Only in Santa Cruz would Starbucks be playing Iron Maiden for muzak.
I am killing time here, don't have to pick up my cousin till 7, I got here at 5 because the weather is so craptastic I wanted to drive over the hill in daylight. Or something resembling daylight - between the mist kicked up by tires and major chunks of fog, visibility was not a whole lot better than night time. But enough to make it feel safer. It was a grueling drive, regardless.
Went for a massage at a new place in San Jose this afternoon, and they asked if I would mind if they used me for training.I say it was okay, so I got a kind of tag team match where an instructor level therapist demonstrated something and the trainee (I was her first customer ever) took a try. Trainee was hella cute, and was actually better than the instructor, just a little nervous. I'll have to go back when she's ready to solo.
I originally picked this place because I knew I was going to Santa Cruz afterwards, and this place is about 1/3 of the way there. But I had forgotten my insulin and the computer was cranking out a DVD project, so I slogged back home.
Glad I did, because after shutting down the PC and grabbing my meds, when I opened the front door Domino was outside, soaking wet, trying to get some shelter under our resident palm tree. The tree's base is a mound of river stones, not a good place to get warm. She came inside when I called. She either fell off the balcony or found a way down the evergreen tree which comes up to the top of the balcony rail. She's pretty smart - I don't think I have to worry about her doing that again any time soon. But as soon as the cats are micro-chipped I'll start letting them outside. It's a cat-friendly community, and my apartment is as far from traffic as you can get. Maybe I'll put the small cat door into the downstairs patio door. They get chipped Tuesday, and will be back home Wednesday.
On my way back from the massage, I stopped in at Campbell Fry's. That place is such a mess. I should write a note to the CEO - nothing is in any logical order, and the use of space is just wrong. Aisles are way too long, and what's at one end may or may not have anything to do with what's at the other. Bottom line is they only had one USB-DB9 adapter, an off-brand, and wanted $40 for it. I also needed a null modem adapter, which they didn't have in DB9, just DB25. So I'll buy what I need online. There's no rush.
The DVD project was using Roxio's version 9, which is the first version which did not crash my system when I installed it. I used to work for Roxio tech support. The reason I was hired, along with 20 others, is their version 5 product (the first one with the Roxio name - they used to be part of Adaptec) would blow away the Windows 2000 operating system on installation. Completely wipe it out. We had a 20-minute routine scripted for us to walk someone through recovering from that. I guess Sonic did some good when they bought Roxio, because this product is much more stable.
Looking at it more closely this morning, they have done some very generous things. They included for free their Videowave editor, which I was the first support person for. At the time I was there, this was a stand-alone package which sold for $500. It has some neat features, such as the ability to change color balance and hue/brightness/saturation on an existing MPEG file. Which is good, because my DVD project is way heavy on reds (due to the way they gelled the lights for the show) and since it's composite video it's bleeding color all over the place.
The DVD creator app is kind of clunky, and my first pass did not show the motion thumbnails I thought I had specified. Turns out specifying animation for the project is only the first step. Each thumbnail has to be right-clicked on, select the second menu, and check the motion check box. There are 23 chapter thumbnails in my project so this took a while. Also, each menu needs to be told what background image to use And each menu has to be told how many seconds of motion its thumbnails get. (they really need a global option for all of these). But the project is now complete, unless I want to run the video through the processor again to get more red out. I probably won't, it's not worth the 5 hours of cranking, and possible re-assigning of chapters.
This version is multi-threaded, unlike its predecessors, which means it uses both parts of my dual core processor. And it set off a critical temperature alarm, which means I need to open up the box and re-do the thermal paste between the processor and the heat sink fan. Grumble. If I'm lucky I won't have to remove the motherboard. I think I still have some thermal paste somewhere.
One hour gone, almost. This is eye candy central, maybe I should slow down and look up more often.
I packed a change of clothes and my meds, maybe I will stay here overnight and drive to Pacifica tomorrow via Hwy 1. I'm planning on seeing the Spindrift Players matinee tomorrow. Or maybe I'll drive down there tonight and stay in Pacifica overnight. Or not. We'll see how I feel after dinner.
Off to read some LJ.
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