After spending two days wandering about Livermore we decided we should actually go in to San Francisco. So, we used Wednesday to visit the city and relax before driving back to Utah.

Of necessity was visiting the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite the heat wave, it was quite cool and windy in the city, and pants, rather than shorts, would probably have been a better choice in clothing. Our jackets were still in the car though, which was lovely. We went and got them out shortly after taking this picture:

After retrieving our jackets we set out across the bridge. We figured we should at least walk on it. So we walked halfway across and turned around and headed back to the car. It is a long bridge. The wind was whipping in across the ocean and teasing Jess' hair a lot. By the time we got back to the car she looked like she was trying to be a country singer, just compare her hair in this picture to the picture before we got our jackets:

After seeing the bridge we needed to head into the city and visit Lombard Street and Ghirardelli Square. We found Lombard street on the map and decided to start there, since I hadn't remember Ghirardelli Square beforehand and we didn't know where it was. So we drove back across the bridge and got on Lombard Street. That was fun, particularly when I ended up driving down Crooked Street. I didn't know it was there, and then as I crossed the intersection I discovered that the road was now one-way and winding back and forth steeply down the hill. We didn't realize it was going to be happening and don't have any decent pictures, but feel free to Google it.

At the end of Lombard Street we found ourselves circling up a hill to what turned out to be Coit Tower. Yup, it's pretty much just a tower on a hill. The inside has murals on the walls, we didn't pay to go up to the top.

Outside the tower, on the public restroom, was a map of San Francisco and we found how to get to Ghirardelli Square. So we headed there next. Parking is dang expensive down there. A quarter buys you 6 minutes. Luckily we only needed to pay for 15 minutes because metering stops at 7:00pm. Since we were cold we opted for hot cocoa, rather than the world famous hot fudge sundae. We figure we can go visit again when we're actually living in Livermore. The hot chocolate was quite tasty though. I got the Classic Hot Chocolate and Jess had the Sea Salt Caramel Hot Chocolate.

After filling ourselves with incredibly rich beverage we headed back to Sunnyvale for the evening. We dined on Panda Express that night just to be sure that the Orange Chicken in California is as good as the Orange Chicken in Provo. Thursday we slept in a bit and then packed up and headed back to Provo. We lunched at In 'N' Out Burger in Auburn, it was our last chance for In 'N' Out again before we move in July. That concluded our exciting week in California. The rest of the drive back was uneventful.

After sleeping in on Friday I got up and cleaned my room. It much needed it, dust was everywhere. So now it's all clean and ready to begin being packed up.

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Chloe (my 2007 Honda Civic) is over 2 years old now. So, it's time for another update. After 2 years of ownership I have to say there's really not anything I'm particularly annoyed or bothered about. I haven't had any trouble. Sadly, I did not make it out of Utah without any damage being done. After the bowling trip of a few weeks ago mentioned on siblings' blogs (I bowled a 190! Holy Cow!) I noticed that someone slammed their car door into my passenger door. Honestly, how hard do people open their doors? You'd have to be swinging pretty hard to make the dent that is now on my car. The panels are designed to take bumps and such, so a dent like this really must have taken some force. I was a bit annoyed by that. I parked in a spot with no cars on either side of me, so someone parked next to me and then whipped their door into my car, lame.

Anyways, aside from that the only other damage is some small chips in the paint due to rocks on the highway, I would assume. Thus far I have yet to sustain any chips in my windshield, I'm hoping to make it out of Utah without needing to replace the windshield.

Here are the latest stats of interest. Gas prices dropped significantly last fall. I'm currently paying about $2.25 per gallon for 87/88 octane. Surprisingly gas was actually about the same price in California. There was probably about a 10 cents difference for 87/88 octane gas.

The trip to California is the first very long distance trip in my car (I'm not counting driving to Rexburg, Idaho as very long distance). I was pleased to see that for the long stretches of highway driving I was able to get upwards of 40 miles to the gallon. That's a real world number while driving ~75 across Nevada, Utah, and California on I-80, not too shabby. The EPA estimate for the 2009 Civic highway driving is 36. The best tank was from Winnemucca, NV to Sunnyvale, CA; which achieved 42.088 miles to the gallon, and that includes crossing the Sierra-Nevada mountains.

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Jess and I have been in California this week looking for a place to live in July. Unfortunately, since we're not yet married, LLNL's relocation package would not cover expenses for Jess on this trip. So, we decided to drive rather than fly. They'll reimburse my mileage, and it doesn't really cost any more to have her in the car, but it does mean we had to make the 11+ hour drive. The drive actually wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating, having Jess with me certainly made it better.

We left Provo at 10:00am on Sunday. We stopped for lunch in Winnemucca, NV. Turns out that Winnemucca is pretty much exactly halfway between Provo and Sunnyvale. We ate at a KFC / Long John Silver's. The guy in line behind us was wearing spurs! The first tank of gas yielded an impressive 39+ mpg! I was happy about that.

We got back on the road and headed toward the CA border. Jess had been looking at the AAA maps in my car from a couple years ago and saw a city labeled "Rochester (Ghost Town)" which was about 10 miles off the highway. We thought it would be fun to detour out to. So we drove out there to find not a Ghost Town, but a fully functioning mining operation. So, apparently, someone found a way to re-open the mine and the AAA map is a lie. Since that didn't work out we're going to try to find a real ghost town to stop at on the way home.

At the California border we had to stop for "Agricultural Inspection" (Yah right, I'm sure they're not actually looking for drugs or anything, they really care if you're bringing in contraband apples). I had to get out and open the trunk to let the inspector take a look. He didn't actually move anything, just sort of looked at the contents and asked if we had any produce, pets, or animals. We did have a head of lettuce in our cooler (for sandwiches! We knew Mike doesn't own any actual food), he didn't seem to care about our lettuce trafficking and told us we could go. I really wonder about the legality of these border checks considering it's a state border crossing and only the Federal Government (supposedly) has the power to regulate interstate commerce. Seems like vehicle inspection should fall into interstate commerce, but whatever.

We got into Sunnyvale around 10:00 pm, so the drive took us pretty much exactly 13 hours which includes stopping for lunch and our detour out to the "ghost town". The second tank of gas got 42+ mpg, I like my car. We dined at In 'N' Out Burger as Jess has never eaten at one before. She was also enamored with the palm trees, and the wind turbines.

Altamont Wind Farm

On Monday we slept in to recover from the trip, then headed up to Livermore. We checked out Portola Park Apartments and Diablo Vista Apartments. We could be alright staying at either location (they both had 100% recommended 4+ stars in all categories on apartmentratings.com). Unfortunately, they won't know if they have any openings for July until the end of May. So we filled out applications for each and turned them in the next day. They said they'll process the applications and put us on a waiting list. The managers at both locations seemed very interested in helping us out once they found out I'd be working at LLNL. They clearly understand that tenants who pass an FBI background check and qualify for a Top Secret Security Clearance are likely to not cause them any trouble.

We also drove out to Mountain House and looked around so Jess could see what the area was like. That's where we are thinking about picking up a cheap foreclosure house. It's a pretty nice area, brand new community.

Unfortunately for us, we managed to arrive in California just in time for a freak heat wave with temperatures in the upper 90's. The average high for April is ~70. So it's been a bit toastier than we were hoping for. The weather is supposed to return to normal tomorrow, when we leave, of course. Mike said that it will probably only be this hot maybe 7 days the entire summer, we managed to catch 4 of them.

On Tuesday we went back up to Livermore and kind of wandered a bit. We drove by a few other locations, and stopped by a real estate company that also runs house rentals. Of course, they don't know about availability in July, but if the apartment complexes don't work out we can look into one of their houses. We checked out a few neighborhoods that they have locations in, so we could at least get an idea of which areas would be acceptable. If worse comes to worse, perhaps we can bribe Mike to take a drive out to Livermore in May and look at some options for us.

It still feels a little weird that we'll actually be moving out here in July, to live, for the indefinite future. We stopped at the Livermore Library which is pretty nice, walked around the downtown "main street" kind of thing they've got going. Stopped in a local furniture store there and talked with the owner for a bit.


Today, we're relaxing mostly. We'll head to the Bay and wander around, probably drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and stop at the park, mostly wind things down before we drive back tomorrow.

One of the vineyards in Livermore

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I'm getting ready for a road trip and decided it would be convenient to use my n810 both as my GPS device and as my music provider. I have an iPod, but it's going to be a long trip, and I only have one place to plug things in. The n810 will have to be plugged in order to provide GPS for the trip. The iPod's battery might last the trip, but it would just be easier, and with fewer cords and cables to use one device.

Also, my iPod doesn't play ogg files, so the ogg files I have in my music library (many) are not available to enjoy.

So, let's get OGG support working on the n810. For some reason the Nokia execs decided not to include OGG support out-of-the-box. No one seems to be clear on why, it's a free format, whereas it does come with support for WMA and RealAudio which both require licensing fees (It also supports MP3 by default, which also requires a licensing fee, but MP3 is so prevalent not including would be dumb).


There are 2 packages claiming to provide OGG support for Maemo OS2008: mogg and Ogg Support.

Ogg Support shows up in the repositories by default so I figured that would be the easiest place to start. Unfortunately, it failed to install and I couldn't find any information online about what the problem might be. So, that didn't work out.

With Ogg Support out of the running, I tried mogg, but it is not in the repositories and using the "Click to Install" link from its Maemo.org page didn't work. So, we do things the hard way. I downloaded the .deb files myself from the mogg release history details. For OS2008, scroll down the page to that section (should be highlighted). You'll need to grab: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis_0.2-2_armel.deb, libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-mogg1_armel.deb, and mogg_0.4.1_all.deb.

Once you've got those on your n810, you'll need to fire up a root terminal session. If you don't know how to get root access follow these instructions. Then we'll use dpkg to install the files in this order: libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-mogg1_armel.deb, gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis_0.2-2_armel.deb, mogg_0.4.1_all.deb:
~ $ root
BusyBox v1.6.1 (2008-09-18 09:43:17 EEST) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
Nokia-N810-43-7:~# dpkg --install libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-mogg1_armel.deb
Selecting previously deselected packages libvorbisidec1.
(Reading database ... 15386 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libvorbisidec1 (from libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-mogg1_armel.deb) ...
Setting up libvorbisidec1 (1.2.0-mogg1) ...
Nokia-N810-43-7:~# dpkg --install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis_0.2-2_armel.deb
(Reading database ... 15391 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis (from gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis_0.2-2_armel.deb) ...
Setting up gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivrobis (1:0.2-2) ...
Nokia-N810-43-7:~# dpkg --install mogg_0.4.1_all.deb
[ lots of output ]
* Updating MIME database in /usr/share/mime...
[ more output]
Restarting Media Player Daemon: mediaplayer-engine.
Restarting Metalayer Crawler: metalayer-crawler0.
Stopping media-server
Starting media-server
Nokia-N810-43-7:~#

Once this was done the built-in media player does play OGG files, however the tags weren't being read. So my fun times continued. I decided that I'd ditch trying to use the built-in media player for my music. I turned to YouAmp. Before messing with a different media player, I decided I should uninstall the packages I just installed:
Nokia-N810-43-7:~# dpkg --remove mogg
...
Nokia-N810-43-7:~# dpkg --remove gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis
...
Nokia-N810-43-7:~# dpkg --remove libvorbisidec1
...
Nokia-N810-43-7:~#

Then I installed YouAmp from the repositories which went smoothly. I configured it to look in my Music folder on my external SD card and it found my test OGG file just fine, and read the tag information. Unfortunately, it didn't actually play the file for me. When running it from the command line (so I could see some error output, hopefully) I was told: "python2.5[7343]: GLIB MESSAGE default - don’t know how to handle application/ogg
Error: GStreamer encountered a general stream error."

Someone else posted this error in the comments on the YouAmp page linked above. The response was that for OGG you need to install "gstreamer0.10-plugins-ivorbis". Well, crap, doesn't that look oddly familiar. Hoping for a cleaner solution than hacked in .deb packages I did an "apt-cache search ivorbis" and found "gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-ivorbis". The "bad" means that this package isn't quite up to snuff yet, but probably works. So I gave it a shot and used "apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-ivorbis" which also installed the "libvorbisidec1" dependency. Now, YouAmp plays OGG files and reads tag information correctly, but it doesn't properly read the time information from the file. So it will play the OGG file, but you can't jump within the file and you can't see how long / how close to done it is. Lame. My previous hack with the built-in media player at least did that part correctly.

So, now an idea comes to me to try the previously attempted library packages with YouAmp! Let's see how this turns out for us. First, we remove the repository packages of "gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-ivorbis" and "libvorbisidec1": "apt-get remove gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-ivorbis", "apt-get remove libvorbisidec1".

Then we reinstall the packages obtained from the mogg release files (see above). Now we run YouAmp and.... SUCCESS! We can now play OGG files, jump within the file, read the tag data, and know how long the file is. We're ready for our road trip!

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I just accepted a job offer from Lawrence Livermore National Labs in Livermore, California. I have a tentative start date of July 7. So, In the next 3 months I will: 1. Finish my Master's Degree. 2. Get Married. 3. Start a real job. I'll be living in the real world like an adult or something; weird.

Jess and I are both really excited about moving to California. It will be nice to have a change of scenery and environment. The offer from LLNL is quite good (to such a degree that the HR rep from Applied Signals called and emailed me to suggest I make sure to verify the offer from LLNL because she didn't believe it. Applied Signals made me an offer as well for their Salt Lake office, but their offer was not particularly competitive with LLNL's. This includes considering cost-of-living differences.). I'm sure you're curious what the offer was, but I feel awkward putting it on here, and I kind of feel awkward telling people in general. But, it was more than I had ever anticipated making straight out of school, and I'm happy about that. Considering the general economy right now, I'm really happy about that.

Now we get to work with the relocation office to take advantage of the lovely relocation package so that we can minimize the headache of finding a place to live and then moving into it. We're thinking of finding a place in Mountain House, which is about 25 minutes away over the mountain pass. The reasons being that it's not too far away, and the cost of living drops dramatically over that mountain pass, so we get considerably more bang for our buck for a 25 minute commute. From talking with people from the lab, lots of employees live out that way and many also either ride the bus or carpool to make the commute more tolerable. So we'll see what happens.

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