Sunday, December 26, 2004

Mozilla's Lightning to strike Outlook? | CNET News.com

After holding out for years, I may have to seriously think about moving off of Outlook and onto a Mozilla based product set...

Netflix on Blockbuster: We're not impressed | CNET News.com

I'll have to check this out. Blockbuster, only $15 a month for online DVD subscriptions.
Blockbuster's monthly subscription entitles customers to unlimited rentals, three movies out at a time, with no due dates, no late fees with postage included. Subscribers also receive two free in-store movie or game rentals a month.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Off I go

I have some last minute Christmas shopping to do (always have to go right before Christmas, its just kind of cool) and food to get for 3 different get togethers. All told, 3 grocery stores and at least 3 other stores. I'm leaving now, figure I'll be lucky to get home before 6:00.

What's Christmas though if you can go out and fight the crowds in the freezing cold? ;)

Actually, its kind of cool to just chill and watch everyone freak on eachother. Cracks me up.

Well... "see ya" later... hopefully not too late...

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

eCards

Jacquie Lawson has some very cool eCards. You have to subscribe (only $8 a year) to send them on. So I can't post any here, etc. but check out the site.

Mystery Martian 'Carwash' Helps Space Buggy

I think I read this before, although it was posted today. Cool stuff.

Recipes

I'm off work, not much is going on at work so I didn't have to read much logs, reply to much mail, etc. Last night we did Impacting Your Tastebuds and did crepes. Both a dinner and desert one. Very fun. I put the recipes on my blog, and while doing that typed in a beef recipe and then a link to some prosciutto recipes I had seen on TV while typing in the first ones.

I'm hungry now.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Yeah, it IS winter

Me: Do you have a jacket?
Jaime: No. I don't need a jacket.

Later walking out of the Pottery Barn, through the SNOW coming down

Jaime: Why would I need a jacket. Just because it's snowing.

:) I wish I had my camera with me. She's so cute.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

My Way News

WiFi on planes. Cool

A 'Do Not Call' List for Cell Phone Users? - Netlore Archive

There is quite a bit of hoax mail going out about the cell phone do not call list. As discussed in this article, there is a list, but there is no 15-Dec-2004 deadline and there is no plan to publish lists externally. So not a big deal. But I did put myself on the list anyway.

Style tips

At home, working on the laptop in our room while Jaime watches some judge show:

J: Wow, that girl definately shouldn't have worn pants w/o butt pockets!
Me: What?
J: That girl shouldn't have worn pants w/o butt pockets.
Me: Why?
J: Pants w/o butt pockets always make your butt look big. Unless you are really skinny.

Lucky for me, all my levi's have butt pockets. :)

I'm "off"

I'm "off" work till next year. Woo hoo! That doesn't exactly mean I won't be working, but it does mean I don't have to go in. I'll monitor stuff, do design/code reviews, answer questions, etc. as needed. And also work on some stuff I haven't had time for but want to get done. Just fun stuff. :)

Also, I'm most likely going to be drumming on the worship team during January. That's always stretching for me, but tons of fun. I can't wait.

Well - since I don't *have* to work, time to get back to watching Star Trek. :)

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

MIT OpenCourseWare | OCW Home

Wow. Free courses from MIT:
Welcome to MIT's OpenCourseWare: a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.
Yet another thing I need to check into.

Monday, December 13, 2004

What's my phone number?

Called Tina on a landline today. I almost always use my cell-phone, but I was still at work. On my cell-phone my home phone number is "Tina - House". I had to think for a minute to remember what it actually was. Its been a while since I dialed the actual digits. How weird. :)

I'm going crazy

They are moving the Intel boxes in the lab, upon which the wiki and irc run. I can't do *anything*. Well OK I can do some coding... but my major forms of team collaboration are down. Its a weird feeling... I want my wiki back...

Hopefully any time now. Sigh.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Patent Photo

Go check out my photo blog to see a picture of me received a placque for the last patent our team got for Sheriff. :)

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

CNN.com - Church shock at Beckham 'Nativity' - Dec 8, 2004

Wax musem uses celebs in nativity scene... Not sure how I feel about it. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure I see the problem.

Monday, December 06, 2004

Ballooning into the Sky

Ever wonder what would happen if one of those clowns selling ballons tried to hold on to too many at once. ;)

Friday, December 03, 2004

0wn3d in 200 seconds | The Register

It pays to run a firewall on your system! There are free ones out there such as ZoneAlarm. And more info on the tests run.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Blogger problems?

Yesterday afternoon and early this morning, I've been able to post to blogger just fine. But there for a while I was having quite a bit of trouble - but I was mostly trying to post during the day. Not sure if blogger (or blogspot) is having bandwidth issues or what...

Philly Wi-Fi clash pits city against telcos | Tech News on ZDNet

Well that's just stupid, imo. I understand the expense - we had to build out the network, issue. But still - the city will provide it to everyone and it will be much less expensive, which is a very cool thing. I'd be thrilled if the Srings would do that as well.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Blazing a new data speed record | CNET News.com

the data transfer speed is equivalent to transmitting the entire Library of Congress in 15 minutes.

Monday, November 29, 2004

Things you don't want to see...

... when you are driving on icy roads - someone blowing off the light and pulling out in front of you.

I'm heading up Austin Bluffs, which is under major construction and is currently two lanes in each direction with no median... and the roads are icy and the middle "divider" (which is about 6 inches) can't be seen in most spots. So I'm traveling in the right lane, to avoid running into someone coming at me and we both get confused as to where the "middle" is.

I notice up the road a ways (at an intersection with a traffic light) that someone is crossing against the red light. Austin Bluffs has the green, but there is one coming in either direction, so they just slowly pull out and then cross the street. No harm, no foul. Sometimes the camera driven traffic lights seem to not work so well in the snow... Anyway, that car comes across, and now there are cars coming toward me (approaching the intersection) and I'm also approaching the intersection.

And the guy behind the car that just crossed against the light starts pulling out.

"Nah... he sees me... He MUST see me."
"Hmm... looks like he is going to pull out. Nah... he must just be slowly edgeing up to the intersection."

And then when I'm about 30 yards from the light... Nope, I guess I'm wrong and he is going to pull out. He has to see me, but I guess he's decided that pulling out into the right lane, when someone is coming down the right lane, at 40MPH, on an icy road, in the snow, yeah... thats an OK thing to do.

So I swerve, well not really swerve, but pull quickly into the left lane (whoo, not too icy, didn't slide - cool), shoot past him, and it all happens so fast I don't even get time to lay on the horn. No idea what just happened.

Yeah... defensive driving is always a good thing. Always keep an eye out. Apprently the traffic lights don't mean that much to some people. And this wasn't a "can I make the yellow" type thing. This was just someone setting at a red, getting tired of sitting there, and pulling out in front of someone else. Sheesh...

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Tif and Brian's new puppy

Tif and Brian where here for about a week. They just went home Saturday and today they got a cousin for Belle. I put a picture of the puppy with Tif and Brian on my picture site.

Also there are quite a few pictures from MI on the site.

Friday, November 26, 2004

Warthog Pilot

Brian has been waiting for his slot. (Getting the plane that he will be flying). He's been wanting an A-10. A couple of days ago someone from his base called. There were only 3 A-10 slots open in the US at this point in time, and he got one of them!

Very cool. We are very proud of him!

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Putting things in perspective

Friday my good friend Master sergeant Richard "Spanky" Chavez retired from the Air Force, having served 20 years. In addition to serving in Afghanistan and Iran (and who knows where else), he was also the top rated NCO at the Air Force Academy in 2000 and 2002. He is a great guy.

During the ceremony (which was awesome) they did a flag ceremony and presented him with a flag. He took it, saluted and turned and presented it to his father. Very cool stuff.

Later at dinner someone said to him, "Pretty cool when Spanky gave you the flag, huh?" He responded with something to the effect of:,
I live in a pretty small town. Some of our boys are over in Iran. Last week one of my friends received a flag because his boy had been killed over there. I'd much rather receive one this way.

Sometimes I just want to slap people

I'm driving down the road, going downhill. I'm in the left lane and I'm closing the gap between me and the car in front of me. In the right lane is a Semi (big rig truck) and behind it is a station wagon. The left lane is going faster than the right, because the semi isn't going all that fast. All of a sudden the station wagon (as I'm closing the gap on the car in front of me) speeds up a little and swerves over into my lane in front of me. In the back seat (the one at the very back) are two little kids, seating facing me, their faces barely visible over the tailgate, with these "O" looks on their faces. I look and there are actually 4 kids in the car. Two in the middle seat and two in the far back. Little kids, in their car seats.

OK... so where is this lady going in such a hurry that she has to swerve in front of a Jeep with a station wagon full of little kids - just so she doesn't get stuck behind a semi for a bit.

I was seriously irratated at her for the rest of the trip that she was next to me.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Computers - work vs fun

I've noticed lately that I'm rarely on the computer for fun any longer. I'm reading many blogs, not surfing much, not working on MY blog, etc.

We went to MI. I have some trip updates, some pictures to post. I'm also in a cooking home group, where a couple of us are doing an Emril kind of thing. Made three soups which were pretty good. I thought about posting the recpies to my recpie blog. But I just don't seem to be doing it.

I think computers are being where I work more and more, and less where I play. I havn't mushed for weeks... That's kind of sad. Hopefully it is just because there is SO much going on at work.

Could also be because I have Halo II and if I'm "playing", I'm usually playing that. But still... I've got to turn this trend around. I've got a few weeks off at the end of the year, so hopefully I'll get caught up on posting at least!

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Election result maps

Here are some pretty interestingelection result maps. Not just the typical ones, but by county and other results. Don't have time to look at them in entirity, but maybe later.

I'm at Herman's Eurpoean Cafe in Cadillac MI. They weren't sure what WiFi was:

Hostess: "Do we have what?"
Me: "WiFi"
H: "I'm not sure. What is it?"
M: "Where you can hook up to the internet?"
H: "Yeah... I think so"

But hey, they do. Very cool. Even if they aren't sure what it is. I'm happy! :)

Friday, November 12, 2004

Aunt Pat and Uncle Ward's

We are up north in MI. Its beautiful here. I'll probably post some pictures, but right now I'm over dial-up so don't want to take the slow bandwidth hit. We are having a GREAT time, just realaxing and hanging out with family we haven't seen for a number of years.

Tina is like a little kid around her relatives. We used to hang out with these guys quite a bit about 20 years ago. Its like we've stepped back in time. She's got her relatives cracking up. (Ed is a great one to get Tina going ;)).

Pat, Ward and I were discussing Pickled Eggs and Beets, Pickled Baloney, and Spare Ribs and Saurkraut this morning. Yup, MI food. :) Love it!

Well that's it for now, just checking in. I do have access to my gmail account, and may go into town and hook up to work via WiFi, but for now I'm just having too much fun not doing anything!

later...

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Halo II is pretty cool

Quite the event. Went and picked up Michael around 11:30 then went and stood in line for about an hour. They opened the doors at 12:00, but there was probably a hundred people in line in front of us.

A 16 year old and another "kid" (maybe 20 or so?) were talking to us. What a geek fest. :) "Yeah, I was watching the video game network the other day, 'cuz that's how cool I am" and he laughs. (That was the 16 year old).

Anyway, quite the event. There were some guys that were there since 6:00, drinking soda and eating pizza. We only had to wait an hour, so I think it was worth showing up late.

Lots of talk of playing all night till they beat the game, drinking coffee, not going to school tomorrow. "I bet there will be 200 kids out at Doherty tomorrow, just staying home and playing".

Got home around 12:45. Tina came down stairs to let the dog out. "Are you playing now??", she asked in amazement. "Of course!", I said. Heck, why go and pick it up at midnight!

I played it for 3 hours. Got quite a ways through it. Playing on normal. Its different than the first one. Its taking a little to get used to it. I'm not sure if I like the double weapons or not. I mean they are cool in terms of fire-power, but I'm not used to the display with them yet. The weapons in the other game were second nature.

The story line is pretty cool. Nice video "movies". I've made it up to where I'm now the "Arbitrator"... one of the Elite. How cool to go invisible, weilding the sword that I feard so much in Halo I. I heard the multiplayer games allows one team to be human and one Elite. That should be pretty cool.

Well, that's probably it for now. Don't think I'll have time to play again until after we get back. Was thinking about taking the X-box... but that's probably pushing it. Multiplayer should be cool.

Well... bed time. Up in 3 1/2 hours or so. Have a 9:00 meeting, then last day before vacation is always busy. (Two 2 hour meetings tomorrow). Then home, head up to Steve's to practice for concert on the 20th, come home finish packing (and whatever else I need to do), then up at around 5:30 on Wed to catch the plane. And then sleep. :)

Thanks Teresa and Greg. It was way cool to get it tonight, stand in line, etc. It was "an event". If you're going to live life, might as well do it with passion... In all things. Even playing Halo. :)

Monday, November 08, 2004

Halo II

Halo II comes out in 40 minutes. Going to go get Michael and then get in line.

Yeah, just like that.

So did you see last weeks episode of The OC? You know the scene where Marissa's mom tells her, "Tell me how you feel?" and she replies, "You want to know how I feel? Like this!" and screams for about 2 minutes, then throws the pool furniture into the pool and stomps off.

Yeah, sometimes work can be just like that. But at least I can laugh about it. MI in only 35 hours, 41 minutes and 13 seconds. Cool.

One more day and counting

I start humming
I'm leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Leaving early Wed morning for Aunt Pat and Uncle Wards. 5 days, out of town, not much work (at least at the office), no work for Tina. Just us hanging out and visiting. Can't wait. I'm getting exicited!

BTW: Given the least little bit of motivation (which I may or may not have), I might go into town and get my WiFi fix, checking email, logging into irc and seeing what is going on at work, etc. So... if you need to reach me for some reason, I should be checking my gmail address occasionally.

And given a bit more motivation, I might actually upload some pics to my photoblog! :)

OK - so may its a little messy

I had to push some of the papers on my desk closer to the wall. My mouse pad was starting to creep up on the papers, and it turns out that if you have too many papers under a mouse pad (so that its surface isn't directly on the table and therefore hard underneath), that the mouse starts to lose some traction and isn't as smooth as normal.

Tip of the day for you whose desks might be a little messy. ;)

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Picklist

Haven't been reading blogs for a bit. Went out to Ev's today and noticed that he has a picklist for his archives in his sidebar. If he can do it, so can I. Just need to figure out how. How cool. :) Probably not today, but when I get some time... maybe while on vacation!

Xbox.com :: Halo II Announce

Halo II arrives Nov 9th. Teresa and Greg got me a preordered copy for Pastor Appreciation. How cool! I'll be in line Monday at midnight to pick up my copy. :)

Friday, November 05, 2004

UF SCIENTIST: “BRAIN” IN A DISH ACTS AS AUTOPILOT, LIVING COMPUTER

OK... this just seems a little weird to me. A rat's brain flying a simulated plane?

ABC News: Elections 2004 Coverage

This site has a pretty cool map, that if you hover over a state shows you how many votes each candidate got. This is a little late (seeing as the election was several days ago), but I've been having trouble getting posts via Blogger.

Interesting that for the most part, where Kerry won, he got 50+ percent. But there are a number of states where Bush won by 60+ percent. Bush won Utah with 71%. Kerry only won one state with over 59% and that was his home state of MA with 62%.

Iconwars

Making the rounds. Kind of funny.

SOUTH OF GLORY - HEROES NEVER ASK WHY ep COMING SOON

Web site for Kirby's band. Cool.

Monday, November 01, 2004

El Paso County, Colorado. Clerk and Recorder

I usually try and get an absentee ballot..., but spaced it this year. So I have to go vote at the normal polling place tomorrow. And yeah, I'm not exactly sure where that is.

But looking aound on the web I found this El Paso County Clerk & Recorder Election site. How cool. Fill in some info and it has all my districts, sample ballot, etc. Good stuff! This is a very nice use of the web!

Castle Rock Fire Fighters Local 4116

Hey... maybe I'll win a Harley. That would be cool. :)

Colorado residents: order your free loss-history report

Click on the title to request a free loss-history report. Got mail from my insurance company saying I could request a "free loss-history report" once a year. They gave me a url to http://www.iso.com - but then I had to look around to find out how to get a report.

I still have to download a form, print it, fill it in, and then fax it back. I HATE web sites that are not fully automatted. Sigh. Anyway, might be worth looking into. I'm going to order one, if you are in CO you might want to get one as well.

End of public service announcement. ;)

Friday, October 29, 2004

free wi-fi Michigan hotspots wireless internet access list

Going to Aunt Pat and Uncle Ward's in less than two weeks. I'll be looking for free WiFi access, cause I'm not sure I can deal with dial-up, and I HAVE to be connected. Looks like there some sites just down the road from them!

Also found ConnectedCadillac. Woo hoo. Looking good! :)

free wi-fi Michigan hotspots wireless internet access list

Going to Aunt Pat and Uncle Ward's in less than two weeks. I'll be looking for free WiFi access, cause I'm not sure I can deal with dial-up, and I HAVE to be connected. Looks like there some sites just down the road from them!

Also found ConnectedCadillac. Woo hoo. Looking good! :)

free wi-fi Michigan hotspots wireless internet access list

Going to visit Aunt Pat and Uncle Ward in less than two weeks in MI. Here is a list of free WiFi sites in MI. Some just down the road from them. Woo hoo!

free wi-fi Michigan hotspots wireless internet access list

Woo hoo. Going out to visit Tina's Aunt Pat and Uncle Ward in less than two weeks. Taking my laptop (of course). Worried about high-speed access. (Don't know if I can deal with dial-up any longer). The above site lists free WiFi locations. There are a few in the town just down the road from them. I'm psyched. :)

Monday, October 25, 2004

Sushi and friends pics

Hey, I finally have uploaded some new pictures to my photo blog. We meet on most Sunday nights for food and cards. Spanky suggested we make sushi, so Sunday night I did. Uploaded the pics, thanks to Pastor Joe for taking/sending them! Mostly sushi, but also some people in the background and one of Jamie, Heather and Mac.

I posted a blog entry in the past that told how to post multiple photos at once. I tried it in posting the above and it worked great!

Ballmer: We need a $100 PC | CNET News.com

The Microsoft CEO bristled at the suggestion that Linux is gaining in popularity as a client operating system at the expense of Windows. "There's no appreciable amount of Linux on client systems anywhere in the world," he said.

Just saying it doesn't make it so...

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Morning Thoughts

Thoughts as I sit working in the bedroom, Tina and the dog asleep in the bed next to me:
  • Its cool to have WiFi and be able to work anywhere in the house. Even though they she is asleep, it is peaceful to be able to look over and she Tina asleep, her dog laying on the bed next to her.
  • Its good to have to think for a living. I remember working manual labor jobs and getting so tired of it and wishing I could have a job that would use my brain. Though it can be stressful at times, it is very cool to get paid to think for a living. Sitting here this morning, writting up design thoughts on a wiki. "What do we need to achive this new functionality. What our our interfaces? How are they consistent with the old interfaces", that kind of stuff. Things I won't actually have to code, but things I'll think up, and then someone else will figure out how to make them work. Its cool.
I've said this many times before, but I'm pretty lucky having multiple "areas of focus" in my life: Family, Work, Church, etc. Usually only one is every having problems at the same time, thus I can always find something "good" to focus on. :)

Have a good day!

Monday, October 11, 2004

Jade

As noted in my previous post, had a few minutes. Did a quick scan of the youth blogs that I follow. Not much posts there lately. So... figured I'd be the first to blog about Jade. :)

Jade played at Murray Street Darts last Friday night. First paying gig. It was a bar, so none of their peers could show up, but there was plenty of us ''older folk'' that did. Parents, friends, etc. It was AWESOME. Sound wasn't great on Michael's vocal, and the bass wasn't loud enough, but it was just cool. Very cool to see them playing. They did a very good job. And they got asked back! Probably because we (those that came to see Jade) made up more than 50% of the crowd. :)

People that didn't know them seemed to like them. They did a few cover tunes and then I think 4 of their own. Anyway, cool stuff. Some very nice guitar work. And Jared is crazy on the drums, which I enjoyed. :)

I don't know at what age you go from "man, this is what I want" to "Hey, I'm so happy for them.", but it was so cool to sit and watch those guys. I felt really proud of them. It was very cool.

Also brought back memories. Been a long time since I've been in a smoke filled bar listening to LOUD music. It was all good.

They are playing again on the 22nd. I'll be there!

viksoe.dk - GMail Drive shell extension

Had a 5 minutes free at lunch, something quite rare lately, and so I decided to surf some blogs. Found this on ev's blog. Wow... what will people think of next. Storing your files as gmail messages. I'd be a bit worried about security (even though I'm not worried about my mail's security... hmm... that doesn't seem right...). But if you've got stuff you just want to store, and aren't too worried if someone else sees it... sounds like a cool idea.

Friday, October 01, 2004

My own web site

I just ordered my own web site... woo hoo. We'll see how it goes. It has a 30 day money back gurantee.

My biggest concern is it only has 50M of space, which seems very small to me (the pack-rat that I am) and it has lots of features I don't need (such as tons of email, sub-domains, etc.). But I figure I'll give it a shot. Mostly I want it to set up my own wiki! And I need some support for that, and they are supposed to have great support. So that is cool.

6 to 12 hours till I get it... I'll be playing with it first thing in the morning. Tina's off on a women's retreat... And I'll be home playing with my new web site. Yeah, I'm a geek. :)

The Seattle Times: Local News: After quakes, steam eruption at Mount St. Helens

"Mount St. Helens belched a roiling plume of white steam and ash today, more than a week after a flurry of earthquakes first warned an eruption was on the way"

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

AP Wire | 09/26/2004 | 'Wikis' Offer Knowledge-Sharing Online

Article on wikis. They are starting to become somewhat mainstream. Mentions a few public wikis, which should be easy enough to find with google. I think they are very cool.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Monday, September 27, 2004

What’s So Extreme About Extreme Programming?

Although we don't follow the XP methodology, we use some of its practices and techniques.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Man arrested for going 140 mph over limit - (United Press International)Wow

Wow... 205 MPH on a motorcyle. Cool. :)

And another link.

Creature of Habit

Its amazing sometimes to me to realize what a creature of habit I am. I usually have about 15 to 20 windows open on my laptop at once. I'm on XP and using titles that cascade, i.e., all xterms take up one spot in the task bar, all Outlook windows take up one spot, etc. I usually open these in a particular order. This morning I did not, and it has been confusing me all morning. Sure... the icons look totally different, but if I want to bring up a mozilla window, I by habit start to click on the icon that is in the first few positions... but today it is at position 6. This has been throwing me off all morning.

So... yeah, the difference in icons is a visual clue, but one that obviously (for me) takes much more thought than just "knowing" what position the task is in.

Monday, September 20, 2004

The New York Times > Business > Executives Say MCI Is Looking for Buyers

MCI and its advisers are considering whether to try to sell the company whole, or to sell it in parts by splitting its more attractive business services

Well I'm not going to start worrying about it. Life would go on. Whether better or worse, it just depends on who bought us...

Two new recipes

As promised, I added two new recipes on my recipe blog: Fresh Tuna Cerviche and Grilled Pork Loin with Asian Peach Sauce. Served both of them last night, they were a big hit. Not that they are something you'd usually serve together, but we usually play cards on Sunday night and its just a mix of foods. I also made Brushetta... so yeah, quite the mix. Italian, Costa Rican and Asian. :)

And it was the first time I've used my hand-held blener. It was sooo cool! :) And as noted on the peach sauce recipe, the sauce could have easily been turned into a soup. I'm thinking that with my new found joy in using my hand blender, I might be making a number of soups this fall. Both cold and Hot. Peach, pumpkin, butternut squash (which they had a ton of at the Farmer's Market last weekend). Yum!

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Virtual life influences real life

About a month or so ago I was talking about sushi on Pern. We started talking about ways of eating fish and so I made up a Tuna Cervichi recipie - made with fresh yellow fin. I've had cervichi before - canned tuna and also shrimp, but never with raw tuna. Well a few folks tried it and they all loved it. Since that was all in a virtual world, I figured I should really make my recipe, just to see if it tasted any good. :) Its "curing" right now.

Also Tif was talking to me about an idea for Pern where they would have a surplus of some food item and then make all kinds of dishes with it. "How many ways can you serve peaches." Just some ideas we were kicking around.

So today I bought some peaches at the farmers market.... What to do with them. Didn't want to do cobbler... and I'll probably be grilling some pork loin tomorrow... Hmm...! A Peach BBQ Sauce! Yeah!

So I cooked up the peaches with some leeks, garlic, ginger, five spice powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Let it simmer for a while, then blended it up a "boat motor" (as Emril calls it). Made into a nice puree. Tasted it. YUM! Actually it would almost work well as a soup... I might have to try that - leave out the leeks and garlic, add in some cream.

All of a sudden Pern has me in a cooking mood.

I copied down what I put in all of this, so I'll post it on my recipe site... within the next week or so. (Maybe tonight, we'll see...)

Thursday, September 16, 2004

W00t - Wikipedia

Just in case you wonder where w00t came from. :)

Scammers use Gmail invite as phishing hook | CNET News.com

Scammers have caught on to the allure of Gmail and are using the Google e-mail service for a "phishing" scam to harvest e-mail addresses and passwords.


As always... don't away a password just because someone asks. Also, if anyone has used gmail for a while, they know what an invite looks like, and it never comes in the form of an email msg.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Yahoo! News - Student Collects Fake Parking Fines

A fraternity member has been busted for apparently finding a unique way to supplement his college income — fake parking tickets.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Cold Smoked Halibut

A friend and work went on a fishing trip to Alaska. I'm sitting here eating a sesame seed bagel with cream cheese and cold smoked halibut. Yeah... life is good. :)

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Wow

I lost a button off my shirt and Tina is sitting there sewing it back on. Wow... what a cutie.

Knowledge Engineering

Knowledge Engineering is so important to writing a good rules system, neural net, etc. And because it is a people thing, rather than a computer thing, it can be hard.

One of the hard aspects is getting reliable feedback. We have discussed it before. Sure, you can put up some dialog box or something for manual feedback... but then you are relying on the human.

User1: So, when I edit this screen I select an importance between 1 and 10.
User2: Really? I just always take the default.

And so there is the rub... You can only do so much with a computer, and then it is up to the human to do the right thing. Or course you can spend tons of software development time trying to make this as reliable and painless as possible...

Monday, September 06, 2004

I'm a sucker for a lemonade stand

Show me a lemonade stand with little kids and I'll stop just about every time. Driving down the road today and there are two little kids sitting there with an awesome looking stand. (Some parent probably spent an hour making it). They've got their little beach umbrellas over it, Beanie Babies and Dolls everywhere.

I pull over and their eyes light up.

"I'll take a lemonade."
"Would you like a Beanie Baby, their only 25 cents?"
"No thanks."
I hand them a buck and start to walk away,
"Would you like your change?" (it only costs 25 cents)
"No thanks."
"THANK YOU".

Made a couple of kids day, well at least minute, by giving them a whole dollar.

Yeah... so me some kids dreaming of getting rich, sitting out in the hot sun trying to sell lemonade, and I'll stop every time. Its worth the look on their faces. :)

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Amber Alert

The Ambert Alert was just messing my color scheme up way too much. I still have it on my blog, but I've moved it to the bottom. I just don't have time to mess with the colors right now...

Also, noticed that Blogger is no longer putting ads on the top of my blog, but has a nav-bar. I changed it to grey.

Things seem to be settling down at work some, so hopefully I'll be around more, catch up on some of the blogs that I haven't followed forever, etc.

Well... gotta meet someone at Starbucks for coffee (yum). Later...

Whole Foods

I went to the Whole Foods store the other day. Wow, what a great place. They have some very cool, and very fresh, stuff there.

Last night we had Heirloom Tomatoes with Fresh Basil and Fresh Mozzeralla cheese. Drizzeled some Olive Oil on them and sprinkled them with Kosher Salt, Pepper and Oregano.

We also had Shrim Cocktail with Celery Sticks and grilled Shrimp dusted with St Louis Chicken/Rib Rub, dipped in melted garlic butter.

Its been so rainy/cool this summer. But yesterday was sunny and hot. It was a great summer / cook-out meal. Yum.

Oh, and I also had a small seared Garlic Sesame Seed Tuna steak. :)

That store is dangerous, I always buy tons of stuff when I go in there.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Yahoo! News - Philly Considers Wireless Internet for All

I would love it if the Springs offered this. I have WiFi in my house, but being able to access from anywhere would be so cool. :)

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Great Hackers

This is a GREAT article by Paul Graham. Yet again, another article that explains how I think, function at work, etc. Cracked me up... although it isn't really funny. I think another thing about great hackers is that they'd love to work for a company that understands great hackers (and google is probably one of those).

Thursday, August 19, 2004

QuoteOfTheDay

"Computers are like air conditioners they are useless when you open Windows."

Google

So Google IPOed today, and I'm wearing my google shirt. I didn't even realize. Of course everyone is like, "Did you get some stock?", "Huh? Oh - no, I just have the shirt." :)

Sigh

All is not happy in architecture land. Every have one of those days when you just want to chuck it all? Maybe go up into the mountains away from all people. Yeah... its been a fun few days.

Apparently everyone is not overjoyed with my new position. Being drug into 2 hour meetings, daily, with a manager to hear that people are whining because I'm asking them to follow standards, do things the right way, etc. is getting trying.

There is a reason I didn't become a manager... I didn't want to deal with all the "people issues". Apparently I was mistaken. As a co-worker said, "Its like dealing with a bunch of third graders."

But hey, I'm only putting in 55 hours a week, and working from home all night to keep up. So what's there to complain about. :(

I'm going to where my Google, "I Feel Lucky" t-shirt today. I think irony is a good thing. LOL :)

Monday, August 16, 2004

Its a small world

When Tina was a little girl, her family used to take trips "up north" in MI, to go to the lake, cabin, whatever. She always told me about this Pinconning Cheese store that had a big mouse on top of its roof. They always stopped there every trip, and years later when we were married and going to school at the UofM, we took a trip "up north" and stopped there as well. Us and Tif. (this was before Jaime was born). Well year later Tif marries Brian, who is from MI. Today she and Brian are on their way "up north" to go to his grandfathers cabin on the lake. And she called Tina to say they were stopping to get some Pinconning Cheese and snacks to take with them, and they were at the same store! How cool :)

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

CNN.com - Koko the gorilla calls for the dentist

Cool. I used to read all about her in National Geographic when she first learned to sign.

USATODAY.com - Teens' wireless feat could be world record

Four Ohio teens made a 55.1-mile wireless connection at a recent hacker conference in Las Vegas that might be a world record.

Monday, August 02, 2004

VanHalen RAWKS

Great show last night at the Pepsi Center. Loud, driving, typical VanHalen. Although they are getting older (aren't we all), you couldn't really tell it. They still rock as hard as ever... maybe even harder. It was awesome. And Wolfgang came out and played a solo with Eddie. Very cool. :) He looks to be about 15 or so. I can just hear him asking Valarie, "Ah come on mom. Let me go on tour with Dad." ;)

The show ended at 10:45, so it was a long one. I was suprised at home much DLR-era music they did.

Went with Tif, Jaime, and my Mom and Dad. And we all enjoyed it. VanHalen, a band for all ages... ;-)

The girls loved it. And they thought each member of the band was so talented. I can't say enough, so I'll just leave it at each one of them is incredible at what they do... just as much as any time I've seen them before, and this is at least the fourth time, maybe 5th. Assuming they tour again, I'd definately see them.

DRUDGE REPORT 2004?

Speaker of the House calls for elimiatation of IRS. I doubt it would happen... but if we could remove the IRS and still provide enough tax to the govn't, that alone would elimiate a hugh cost. Would be cool.

Saturday, July 31, 2004

Colorado Pure bottled water and office coffee distributor

Hey... this is where Jaime works now! Working at Zach's folks business. My baby... a working woman.

Tiffany is here

Tiffany is here... Tiffany is here!

I'm so happy! :)

CBS News | Jailhouse Jingles Can Cost You $$

This is the kind of thing some of the Sheriff implementations look for. I heard about this kind of scam when we brought up the first system, probably 8 years ago.

NEVER push * at the request of someone on the phone.

Friday, July 30, 2004

FLX-1000 GrandTec Virtually Indestructible Keyboard at TigerDirect.com

I'm going to have to check this out more. I've been thinking, "Why don't they make a full keyboard that you could roll up?" and here it is. Cool. I found it on Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools. I'm think about it some more, and then probably order it.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Who would have thought!

46 today. Wow... who would have thought. Time flies!

I changed my background color back to the original. Looks like it is definately a problem with amber alert stuff... as they changed off of yellow to the normal ticker colors and everything looks fine. So maybe I won't worry about it.

Extermely busy at work still, but hopefully things are quiteing down. Tif comes in tomorrow and VanHalen is on Sunday. Both those things RAWK. :)

And another quick note... Head a discussion by some folks about blogging personal stuff. Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes you just want to journal it (and blogging is how some of us are used to doing that), but you don't think it is for public consumption. I've done that before and just marked it as a draft. That way no one can see it... but I still can. And it gets it out of my system. Just something else for someone out there to think about. You know who you are. :)

Later peeps. Have a great day!

Monday, July 26, 2004

Ugly but readable

So I messed with my template a little - but I'm not sure what is wrong. I don't have time to mess with it now, so I changed the post background to peach. Not real nice looking, but it is readable. I'll try and fix it later.

Can you read that? I can't

Hmm... my blog text appears to be black on dark gray. Not very readable. I didn't change anything... I noticed my amber alert is different today. Maybe that changed the text somehow. I'll mess with it when I get a chance.

Yahoo! News - Donkey Wins Colorado Mayoral Election

In Guffey, the mayor used to be a cat, then it died or something and now there is no mayor. Politics in CO. :)

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Its pErn not pOrn

So Tina is in staff meeting and they are done and just small talking and:

Tina: "I don't mind when James does Pern at night"
Teresa: "Did you just say porn? James does porn?"

Yeah... ok... there are enough problems at church without that going around, LOL.

ITS PERN. :) As any regular follower knows, I've been mushing on Pern. Dragons, playing my drum, worshipping, hanging out. Not to be confused what other people do with their computers. ;-)

Worship

(Yeah - nothing like blogging a ton all in one night, huh?)

Worship Thursday night was awesome. Practice starts at 7:00. At 4:30 Tina called and asked if I wanted to pick up dinner from Texas RoadHouse. I said probably but I was working a problem and I'd call her later. About 5:30 she said that Jaime would pick it up. I said that was cool, that way I could just head home. But I'd call when I was leaving. At 6:15 she called to ask if I was leaving yet. Nope, but just get dinner for the two of them. I'd be going straight to practice. At 7:20 we got things settled down and I headed to practice.

Usually I would have just come in late, we'd probably just be starting or maybe working on the first song and I'd just say sorry I'm late and join in. Not this night.

I entered and they were into worship. Bobby was sitting on the stage with his guitar in his lap just praying/worshipping (not playing). Greg was sitting on the stage thumping the bass. Teresa was singing in the spirit. Steve was singing some and Michael was playing the accoustic guitar.

I just kicked off my shoes, and sat down. I didn't even realize how much stuff was on me or how much my head was whirlling until I sat down. I just sat there for a bit praying in the spirit and letting His presence wash over me. Finally I could feel my spirit calm down. I got up and started worshiping. And we just went on worshiping until about 8:30 or so. Then we worked on a song we had done the previous Sunday.

I don't know if we are going to keep that format or not... but I think worshipping first, and then practicing is awesome. Rather than coming in with stuff, strees, pressues, etc. and trying to practice and then worshipping towards the end... doing worship first and then practicing once we are all "there" seems so much more productive.

It was awesome!

I, Robot

Went and saw I, Robot with Jaime this afternoon. First movie I've seen for a while. Her and Erika go all the time, but I've been busy enough lately that I pretty much just chill at home.

I thought it was pretty good. I like Will Smith anyway. I'd recommend it (as much as I'd recommend a movie. So many peoples tastes are different, what they think is acceptable, etc. But I thougth it was good).

And it was cool to do something with my kid, who is really starting to leave the nest as she gets a 5 day a week job, own car, friends, etc.

Code FireFighting

Been fire figthing at work for about 2 weeks now. The end of last week was really good. Made some good progress. We rolled out a brand new implmentation a little while ago, and I just got involved with it (now that I'm architect for the entire group). New implementations always take time to burn in. Almost every new implmentation uses functionality no one else uses and finds a few bugs. And then every new system has different performance requirements, so you end up having to tune it. Some things you can't find out until you are in production, taking production volumes.

Anyway, its been a certain amount of stress, and late nights. But like I said, we made some good progress late in the week. It a way its funny that we call it fire fighting. Not only are we fighting "fires" (big high visibility problems), but to a certain extent it feels like fire fighting to me. The same kind of adrenaline rush. The same amount kind of stress. The same kind of knowing you got something done when you solve the "problem."

I wouldn't want to do it all the time, but for short periods its a kick.

I worked for a few hours this morning, but things look pretty good for now. I haven't mushed for a few days and just scanned about a month of blogs... But, to use another fire fighting analogy, hopefully the fire is contained and things will lighten up some while we just put out a few spot fires and then clean it up. :)

My second win!

Last Sunday was the church picnic, and for the second time in my life I have won a jelly donut eating contest. :) Hey... you have to take joy in the small things in life. :) I won by eating 3.75 HUGH jelly donuts in 3 minutes. I think Rob ate close to 3 and Steve only ate... maybe 1. He choked right at the start. Shoved a whole one in his mouth, almost gagged and then couldn't get any more in. Ended up trying for a while and then spitting it out. And only got one more in.

I started slow, got down 2 right before 2 minutes, probably ate a about 1/2 the 3rd, and then stuffed the rest of the 3.75 into my mouth as people were cheering, "Come on, shove more in. Time is almost up" and they clock was counting down.

I guess my training paid off. :)

Hey... if you're going to do something, do it with passion!

Friday, July 23, 2004

OfficeMAX MicroSite

A bunch of the OffixMax "rubberband man" commericals. :)

Amber Alert

Keith made a comment on one of my entries. I visited his site and saw the Amber Alert ticker... so now it is on my page. It could be formatted better, but I figured I'd at least throw it out there for now.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Dragons and Jelly Donuts

Went to the IstaWeyr hatching last night. (There will be logs published at some point). Tiffany impressed a gold. How very cool.

Church picnic today. Jelly Donut eating contest... Yeah baby... :)

Friday, July 16, 2004

Software support - real time

After reading several posts on the new Blogger interface, I came across massless' entry.

The thing that most impresses me, and that I commented on, was the fact that he is taking comments from users real time, responding to them, and then fixing them and pushing them out to the server. I'm used to fire fighting and having to get stuff fixed if it ships with bugs... But for me its always been internal, and pretty much hidden (so to say) in the development group.

This kind of real time fixing is not only admirable, but it is also a sign of the times. Cool stuff.

Blogger's new editor

I haven't been on for a bit. Tonight (as I'm blogging) I noticed that Blogger has a new editor. Although it looks kind of cool, it has been causing me tons of problems. I'm having trouble publishing, my posts aren't formatted right. I'm not sure if its Blogger, Mozilla, or something up with my machine.

Anyway, if things look weird, that is why. I did figure out that if I use "Edit HTML" it works much better than "Compose". Closer to the old interface I guess.

Call of the Wild

So this morning I'm getting ready to head off to work and movement out the back window catches my eye. There is Belle (our puppy) running across the yard, and there are two black birds flying after her. They are squacking at her and actually kind of back winging, almost staying in one place. "What the heck is up with those birds", I think to myself and then open the back door to check it out. Belle has someone managed to catch a bird. It looks kind of small... so maybe one of their babies? (More like a teenager).

Anyway, Tina said the birds were after her for about an hour. They just kept it up.

Yeah, she killed a bird, and that's a bit of a drag. But... just nature in action.

Bill's last day

Today was Bill's last day. He was a manager who took the layoff. He's
going back to school to get his PhD and then become a professor. Cool
stuff for him. Been in the group for something like... 7 years
maybe. Great guy. He'll be missed.

Good luck Bill. Blessing on you and your family!

Thursday, July 15, 2004

USATODAY.com - MCI's wooers keep to themselves

Speculation that Leucadia is looking to buy MCI. This article contains some info on the company.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Kidnap-wary Mexicans get chipped | The Register

Mexico's attorney general has taken the unusual step of having an "anti-kidnap" chip stuck in his arm and then making the fact public - thereby ensuring that anyone lifting señor Rafael Macedo de la Concha will be certain to remove said limb at their earliest convenience.

Monday, July 12, 2004

Yahoo! News - Leucadia Seeks to Buy Control of MCI

Don't know what that means, other than our stock has gone up. Currently I own no stock, 'cuz all our old stock was worth 0 and we haven't been issued any new stock yet...

Friday, July 09, 2004

Security holes

With the recent security holes that are surfacing in IE, experts are starting to advise that user's quite using IE and switch to another browser. IE has had holes forever, but now Microsoft isn't issuing patches to close them all. At least not yet.

As I've always said, you should be running Mozilla.

On the heels of the IE problems, yesterday there was an annoucement that Mozilla had a problem, but they already issued a patch for it. This artilce discusses it and contains other info as well. And it was very easy to install. Took a couple of seconds.

Thursday, July 08, 2004

I'm still here

Haven't been blogging much lately, due to the fact that I've been mushing when I get some free time, and also I've been much busier at work. New position has me fire-fighting the last few days and I haven't been able to do much else. I'm sure I'll get back to it once things settle down some.

Just didn't want everyone to think I've fallen off the planet or something!

Monday, July 05, 2004

Talking web ads

OK... so as if those annoying ads at the top of free web pages aren't bad enough... now they are talking.

In general I don't mind the ads, 'cuz hey, the web site is free and I'm using them to publish free web pages, etc. But now I clicked on one of my pages and the ad that showed up started talking to me. Great...

Context and its importance in natural language parsing

One issue with natural language parsing is context. As humans, when we see words in a sentence, we sometimes determine what they mean by their context, i.e., what they must mean based upon the surrounding sentences. As hard as it is for computers to deal with this, it is sometimes hard for humans as well.

I was on the PernMUSH Ista knot this morning (kind of an out-of-character chat area) and someone said,
Shimshon notes to himself something he's known for 5 years, "Never edit code the day before you wander off line for a whole day."
My context as someone who writes code for a living, was that Shim was taking about software in general. Probably some piece of code he was working on at work, and he returned to work (after the weekend) and wasn't sure where he had left off, etc. That has happened to me before. Furthermore, it wasn't something I didn't have an issue with when I worked at Digital, because our VAXes would stay up for years. Therefore, when going on vacation I'd leave 5 editors up, and editting different pieces of code, and return with context. I could look and see what I had been doing right before I left. Therefore, I made the following comment,
Jarill laughs - although on a Vax I'd leave my edit windows up w/o fear and return a week later. But w/o context it is rather hard. ;)
To which Shim replied,
Shimshon broke the runner parent, fixed it, and found out that the lead/follow code apparently hasn't working for a while. "Which is disturbing in and of itself."
"Runner parent?", "Lead/follow"??? What is he talking about? Maybe some other coding language term... then finally the context hit me. He wasn't talking about some software code... he was talking about the MUSH code. Shim, in character, works with animals. On Pern a 'runner' is a horse. What he was saying was that you should never mess with the MUSH code and be offline for a day, because if you just broke something you won't know about it - and you won't be around for other people to complain to.

I notice this kind of thing happening every now and then. I'll be at work and someone will call from church, and because my context is "work" I'll filter everything through that. Something they say will make no sense... but would if they had said it to me at church.

Anyway... just something I find interesting, having studied the problems computers have with it. Its not just computers... somtimes its us as well.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Drumming

I'm drumming tomorrow morning. Dominick is out of town. Greg and Teresa are as well, so Madison will be playing bass. Thursday night practice was a kick. I love to drum, as long as the songs are ones I'm comfortable with. I don't like having to think too much about worship... I just like doing it. :)

All the songs we went over Thursday were songs I'm comfortable with, so that was very cool. When I drum I like drumming... passionalty, ardently (thanks for the work Michael!). I like to attack the drums. Its kind of how I feel about worship. Going for it. Especially in slow worshipful songs. Not always loud of course. You can play hard w/o having to play loud.... Not that I'm against loud when the song needs it. :)

After practice Rich (the sound guy) said, "Make sure and really hit the cymbols. You can play them louder if you want" - at which point Steve said, "But make sure you don't start Be Glorified so agressively. I mean, we're just coming out of worship. Michael is bringing it up real softly and then WHAM. I was expecting it and it startled me." LOL - cracked me up.

I play drums so infrequently, that I have to watch picking up the pace, and I guess not being *too* aggressive until everyone else brings it up. But what a blast.

I was telling Rich that I think I'm actually playing better now (when I only play the drums a few times a year) than when I was playing them all the time. I think that is because of all the percussion I'm doing. Its freeing. I can just flow. I still have to "set the beat", or whatever, with the drums... but I also see how I can add some stuff, totally bring it down at times, etc.

Anyway, it was cool and I'm thinking tomorrow should be great.

Yeah, so this rocks

They installed the cable modem this morning and then I went and got a Linksys WRT546 Wireless-G Broadband Router. Oh yeah. Broadband into the house, 4 ethernet connections and wireless! So I've got both my laptop and home computer hooked up via ethernet... and I also tried unplugging my laptop, taking it in the other room and connecting over Wi-Fi. Its all good. It took a little to hook it up. Mostly because it said to use the setup-cd - which had some issues. Once I opted for doing it the "hard way" - by hand, it was easy.

So now when Tif comes out, Tif, Jaime and I can all be on the internet at once. Geek family? No - the family that surfs together stays together ;-)

Friday, July 02, 2004

New position

I have a new position at work. I won't go into the long boring details here, but rather than being the architect over one team (the infrastructure - which is used by implementations), I'm now the architect over all of the Sheriff teams under the Senior Manager. That is the infrastructure plus all of our implementations that use it.

Cool stuff. More work, more responsibilty, no extra money or title - but hey, more control and more interesting stuff to do. I'm happy with it.

But it does mean I'll probably be doing even less actual coding or development and more consulting, etc. Spent about 75% of my time today not even in my cube or "working" on stuff, but just discussing things with people, redesigning issues to get fire-fights put out, etc.

But its cool. :)

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Cable modem

Yes... I'm finally moving into the 21st century and getting a cable modem. People are constantly amazed that I'm still using dialup. But... I am the eternal procrastinator. So why now? Well mostly 'cuz Tif is coming to visit at the end of the month. Since we are now both Mush addicts, we both are going to have to be connected. And seeing as how Jaime is probably *not* going to give up her nightly chat/email time... that means that 3 computer connections is *not* going to work with 2 phone lines. Not to mention we probably don't want to tie up our main phone line.

So... I called Adelphia yesterday and they will be running new cable on Saturday. Woo hoo! And then I'm going to get a wireless gateway. So, I'll be able to hook up multiple computers directly with ethernet, or run my laptop from anywhere in the house over wi-fi. Very cool stuff. :)

And it won't be that much more expensive that what I've got now, as I can drop my 2nd phone line and get rid of Juno. All told that's at least $35 a month. The cable modem will be ~$26 for the first 6 months, and then ~$46 after that. So its going to be about the same cost for the first year, and then only $10 a month more after that. Yeah... I should have done it a long time ago - but remember ... procrastinator...

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Why we won't go metric

From Shimshon on PernMush
Shimshon's coworker explains that we'll never go to the metric system, becuase you 'Peter Piper picked 8.1 liters of pickled peppers' doesn't have the same ring to it.

Not everyone is an OO fan

Overhead in the hallway
That's my expectation if it is linear code. If its some object oriented crap then...
Some people just can't find their way around in OO code. Oh well...

Pern: Thread falls tonight

Thread falls tonight over Ista. I'll probably be working on the ground crew - most likely with a shovel, as I've never handled the flame throwers before.

Some people say, "Wow... you must have spare time on your hands", but hey... some people golf, some work on their cars, some... whatever. I just happen to work and play on a computer. :) And it is something to do with Tif, which is very cool, especially since she is not local. She won't be on tonight though (she is usually just on during the day). I HAVE to get broadband set up before the end of the month... I keep meaning to call from work, but then get busy and forget. But when she's here she's going to want to be on-line the same time I am.

Anyway, I like mushing. Doesn't take all that much time - it is fairly slow paced. If we are home, we usually watch TV in the evenings. So, I'll be watching TV with Tina, I'll just be fighting thread on Pern at the same time. :)

Monday, June 28, 2004

Mushing

Mushing seems to be taking over my "computer play" time. I haven't been blogging near as much - and I haven't been keeping up on my blog reading. But mushing is pretty cool. One very hard thing about it for me is that there is nothing you *have* to do. Its all role-playing. Very weird to play a computer game, and not have some goal. Nothing to win. No puzzels to solve. Nothing. I keep asking "So... is there something we HAVE to do here?" And Tif keeps saying, "NO!" :)

But it is a cool thing. Interesting enough, she said that most mush players are girls. Guys just can't handle "this is just writting - player interaction - there is nothing to kill" ;-) Anyway, its cool.

It is interesting to write a story with multiple people, you've never met, and pretty much just flow the interaction a few sentences at a time.

Worship - flowing with the spirit

Another post on flowing with the spirit during worship.

Sunday was really cool. As I've mentioned before, we are starting to flow more and more with the Spirit. We were doing (some song - I'm so bad with titles) that we haven't done for quite a while. It was a worship song. We were bringing it down and Steve rolled the chorus several times. Teresa then pointed to Bobby and he started playing lead. It was building and I came off the congas and started playing my "big drum". (I don't know the name - its just a really big drum that I play with mallets that are about 2.5 feet long). It just felt like I should go there.

I was starting to feel it, but kind of playing the normal kind of thing I play. But playing with my eyes closed and just kind of "listening". And then Bobby took it somewhere different. He started playing a different lead - a different rhythm. At least it sounded different to me. :) It just went somewhere else. And I just went with it and started playing something different. It was very cool. And then I started doing this thing where I play the drum (pretty deep), but also play the sticks against the side, to get this clicking sound. Nothing really on purpose. Just a feel. I just start doing it. It was so cool. (Not that what I was doing was cool... but just that the feeling was so cool).

So we stayed in that for some time and then Teresa said that instead of breaking and then going to pray and coming back, we'd just keep going. If someone had to do something before church they could, but whoever wanted to keep going could. So we just kept at it and took it into worship. We probably played that one song for 15 or 20 minutes. - That is one thing about flowing - time just stops. I have no idea how long it is. I've played for over and hour and looked up w/o realizing how much time has passed.

It was so very cool. Its getting cooler every time. We then started with our "normal" worship. It was good, and we flowed some, but it seems like we haven't made that "breakthrough" in service yet. It was good, but not as good as practice. I'm not complaining, just stating it. But, we are getting there. Every part of us playing (practice, congregational worship, etc.) is getting better. Very cool stuff.

I'm in training

In 3 weeks the church is having the annual picnic and this year we are doing several games. One of them is... a jelly donut eating contest! Woo hoo. I've won one of these before (in Flint MI). That was a "who can eat one the fastest w/o using their hands". This one is seeing how many you can eat in 5 minutes.

Tonight I ate two as fast as I could... just to get a feel for it. I'm in training now, working on my technique, etc. Hey... everyone has to have a sport. :-)

When it rains, it pours

Yesterday about 3:30 or so (whenever I was done doing the deposit at church), the rain just started COMING DOWN. I mean it was in waves. I stayed at the church for a few minutes, then sprinted for the Jeep... with a heavy deposit bag in one hand (11 rolls of pennies from Children's Church :)), by percussion duffle bag thrown over my bad, and nothing on but a vest and sandles (well and my other clothes of course). Threw open the door and jumped in, with my duffle bag on my bag, half way soaked.

I then headed down to the bank (Palmer Park and Powers). Wow... there were cars with water up to their frames, one car off in the ditch with water swelling around it, and numerous places where you couldn't see while you were driving because there was so much water coming up over the windshield. Seeing as I was in the Jeep it was actually kind of fun! :) But I'm sure others in cars, the fire department (who I saw going on 3 calls in about 15 minutes), etc. did not think so...

'Gaping hole' lets hackers into Windows

Just yet another reason to use Mozilla instead of IE.

Friday, June 25, 2004

Origami Boulder Company -- Original Origami Gifts!

I bet someone is actually buying this stuff... just for the humor in it.

Text of the law

Title link points to the actual bill. It only applies if the speed limit is 65MPH or above.

You may get ticketed for driving (vs passing) in the left lane

Under the new rule, which takes effect July 1, those who lag in the left lane could be ticketed and fined between $15 and $100 with no points off the driver’s license if they are blocking the flow of traffic.
The only exceptions would be for left turns – if permitted – or if the volume of traffic does not allow a vehicle to merge safely back into a nonpassing lane.

Cool.

Thursday, June 24, 2004

Personal conversations at work

Being the type of person I am (P, intravert, whatever), it really gets me when people have personal conversations on the phone at work. I *try* not to listen in, but some times you just can't help it. Not listening... but hearing.

I used to have someone next to me who was always talking to her ex-Mother-In-Law about her new boyfriends. I mean some of it was *really personal* and I'm like, "Do I really need to know this?" It made me pray for her all the time, so maybe that was good.

It just makes me feel uncomfortable when I hear someone getting chewed out by someone (you can just tell) or whatever.

Usually if I have something private to say I'll walk to a conference room or something... Come on people... give me a break!

Watermelon origins

The long and general culture of the watermelon from North Africa to middle Asia led to the view that it was of Asiatic origin, although it had never been found wild in Asia or elsewhere. Finally, however, about a hundred years ago, the great missionary-explorer, David Livingstone, settled the question of its origin. He found large tracts in central Africa literally covered with watermelons growing truly wild.

In the wild state both bitter and sweet melons occur in the same locality, but the bitter ones appear no different from the sweet. The natives knock a hole in each fruit to taste the juice before taking it for food or drink.

Yahoo! News - New Dial-Up Scam Sends Phone Bills Soaring

Been pretty busy lately. Didn't read the whole article and don't know if it is world wide or mostly in the UK. But I have heard of similar things here. Always good to be aware of these things.

Friday, June 18, 2004

Feds classify french fries as fresh veggies: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Not as weird as it sounds. Rather than a true classification, it is a legal term being used to keep bankrupt distributors from getting out of paying french fry vendors.

Thursday, June 17, 2004

MUSHing

As I've mentioned in several posts, I've been MUSHing (Multi-User Shared Hallucination) on Pern lately. A big fan of the books, I've thought about mushing when Tif has mentioned it in the past, but never actually did it. Well she has started up again and sent me some mail on it, etc. And this time I actually got into it!

I'll probably post more about it as time goes on, and I'm starting a sub-section of my web site about it. Pretty cool stuff.

Not everyone (who I talk to), gets the whole mushing thing... but I'm finding some very cool stuff there. Its really more than just a game. I've played plenty of on-line games, and the big difference is... there isn't really much *to do*. The whole concept is the interaction of the characters. As a newbie, I'm trying to figure out how to "play", the commands, etc. But I'm also trying to figure out how to role-play. What is appropriate, what isn't... and how it all fits together. And then there is the actual code behind it all, which is always cool to me.

So, right now, I'm just enjoying learning... and finding out who my character is. Kind of weird to say, since I'm the one behind my character... but it is just an idea. And as my character interacts with other characters (through things I say), he is shaped by the things they say, his interactions with them, etc.

Pretty different... Pretty cool.

Bogarts

So Tif and I are on Pern, and one of the people RPing uses the term "bogarts". While Tif and I are discussing what that means, she mentions the context in which she heard it the other day.
The guy in the commissary had his cart in the middle of the aisle and I was trying to slip past it. He said something like, "Dude, sorry. 'Scuse me while I like, totally bogart the aisle!" I just nodded and smiled blankly. :)
LOL. For those interested, from the urban dictionary, bogart is:
v. To hog something which is supposed to be shared, e.g., a bone or controller.
n. A person who bogarts
n. The act of bogarting.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Ananova - BBC in mock gun battle gaffe near Heathrow

Yeah, you'd think alerting the authorities might have been a good idea.

Light Reading - Networking the Telecom Industry

In an unprecedented joint industry effort, MCI, Inc. (MCIA.PK), CIENA(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN - News) and Mintera Corporation today announced they have achieved the world's fastest Ultra Long-Haul (ULH) connection at 40 Gigabits Per Second (Gbps) -- four times faster than the highest-speed ULH routes deployed today.

Cool. Faster speeds are always good. :-)

Monday, June 14, 2004

The right connections make a difference

Up in Vail. Woo hoo. Plugged the laptop into Bec's router, and it came up no problem. :-) I was disappointed that I couldn't get my USB port working, so my external keywboard and mouse weren't working... Until I realized I had them plugged in wrong...

OK. Now that your're done laughing. Yes, the USB splitter has green for mouse and purple for keyboard... but my mouse is grey and the keyboard is orange. :-) Yeah... I usually plug them in right, but wasn't paying attention and didn't realize they'd plug into the wrong connector.

Oh well, all is well and high-speed now. I'm psyched.

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Internet withdrawls

Wow... my remote access password expired on Saturday (well really Friday night). The help screen on the web site says, "Your password will expire on such-and-such a day. You'll be given plenty of notice." I guess that statement in and of itself is considered "plenty of notice" since I received NO other notice.

Drove into work just to make sure I could get back on, since we are going out of town for a week. Woo hoo!

Logged in, got my 243 emails (mostly spam) since leaving Friday afternoon, and changed my password. Hopefully all is well now...

Anyway, next time I "see" you, I should be in Vail.

later...

Friday, June 11, 2004

Apple - AirPort Express

Wow. This looks very cool... Been thinking about getting a cable modem, maybe I'll have to hook it to this, then run iTunes off my pc, hook up via my laptop, etc. Would be all set up. Just don't know if $129 is expensive or not for this kind of capability. Looks pretty cool though... I think I'll suggest it to Pastor Joe too (or Michael could). Seeing as he plays his iPod all the time, he might be interested.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Distant friends

Its funny the way some people impact your life. When I was at DEC we used to play a game called DECWeb all the time. The best PBEM games I've ever played. Spent countless hours (a week!) playing it. More than just a game, it was a community of people within DEC. I met people from all over the world (some actually in person). Not only were those game contacts, but they have resulted in jobs, knowledge, technical help on projects, etc. In other words, it wasn't just a game... it resulted in increased productivity for the company and lasting friendships.

Most of those people I'm no longer in contact with... but I still think of them from time to time. Yesterday I was reading an article, and it mentioned Francis J. Ricciardone. I immediately thought of Mark Riccardi. And it made me smile. Hmm... maybe that is really Mark... and maybe he's there to take over Iraq, the first of his conquests in ruling the world. :-)

Mark was an awesome DECweb player. A supreme diplomat. I'll never forget the time he talked me into jumping into his stargate ("It's safe, trust me"). When I got my turnsheet, there was a small probe sitting there with "Welcome to my nightmare" on the side of it, which was being destroyed by a mine left at the stargate, along with my entire fleet. Many people felt cheated by Mark, I just felt he was an awesome player. I played with him many times... sometimes with him and sometimes against. If he was your ally (really your ally - and that was the hard thing to know), he was as loyal as could be. If he was just pretending to be your ally, then watch out.

We spent a lot of time over the course of the games, talking, emailing, plotting.

I haven't heard from Mark in years. Asked Dave about him, and Dave said he tried contacting Mark, but never heard back. I've also tried to google him over the years and never found him.

Mark... wherever you are, hope things are going well for you and yours. You are someone I'll never forget.

Monday, June 07, 2004

Technology News Article | Reuters.com

Bill Gates and I agree that within four to five years hardware will be free," Schwartz told Reuters, who will outline Sun's belief at a Sun conference in Shanghai this week that the network - the hardware, software, storage and its interlinks - is fast becoming a commodity
Cool. Free computers... unless the software gets too expensive.

And thats it

So... I think that has me caught up... Other than I've bought some Pern books and been working on my character a bit more. And the fact that we are going to be going out of town part of next week. Just to "get away" for a bit. Not sure exactly where we are going yet... somee where in the mountains. Tina will be sleeping/reading, and I'll be reading and "playing" on the computer. Probably do a bit of work, and blogging, and mushing. And then just hanging out, cooking, doing what ever. Should be great.

And a good Sunday of cooking

Went to Pastor Joe's to play cards Sunday afternoon. Since it is so nice out, I suggested a "bring your own meat to grill and a dish to pass" bbq. We ate a quick lunch, I got the deposit done, and then picked up some meat and salad/fruit and headed over. I was the last one there and people were done preping their food and Pastor Joe had the grill going. I ended up doing all the cooking (Yah!)

It was very cool - since people had brought very different stuff.

I grilled:
  • 2 pork tenderloins w/ BBQ sauce, and asparagrus
  • Salmon with lemon and dill
  • Marinated chicken breast
  • Hot dogs
  • Italian sausage with peppers and onions

Pastor Joe has a very nice grill, double rack, and I was able to get everything on it at once. Just shuffling things around, so the sausage grease was falling on the peppers/onions to keep them from drying out, moving the chicken up to the top once it was done and waiting for the pork to finish, etc.

Pretty much everything took a different amount of time to cook, and I timed it so all the meat went on at once, and came off at the sime time (by moving things from hotter to cooler spots). My idea of a fun time! It was awesome. And everyone had more than enough food for themselves, so we all shared. Great fun!

I'd do it every week! Like I've said before, its such a great time of fellowship and for the staff to get together.

Worship this weekend

Worship was great this weekend.

I drummed for the youth on Saturday night. Quite the blast. Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks... ;-), so it took me a while to get one of the songs, but during the actual service it all went very well. Very cool stuff. I love playing with Michael. He really flows when he leads. Its cool. I'll be drumming for the next two weeks. Next week Tom and Jennifer are coming down. 2 hours to practice with a team that will be playing together for the first time. Yeah, it will have to be God. :-) But it will rock. And then the following week I'll be drumming with Nichole leading, which will be awesome. A great chance to do some mentoring, because she hasn't solo lead that much. It will be a great experience for her, and for the youth team as a whole.

The Michael will be back and we'll start to get out of transition and to where we want to go.

And then Sunday we did two new songs. One we had some... well not trouble, but it didn't come together as fast as usual. But we did it Sunday morning and it was great! Its always nice when you do a song and it feels like it is doing what it is suppose to do. It was a praise/fast song and everyone really got into it.

We had some "flow" problems, but we'll discuss those Thursday and learn from them. Not so much that the congregation knew... well least too much. We have to get a little better about not looking like we are confused, when we are confused. ;-)

All in all, a very fun and good weekend of worship. It keeps ya going!

Layoff update

When I reported that we had lost 1 person, that was all I knew. That was what the "rumor mill" had told me. Turns out we actually lost FOUR. Well officially it was only 3, because one of the people worked for us, but belong to another group. But in my mind it is still four, because four people that worked on Sheriff will no longer be working on it.

We lost a technical writter, system support, implementation developer and the implementation manager. Two got layed off right away, the manager is leaving mid July and the developer got an extension until mid Sept to finish the work he is on now. Again, compared to many groups, we weren't hit hard at all. Around 10%. Some groups got hit at least 50%! But it still shows the unfairness of just throwing numbers down the line. Our manager numbers (number of managers given the number of people in the group) were just fine... but someone decided we needed to lose a manager. For whatever reason. Probably just to share the pain. Even though we have more work than we can possibly do, are good producers, and have a great ROI. Good news is that the manager had been thinking lately about going back to school for his Phd... and his advisor had recently called him out of the blue and discussed coming back. So works well for him, which is cool.

Luckily for me, no one on my team got laid off... although I do work with everyone who did get laid off and have known some of them for probably 8 years.

However, still looks like more work for me. Since we had to let a manager go, we can't get another one, so that manager's work will be split between the existing two managers. And since my manager had two teams, and is now picking up something like 6 more small teams, he has said he'll need his current leads to pick up some of the responsibilities. (Yeah... I would be one of those current leads). His number of people isn't going to increase drastically (since the implementation teams are very small), but I expect his management responsibilites (working with the customer, etc.) will increase. Probably an increase of about 50%.

Anyway... so, more work for me, perhaps. At least more reponsibility. We'll figure it otu. There is only so much you can do, and if they keep cutting your group, you just have to do less.

In what direction do you read blogs?

Whenver I post several posts, and then post something that ties them together (like - been busy, just posted several things), I always wonder in what direction people read blogs. Beacuse they are in reverse chronological order, with the newest being at the top, you'd think people would read them from the bottom up... or at least from the last one they read, up. (Which is the way I read them, if I notice someone has posted several things. That way I get them in the correct time order). But... it is naturally for us to read from the top down, so maybe people read them from the top down, until they get to the one they last read.

Just stuff that goes through my head... and oh, I'll be posting several things. Been kind of busy, partially just looking at Pern stuff, and haven't kept up.

Friday, June 04, 2004

Its over

Been informed that they are "done" for today. Meaning that whoever is still here is still here. Only know of 1 person that got let go from our group... but I may just not know all the details yet.

Appropriate Dave Barry quote:
"I guarantee you that one day you will find yourself working for a huge impersonal corporation run by morons.
Everybody does! It's not so bad: You get a little cubicle where you sit all day doing some tedious corporate thing that has absolutely nothing to do with anything you learned in college. For diversion, you'll speculate with your fellow cubicle dwellers on how your corporation manages to survive under a management team with the combined IQ of a kielbasa. "

Todays the day

Senior Manager at weekly staff meeting yesterday: "I need everyone to be here at 8:30 tomorrow".

OK... so the rumors are true. Today is the day. 7500 people get axed. They are being tight-lipped about this one. Not sure where the 7500 are coming from. Not sure how hard we'll get hit. Our group does good work. We have more work and more $$ than we can spend. (People are budgeting funds to us, and we've got more budgeted than we can spend, because of the low number of people we have). We don't have enough people for the work/funds we already have allocated. And we'll lose some people today.

Yesterday afternoon and this morning is the first time I've been nervous. Just this small gnawing in the back of my head. I'm near the top of the list (I think). (Bottom being the first one they'll let go). But that is only if they lay people off based on some sense of sanity. And they seem to just be going for numbers. So... who knows.

I was thinking of wearing my Google, "I feel lucky" t-shirt, but I'm not sure that is appropriate. Folks who are leaving my not take it well. So... I think I'll go with my "I was created for worship" t-shirt. I never wear christian t-shirts to work, and rarely ones with writting... But today it just seems appropriate to remember that there is more than work. A bigger reason why we are here. So hey, if I get cut, I get cut. God will take care of me. And if it is going to happen, He's already got something better lined up.

But it will still be a hard day, either way. We are just getting way to small, and whoever goes it will be someone I've worked with for years. And they won't get to say good-by, etc. Just walked out the door.

They'll probably start around 9:00, do one at a time (takes about 30 minutes I think) and at some point we'll be told, "Ok. Its over", i.e., if you are still here, you are safe.

Women were bringing their new babies into work yesterday to show them to all their co-workers, before their co-workers got axed and they'd no longer see them. Just in case...

Went to bed at 2:15 last night, up at 6:00. Yeah... its going to be a weird day. I think I'll copy my web pages off my lap-top... just in case. Better safe than worry. :-S

Thursday, June 03, 2004

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

Very cool. A Linux box that you can use as a WiFi router for only $79. Discussion of emerging technologies, etc.

Busy

I only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before last, and last night I only got about 3.5, waking up at about 4:30 AM. Just too much going on in my head. But lack of sleep makes it somewhat difficult to be writting documentation all day (which is what I'm doing this afternoon.) Of course, I can write here, but that is different. :-S

  • Looks like the layoff is tomorrow. Some folks are very nervous.
    Me: getting on the elevator w/ co-worker You don't look so good, looks like you should be leaving, not getting to work.
    CW: Yeah... I'm pretty nervous about tomorrow. First time I've been worried about one of these.
    Me: Yeah. Tomorrow's not looking like a good day.
    CW: I figure I'll be leaving - should be getting drunk about this time tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll take up drinking again, at least for a while
    So yeah... not a great atmosphere right now
  • Been thinking about PernMUSH quite a bit. Cool stuff. Doing some background character documentation. Sent it to Tif. She thought it was cool. Talked to Reye yesterday in Pern for a bit. About wikis and such.
  • Got the new computer set up at home. Not too bad.
  • Been doing some CSS work for the church web site
  • Worship practice is tonight. Tired... but it will be very cool.
  • Drumming w/ the youth worship team on Saturday.

Looking like it is going to be a busy week/weekend - like usual! Tina and I are talking about getting away for a few days. Would be very cool.

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Bush is in town!

Wow... Pres. Bush is in town. I just heard someone mention it on the phone. Shows how much I keep up with current events. :-S He's at the AFA.

Well... been playing with CSS and hanging out on Pern. So gotta get back to work.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Sunday, May 30, 2004

Worship - its a lifestyle thing

In Christian lingo, "Worship" or especially "Praise and Worship" generally refers to the time when we are playing music and singing at the beginning of a service. Well it is much more than that, it is worshipping God... but to keep things simple I'll just say it usually refers to the "music" portion of the service.

But if you speak to pretty much anyone about worship, who is into worship, or a "praise and worship team", etc., inevitably the phrase "Worship is much more than just playing music on Sunday (or whenever), it is a lifestyle." Teresa has been teaching on worship lately, and God has been giving her some really incredible stuff to talk about. The Thursday before last was pretty cool. To paraphrase:
So all week, I've been like, "God... what do you want me to speak about this week" and I've been getting nothing! I've probably prayed more than I have ever have. And nothing. I've been doing word studies on worship, and nothing. So today [which would be Thursday] I'm cleaning Pastor Joe's house, and I'm scrubbing the toilet, and all of a sudden I hear God say, clear as can be, "This is worship". WHAT??? "This is worship". And so I start thinking about it and I realize that what He is saying is that SERVING IS A FORM OF WORSHIP! And so that's what we, as a worship team, are going to start doing. We are going to start serving.
And she went on to talk about how ministries in the church really need to come together, and we need to start serving each other, etc. Roger and Rachel have taken over as the youth directors, and they need their new office painted. (Pastor Rick had it super man colors, which was cool, but not for everyone). So she said the next Thursday, instead of practice, we were going to prime the walls for them. Given the size of our team, it wouldn't take much time, but it would really bless them.
And it did. They haven't seen it yet ('cuz they are out of town), but they were so surprised that the worship team would want to do something like that for them. And it was great fun. It wasn't hard work or anything (so many people, we didn't do all that much work), and we all went and have pie/coffee afterward. It was just a good time of hanging out, fellowshipping, etc.
As as Teresa said, God will honor this so much. "Seek first the kingdom of God", "You'll reap what you sow", "God will honor you when you do something for someone else", all those principles. Rather than viewing it as we are missing a practice, view it as we are doing something for God, and He'll reward us so much more when we do practice. Its just a God thing.
Teresa is so psyched about this stuff. And for good reason. It is sooo cool. So many times a worship team can get to a place of "we are a worship team and we do music", and not do anything else. Serving is just going to rock. And its just a cool indicating of where we are going as a team and as a church.

More subtle template changes

When looking at Jaime's comment on a post, I noticed that the "Previous Posts" and "Links" were showing up, but not the "Archives". I moved them all to the same area so they only show up on the main or archive pages. Also moved the text that dicusses that you should be using Mozilla. Just some minor cleanup.

To get it to show up I had to republish the entire blog (so it would show up on past comment pages)... So, all pages now reflect my current template.

Working in the yard

Went out for lunch yesterday with with Tina, Jaime, Erika and Michael, then went to Lowes and bought some planets, fencing, etc. Spent the afteroon updating the planters with some new flowers/bushes and building some 2ft fencing to go around them.

Vinyl fencing is pretty cool. Looks like wood (for the most part) and is very easy to work with. I got a section mostly made for one planter, and will complete it and the 2nd one either today or tomorrow. Michael planted all the plants in the backyard while I was doing that, and the girls worked in the planters out front.

I went out front two times for stuff while they were doing this. One time there was much squeling and "Daddy... come get these bugs!" They were pulling up the bricks around the planters and pulling the grass between them. Under the bricks were ants, either carrying larve or something. Freaked the girls out. The next time I came out front, they were sitting around a planter, singing Disney songs, gentling pulling grass and throwing it in the air. They crack me up.

After we were all done we went to A&W and had hot dogs and root beer. All in all a very good day and got some yard work done.

Saturday, May 29, 2004

That could have been embarassing

So, just got out of the shower. Thinking about mushing and wikis, and how they coudl tie together. So I'm heading toward the computer to jot down some thoughts. I'm leaving my room, zipping up my pants ('cuz hey... I've got stuff to write down, so way waste time - just head to the computer), w/o a shirt on. As I step out of the door I realize that Erika has spent the night.

Yeah, fully clothed might be a good idea.

Friday, May 28, 2004

A moment in the life

Yeah, soI know I'm always reflecting on things. Its just that lots of stuff seems... well if not interesting, at least "hmm..." to me. Maybe a sign of my age...

I'm working, and reading a bit of a MUSH programming manual (just to see what its like) and I check my gmail account. A quick mail from Elizabeth asking for a Spanish Rice recipe. I reply that I don't have one, but I bet Tif does. So I call Tif on my cell, she gives me the recipe over the phone, and we talk about dragons and mushing a bit (I jumped onto PernMUSH this morning and paged her - very cool) while I'm walking down to the cafe. I grab some lunch, come back up, fire off an email to Elizabeth with the receipe and then blog it.

Sometimes I just think about the technology involved. Me talking with Tif on Pern, then Elizabeth asking me on-line for a recipe, me calling Tif on my cell while walking around, then emailing Elizabeth back. I know we take a lot of this for granted, but every once in a while I think back to when I was in high school... and I just kind of marvel at what is possible now.

MUSHing

Spent a little time MUSHing this morning. Well not so much mushing as just getting on the MUSH and looking around. Some cool stuff. Then I got to work and Tif said she'd be on and told me how to page her... so I did! She squelled and we talked for a few minutes before I had to get serious about work.

How FUN! I'm going to have to get into it a bit... Well, speaking of work...

God/Jesus Private Jokes

So in bible study this morning we were discussing the story of Jesus walking on water in Matthew. Jesus gets done feeding 5K, sends the disciples across the lake in a boat, dismisses the crowd and goes up on the mountian side for some quite time with his dad. Later he walks out across the water, approaches the boat, and freaks out the disciples.

As we are discussing this I start chuckeling on the inside. How much sense of humor did Jesus have? He must had a pretty good one, right? I can just imagine the conversation before he heads out across the lake.

God: Ok, we'll you need to get going. Its getting pretty storming out there.
Jesus: Should I meet them on the other side or what?
God: No, just walk out there and get in the boat.
Jesus: Oh man, that is going to totally freak them out. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they see me coming across the water.

OK. So maybe that isn't the way it really happened... but thats the kind of things that go through my head. :-)

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Ista Weyr

Ista Weyr is one of the original Weyrs on Pern. Tif has currently joined the ranks of the unemployed (getting ready for their vacationing they'll be doing this fall, etc.) and has much more time to be on-line. One of the things she does is PernMUSH, and Ista is the Weyr she has chosen to join.

Cool stuff. I'll have to take a closer look when I get more time. I've read all the Pern books and have passed my love of Dragons on to my kids. Cool. :-)

Aside: To add the Pern link above, I goggled Pern and then followed that link. As I scrolled down thread started falling on my screen. It totally creeped me out. How bizzare... to someone unfamiliar with Pern, it would have just seemed like little worms or something. But it really creeped me out. I guess Pern is in my blood more than I knew!

Writing Browswer independent code

Well my "Links", "Previous Posts" and "Archives" now show up if you are using Mozilla or if you are using IE. Because they always display in IE (since it doesn't support the latest CSS techniques), I moved them from the top back to the sidebar. If they were at the top, they'd cover up part of my blog entries and the profile. Moving them back to the sidebar got them out of the way. So, not ideally where I'd like them... but works for the main two browsers... which is the best design.

Thanks again to Eric Shepherd's Tulipe design on cssZenGarden. Looking at that showed me how to create the drop-downs in the first place, and then looking at it again showed me how I could write the css so it would support both Mozilla and IE.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Another way to let guest know it is time to leave.

MightyGirl wrote, Don’t Be Rude: When Guests Outstay Their Welcome, an article on how to let guests know it is time to leave. Last night we were over at Miller's for "LOTR: Return of the King" and it finished up about 11:30. JJ reminded me of that article as we were cleaning up and getting ready to leave:

JJ: Good night everyone!
Me: Are you going to bed?
JJ: No. You are leaving.

Little kids have a great way with words. :-)

Stupid browser differences

So Tif sends me mail and says, "Hey... what's up with your blog? I tried to go to archives and it isn't working. I thought you said "Links", "Previous Posts" and "Archives" were drop downs. They act just like text."

Hmm... works fine for me with Mozilla. So I bring up IE and sure enough, my blog doesn't look near as cool and worse yet none of my drop-downs work. :-(

I don't have time to figure this out right now... so, if you really want an archive you can type it in. They follow the same format: __01_worship-junky_archive.html. For instance, last months would be http://worship-junky.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_worship-junky_archive.html.
And the good thing about going an archived blog is that it uses my old template, so you won't have the dropdown problem.

Sorry about this...

Things seen at lunch

Browsing blogs while I'm eating lunch. Still getting over the flu (man, what a killer - something like 10 or 11 days now!). I'm eating Japanese, because bland seems to work well. Miso and Edamame... with a CA roll thrown in just to see how it works.

Anyway, browsing and seeing a number of interesting things:
  • CDC BMI calculator - yikes... 30.1
  • Harvard - The Way We Eat Now - according to this a BMI of > 30 is obese... Hey, I've lost weight during the flu, I'm sure I'm "just" overweight now. :-( (Make a mental note to get serious on diet).
  • Jeffery Veen discusses pork chops - Hmm... pork chops, those sound good. (Don't forget - DIET)
  • Context, not Navigation - interesting on a number of levels, as a blog designer, web designer, and as a cognative scientist.

Lawmaker tones down anti-Gmail bill | CNET News.com

Technology lobbyists said the changes appear to be a win for Google, since the revised version reverses key aspects of the original. But most agreed that if the bill becomes law, it will be bad news for technology companies operating in the state.
Cool for Google, but I still think this is probably unnecessary and just publicity by a politician, but I could be wrong.

Gmail ads

This morning while reading a junk mail post in gmail on "It must be a red-neck day", which had a joke about a bride being 14, one of the gmail ads pointed to TeenVote. I thought this was interesting because:
  • I wonder what technology goes from a joke about a 14 year old bride to a teenage voting site
  • I had no idea someone was trying to get the voting age lowered.

Learn something new every day. Thanks gmail!

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

ACM MemberNet - Turing Award Honors Alan Kay as Pioneer of Personal Computers

He is also one of the founders of SmallTalk.

NYTimes: Correction

bmay posted the following correction from the NYTimes. I found it funny...
An article last Wednesday about South Africa's wine industry referred incorrectly to Thabani Cellars, a winery there. It is not minority-owned. (As a black man, the owner, Jabulani Ntshangase, belongs to the country's majority.)

Monday, May 24, 2004

Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning...

So I'm at work and I had a discuss with my manager on Friday about getting a kit out. (He wanted it out ASAP and wanted to know where we were with getting some of the bugs in). One of the developer's is working a ton of "cleanup" stuff, so he has a number of bugs he is working (some for the next kit, some for a later kit) as well as some new functionality he is putting in. All pretty small stuff, but a number of things at once. So, this weekend I sent him mail with a subject of "Task priority" - outlining the order in which I'd like him to get his tasks done. (Work the bugs for the kit that is going out immediately first, etc.)

Me: How are things going?
Him: Good, I'm working on testing xxx, I've almost got it done.
Me: Cool. Did you get that mail from me on task priority?
Him: Yeah... but I'm finishing up all this other stuff before I read it. But I did mark it as important and unread so I'd make sure and read it later.
Me: inward groan. Ok... but you might want to read it first, since it outlines the order in which I'd like you to work your tasks.

Ya know... sometimes you just have to look at things as great blog material, laugh, and go on with your day. ;-)