Author Archives: bshirley

Fast Lounge to Guyville

1 Reply

I have vaguely heard of Fastball in the background of my brain, but they never came into my consciousness. They are ultimately an Austin band, and you don’t see many of those in Houston. Or maybe I wasn’t looking. Or it wasn’t what I needed at the time.

Anyway,… i acquired the late 90s album Lounge-a-Palooza soon after is was out, and listened to it a lot. Today it still peppers into my listening. (How can you not love Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé singing Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun? #interobang)

I didn’t notice the fact that track 2, This Guy’s In Love With You (Burt Bacharach and Hal David and Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass), was performed by Fastball. As I didn’t notice who most of the artists were, I just enjoyed a great album.

Years later I became enamored of The Small Stars. A lounge performance act in which all the musicians took on different personas. Normally I will notice a vocal commonality, but I missed it here.

I knew that one (or more?) of the musicians was from Fastball. But I didn’t make the connection to the ‘Palooza album. But Miles Zuniga as Guy Fantasy sings quite a bit differently (more raspy burned-out lounge singer) than Miles singing This Guy’s.

Tonight I found myself listening to the ‘Palooza album, and heard Guy, singing This Guy. Really threw me back. I don’t think The Small Stars performed too often; most of their members had other musical gigs. I saw them several times, I always went out of my way to do so. The performances were so, so good.

Seek out their albums The Small Stars (2005) and Tijuana Dreams (2007) and I sometimes still listen to a live recording made in San Antonio in 2005. It’s not the best recording, but it reminds be about the best of their shows: the show.

I would love to see that band perform again. Lacking that, I’ll seek out the musicians in that band and what they’re doing now. I leave you with Guy’s Lament.

The Trouble with Voting, 2018 Midterm Edition

1 Reply

After spending the past year (post-Harvey) unemployed, I finally landed a new job (and I’m loving it). However, the new job took me to Austin. I started the new job on the first day of early voting: Oct 22.

"I voted" sticker.

2018 Midterm Early Voting

I went to the Harris County Clerk’s Office on Wed Oct 12 to request my ballot-by-mail. After a full week of early voting and not having yet received a ballot, I called and then officially wrote a signed letter delivered via email to the clerks office requesting a second ballot.

Continue reading →

It Burns

1 Reply

I was…
having an enjoyable evening.
Exploring my new neighborhood,
dining at a new place,
enjoying the food, the drink.

I stopped into a japanese book store:
interesting nick knacks,
a nice pen,
an intriguing book.

I stepped into the japanese market:
looked at the deli items,
the varieties of fish cake,
the baking ware.

Nice baking ware, I thought.
I thought.
Shit!

I left water boiling on my stove.
Did I turn it off?
No, I’m sure I didn’t.

A pot I’m loathe to boil water in.
A nice one. But the only one I brought.
A nice non-stick coating
that stinks when it’s cooked. On high.

It was otherwise a sturdy pot,
so just sat there absorbing
and radiating heat
for the time I was gone.

Now I have the windows open
and a fresh cross breeze.
Cool early evening air.

I’ll have to go back and see
the rest of the supermarket.
I’m in the market for a new pot.

Swift Xcode Asynchronous Testing

Leave a reply

A while back I posted my tweak to some Xcode testing for asynchronous calls. Here’s an update I did in Swift for XCTestCase.

extension XCTestCase {
  /**
   For use testing async functions.
   Will wait for completion of the function.
   You need to provide a test function for when the call is completed.
   The ultimate timeout should be provided for cases of there not
   being a response.
   
   let _ = self.waitUntilReady(completionTest: { () -> Bool in
   return remoteInterface?.isBusy == false
   })
   
   or as a trailing closure:
   
   let _ = self.waitUntilReady() {
   return remoteInterface?.isBusy == false
   }
   
   optionally using your own timeout:
   
   let _ = self.waitUntilReady(timeout: 20) {
   return remoteInterface?.isBusy == false
   }
   
   */
  func waitUntilReady(timeout seconds:TimeInterval = 30, completionTest: () -> Bool) -> TimeInterval {
    let start = Date.timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate
    let loopUntil = Date(timeIntervalSinceNow: seconds)
    
    while completionTest() == false && loopUntil.timeIntervalSinceNow > 0 {
      RunLoop.current.run(mode: .defaultRunLoopMode, before: loopUntil)
    }
    
    let finish = NSDate.timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate
    let runtime = finish - start
    return runtime
  }
}

Mac Black Screen of Death

Leave a reply

After a power outage, my iMac (27″, Late 2012) with macOS Sierra (10.12.2) booted into a black screen with the mouse in the upper left. Notifications seemed to be showing up (as they do on the login screen).

Several leads didn’t pan out. Ones that were basically different kind of resets.

Mark Gibbs tipped me off that it might be a problem with a corrupted /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist file.

Single User Mode

Booting into single user mode (Command-S during boot) drops you into a terminal, which allowed me to look at the file. Not knowing what it’s supposed to look like, it was hard to tell if the (likely digitally stored) file should look like.

bplist00€	


_RetriesUntilHint\GuestEnabled_OptimizerLastRunForSystem\lastUserName]autoLoginUser_OptimizerLastRunForBuild_HiddenUsersList[AccountInfoXlastUser_autoLoginUserScreenLocked^lastLoginPanic	
XbshirleyXbshirley`°Y_conveyor”\MaximumUsersYAllLoginsYOnConsole—Xbshirley—XloggedIn	#AæFt?È`2?[hvë£Ø?‘„ÂÊÎÙ?",68;DGPQZ

The beginning of that file indicates it’s a property list stored in binary form, so it’s hard to interpret in textual form.

The filesystem is read-only when you boot into single user mode, so by default you can’t delete (or preferably move) the file.

Remount Filesystem

The answer to that I found on Stack Overflow. You can use the UNIX mount command to remount the existing filesystem in a writable state.

sudo /sbin/mount -uw /

Rename File

Once that was the case, I rename the file (incase I needed it for something) and then

cd /Library/Preferences
mv com.apple.loginwindow.plist com.apple.loginwindow.plist.XXX

Once that was done, exiting single user mode and rebooting is as simple as

reboot

A few items were reset from my previous login, but otherwise all was well.

Open Letter on Bike Path Diversion

4 Replies

Mayor Sylvester Turner
sylvester.turner@houstontx.gov
@SylvesterTurner

Council Member Ellen Cohen
districtc@houstontx.gov
@EllenCohen1

Dear Mayor Turner and Council Member Cohen,

When I read the Chronicle article attached below, I understood the need for a detour around the often used route, and appreciated the thought put into it. It seemed like a good solution.

The article states “The detours will not be continuous, but periodic throughout the construction project when construction nearby could create unsafe conditions along the original bike trails” as well as “the detour and reroute are expected to begin between April and May and will last through the third quarter of 2017.”

However there seems to be either,

  1. a miscommunication,
  2. a failure to execute, or
  3. deception by someone

going on in this situation.

There are already signs up along the path redirecting users to use the detours. They have been up for over 10 days. There is also signage that appears to indicate that cyclists should use the sidewalk on the west side of Houston Avenue as the detour.

This is neither safe, nor acceptable.

I would like to know if the original decision has been changed or if there is a timing and communication failure occurring. Please remedy the situation.

Your Constituent,
Bill Shirley

“Heights Area Bike Trails to be Rerouted to Houston Avenue“, Tara White, Houston Chronicle,  Wed Mar 9 2016

CC:
Council Member Karla Cisneros (as the detour is in your district)
districth@houstontx.gov
@Karla4Houston

Deidrea George, TxDOT Houston Public Information Office (quoted in the article)
Email via web-form
@TxDOTHoustonPIO

Tara White, freelance writer for Chronicle (author of the article)
viewpoints@chron.com
@houstonchron

Continue reading →