You Give Love a Bad (Dot) Name

Adieu, Representative Souder. I'm sure someone, somewhere is thanking you for your bold service in… uh… ensuring that college kids who get caught trying marijuana lose all their financial aid

Found this sitting in the sound recorder app on my phone. It's a 16 second clip of what it sounds like at night in Puerto Rico, up in the jungly mountains. Specifically, it was recorded at the Casa Grande Mountain Retreat.

 

 Puerto Rico Nightsong [0:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I've been a coldfusion developer for over 9 years now, and tinkered with web design for at least 12. It's pretty rare for me to find something I've never used before and didn't know existed in HTML… but today, I did.

The OPTGROUP tag is how you make non-selectable headings in select lists. I guess for some reason I always assumed that was done with javascript or CSS, but no, it's a simple tag.

In case I ever need it again, this is the CSS to force a "proper" ordered list hierarchy all the way to 6 layers deep. (pro tip – if it's 6 layers deep, you're doing something wrong)

<style type="text/css">
  OL { list-style-type:upper-roman }
  OL OL { list-style-type:upper-alpha }
  OL OL OL { list-style-type:decimal }
  OL OL OL OL { list-style-type:lower-roman }
  OL OL OL OL OL { list-style-type:lower-alpha }
  OL OL OL OL OL OL { list-style-type:lower-greek }
</style>

Oddly, hunting for a house and buying one is a bit time consuming.

All in all, I looked at about a dozen homes before deciding on one. It's a 105 year old Queen Anne, a couple blocks from the river. I moved in a month or so ago and I'm still not completely settled in. It's about 2200 finished square feet, technically 4 bedrooms 1.75 baths (but one bedroom is set up as a laundry room and I'm using another as an office). There's also a great third floor/attic that's finishable (and big enough that I could probably add a loft to it), and a 450 square foot 1 bedroom/1 bathroom "mother-in-law suite" over the "carriage house", which I'm renting to a ND divinity student. On one side of the house is the neighborhood association building. On the other side — a pair of nuns. Across…  a street that leads straight down to the river.  Behind, the 2 car "carriage house", and an alley, and a couple of houses that are currently being restored by the neighborhood association. So overall a pretty quiet location, if you ignore that the street is a fairly busy one and the hospital's less than a mile away. Big yard for being in such an old section of town. I've been here almost a month now. Enjoying it thus far. We'll see how it goes

And now, back to the regularly scheduled neglect of blog.

I'm really getting tired of seeing this guy… I made the graphic for IT security, but I wasn't expecting them to filter firefox, too….

Some modifications to the vacation plans…

Thursday night — Park & Fly package at a hotel by the airport in chicago, dinner at the Woodfield Mall.

Friday — Fly to PR, pick up rental car (Jeep Wrangler), check in to Da House and explore Old San Juan.

Saturday Morning — El Yunque Rain Forest

Saturday Afternoon — Flight from Fajardo to Vieques (Air Flamenco, who actually answers the phone…), check in to Casa de Amistad.

Saturday Evening — Biobay tour with Island Adventures.

Sunday Morning — Rent a car from Martineau Car Rental and check out the island. No specific plans.

Sunday Evening — Sunset from a beach (Probably the west end of Starfish beach) or possibly a second biobay tour.

Monday Morning — Return car, Flight from Vieques to Fajardo, board the Erin go Bragh III for a day of snorkeling and sailing.

Monday Evening — Return to San Juan, check in to the Caleta Guest House's Jungle Room.

Tuesday Morning — check out any of the San Juan stuff we haven't done yet.

Tuesday Afternoon — Arecibo Observatory and the Caguana Ceremonial Ball Courts, then check in to the Casa Grande

Wednesday — Breakfast, Yoga, a bit of a rest, then the ferry around Lago dos Bogas (Youtube link) and lunch at one of the cantinas there. Then back to the casa for some rest (and maybe a side trip if we missed anything on tuesday)

Thursday — Breakfast, Yoga, then a trip to Ponce for the day. We'll visit the Tibes indian site, the coffee plantation, Seralles Castle, and maybe the art museum, as well as some shopping. Then back to the Casa for dinner & relaxation.

Friday — Breakfast, Yoga, and a day of complete relaxation.

Saturday — Breakfast, Yoga, and back to San Juan… maybe visit something on the way there since our flight isn't til 2pm.

Going back to PR again this year! Here's the current outline of the vacation plans… subject to change.

Here's the map.

Arriving Friday afternoon, staying Friday night in "Da House", a sort of bohemian artsy place on top of a popular nightclub, packed full of art by local artists.

Spending Friday afternoon/evening exploring Old San Juan, probably have dinner somewhere with local criolla food, and walk along the walls of old san juan, the street vendors, etc… have some good coffee…

Saturday morning, head to Fajardo and board the Erin Go Bragh, a 50 foot sailboat, which will take us on a 7 hour tour of some of the small islands of the Spanish Virgin Islands (you never hear about them because they're smaller than the other ones, considered a part of PR and until like 2004 they were mostly restricted military training grounds), including snorkeling and lunch.

After that, we head to the island of Vieques, either dropped off by the Erin Go Bragh, or taking the ferry from Fajardo, and check in to the Casa de Amistad, drop off our things, and as the evening approaches, head off for a biobay tour, where we'll boat and swim in one of the worlds few bioluminescent bays, where little plankton things glow when the water around them is disturbed. (We might end up having to do this Sunday instead because of time constraints)

Sunday we'll rent a jeep and explore the island. Until very recently it was almost entirely restricted as a naval training area, but now it's a protected national or state park or something… we plan to visit the other town on the island, take a quick half hour tour of the local fort and museum, and then drive around… maybe do some more snorkeling on our own or find a nice beach to relax on. In the evening, we'll watch the sun set over the ocean from a beach on the west coast. (Unless we can't get in a biobay tour on Saturday).

On Monday, we'll leave Vieques by ferry, and head to El Yunque rain Forest. We haven't decided exactly what we want to do there, but probably a guided tour and some hiking and maybe swimming in one of the pools with waterfalls and stuff.

From there, we head back to Old San Juan, check in to the "Jungle Room" at the Caleta Guesthouse, and tour the old forts and we're not sure what else just yet… there's lots to do there. I suggested celebrating our stay in this bohemian crash-pad by drinking copious amounts of local rum.

Tuesday morning, we'll check out and head east. We may visit Arecibo town and the lighthouse park there, may not. Then on to Arecibo Observatory, that giant radio telescope up in the mountains that was used in the movies Contact and Goldeneye.

From there, we'll visit the Caguana Ceremonial Ball Courts in Utuado, a Taino indian site with over 25 ball courts. They played a sport similar to soccer to resolve disputes, and for fun.

And then from there we head to the Casa Grande and relax for the rest of the day, with maybe a short hike through the surrounding area if time allows. Yoga every morning at the casa, also.

Wednesday, depending on how time goes, we plan to take the ferry around the nearby mountain lake, stopping at one of the cantinas for lunch, and if time looks good, head south to Ponce to tour a coffee plantation, the castle home of the Seralles family, who founded DonQ Rum, and a second indian site. We'll also do some shopping (Ponce is sort of the arts & crafts center) and visit the art museum there, then head back to the hotel for dinner and relaxation.

Thursday we'll either relax completely with maybe lunch at a cantina, or do al the stuff I listed for Wednesday and have lunch in Ponce, which seems much more likely as we continue adding ideas to the ponce visit.

Friday is *nothing*. we're going to spend the day soaking up sun, napping in the hammocks, and just totally, completely relaxing.

Saturday we head back to San Juan, possibly taking care of any little things we wanted to do between the casa and san juan on the way… our flight doesn't leave til 2 or so, so we have a good bit of time.

And then we're back in good old Chicago and on our way to SB and … work. blech!

Since I stood in line on the first day to get my iphone, I've had one major complaint. (well, ok, three — No MMS and no flash so I can see the stupid website that AT&T sends me to when people try to send me MMS are the other two…) I wanted to add my entire company directory to the phone so I'd know who was calling me, but I didn't want it cluttering up the list of people I actually call.

I'm not sure if I'm just totally blind or this wasn't available back then, but at any rate, you can do it now, and it's quite simple, at least on a Mac. No clue how it'd work in Windows because that's not what I synch my phone with.

If you add a new Group within the Mac Address Book, the itunes interface for synching your iphone changes. Instead of simply synchin gcontacts, it lets you choose whether to synch all contacts or to synch a given group. And the iphone remembers what group you're looking at, so you don't have to go through the group-choosing process every time you want to make a call.

So, now, I have "Work" "Food" "Business" and "Friends/Family" groups, with work having the complete phone directory for my company, and a bonus of splitting out my clients and other business contacts from my small business off to another group, as well as having a single group to make it easier to call in advance for reservations/pre-order if I'm on the way to a restaurant.

Also — if you didn't know, you can take screenshots on the phone by holding down the Home button and pressing the power button. The screen will flash and the screenshot will be in your film roll as if you'd taken it with the camera.

Just got back from Puerto Rico!

Here's a rundown of the trip:

Friday night – take a bus from South Bend, IN to O'Hare, swearing because I decided to loan my car to my mother for a week instead of drive it there, and swearing even more because the timing of the flights required me to leave from O'Hare instead of south bend (the flights from south bend all got in after my flight left). Spend the night reading books in O'Hare. Can't check baggage until 5am, so I'm lugging a big heavy bag all over the place.

Saturday morning, check baggage, go through security. TSA agent notices informs me that my drivers license is expired. D'oh!!!!! He lets me on the plane anyway, but I get selected for secondary screening. TSA agent #2 is a funny guy and jokes about giving me the "uncle Sam massage, paid for by your tax dollars", 30 seconds later I'm back in the normal line, as I've entered weaponless.

Loooooooooong flight to Puerto Rico. Movie is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but my audio isn't working properly so I doze instead.

Arrival! They have a costumed band dancing through the airport playing Latin music! cool!

Shuttle to Enterprise… they won't rent me a car… expired license. Not cool. But very nice about it and very helpful.

I call the my hotel, the Sheraton Four Points resort in Humacao — they switch my reservation to the Old San Juan Sheraton. I end up in a $350 suite at $160 a night. Not counting Internet or the fact that even drinking a bottle of water in the room will cost me $4. Beautiful place though.

I spend Saturday evening in the hotel mostly.. I take a nap, have dinner in the hotel restaurant, and lose some money in the casino. Sunday I spend exploring old San Juan, the forts and the walls and the cats in the rocks (Save a Gato!), the street vendors and coffee shops, and the DonQ Rum tour.

Monday morning I happily expect to be able to receive a license extension from the Indiana BMV and be on my way…. but it was Columbus Day and everything was closed. So, I explored the other side of Old San Juan, including the Plaza del Cristobal Colon, appropriately enough. Couldn't sleep so I hit the casino again that night, won $120 goofing off on penny slots and then lost it again… lol.

Tuesday morning, worked out the license extension with the BMV and rented a car, checked out of the Sheraton and drove to the Casa Grande, up in the mountains. Roads were scary. Hotel was like summer camp. Grounds were stunningly beautiful. I had the whole retreat to myself the first two nights.. even the staff leaves from 9pm until 8am, locking the gates behind them. Perfect peace and quiet. Fell asleep to the sounds of the Coqui frogs, cicadas and night birds, and occasional gentle rain on the tin roof. (I can't decide — every word here would easily be a link to an image. Here's the photo gallery link for all the pics I took at Casa Grande.)

Wednesday morning, woke up very early and walked around exploring, taking photos… watched the sun rise over the mountains. Had an amazing breakfast of freshly picked guava, papaya, mango, grapefruit and pineapple, most of it from the casa, the pineapple was from somewhere local (the casa's pineapple wasn't ripe enough or something) and some of the best coffee I've ever tasted… then I headed off to Arecibo observatory. Took lots of pics there because I figured my scientist friends at Manus would enjoy.

After Arecibo observatory I went to the actual town of Arecibo, which is nowhere near the observatory (town is on the ocean, observatory is in the mountains), and visited the lighthouse there, which was sort of a … like a little museum/park/something or other… combination tourist trap, kid's museum, relaxing vista, actual historical stuff… they had 1/3 scale models of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, and of the Queen Anne's Revenge… a beautiful view of the ocean… and a real lighthouse with a little museum attached to it and almost no explanation of anything there, it was kinda odd. They also had a "pirate's cave" with a neat little aquarium (including a huge blowfish, which I'd never seen before), and after the lighthouse, a little zoo which I skipped because it looked cheesy and I was tired and thirsty.

Thursday I was going to go to the Taino ruins and the caves, but decided to do a little exploring in the mountains first. A few hours later, every muscle in my body cramped from being clenched in fear I came back to the hotel planning to give them my car keys and get drunk off my arse… but the hotel bar was closed so I got a sunburn instead.

Friday I spent the whole day at the casa reading in my hammock and tanning/burning by the pool. Friday night the casa was full, and I discovered that, as I'd read in some reviews, the walls were paper thin. Next room was full of cute college girls, so I didn't complain.

Saturday, back to San Juan and the airport and then to Chicago and finally back to south bend, many dollars poorer, many pounds of coffee and rum richer, and with about 1400 photos, a good 40 or so minutes of video clips, probably 30 minutes of recordings of ambient sound (most of which sadly I wasn't to recover).

Here are a few shots, the rest are in my photo gallery.

Walls of Old San Juan

More of the Old San Juan walls

Relaxing in a hammock on the mountainside

Sunrise behind a banana leaf