$ cat /var/log/meri

It seems that summer has arrived, and I (for one) do not approve.

I have problems enough with overheating when it’s a reasonable temperature outside. Now that it isn’t, life is getting very unpleasant. I am in a well air-conditioned house, and spend most of my time in the basement of same, with a ceiling fan running, and still find myself sweating. I’m hoping this is mostly due to the high level of humidity. (I’m hoping this because G’s just ordered a dehumidifier, so hope may be in sight.)

But that’s indoors. Going outdoors is just … untenable. I can’t breathe, I immediately break out into a sweat, and my *#&%)$ glasses fog up.

And it’s only June.

As you may or may not know, I was supposed to be having knee surgery today (originally, though I rescheduled it to next week). There are, it seems, a couple of foreign bodies floating around in my left knee (which is just weird). It’s theorized that they might be the source of the pain that I’ve been experiencing for the last several months, and so the plan was for an orthopedic surgeon to go in and remove them.

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Here are the answers (that I’m aware of) from the quiz in the previous post. I’ll update as things are figured out!

Update @ 2013.05.28 16:26: All solved. Thanks to Noah and etherial!

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Some people claim this is a Mensa test. I have no idea whether or not that’s true. However, I think it’s fun, and thought you might enjoy. Also, I don’t know all the answers, and I know that you guys are smart. 🙂

I’ve given the first one as an example. The ones I haven’t figured out yet are in italics. (I guess I don’t make it in Mensa, huh?)

Also: No fair Googling. I coulda done that. 😉

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Thanks to all who responded about running Windows under OS X. You all came back with the same answer: Parallels. This was handy, since I already had a Parallels license kicking around.

So, I installed Parallels, and installed Windows 7, and then went to Adobe InDesign CS6 from my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. (For those who don’t know, Adobe has an “app manager” that you use to install the various Adobe Creative Cloud apps. So, first you install this Adobe Air app, and then, using the Adobe Application Manager, you’re able to install things like InDesign and Photoshop and Acrobat Pro.)

This is where the plan went off the rails.

It seems that, in their attempts to fight piracy, Adobe’s gone a wee bit over the edge, and has essentially broken the Adobe Application Manager when it is run (at the very least) on a Windows Parallels instance. After the installation failed for me (repeatedly), I searched the interwebs, and discovered that I wasn’t alone. Many others were reporting the same problem with the latest AAM.

Well, that sucked. I was on a tight deadline, and since the only reason I needed a Windows machine was to use some Type 1 fonts provided to me, I set off in another direction. With the help of G and a handy piece of software called FontForge, I ended up being able to use the Type 1 fonts natively under OS X, which solved all of my problems without requiring a virtual machine, or Adobe’s broken application manager.

So there.

Yeah, there was so much wrong with that sentence, but hey.

For typographical reasons (read: fonts), I have need to run Adobe Cloud under Windows on a Mac running Mountain Lion. (Well, I could run Adobe Cloud on an actual Windows box, but I don’t have one, hence the virtualization.)

The last Windows with which I am at all familiar is XP, which is … creaky, but will (I think) do what I need to do. What experiences have you all with running more modern Windows on a Mac? And via what mechanism? (I’m a fan of Parallels, but am willing to hear other options as well.)

Alternately, can anyone point at a reliable way to install Type 1 fonts on a Mac? 🙂

I know, I know, I don’t ask for much. But I have faith in my geeky friends.

Love, meri

The good folks at Tivo are discontinuing the PC version of TiVo desktop, and you have until June 5th to download it. Unlike the Mac version, the PC version will actually let you transfer shows from your TiVo to your PC. (The equivalent can be achieved on the Mac using a couple of small apps, or via Toast Titanium, but not via anything made available for free by TiVo.)

Anyway, I thought some of you might want to know about this while the software is still readily available.

Saturday’s excursion to Maryland Sheep and Wool was a success. Terri and I got there very early (as in, an hour before the show even opened), so parking was a breeze. (Even though we were misguided when we asked to be directed to handicapped parking.) The weather was fantastic. My knee mostly behaved. We were able to find seating when I needed it. And, best of all, there was lots and lots of beautiful yarn.

After a few hours of tromping around the fair, Terri and I made our way back out to the car. As we were leaving, we discovered that it was a very good thing that we arrived early. The fairground’s parking lot was overflowing, and they were parking people across the street. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the 3 mile backup on the one-lane road to get to the fairground. It has been decided that an early arrival will always be part of our plan in the future.

Upon arriving home, there was napping, and dinner, and then sleeping. I had really hoped to go to a little party at a friend’s house last night, but it seems it was not to be. I was tired, and don’t even remember waking up in the middle of the night, which is very rare for me.

I expected waking up this morning to be a painful experience, what with all of the walking yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a bit of stiffness, but no extra pain. I spent a couple of hours hooked up to the Magic Ice Machine™, and I could walk up and down stairs like a (reasonably) normal person. (Yes, yes, clearly an act.)

I have a productive day lined up today, with laundry, and a project, and preparing for a very busy Monday. The house is a lovely chilly temperature, thanks to open windows and a drop in outdoor temperatures. I’m feeling somewhat energetic (a surprise), and I’m staring to ponder lunch (also something of a surprise). I got in a couple of hours of knitting on my Clara while hooked up to the ice machine.

I’m hopeful for the day, and am smugly pleased with yesterday. Can’t really ask much more of a weekend.

I am making preparations to try to tackle Maryland Sheep and Wool tomorrow morning.

• I’m doing laundry so I have very light, airy clothing.
• I’ve found and rinsed my hydration pack.
• I’ve made sure that my comfiest light weight shoes are available.
• I’m winding more yarn for my current knitting project in case I end up needing to camp in my car to recover for a while, and stashing it in the separate knitting bag that will stay in my car against this need.
• I’m putting the essentials in my pack (wallet (with only the cash I’m allowed to spend, and one “OMG, the car is on fire” emergency credit card), bandana, medications, witch hazel towelettes (they help a lot in keeping cool), protein bar, an apple).
• I’ve made sure that my handicap placard is in the car.

Other than running out and buying a cane (and, really, there’s a shortage of places to get a sword cane at 7PM on a Friday night), and getting a good night’s sleep, I think that I’m doing everything I can to promote success. So, unless I wake up in the morning just feeling like crap, I’m going to give this a shot.

(My knee, while not feeling as good as it did yesterday, still feels a hell of a lot better than it did two days ago, so I’m hoping that the whole being able to walk thing will stick around for at least one more day.)

Thank you for the encouragement! I will do my best to not die. 🙂

Since you were all so incredibly helpful with the first InDesign question (no, seriously, you were), I thought I’d try again.

I may have need to convert a bunch of QuarkXPress files to InDesign. I know that InDesign itself can mostly handle import, but I want the best possible conversion, since it’s gonna be my job to make sure the InDesign output matches the XPress source exactly.

Have any of you ever played with any of the conversion tools? In particular, I’m thinking of Q2ID for CS6. But, if any of you have any better ideas (or cheaper ideas!), I’m all years.