with the safety of these lights. What could have happened if they had fallen on some paper or other more flammable items? (Not that I have a lot of these things laying around, I’m just saying)