Saturday, May 4, 2013
Recharge Spa work for Drew. Weight training: seated and standing dumbbell curl. Breakfast at home: leftover mung bean noodles in vegetable broth with bean sprouts, basil, spinach, and mushrooms. Home improvement: set up 3M command strips in preparation for rearranging lights over the dining table. Edited and uploaded photos to Flickr. Cut my hair, cleaned the tub/shower, showered. Moved the lights into position over the dining table. For lunch I made a stir-fry with wheat flour lo mein noodles, firm tofu, broccoli, bean sprouts, orange bell pepper, mushrooms, baby zucchini, egg, garlic, ginger sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, rice wine, red wine vinegar. Abandoned using Asana for our grocery list and moved it to Simplenote. Asana was too slow to use from a mobile device for this purpose. I made banana-mango smoothies with brown rice syrup for Patrick and me. Troubleshot our internet connection with sonic.net. I've been frustrated that we get speeds of 4.9 Mbps (typical) and 6.1 Mbps (maximum) from their Fusion+Phone service which claims "up to 20 Mbps." It's DSL, so the people getting 20 Mbps probably live next door to the central office. We moved the DSL modem to the box where the connection enters the house and the speed there was 7.1 Mbps. We talked a little about what could be done inside the house, but I wasn't that interested in spending a lot of effort for such a small increase in speed since the most I would ever get was 7 Mbps. I asked what more could be done to improve the connection between the house and the central office and was told there was nothing that could be done. I asked about other technologies and was told there is a fiber project in the works but no timeline. After I got off the phone with sonic, I started shopping for mifi solutions for home. Anything 8 Mbps or better that works reliably at the same or slightly higher cost is what I'm seeking now. In an online chat a representative of T-Mobile claimed that their mobile hotspot delivers 42 Mbps which I did not believe was true. I noticed that my Time Machine backup on my MacBook Air wasn't working properly, so I deleted the entire backup and started it anew. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover lo mein noodle stir-fry. Patrick had his topped with a little leftover curry. Watched Ocean's Eleven (1960) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Popcorn from a saucepan. I had mine with butter and extra fine sea salt. Patrick had his with the same plus brewer's yeast. We watched about three fifths of the film before pausing. I had a ginger ale before bed.