Back up to the department today. I was somewhat less productive, though I did manage to move change my LaTeX include files over to biblatex. I had been using natbib, which was a huge improvement over the standard LaTeX citation facility, but was certainly still suboptimal. biblatex, on the other hand, appears to be an excellent and well-designed system. It was relatively simple to make the change from natbib, only a few search-replaces were needed, and I think it was time well-invested. I also took the opportunity to clean up and merge some of my BibTeX databases. That actually took a couple hours, and I wonder if I removed a few too many references (around 150 of 400). Oh well, I have backups and they are easy enough to add again of needed.

In the evening, went to see Roy Wood Jr. at the Funny Bone with Matt and Marisa. It was an excellent show. Back into town for a late dinner at Surly Girl.

I decided that it was time to get back to real work, so headed up to school for the day. Managed to get quite a bit done—got caught up on some class and reading notes, while getting some other organization done. Came home around 3:30 pm and began working some more on the home sales analysis. Managed to provide Tim with some more interesting and valuable charts on sales in the Cathedral Park area of Portland, Oregon.

Later in the evening, started a batch of my simple chicken soup for dinner tomorrow, adding some dried thyme and a jalapeño to the recipe to spice it up a bit.

Worked all day at analyzing the Portland home sales data for Tim and Joan. Actually, spent most of my time playing with graphing functions in R and not getting much analysis done at all. I did learn a bit, but I have to say that it's not all that easy to get presentable charts and graphs in R, though when you finally get something put together the results are excellent. It also took me some time to figure out that time-series data have to be converted to a special data type before it will graph properly.

This post provides a photographic chronicle of the steps I took to replace the CPU fan in Sofie, my Fujitsu Lifebook s2110. I've had the computer for around 3 years, and it's never been able to maintain a reasonable operating temperature. As will become clear below, it seems the problem lies in some shoddy application of thermal grease by the manufacturer.

For this little project, I followed the excellent guide found here. For this reason, I don't provide my own detailed instructions.

The beginning, including the computer, the fan, and some tools.

First, removed all of the components on the underside of the system, including the memory, hard drive, DVD-ROM, and battery. Then removed the hinge cover and a load of screws. After the hinge cover was removed, the keyboard comes right out.

First damage: I couldn't figure out how to remove the small ribbon that connects the motherboard to the indicator panel. In the process of figuring it out, I broke the connector. The small piece of plastic lying on the motherboard is the piece I broke off. For future reference, the dark brown "tab" lifts up to release the ribbon cable.

Second, removed the plastic cover, heat shield, and wireless networking card. Be careful with the network card---the antenna does not detach and is weaved through some other components.

And what did I find? Thermal grease unevenly applied across the CPU heat sink, a piece of small thermal tape applied off-center on the Northbridge, and a very dirty fan.

A picture of the radiator through which the CPU fan (removed) is supposed to blow.

With the copper heat sinks removed, discovered that the thermal grease wasn't applied any better on the underside (note: the Southbridge and CPU have already been cleaned off in this image, but I didn't find them in any better condition than the Northbridge).

I then applied a new batch of thermal grease above (shown) and below the copper heat sinks. Everything I've ever read says you should apply a thin and even layer, being careful not to get any of the grease on any other components (the grease contains silver and is conductive).

Reassembling the machine.

Completely reassembled system, doesn't look too bad. Unfortunately, the system wouldn't start.

I decided to remove the hinge cover to verify that the panel ribbon was correctly connected. But because I had stripped a screw, preventing me from easily removing the panel, rage set in and I ripped the hinge cover off by force. Obviously, it broke. In my fit, I also knocked off two keys. Luckily, the keys were undamaged and I was able to reattach them with just a bit of delicate work (once I had relaxed).

A closer look at the damaged components.

The location of the screw that I stripped (it was accessed from the back).

As it turns out, the system's refusal to boot had nothing to do with my inability to reassemble the system correctly. The battery had died while sitting on the desk and, because I neglected to plug the system in, I didn't make this discovery until the next day. I have managed to get the system back into working order, though with the hinge cover broken and a screw missing (because I stripped it), the keyboard bounces a bit while in use. At least with the new fan installed and a new batch of thermal grease correctly applied, the system does run much cooler and quieter. That's something at least. Moral of the story: Plug a computer in before trying to start it.

Sofie wouldn't start because her battery was dead. I failed to test her with the power plugged in. How bright is that...

Spent most of my day (finally) finishing the Johnson Reid administrative pages. Once again, spent most of my time rewriting code that I have already produced half-a-dozen times. The problem, it seems, is that my framework works great for static pages, but falls down when it has to deal with dynamic content and form processing. Been speaking to Tim some over IRC about the issues, and he has some suggestions, but I won't be able to get to them anytime soon. Guess the gallery will just have to wait until spring break (or summer).

In the evening, worked on processing and analyzing some Portland home sales data for Tim. Didn't make much progress, but I should have something interesting completed tomorrow.

Devon and I got up early this morning with the intention of getting some chores done around the house. All began fairly well. While she went off to the post office to pick up a couple more packages, I finished up with the foam insulation "injections" in the bedroom. Seems there is a serious draft coming from our baseboards and the expandable foam does a good job of plugging it. That went well enough, though it seems the stuff expands a bit more than I anticipated. Some cleanup will be in order:

When that was finished, I went on to gluing my fingers to the cats' scratching post, and when I got to a point where I was cleaning more glue off the floor than was making it onto the post, I decided to move on to more productive things---such as installing my new CPU fan in Sofie (the laptop). Luckily, I documented the whole process (which will be the topic of its own post).

Let's just say that the laptop took two hours to disassemble (following these excellent instructions), 30 minutes to clean up Fujitsu's mess, an hour to put the machine back together (only to discover that the system wouldn't start), and 30 seconds of a raging fit to break a delicate hinge, strip a screw, knock two keys off, and damage a connector. No, the system still didn't work by the time I went to bed. Lesson of the day: don't disassemble laptops without Lithium. A graphic chronology can be found here.

It's Christmas, providing a good excuse for getting nothing done. Now that I can upload files to the weblog, I began the morning uploading a few images for my general post-term post. A few Thanksgiving photos as well as by butterfly picture are now included in the December 13 entry.

Other than that, didn't get much of anything productive done today. Worked on the cats' scratching post a bit. Spoke to the family on the phone, of course, and attempted our first batch of homemade ravioli. The ravioli attachment for our pasta machine seems somewhat of a mystery, however, and we ended up making them by hand. We made two types: sausage with green olives and mushroom, leek, and ricotta. They turned out well, but took quite a lot of work. We have a lot of left-over filling so we decided to make a lasagna tomorrow.

In the evening, we finished watching an episode of Midsomer Murders, then decided to try out mod_wsgi, which was quite simple to set up. Of course, Hello, world! is as far as I got.

Well, finally managed to get the weblog completed. Overall, I think I made some significant improvements over the previous version. Nothing visible was changed (except some changes to the color theme), but the file uploading and post editing was improved to make my life a bit easier. Most significantly, there is now no file size limit on uploads and the upload process now uses a fixed amount of RAM. I still have a couple things I want to do, but I may just move on and forget about those changes until spring break.

Did some investigating of mod_wsgi. It appears to be the "wave of the future" and I'll probably move to that system for my next major web project (a simple site to hold some HOWTOs. I also finally found the proper incantation to get Xfce to play well with Gamin and NFS.

Later in the evening, installed a new theme into Johnson Reid's wiki, a MoinMoin install. That went easy enough and I sent off an email requesting an evaluation of the theme. If they like it, I will have to adjust the color scheme to fit their colors.

Another day of shopping. Sigh. Once we managed to get moving (late), our first stop was Home Depot to pick up some more insulating foam. While we were there, we found a new lamp for my desk, while also picking up one of those new "natural light" bulbs for the lamp as well as some dimmer-compatible low-energy bulbs for the bedroom. After that, it was on to Whole Foods, where it seems we spent half the day. Part of the problem was that we kept adding to our menu for the week (we settled on two types of homemade ravioli, my simple chicken soup, and an Asian rice dish of some sort), but we were also slowed by the crowds. It doesn't seem the recession has diminished holiday food shopping much; or maybe the 8-year long recession here in Ohio has simply become so commonplace that shopping habits don't change much with each additional piece of bad news. Anyway, we finally made it out of Whole Foods, but not before we agreed to dedicate ourselves to a new sense of frugality. For those keeping notes, I didn't complain at all the whole day.

Back home, I put the lamp together and installed the new bulbs in the bedroom. The "natural light" bulb for the desk lamp works quite well, and I think it will relieve a lot of eye strain during the coming term. The bulbs installed in the bedroom are also impressively bright, which should make knitting a bit easier on Devon's eyes.

For dinner we finished the pasta and sauce we had made the other day. Devon spent the evening knitting and watching a new (to her) British series she has been picking up at the library. I spent my time working more on the weblog, finally managing to complete much of the file upload functionality. Just a few more things to take care of and the site should be (once again) "feature-complete".

On Saturday, I wrote a complaint to the USPS about the service we have been receiving from the local post office. Today, I actually got a reply:

Thank you for contacting us about the wait time at the Post Office located at 33 E 4TH Ave in Columbus, OH 43201. I understand on a couple of occasion your package was not found for pickup. Also the office is short staffed.

I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. I will document your concerns for immediate attention. Please provide me with your phone number.

If I can be of assistance to you in the future, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for choosing the United States Postal Service®.

I have to admit, I am surprised to have received any type of reply. But I doubt anything will be done. I also wonder: why does the author need my phone number, and why does USPS, a government entity, seems to feel they need to register their trademark?

Ordered our DTV coupon in the evening. Only had to enter my info twice before the Microsoft-hosted service would accept it. As I wrote Tim over IRC, I chalk the first failure up to a Republican conspiracy---the first CAPTCHA challenge I was provided consisted of "Goldwater King".

What a day. Devon had the day off, so we began with another excellent meal at Café Corner. I had the Green Eggs and Ham, while Devon had a breakfast special of three mini-sandwiches with hash browns. Devon then dropped me off home, where I worked on getting my new i386 install up and running, while she headed out to UPS and USPS.

At around 12:15 pm, we headed out to lunch with Marisa and Matt at El Arepazo, a Venezuelan place downtown. I had the Cuban sandwich special, which was excellent, and Devon had some other sandwich. The place was so good, Marisa and Matt invited us out to dinner in the evening. We couldn't refuse.

After lunch, it was time for some shopping (ugh). We hit Target and Bed Bath & Beyond looking for a new desk lamp for me as well as a larger frying and sauce pans. To our surprise, Bed Bath & Beyond didn't seem to have a single sale going on, which meant the pans we wanted (All-Clad) were well out of our price range. Haven't they heard of the recession? We then headed back to the Short North to look for a couple small, last minute gifts. Spent some quality time in The Cookware Sorcerer, where I had a good discussion with the proprietor about Absinthe, but the only other exciting stop was the liquor store. Spent what was left of the afternoon working on my new install, but getting nothing much else done. Oh, we did manage to take a short nap.

We picked Marisa and Matt up at 8:15 pm and then headed to Deepwood for dinner. While no Hugo's, the meal, service, and conversation were excellent. We had a great time. But I'm not sure we'll be able to eat tomorrow.

Spent the morning cleaning up code and also got to the bottom of my post-editing issue. Seems I had an errant comma in my UPDATE syntax. That only took a few minutes to fix, but I wonder which other pages it's going to break. I added the comma for some reason. Spent much of the rest of the day and evening catching up on my diary and trying to figure out some way to easily and efficiently parse HTML code. I want to be able to escape and unescape code between <code></code> tags, but I haven't figured out a good way to do it. I may have to resort to some form of BBCode, which was something I was trying to avoid but may be the only good solution.

For dinner, Devon made fresh fettuccine and I made tomato sauce with mushrooms. The pasta turned out quite well; the pasta maker Devon got me several years ago (made by Imperia) certainly makes shaping the pasta easier. My sauce was somewhat boring, but all-in-all, the dinner was a nice change.

I have some extra space on my hard drive, so I decided to install the i386 version of FreeBSD on it. Began that in the evening.

Made significant progress on the weblog today; it's about time. I am once again able to add new posts, and all of the code is written for post editing. Just have one bug to hunt down before the latter feature is complete. For some reason, something's going wrong with my MySQL UPDATE statement---it refuses to update the post and, because I was too lazy to implement decent logging, I haven't been able to get a handle on the problem. Shouldn't take long to get fixed tomorrow. Beyond that, I still have the post deletion and file uploading to complete.

Earlier in the afternoon, I headed over to the post office to pick up a package. I arrived to find a long line and too few post office employees providing service. To make matters worse, after standing in line for more than 20 minutes, we were told that no packages delivered yesterday would be available for pickup---we would have to come back on Monday. It seems that even though the pickup slip indicates that we can pick the package up after 11:00 am the day following the attempted delivery, the packages had not yet been unloaded and sorted from the day before. This is not the first time something like this has happened; in fact, late in the summer I once had to go back to the same post office, manned by the same people, three times before they had enough "time" to go into the back room to get me my package. Devon faced similar situations multiple times. Annoyed, I came home and wrote a complaint on the USPS site. We'll see how far that gets.

This is my recipe for simple, though tasty "Korean" BBQ chicken. I place quotes around Korean because, frankly, I have never had Korean BBQ at a restaurant, so I don't actually know what it is like in reality. This recipe is pretty much what I imagine Korean BBQ to be like.

The recipe has its origins in an accident. On August 23, we had Marisa and Matt over for dinner. I made Asian food---fried rice, a pork stir fry, and chicken satay with a peanut sauce. The chicken we purchased (boneless thighs) didn't work all that well for the satay, and I had quite a bit of chicken left over. I decided at the last minute to toss them into a Crock-pot and attempt a Korean BBQ. The recipe, which I hobbled together from several online sources, turned out quite well and, after testing and tweaking it a couple more couple more times, I think the result is refined enough to publish here. (Note: several of the ingredients are not traditionally used in Korean cooking, but I think they add something to the dish.)

• 2 pounds chicken (boneless thighs and legs preferred)
• 1 cup soy sauce (low/no salt)
• ½ cup Hoisin sauce
• ¼ cup tamarind concentrate
• 250 ml (around 8 oz.) chicken broth
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 tbsp. fresh ginger, minced
• ¼ cup lemongrass, minced
• 1 tbsp. red chili flakes (substitute with ½ of a hot pepper)
• 2-3 oz. mixed mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp. honey
• Fresh cracked pepper to taste (no extra salt needed, the Hoisin sauce is typically quite salty)

1. Place chicken, soy sauce, chicken broth, Hoisin sauce, and tamarind concentrate into pre-heated Crock-pot. Cook for 1 hour or until chicken is cooked through and liquid is boiling.
2. Add all other ingredients, except for the honey. Cook on high for around four hours, making sure to stir every 30-45 minutes.
3. Add honey and watch for mixture to turn from a dark brown to a nearly black color, which indicates that the sugar has caramelized. In the last hour of cooking, check and taste regularly. It's easy at this stage to burn the sugars, which you don't want. You should notice a significant change in taste within the last hour or so. Turn off when you've reached a level of caramelization that suits your taste (but don't turn off too soon!).

With this recipe, as indicated above, it's important to make sure the sugars are sufficiently caramelized; otherwise, the result of the dish doesn't taste anything like BBQ. But don't over-do it. Cook it to a point that it is "just right" (last time I made it, it took from 10 am to 4 pm until it was finished, though I also started with frozen chicken). Devon and I usually serve the chicken over fried rice, and it lasts for at least 3 meals.

Not a lot to report on today. Spent the day messing with Devon's computer---after upgrading it to FreeBSD 7.1-RC1, it refuses to boot with ACPI enabled. Finally found a single relevant post somewhere online that seemed to indicate that it was an issue with the system's old nVidia motherboard and its poor support of FireWire. Sure enough, disabled FireWire in the kernel, rebuilt, and the problem was gone.

Other than that, spent most of the day just cleaning up around the house (need more practice at that) and working on the weblog. Really need to make more progress.