Tonight's been the big cleaning night. I wonder if the house will still smell lemony-fresh at this hour tomorrow. We're in pretty good shape, though both of us have been in low gear tonight. In between mopping bathrooms and the kitchen, and cleaning the study, I've been off and on the computer, as well as catching brief glimpses of television.
The fun part today was getting live streaming audio to work. Recently Bill, the University Web Manager, set up a RealServer for the campus. I'd been using my old computer in the Registrar's Office as the server (though that's a bad thing to do). Luckily, when I moved to Information Services, Bill got a new server for different web applications, including RealMedia. The server's been up for more than a month now, and I've been doing a weekly two-minute news and events piece. Today I decided to find out if I could broadcast live content. It took an hour or so reviewing documentation and configuring things, but it worked! I actually have little or no use for this feature, at least I haven't thought of one yet. But there are certainly many uses for the University. I just hope we don't have to buy the $9K server license so we can have 100 simultaneous streams. Jumping from free to $9K isn't easy.
Tomorrow should be a quiet day at work. Students are gone for the break, as are most faculty, and half of the staff take a vacation day. I think most of my IS pals will be around, though. Jean and I are both working, then her sister will arrive, two girls in tow. It should be a fun evening. Last time the girls were here, I sat them down and quickly ran through Myst. Both of them became more and more apprehensive as I put each page in both the blue and the red book. The brothers both spooked them, and they were terrified to have to choose one or the other. We didn't have time to finish the game, and I think they're both going to want to see what happens. I have to check to see if I've got a game saved that's almost done.
I just noticed that Jean has hung the advent calendar her mom sent us on the window here in the study. Just a couple of days until the calendar begins. We always seem to get two of these things. One from her mom, one from mine. And we use both of them. Perhaps the other one will be on the 'fridge.
It's nice that the holiday season is just about here. This is going
to be a fun Christmas.
It was warm again today, in the mid-sixties. Not a cloud in the sky. Richmond could use some rain (other than a brief shower last Friday night, we haven't had rain in months), and I would appreciate anything that cooled the place down.
listening: Walking a Changing Line (Ian Matthews); Keb' Mo' (Keb' Mo'); Watching My Life Go By (Michael Hedges).
reading: The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
visiting: more than this; just me
© 1998 Kevin J.T. Creamer