Using Windows Live Writer 2011 for Windows

I thought that I would try something new. Or, at least new to me. It is the Windows Live Writer 2011. Windows Live Writer is apart of the Windows Live Essentials. Windows Live Writer is an offline blog writer for many different blogging platforms.

I am hoping that this platform will allow me to more easily write blog post drafts. So far so good. As I play with it more I will see if I continue to like this software.

Weekend Travels

So we went to Sacramento for the weekend. Leaving on Saturday morning and coming back Sunday afternoon. For people that know me, I take the minimalist attitude of travel. However, when you travel with a 10 month old you have to get use to change. I am still working on this.

This is the way that I travel.



This is the way that Cooper Travels.



Do you see the difference? The crazy thing is that this amount of stuff does not change all that much if we are leaving for the weekend or the week...

A lazy SysAdmin -- Convert Bytes to Kilobytes to Megabytes to Gigabytes to Terabytes

As a sysadmin, there are many repetitive tasks that one does during the day. I try to live by the sysadmin creed that if you have to do a task more than twice it is time to automate.

Recently, I have needed to convert Kilobytes into Megabytes. Now, I know the short cut is just divide by 1000. But, that is only just a short cut. Really the magic number is 1024. There are a lot of converters on the Internet. I use many of them. Because I have never been good at bookmarking or the bookmark is on another workstation, I have to continually search for that converter that I have used in the past.

With that, I borrowed the one that I found on the Internet here. I just wanted the javascript and I wanted add a reset button, so I cleaned it up a little and put it in a basic web page. What I came up with can be seen here. It is simple and does what I need.

Now I just need to put this page on an internal web server or on my local workstation and I can call it up when ever I need.

Day 7 – Travel Day Home…

Check out of Lindo Mar was 11 am, our flight back to SFO leaves at 3:50 pm. What does that mean? Well, we have a lot of time at the airport. It is known that the taxis here are pretty good. The prices are regulated by zones, but we always ask the price before we leave, though we know what the price should be. This was important on the way to the airport. The taxis driver tried to charge us a larger amount then what should have been the price. Know the prices in the zones and you can call them on it. That is was we did. It took him a minute, but he realized the errors in is ways and agreed to the correct zonal price.

Remember don’t for get your immigration forms that they give you to fill out on the plane over to Mexico. I seemed to have missed placed mine somewhere between when we got out the airport in Mexico and back to the airport a week later. That cost us an extra 700 pesos. Boy have the taxes gone up, I remember when they were only around 350 pesos. Anyway a quick trip to an ATM and we were cleared to go. The agent did feel for us and we got an upgrade to economy plus with a middle seat free… Bonus….

Planning never goes as you hope. We tried to keep Cooper awake, but that just didn’t work. The flight was delayed just enough that Cooper feel asleep while we were waiting in line to get on the plane… bummer. The flight was fine, it was nice to have that middle seat free and be able to pass Cooper back and forth.

San Francisco welcomed us with the rain and cool temperatures. The reality that the vacation is over has sung in. Now it is time to get home, do laundry, and mentally get back to thinking about work. In the back of my mind, it is nice to know that we can do this all again next year. Same time, same place….

Day 6 – Trip to the Botanical Gardens

With Cooper being so young and we can not afford a babysitter the entire trip; many of the excursions out of town are really not made for little kids. They tend to frown upon bring babies on the boat trips and I am not sure if the harness would be small enough for the swing above the canopy of the tress, but we found that we can go to the Botanical Gardens. That is something that would be good for all ages and not too long of a bus ride that Cooper would get to cranky. So we decided to go and tour around and eat lunch.

The Botanical Gardens was a great escape out of town up into the hills a little. I would suggest it for anyone who wants to get away from all the traditional tourist stuff in Puerto Vallarta itself, not that there is anything wrong with that. Also the food was again great.

After a Cooper nap we headed into town for the last time before we had to leave.

Day 5 -- A Night Out

Found out that the fireworks last night were for a private wedding party. Still can not believe that Cooper didn’t wake up during the entire time.

This was our first night out without Cooper. Lindo Mar was able to arrange for a babysitter for Cooper while Anne and I went out to eat by ourselves. It was great!!! We decided to go to Daiquiri Dick’s in town. The food was great. Come to think of it, I have yet to have any food that I didn’t like here in Puerto Vallarta. You can find almost anything that you want. I will tell you that the Margaritas on the rocks are made just the way that I like it; very strong…. Mmmm.

We ended the day listening to a Chorus at the Guadalupe Church.

Day 4 -- Cooper's Lunch Date

A few months ago, we brought Cooper to an event where Anne was volunteering and a co-worker at the event, just loved Cooper. I think it she said it was nice to have Cooper time during the hectic event. Through talking we found out that she lives and works in Puerto Vallarta. We said that we would call when we get into town. Today was the time that we could meet so that she could have some Cooper time and we can catch up on things. We ate at a local place in town (Loncheria y Cocina Economica), great Chicken Mole and the tacos were good too. This is the type of place where generally only locals go to have a meal. If you are ever in town bring your best Spanish and go to this local place for the Chicken Mole. It is open 24 hours…

Evening – Relaxing with some home cooked chicken and rice. After putting Cooper down at his normal bed time, fireworks started going off on the beach right next to Lindo Mar. I don’t think that I have ever been that close to professional great fireworks before. You would think that 20 minutes of fireworks would wake Cooper up, but no. He slept through the whole thing. He must take after his dad.