Author Archives: Jim Vanderveen

About Jim Vanderveen

I'm a bit of a Renaissance man, with far too many hobbies for my free time! But more important than any hobby is my family. My proudest accomplishment has been raising some great kids! And somehow convincing my wife to put up with me since 1988. ;)

Finishing “Harry Potter #6” tonight

Posted on 2005-07-20 by Jim Vanderveen

I was one of the first people in the Pacific timezone to get a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP), but I still have yet to finish it. Why? I’m reading it aloud to my family–not only … Continue reading →

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I’m #1! I’m #1!

Posted on 2005-07-15 by Jim Vanderveen

I managed to be first in line for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at Borders in Sacramento this morning. It was a close race–I got there at about 05:00, only two hours ahead of the second person in line, … Continue reading →

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“Harry Potter 6” comes out tomorrow night!

Posted on 2005-07-15 by Jim Vanderveen

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out tomorrow night/Saturday morning at midnight! I ordered a copy from Borders, same as last time. Unlike last time, they are not going to make people wait in line all day–they’ll be handing … Continue reading →

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Game night at Arden-Dimick library

Posted on 2005-07-14 by Jim Vanderveen

I’ve got the community room at the Arden-Dimick branch of the Sacramento Library reserved for boardgaming this coming Wednesday, July 20th from 19:30 until 21:30 (7:30 pm to 9:30 pm for those stuck on 12-hour clocks). I’m posting this event … Continue reading →

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My eighth anniversary at OWP

Posted on 2005-07-14 by Jim Vanderveen

Today is my 8th anniversary with OWP, although I think my CalPERS anniversary is not until sometime in October. I moved to OWP on 14 Jul 1997, when Alphatec Electronics laid off about 90% of their workforce, including all of … Continue reading →

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Sacramento boardgaming

Posted on 2005-07-12 by Jim Vanderveen

Nicholas is setting up a new boardgames site for Sacramento-area gamers. (I’m kibbitzing providing helpful advice.) The new site will be based on WordPress, of course. This whole thing was brought about by Meetup’s recent decision to start charging fees … Continue reading →

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Blueberry bars

Posted on 2005-07-10 by Jim Vanderveen

My wife and daughter just made this recipe from “Sacramento Magazine”, July 2005 issue. It was excellent, especially as it was still warm from the oven! Ingredients: – 1/2 c butter, softened – 2 c sugar – 4 eggs – … Continue reading →

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Adding statcounter to WordPress

Posted on 2005-07-08 by Jim Vanderveen

I’m thinking about using the free statcounter service on my site, but it requires that I add a little bit of javascript to each page. If I was running a single theme, I could probably find all the appropriate </body> … Continue reading →

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Awesome “cheat sheets” for web authors

Posted on 2005-07-08 by Jim Vanderveen

Joseph found a bunch of handy reference sheets on Dave Child’s blog, I love Jack Daniels. The most useful (for WordPress developers, anyway) will probably be the PHP and CSS pages. Dave has also provided web-safe colors, mod_rewrite, and MySQL … Continue reading →

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Whither the metric system?

Posted on 2005-07-06 by Jim Vanderveen

The US was the first country to adopt a decimal monetary system, so why are we the very last industrialized country on the planet still using a pre-18th century system of weights and measures? Continue reading →

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