February 18, 2011
Three day weekend ahead!
Yawn! Good morning! So thankful it's Friday. And it looks to be an awesome one at that! Temps in the upper 50's. That works out well considering we're going to have several windows open and fans running this afternoon as the polyurethane dries on our staircase. Tomorrow we get back to reality with temps around the freezing mark.
Got one of my periodic emails from Amazon's Web Services (AWS). While their Simple Storage Solution (S3) was one of their first offerings a few years ago, it had a few minor glitches that made it not usable to host an entire static web site. They've recently fixed a number of the primary complaints. For simple web sites that only consist of static files, it's hard to beat their cost. Rather than a flat monthly rate, they charge pennies per gigabyte transferred and stored. I put up an example mirror of bilikfamily on S3. It's missing a few things but gets the point across.
Did some quick profiling of the Amazon S3 networking delays. S3 can be blazingly fast for static file retrieval as long as you specify the region of the real host (east or west US) in the URL. It's on par or even better than I'm seeing with the FastMail hosting I'm currently using. Most webpages without graphics load in the 100-200ms time frame. Alas, time to focus on getting ready for work...
Dropped the girls off at their schools and head down to Boxborough. Listened to today's readings and homily on XM 117 then listened to some of BOL #1410 until I got to Groton. There I called dad to catch up on life in Coloma and River Grove and how mom's recent chemo treatment went. Now I'm enjoying the office's Bagel Friday while I triage 70+ emails from overnight. Hope I can back to "real work" soon.
Just remembered that I have Monday off for President's Day. Not many private companies I've worked for in the past observe that holiday so it snuck up on me. Ironically my kids DO have school that day so it'll be just me 'n Michelle that day. I'll probably take her Step class for the first time in many months.
Via ignatiusinsight: I wish politicians cared as much about protecting the sanctity of marital unions as they do the political sway of public employee unions.
As often happens on Fridays, I left the office on the late side. When I got home, I could see the results of the work on the stairs. They turned out nice! Now I'm just relaxing with the finale of the three part Wizards vs. Angels on Disney Channel.
After wrapping up the show I spoke with Michelle about her day. She taught two classes today — one in the morning and one in the evening. In one class she met someone new who survived a fight with breast cancer 9+ years ago and was still free. In the other she met someone who battled it 3 years ago and got a prognosis of reoccurrence this week. One of the things that drives me crazy about cancer is that you never feel like you're past it. I think even if it never comes back, it'll always be in the back of our minds.
So much for thinking I'd be in bed by 10. Just as I was getting ready to commit this post on the laptop, we heard the phone ring. It was Claire and her planned ride home didn't work out. So off in my car I went to get her. An hour later I'm ready to try again. Good night all!