Drinking logs part deux

Perfect.

Its 1:14. I went to grant and green. Met up with James and David azn
and jen. 2 drinks $10. James just moved here from san diego. Not bad.
Great night. Played the straw game forever. Like 5 straws in one head.
Excellent. 5 points.

David Asian taught me how to do the sports center theme. Very funny.
That one is going world wide!

Met a few of their Davis and world travel friends. Great time!!

Anyway cheap night good laughs. Its good to see James in a city that
matters.

I'm out

Thanks,
Roderic

Lets start logging my drinks

As suggested by Lorilynne, I should start documenting when I go out. I'll try to do it for a month everytime I go out. So here goes. Last nights recap, lets hope I'm not a lush:

Happy hour pushed by Tony Pham. Hit up Vessel (Tony, Daniel and myself) and made it about half way in the door when we decided it was bunk. Went to Azul and had 1 drink and some appetizer. Ruben and Calvin showed up.

Bailed on that place and went to 111 Minna. Cover charge, pass. On to Harlot. 1 drink. Joined by Adora, Jason, Jess and Frieda.

On to Thirsty Bear. 1 beer and a few shots. Down to just Jess, D-Rex(Daniel), Ruben and Frieta.

Back at work by 11.

Crazy Ass July

Just tring to jot down my thoughts of the past month or so.

July was friggen rediculous.

Family stuff - even though it was a sad reason, I did get I visit my
family for several weeks. That was great. Always good to see the
family. I did however notice/learn quite a bit about how my pace of
life has changed quite a bit. Back in Rochester there really isn't to
much of a sense of urgency in anything that we do. Things are
generally a bit slower and as my sister pointed out, it made me sleep
a ton. It would seem that If my life slows down any, I get tired and
essentially stock up on my sleep for the next marathon sleepless
session. So thats interesting.

The job hunt is proving to be very fun. I came out to the bay area
early July. Had a great time and had a few really interesting
interviews. I've made some great contacts which led to other
interviews which were all great. I had to cut the trip short and head
back home for the previously mentioned family emergency. I'm back now
though. I'm on a one way ticket and I'm loving every minute of it.
I've been staying with friends and in hostels, both are sweet as all
hell. I've met people in bars that said they could get me jobs, I've
met tons of non employer people as well in the bars and its just been
a wild time.

I'm really learning how to get around in San fran and I'm really
coping well.

And holy crap I love not going to a 9-5 every day. What a waste of
time that noise is.

On that note: I've kinda had a revelation that I rushed into financial
security and basically missed out on life during my early 20s. I want
a more simple life where I buy what I want which amplifies my life
(not so much material goods) and i want to do what I want, so what the
hell was I thinking with a 9-5? And am I ready to entirely give all
that up to get drunk and make mistakes? Am I an idiot? Yes

So thats where I'm at. Oh and I wrote this post from my iPhone. I'm
still learning how that can enhance my life and loving what I find.

Thanks,
Roderic

Keeping it short: Scuba, phone, work

I got to try out my underwater camera for the first time a few weeks ago. Misha, Sen, Kathy and I went scuba diving in Dutch Springs It was excellent. I'm certified. Thats cool.

I'm totally getting an iPhone this week. I'm sweatin' it so much. I think those things are slick as hell. Apple just seems to be making all the right moves. Its nice.

In short, work lately has been hostile. Its a bunch of bull. I want out. I'll explain when I can.

I've been biking a hella lot more lately. I'm finally getting rid of my winter insulation and feeling a hella lot better about myself. The only problem now is how can I get Kathy to bike with me.

How the weekend went...

Thursday:
Basically on Thursday I hung out in Palo Alto all day. I went to this mall near Stanford which reminded me of the mall in San Diego in that it was all outside and the sun was outstanding. Very nice.

Walking around Downtown Palo Alto was also outstanding. I found that I really enjoyed the entire area. If I were to live in the Valley, that is probably where I'd live. University Avenue reminds me of Georgetown or Park Ave in Rochester. It just seemed like a very pedestrian friendly place to be. The little shops were great and the only major/familiar/non-local companies were Walgreens and Borders.

After I picked up Kathy from the Airport we had dinner with Cory at The Creamery. We tried to meet up with Sonya but it didn't happen.

Friday we went out in San Francisco. We got breakfast at a little deli on Mission Ave. Walked around South Beach for awhile, got a twitter shirt, checked out AT&T park, and had lunch in South Park. Later we went over the Golden Gate and checked out Muir Woods (Redwoods are awesome) and went to Mt Tamalpais (best view EVER).

Saturday we went to Scharffen Berger lol and had a tour of some high end chocolates and their factory. We went to the UC Berkeley Arboretum which was sweet, had Lunch at Jupiter per recommendation by Illian from Bulgaria/Google/first-trip.

Back to SF to see the Coit Tower, Crissy Fields, and a walk across the Golden Gate, Golden Gate Park and an outstanding dinner with a view at the Cliff House (highly recommended).

Sunday we went to Golden Gate park again and saw the Haight Festival which was sweet, another arboretum and a whole bunch of Gorilla's doing the Thriller dance, no joke. Hilarious.

Wrapped up with a trip to Half Moon Bay which was outstanding and another trip to Stanford to see the campus.

It sucks to be [on the way] back. :(

Its bound to happen one of these times...

I'm out in Cali for another vacation. I think this is my 4th time to the west coast this year. I've got a pretty busy weekend ahead of me.

I'm meeting up with Carolina and Sonja Selena Duarte for Sonja's farewell party in Palo Alto. She has joined the cast of Blast! and will be leaving for Japan next week. Great news for her.

I'll be meeting up with Ma, Cory and a whole crew of engineers several times this weekend. That should be interesting.

The trip started off not so well. I ended up missing my first flight ever. I was supposed to go to SJC at 6:10. I got the next best flight to San Francisco at like 7:30 which put me here a bit later. Also made me miss a meeting with Carolina tonight. I was going to try to meet up with her for dinner or something if I got in at a reasonable time. So much for that.

So I'm in this Marriott Suite and its pretty large. I may have overpaid for the hotel. oops. I'm picking up Kathy tomorrow at the airport and we'll be staying at another Marriott in SF in or near the South Park area of SF. That will probably rule.

We have a full weekend of things to check out (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104998986066977447486.00000112bf473213e3573) so it should be quite excellent.

I gotta go find a local pub.

San Francisco and my new goals

I got a chance to go to San Francisco a few weeks ago. I'll tell ya, it is now my favorite place in the entire continental U.S. (thanks Jason for the accurate portrayal of my feelings). The place was outstanding. There were two things in particular that were just perfect.

1. Jobs - In terms of technology, this is where its at. Companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, VMWare, Twitter, etc. are really driving so much of what is important to me. Hint Hint: This is why I went out there.
2. Biking - Someone described this as the most biker friendly area in the country. I'd buy that. There were bike lanes on so many of the roads that I went on. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a massively inefficient way of getting from point A to B in that area.

Of course, I had to meet up with my cronies. I got to grab a beer or 2 with Cory the night before my "meeting" which was awesome. He is living the life. So much great stuff going on for him. He will be world famous some day I'm sure.

Met up with Jon Ma as well. He is a clown. We got completely annihilated twice there in what I would call some of the most successful nights of drinking I've ever had. So many absolutely hilarious memories I can't even believe it. Also pictured are Jinen, Slin and Dileep. Son.

I also got so see the lovely Carolina and Sonya Selina Duarte from my Glassmen days. Oh the memories :(. Sonya knows about the horrible pictures that came out of that night. I totally made Carolina cry, but in a good way, it was awesome.

On the way out there, I ran into a friend from LM ELDP. That was outstanding. We talked the entire flight out there. He is up to some REALLY big things. Best of luck to him. While talking to him, we ran into a girl who was interviewing at Facebook. Pretty cool stuff. She was very nice. Turns out she got the job, so she will be leaving the DC area very soon for the greener pastures of Palo Alto. Speaking of that, Facebook has a pretty fun job application process.

So basically it was like the best weekend in a very long time. I fell in love with the area and I would love to get out there more.

Onward, I've been biking quite a bit lately. I think I'm getting out about 3 times a week which is pretty decent for me. I went out on a group ride a week or 2 ago and we were out for about 6 hours. Sadly, due to like 4 flats and horrible road conditions, we only covered about 55 miles. That sucked. I was so hungry.

I'm going scuba diving next weekend. Stoked.

I've got nothing else.

How to know if your job is making you unhappy

Just a quick blurb, I saw this article and it mentioned how to "Know when it's not about your job". I thought the list they gave, which briefly states the definition of a good job, was quite interesting. Here are my initial thoughts on each point:

1. Your job stretches you without defeating you.
   
   • What if your job doesn't stretch you at all? All of the decisions being made are driven to such an esoteric end so deeply that even the customer for which these decisions are made doesn't even care.
     
2. Provides clear goals
   
   • What if when you ask for detailed requirement or undetailed requirements or informal requirements or an e-mail asking what the customer wants and you are ignored time and time again? What if every time you finish what you think is expected they take things in a whole different direction which requires a rewrite? Maybe this is agile development.
     
3. Provides unambiguous feedback
   
   • Maybe not unambiguous, but what about entirely contradictory feedback. One day you are being praised for your work because it far exceeds what the customer wanted (probably because I didn't know what the customer wanted) and you are asked to present progress to the customer, the next day the entire effort is stopped with zero explanation. That's bunk.
     
4. Provides a sense of control.
   
   • Pretty much entirely laughable at this point, being tossed around from project to project with no hope at all of attaining any career goals leaves one with little sense of control.
     

So all in all things are going well. HA HA

Best Saturday ever

Yesterday the Capitol Hill Bikes shop in DC had a demo day. I got to try a few decent bikes. I tried the Cannondale CAAD9 Optimo 3, the Cannondale Synapse 1, and the Bianchi Via Nirone 7. It was pretty decent to try the bikes, but the responses they were looking for when we discussed the bikes were basically not what I know about bikes. I thought that was weird. Basically I don't know what I'm doing on a bike to know how it flows and grips the road and what a hard ride is. So I think I'm going to start riding as much as I can. I'll see if I can ride even if I don't have 4 hours to set aside. Each of the next 10 days looks like they will be warmer than the last so I'm cool with that. I think I can get quite a few rides in there.

On that note, I got my GPS back.

A few weeks back I signed up for meetup.com. Its a site where you basically just meet up with people wo do things that you like to do. I've joined 2 groups. One for biking in Gaithersburg, they do rides all over Gaithersburg, Monroe County and DC. I also joined another group for playing ultimate Frisbee. I found that they were playing yesterday so I met up with them (go figure). It was awesome. We played on the mall while people were walking around (and through the field). People would stop by and watch us play and take pictures. For one of the first times since I moved down here I felt like I was local. It was pretty cool. I'm definitely going to play with these guys again.

Later that night Joel had a cookout/housewarming/Tina'sBirthdayParty. It was awesome. It had been awhile since I had seen many of those cats. I ended up making plans with people to play Ultimate, and do like 2o happy hours. So that'll be awesome. We carried on a running joke about my 3rd nipple and my pig liver. I was also able to vandalize the cupcakes that someone brought in by rearranging them to spell "Joel Sucks". I laughed.

So it was a good day.

My GWT Adventures thus far

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I started playing around with GWT. I'm working on 2 different projects with it right now and its pretty exciting. I ran into my largest issue last night when I attempted to pass state objects to the clients. I came to a crossroad where I could have polling or persistent connections so the server could push updates. I learned about Comet and integrating this into my GWT app. Essentially you have the server maintain connections with each client. I felt that it wouldn't be appropriate. I feel like it doesn't scale all that well.

"Yeah, like polling does!?"

Well, polling isn't great, but you can deny a polling request with little or no backlash with the way I'm implementing the game. Also, if you need to, you can just redistribute new requests to a different server. Again, this is all with my implementation and I can see obvious situations where this wouldn't be the case.

So anyway, I've got basic functionality down, I need to throw a front end on it so I can do some string testing. I do wish that I was better at LNF type stuff.

Also I signed up for Twitter. I've seen some posts on Lifehacker and some other blogs so I figured I'd give it a shot. My friend Dave actually suggested a decent extension to this using your phone with GPS for live twitter action. That would be fun, and 1984.

My Feelings on Open Source

At work I've been doing some work thats quite a bit different from what I'm used to. Essentially I'm using an Access DB. I'm not exactly cool with this. Putting the front end on it introduced me to VBA so there is that. What bothers me about it is how restricting the supplied environment is on the development process. If you run into an error due to a null reference or similar, I find that I can't look at the DB to see where in my queries I went wrong. Very strange. My theory on what is actually happening is that MS developed a GUI for a Database system, then built the DB system and entirely integrated the UI into the DBMS entirely violating MVC.

This may not be true, I think the whole OLE 'framework' introduces massive (for my tastes) coupling to the system. Which explains why no effort was put into a CLI for Windows. I think its very strange and coming from development on a Linux system, doing ANYTHING the OLE way is not very comfortable.

So at work we started talking about using different plugins or 3rd party workarounds to get things the way you want them in windows. The problem is that these solutions aren't supported by anyone other than some script kiddies which yeilds 0 standardization efforts bringing us back to 0 support.

So then we started talking about some open source projects we use and I started thinking how the whole reason we use Open Source products is because of the ease of customization and the way these things in general seem to be supported. Once an add-on has enough support, it becomes integrated into the original baseline. I suspect tabs in Mozilla's browser were like this and I suspect that mouse gestures will be added as well someday.

So with that I noted that there are so many open source products that I use right out of the box and they are exactly how I want them. Its the adaptive nature of OSS and how it changes with the users needs. Still it must be noted that for me the whole reason I got into OSS was because of customization an such, but now as I said, everything is right out of the box.

I thought it was interesting. Especially the part about working with MS Dev tools and feeling like I stepped back in time to Windows 3.1. Its so crazy.

Just a few things I want to mention. First, obviously I've moved to Blogger courtesy of a program from Paul Cooley over at Linux Lore. Its a pretty decent tool that does everything I need. The only issue is that it requires the .net framework to be installed. I guess its ok, but it still just seems like a gigantic overhead for a small task (the .net install, not his).

So with blogger comes some very decent changes. For one, I can now use analytics on my blog which is something I couldn't do in LJ. Thanks for visiting people from France. Oui! And that about sums up what I know of the French language. But its really nice to have analytics data that actually gets exercised. Its tight. I like the look and feel a bit more on blogger. Maybe I just like change in general, but so far I'm happy.


I also picked up a tool called jUploadr for my Mac which allows me to upload to Flickr. I've been trying to find my favorite web album, I think I've found it. Holy cripes flickr. I never understood why people said that Flickr was a leading force in the 2.0 revolution, but actually using it to organize my photos really opened my eyes. Man that rules. I really dig the map feature now. Which gives me an idea for a new organizer. I gotta get on that.

Speaking of my Mac, I got some new Rams in there. What sucks is that my original 512 came in 2 sticks, so adding a gig was really adding .75 gigs. That sucks, At least my theory on diminishing returns for adding the second gig stick is totally false. Woot.



Thats about it.

Fun with Google tools

Over the past few months I've decided to be productive. I got into a few coding projects I've always wanted to get into so I could practice some languages that I didn't really know. Like my
Athletic Tracking thing (with awesome styles of course)(oh by the way, I'll be getting my broken GPS back so I can start exercising again)(3rd paren: I wonder if its a good idea to post live shipping info on a blog, probably not...). Kathy and I started working on a game which is still in the early stages in Gliffy, but that'll be fun.

Besides coding things up, I've been working with Google's free toolsets. Man they have some cool stuff. Besides the obvious Mail, Maps, Calendar, and Search, I've also gotten into Docs(awesome), Analytics, Adwords, Adsense, Dodgeball, Groups, Picasa, Reader(super awesome) and of special note is Notebook (which is super awesome because of the FF plugin supplied), and a few more.

The latest tool I started using is GWT which I think is so sweet I can't even imagine it. I've used a few frameworks in the past 2 years and I've found mostly frustrating results with them. Possibly it is because most of the tools use languages that I am not too familiar with. GWT seems to be built for Eclipse, or at least Eclipse is built to allow tools like GWT to be seamlessly integrated within. The fact that I'm back in the Java swing (nice choice of words eh?) of things is also very, not to sound cliche, refreshing (lol if you knew how java came to be).

The point of GWT is that you can write Java code and have it translated into Javascript. To me, this is a sweet gap between quasi compiled code (Java) and entirely interpreted code (Javascript). For me, development in JS is just so unstructured and difficult to deal with. I really enjoy my eclipse IDE which tells me when I do stupid things in Java, but I want to be able to do the flashy things you can do in JS. GWT feeds my hunger, and I love it.

I started working on a fun little app which so far looks a hella lot better than my Athletic Tracker. The forced organization of Java allows simpler css(ing). So I'm pleased.

In conclusion, Google has some really fun, time-saving tools.

In other news: I've been to San Diego 2x this year and I can't wait to go back, see the link for my Picasa above for pictures. We went swimming/surfing/boogie-boarding in like 50 degree water. Wet suits rule.

And I've been eating somewhat healthy again. Thats about it.

Installing Vista

I got Vista:

Here are my impressions as I'm installing...

I'm waiting forever on this start up screen....Srsly it was like 10 minutes of nothing happening. No spinning no nothing.

I just clicked install now...apparently you can't determine what partition you want to you. All it says is "Install now". I clicked it. I think I just lost all of my data. Wow that would be fun.

Waiting....While I'm waiting I'll mention how I got it. Rit Academic Alliance....Still waiting.

No really...is it erasing everything?

I guess its moving. It just takes like 15 minutes between clicks to do anything....So I gotta enter the product key.

My dashes were added automatically.

I am formatting my drive. That was pretty brainless. Admitedly, I can't imagine anyone messing this up (famous last words). Now I'm copying windows files.

I put all the cds. Then it restarted...now its just doing stuff...

Ok so I'm fooling around with it. There are some fun things. The gadgets I feel are done better than Mac's widgets. They seem more relevant and are actually visible all the time. Thats a good thing. The liquidy feel of it is a big improvement from xp. But these aren't OS things in my mind.

In terms of actual OS stuff, its rediculously better at networked FS stuff. I just xfered a 1GB file at 7MB/sec which is HELLA faster than windows used to do with SMB shares. That was nice. The expose thing is fun. But if you have too many windows open (like it was designed for), I feel like you can't see the stuff in the back of the deck. Thats a bit odd. Anyway, its still fun to deek around with with it.

I went to the games folder. Its empty. What no Solitare in 3d? F....

Oh well...

I'll write more later. I'm le tired after all that work I had to do with installing.

Wii

For some reason, Kathy and I were going into a bestbuy a few weeks ago and we
just happened to go past a demo of a wii. I really had no interest in buying it
at all. Anyway, something clicked and I had to have one. So we went out Sunday
and got one. I figured we had a $160 BestBuy card, might as well use it.

It's pretty fun. I actually found that when I got to work monday my shoulder was
hurting a bit. The wii sports are hella fun. You get to play with your mii
character and make them look like you. Its just funny because there is a tall
Rod with a perma-5-o'clock-shadow, a little asian kathy and and very short asian
Sen. Its funny.

The story about how we got it was mildly interesting. We both went to different
bestbuy's. They handed out tickets before we got there. We went to Gamestops as
they all told me they's have em at 11. So I got there at like 10 till 11 and
there were like 23 people standing in line. They had made a list. Blah blah I
was 27 out of 21 systems so I'm not getting one. Anyway, we got inside (i
figured i still had a chance) and this choad came in and cut in line. He wasn't
on the list but he snuck in. When people realized this it got heated. The cops
got called. He was a choad. The cops came and took him away under the threat of
trespassing.

Anyway, then I went to EB games in the mall and there was no line. Kathy beat me
there and was in line when I got there. She was like 2 in line. She asked for
one. She got it. End of story.

In action.

So we got Zelda and thw Wii sports. Still haven't used the gift card, so I think wii are gonna get Ultimate Alliance and Rayman Raving Rabbids. Awesome.

I don't post often enough

IPhone


Its been quite awhile since I've been so excited about a product. I got an email about 20 minutes after it was announced from my roommate Sen. We had been looking into smartphones lately. To the point where he had actually ordered one but it got canceled. He sent me the e-mail about the latest toy. Paraphrased it said: "Get the iphone".

Its been out for like 3 days now so if you haven't heard of it you've basically been locked in a cave. Its all over the internet, tv and radio. I can't believe how stunning it is. The last time I was so excited about a product was google maps. This is the type of thing that is really going to revolutionize life. Maybe that is an overstatement, but the thing is a totally fresh perspective on a pretty stale market. My old philosophy on phones was that they needed only Bluetooth capability, quasi-reliable service, must be small, and must not have restrictions set forth by the SP (Verizon). That's about it. The last phone I got, the shoddy Razr was acquired specifically because I got paid to take it.

Anyway onto the phone. Its amazing. Just amazing. I guess I won't describe it, but it'll be the best thing ever. I'm getting one. Link. It comes out in June. My 18 month upgrade option comes around in July. I think Cingular gives you ~$150 off of a phone. That brings the price down to about $450 for me. Kathy said she would go in on some of a smartphone for an Xmas present. For me its a no brainer.

I guess just thinking of the possibilities. You can switch to a wifi connection if possible and use a VOIP client and not use any of your minutes. OMG, how ridiculous is that? Its running OSX. So you can write software for it or install select COTS products. Sick. They have a graphical vmail interface. Its rediculous. It just makes more sense. Its Cingular (WAHOO). Its great


Anyway, not so boring for reader things:
I started a website. I want to see how much money you can get from ad revenue. Googles ad program doesn't tell you how much you get until you sign up. So I signed up. I'll figure it out once the site gets ramped up. I won't link to it here. And I won't have my name on there anywhere. Someday I'll link it. Its just an experiment.

San Diego
I'm going to San Diego today. That'll rule. I think I'm gonna get some surfing in this week. Its supposed to be ridiculously cold, so I got a 7 mil wetsuit. I've never had one on in cold water so I'll see how that goes. The real reason I am going is to see Meredith, George and their baby Maya.

New position
I started back in Silver Spring last week. So far the commute has been way more tolerable. Not that the metro sucked, but I have much more time to myself at the house. That's cool. Though I get less reading time in. That sucks. I feel like now I have a ton more to read too. Double suck.

New Years
The most relaxed uneventful New Years ever. I did kill a bottle of sparkling white though. That was eventful.

Wii
How could I forget. I've decided to get a Wii. I returned my PS2 to bestbuy under warranty and they sent me a $160 gift card. Why not just shell out the extra $100 and get a nice new must have system? Oh I know why not, because even God couldn't find one for sale anywhere. No worries, I'll just wait till they are more available. I have enough ish to do without worrying about that right now. But if I wanted to, there is a pretty good