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July 11, 2008

iPhone 2nd Gen

Apparently I've built up a high level of expectation as an early adopter of new technology. Increasingly, as something new comes out, numerous people will query me as to my interest in said technology and chance of my using it.

Are you getting a Wii when it comes out? Are you getting a PS3? Are you getting a MacBook Air? And most recently, are you getting a new iPhone?

I was an early adopter of the first iPhone. I paid a lot for a device that had yet to mature. I don't regret waiting in line, the price, or the early problems. The 3G iPhone was a toss-up for me, however. Nearly all of the features I needed were included in the 2.0 firmware update. It was the wants that got me to fetch the new phone. Others have postured that it is one of Apple's greatest strengths: make people want regardless of need.

So after countless queries of my intentions toward the new phone and personal deliberations and marital negotiations, I am now the proud owner of an iPhone 3G.

My impressions so far are mostly based on the capabilities of the new firmware so I can only comment on the two elements of the actual phone. First, 3G is so much better than Edge, as it should be. Second, the flush headphone jack is fantastic.

On the new firmware side, I've grabbed quite a few free apps and bought Bomberman Touch and will probably grab a sudoku game soon. The array of apps is already nice and is bound to grow quite well. I'm anxious to see what will come down the road over the next few months.

Now, back to playing with the phone for a few more hours--it's fun!

Posted at 10:33 PM | Comments (1)

April 07, 2008

Finger Status

So I made it 8 months of learning how to cook without an emergency room visit. I'd say that's pretty good for a klutz, no?

A month ago I was slicing carrots with a mandoline for a quinoa pilaf and took off a chunk of my right index finger.

The ER experience was a nightmare. We first went to Urgent Care and they said it would be a 2.5 hour wait. So we went to the hospital ER and after waiting in the waiting room for about 90 minutes a nurse came out and told us all that unless we were dying, we might as well go home cause they were overfull and had more critical coming in via ambulances. We returned to Urgent Care and the kind people there stayed past closing to see me.

The piece couldn't be reattached (besides, it was 4+ hours since the incident anyway), and nothing could be stitched together, so they cauterized the blood vessels to stop the bleeding.

Fast forward 12 hours later and we started to change the dressing, but the injury was still spurting, so we returned to Urgent Care and they said there was nothing more they could do. Another 90ish minute wait at ER and I and a few other cases were taken into triage. After much more waiting, they basically redressed the wound, gave me a painkiller and said, "it will stop bleeding eventually."

I've gotten most of the shape back but keeping the wound dressed in antibiotic cream 24/7 has slowed the healing process considerably. I'm probably back to about 90% feeling in the finger and I need to start rehabilitating the joint from lack of movement.

So I've learned a few things with this experience:

  1. Stick to knives; they're easier to control.
  2. I mouse left-handed at work and right-handed at home to combat carpal tunnel injury. That has helped me become left-handed easier.
  3. Don't get injured on a Friday night unless you like bleeding while you wait.
  4. Sherrie Ann is a trooper. She was really calm and collected and watched the cauterization with keen interest. I'm a wimp on the other hand. I couldn't watch the cauterizing nor the shots. I got used to the gore after a week or two, but have no desire to revisit that.
  5. I'm fairly dexterous with my left hand (from decades of gaming, no doubt), but my left hand doesn't have inner strength. I can control chopsticks left-handed but can't grip strongly.
  6. Touch-typing with one less finger sucks.

Oh, and the mandoline got thrown out. ;)

Posted at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2007

Adventures in Cooking, or How to Burn Water

Before you get worried at the thought of Sunny in the kitchen, let me assure you that no trips have been to the emergency room yet.

There were some very generous people who gave excellent Calphalon cookware for Sherrie Ann and my wedding (thank you!). Having done little cooking in my life beyond instant ramen, pasta or the occasional Mexican rice, I was wary about stepping out of the relative comfort of the frying pan into the raw, unrelenting fire that is kitchen ballet. I will chronicle my first steps in cooking calisthenics. And by chronicle, I mean I'll keep it short.

After figuring out what each utensil, device, container, pot and pan was and it's core intended use, it was time to set the flames upon something.

Attempt 1: Instant Stir Fry

Dish: Frozen, pre-packaged stir fry with radiatori noodles and a cream sauce.

Preparation: This is a simple throw it all in a pan to heat everything up and serve.

Summary: I wanted to use the wok, to see what all the hubub was about. It was cool, but I overcooked everything.

Outcome: Edible.

Attempt 2: Fried Steamed Tofu

Dish: Sweet pan fried tofu with furikake.

Preparation: Limited to (AKA, inspired by) random and sparse fridge pickings, I selected firm tofu cut into 1in. by 2in. by 3in. blocks, marinated in soba tsuyu for a couple of minutes while the pan heated. Add furikake to the mix, and place the tofu in pan with all the sauce and some water. Cover and steam for a couple minutes. Remove the cover and cook until most of the water/sauce is gone (a minute or so). Add a dash or two of extra virgin olive oil and fry both sides of the tofu block for less than a minute each.

Summary: The different phases of cooking go pretty fast, but it's hard to overcook firm tofu.

Outcome: Actually, quite good!

Attempt 3: Hash Browns

Dish: One of the classic breakfast staples, hash browns.

Preparation: While at the store buying hurricane supplies in case Flosie hit us hard, we picked up a bag of regular brown potatoes (none much larger than fist-sized). A quick Google search came up with the recipe and a key element to the preparation. First, mostly peel the potatoes and grate them. Next, and importantly, dry them with a towel. Chop some onions and mix into the potatoes. Drop a slice of butter in a pan for coloring and pour in the potato onion mixture. Cook each side (re-butter before flipping) for 5-7 minutes and serve.

Summary: Such a simple and easy dish, there was very little opportunity to mess up.

Outcome: Yummy.

At this point, we consulted with a couple of kitchen veterans (Jan and Shelly) as to what every kitchen should have as core ingredients. We went shopping and stocked up on a lot of spices, sauces, oils, herbs, veggies and other core ingredients. Now it's time to make something for real.

Attempt 4: Asparagus and Tofu in Balsamic Vinegar

Dish: Fresh asparagus and firm tofu cooked in a balsamic vinegar and butter sauce. Taken from a cookbook: New Food Fast, by Donna Hay.

Preparation: Start with butter and balsamic vinegar and gradually add a few things including halved asparagus and finally tofu. It's a very simply prepared dish, which seems to be the point of most of the recipes in that cookbook.

Summary: I made a couple of mistakes with this dish. First, Sherrie Ann was excited to use our asparagus pot and pre-cooked the asparagus. Second, we made an entire batch of asparagus, which while good, was way too much. Third, although the recipe didn't call for it, the tofu should have been marinated.

Outcome: Overcooked asparagus, under-flavored tofu, and the late addition of thyme couldn't be saved by the wonderous balsamic butter sauce taste. Call this one a failure but worth another try. The gas it gave us was rather pungent too.

Attempt 5: Classic Stir Fry

Dish: A classic, simple, vegetable stir fry.

Preparation: Armed with a stocked fridge, including a package of pre-cut stir fry vegetables from the market (and some additional fresh veggies), this should have been a very easy concoction, even without following any recipe.

Summary: Slightly discouraged by my first attempt, and too lazy to dig out the wok again, I cooked this in a large pan. Mistake #1. I started with a little sesame oil and dropped in raw broccoli which was a good start since it was the thickest and needed longest to cook. Mistake #2 -- I didn't use enough oil so the cooking on the broccoli wasn't even. I then added snow peas (so delicious!) and cooked a little more, but added a little water for a more even cooking. I covered the pan to get a little steaming action for a short time. Adding the package of pre-cut veggies and a couple dashes of shoyu, I steamed and cooked a bit longer. Tasting proved mistake #3. I didn't rinse the pre-cut veggies so they had a vinegary taste which I overcompensated with by adding too much shoyu. I also added a few squirts of the classic Thai hot sauce with the green cap. I finished by adding sesame sticks and served.

Outcome: I really should have used the wok. I overcooked everything again, trying to get out the vinegary taste and added way too much shoyu. I also could have used a little less hot sauce. The dish was far too salty. Adding some unsalted peanut butter helped quite a bit but in the end we couldn't finish our servings, me because it was too salty and Sherrie Ann because it was too spicy. Another failure.

Attempt 6: Something with Anaheim Chiles

Dish: I didn't know what I wanted to make, but I know I wanted Anaheim chiles. It turned out to be a scrambled omelet.

Preparation: I was thinking of stuffing the chile but read about roasting them over an open flame in The Joy of Cooking and being the fire bug I am, knew I had to try that. I roasted the chile in the gas stove flame for a couple of minutes and scraped off the skin. Slicing, cleaning and dicing the chiles, I diced an amount of onion to match and chopped up a fair amount of fresh parsley. I added butter in a pan and caramelized the onions and added the chiles while I beat three eggs with the parsley and a handful of mild cheddar cheese. Pouring in the egg mixture, I folded and mixed the onions and chiles and tried to make an omelet. It broke when I folded so it ended up being more of a scrambled egg style dish. I served with about a teaspoon of capers.

Summary: Again an off-the-cuff dish that turned out well. No real mistakes and roasting the chiles was both fun and very tasty.

Outcome: Really quite good. The roasted chiles were awesome and the capers added the needed touch of salt and a counter of sweet. The caramelized onions didn't add any flavor but gave body and the fresh parsley was a great background taste.

What will the next dish be? I don't know, but I now know that a very good large chopping knife is next on the shopping list! I also know that this is just the beginning of a very interesting and fun chapter in my life.

Posted at 07:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 31, 2007

Alaskan Cruise Honeymoon

It was 55F in the middle of July and snow never rested more that a few thousand feet away. We sat huddled at the edge of our bed, bundled in our comfy robes, and peered through the full length glass door from our warm stateroom. The remnants of breakfast in bed sat at the table next to the flat-panel TV which relentlessly pimped the "incredible deals" that awaited us at the next port of call or showed us maps of our journey. Not more than 300 steps away, a widely varied buffet lunch was being prepared for us should we manage to pull ourselves together and make it out the door. Life was good.

We're back from our Alaskan cruise honeymoon, and I must admit that there is something to this whole honeymoon concept. Being pampered amongst the glaciers and pristine wilderness that is southeast Alaska was a wonderful way to spend a week. More food than could be eaten, more activities than could be participated in, enough excursions to fill the entire summer, and the option to just sleep it all off was a fantastic luxury that I'm glad I didn't miss.

There's so much to say but I want to mention a few things for anyone considering such a journey. Some of this may not apply to all cruise lines; we were on the Holland America Line ms Zaandam--a wonderful ship.

1. Do not let anyone dissuade you from packing long johns. It's cold, cold, cold. I wish I had brought my Capilene underwear.

2. Do not take the layering suggestion for granted. Did I mention it's cold?

3. Take several pairs of "all occasions" shoes, A.K.A. sneakers/trainers.

4. Take a windbreaker, along with several sweaters or jackets. It can get chilly.

5. Wal-Mart isn't "just two blocks away" in SE Alaska, so bring your amenities with you.

6. The shops around the ports are tourist traps. You'll still need to go in to get your omiyage, but the more prepared you are for "touristy", the easier it is to see through the kitsch.

7. Do not think about the calorie count. Eat. A lot. You can't help it; food is everywhere, so enjoy every ounce. The food was great and there's a good variety.

8. Afternoon tea/coffee is not to be missed.

9. Even if you're not a show person, go to the evening shows. They're not that long and it's amazing to see what they do on a relatively small stage. There's a fair variety as well.

10. Do not be discouraged by the number of things to do. You won't be able to do everything.

11. It's cold even in summer. The only time I wasn't bundled up was when I was tucked in bed with the A/C off.

12. Enjoy the beautiful scenery. This is what they mean when they say to stop and smell the roses.

Go. It's worth it. Glacier Bay is amazing. The train ride in Skagway is fun.

Seriously. Go.

Posted at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2007

iPhone--In My Hands!

I didn't have to wait long! I'm typing this on my brand new 8g iPhone. Huzzah!

A couple of first impressions:

First, regarding the virtual keyboard, I easily see how people can get frustrated with it. But those people must have a monumentally short attention span or absolutely zero patience. I'm making mistakes, but they're easily correctable with a minimum of fuss and time. I think those naysayers are probably looking for faults rather than giving the device an honest chance. My only gripe thus far is that I keep confusing the backspace and return keys.

Second, it's a bit heavier than I expected (versus my RAZR), but it is far from being too heavy.

About three hours of near constant use and I have no regrets! Yay!

Now back to the wedding plans...

Posted at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2007

My Search for the Holy Grail (aka iPhone)

Right after work, I headed over to AT&T to wait in what I figured would be a small or non-existent line. This is Hilo, after all. With slight surprise, I marched apprehensively past 40-50 people to claim my place at the tail of the snake, preparing myself for both the very long wait and the possibility for going home empty-handed.

Time marched on to the beat of a drummer missing both drum sticks and the drum set itself, and 6pm came with a brief excitement which quickly waned as the queue tightened and halted. Entertained by the evening traffic and a few pedestrians--most looking at the throng of gadget geeks with a mixture of puzzlement, awe and calls of "what are you waiting for?"--I plodded along with the hope of returning home triumphant from the minor achievement of patience.

Night fell as I neared the final steps to the closely guarded and locked portal to an otaku's delight. Fatigue from standing for hours wore on all our faces and the jokes that supplies had depleted became more frequent and rang more of prophecy than mirth.

I fought back the anticipation and anxiousness with inane banter with my fellow enthusiasts, much in the way seat mates on a flight prepare for hours of close quarters with strangers. Talk turned to hypotheticals; "are you going to settle for a 4g model if the 8g are gone?" "Maybe I should have just ordered online."

Few were surprised when the first call rang out, "all of the 8g models are gone." Groans of disappointment and undoubted inaudible curses emanated from stragglers now numbering fewer than 30. Several immediately made for their cars, having exhausted their patience. Most, however, remained; hoping.

Scant minutes later, one of the badged sentries could be seen making a visible head count, only to confer with a counterpart on the inside and report to the faithful that two devices remained. He offered condolences in the form of a glimpse of what remained for us: we could order either device at the store and have it shipped priority, but with no insight as to when such a feat would be executed.

A step or two later, I entered the bright, nearly empty vault. Quicktime videos played at the entrance, taunting me with features, screenshots and near promises that life could be no better were I simply to grasp an iPhone in my tired hands. I was met at the counter by a surprisingly (and refreshingly) cheerful keeper of the gadget gold.

"I only have one left and it's a 4g model."

Should I? Would I? Will I compromise my daydreams and go for less than I wanted? What would I be missing, were I to settle for less?

Then, a brief moment of clarity washed over me. I'll live. The device is not a life saver, nor is it even a necessity. In the grand scheme of "it all," I have so many things to be thankful for that this setback is nothing more than a failed attempt at being one of the few to own something that millions will eventually.

I didn't lose. There is no race.

I placed my order for an 8g iPhone and will certainly eagerly await it. But, more importantly, I'll continue with joy and excitement for my wedding in a week. I've waited 30 some-odd years for that and look forward to how great it will be!

Posted at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2007

2007 Update Summary

So a lot has been going on in my life this year. Here's a quick update on some of the highlights.

Sherrie Ann and I are engaged to be married this summer (July)!

James and I launched a new site design for the UH Hilo web site. It has been quite successful and popular.

The numerous and inconsistent network problems in the new office have finally settled down. It has taken quite a few measures to see them quashed, but life at work is more-or-less back to normal.

I finally made the push and reached level 50 in City of Heroes--quite a feat when soloing. Now I'm trying out the Peacebringer and Warshade archetypes and both are quite interesting. I haven't decided which I like better yet.

I've finally figured out how to get an SVN repository functioning and am slowly building my PHP form validation library using SVN (and possibly NaturalDocs).

Posted at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2006

New Office

I'm in week three of the new office and still getting things settled. The change has been a good one overall for work; but not so easy for personal.

My team and I are now in a work space at least three times as large as the one we moved out of. We have some new furniture, including some nice chairs that are actually meant to be sat in for a full day's duration. We also have about 45 sq. ft. of window space (three 5'×3') windows. The view isn't fantastic but who cares? They're windows! We're also within minutes walking distance from Subway, Akmal, Soontaree's, H&K, 7-11, and more. (See Hilo Eats if not familiar with these.) Oh, and parking isn't a problem now, woot!

The drawback to being off-campus is of course the lack of convenience. I can't just hop over to the cafeteria, coffee cart, or bookstore. Also, since Sherrie Ann and I carpool, our commute time has doubled (to about 30 minutes a day :D ). I also can't meet with faculty/staff very easily, but that wasn't a daily event so it's not too bad.

All-in-all, the move is a positive one. We'll see how it pans out over the next (projected) five years.

As for the rest of life, it's about time to start xmas shopping. Happy birthday to Jr. and Austin. And Happy Holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and/or end of 2006.

Posted at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2006

Moving Offices

Today I start seriously packing up my office for a move to another building off-campus. They're making room for more instructional people so some of us non-instruction staff are moving to the Kilauea Financial Plaza (where Merill Lynch and the Hilo NOAA offices are). We have a five-year lease in the new building, so it's going to be interesting with the move. The really big inconvenience is that S.A. and I share one car so the morning and afternoon rituals will have to change. Ah well. We'll make do.

More after the move.

Posted at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)

November 21, 2006

New Life Goal

I'm contemplating a new life goal. Make it thru one of these. I don't know how good the chocolate is that Frango makes, but just the prospect of 25 pounds of chocolate and mint is what dreams are certainly made of.

Of course, there are cheaper avenues and much more expensive ones. But damn. 25 lbs. That's good times!

Posted at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2006

Inadvertant Experiments in Fatigue

I've been enslaved by the glowing screen of pixels these past few days into the wee hours of the mornings--so much so that today has been a very strange experience.

The fun started when I was browsing my RSS feed reader's Fark headlines. This particular headline caught my eye:

[Amusing] In case you ever wondered, yes, a cat will sit still long enough for you to tape a strip of bacon to it (SFW)

SFW stands for Safe For Work and is used in conjuction with a headline implying the article is inappropriate for work but actually isn't. NSFW obviously means don't look while there are other eyes nearby or an Orwellian network policy.

I figured there would be a cute picture and move on, but the article was brilliant. See for yourself and be sure to read the text and comments. This brought tears to my eyes. The gorgeous cat looks completely unharmed--even uninspired--and the text and comments really pull together for a wonderful package. One of the comments on Fark led to another cute but not as funny site: Stuff On My Cat. The subtitle (Stuff + Cats = Awesome) is absolutely beautiful and evokes a couple more tears of giddiness.

I began to suspect that my pronounced lack of sleep fatigue was amplifying my merriment, but continued with my day of coding.

Later in the day, I was writing a function to convert user input to ANSII date format (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) and stumbled across further proof that being really tired amplifies my jockularity. Here is the line that struck me as odd.

  return date('Y-m-d H:i:00', strtotime($date.' '.().':'.()));

I completed the parentheses first to minimize the chance of a syntax error (many of which I had already made earlier in my dimished capacity for focused programming). While looking at that line, I saw a lobster! Yes, here is my contribution to the lovely world of ASCII art (mono-spaced font preferred):

  ().':'.()
or 
  Y.':'.Y

Either I thought this was particularly clever because I'm not, as we say in The Business, "all there," or I really have stumbled upon something of such underwhelming import as to invoke the desire to blog about it. Regardless, I share it with you here. Enjoy!

Posted at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

Matisyahu

It's been a while since i was really excited about a particular musical artist. There have been particular tracks that were inspiring from different artists, but not for a very long time have I been able to rate an entire album (Youth) in iTunes with 3+ stars.

I'd heard about Matisyahu [via Wikipedia] on the news last year but only as a "hey, that's cool." When I was driving home last night, I heard a track on Da Beat that was a very interesting mixture of reggae and rock. It was Matisyahu's track, King Without a Crown. Moving. The whole album has a very non-traditional but very appetizing fusion of reggae, rock, hip-hop, and ballad with a small taste of beatboxing.

His voice has an "underground" quality to it in that it hasn't been honed and filtered by 30 albums. It's surprisingly easy to see that as part of his charm, however and adds a specific element not found in traditional reggae. The interesting mix of skills his band provides furthers the uniquess that makes his works so good.

The album: Youth [via iTunes].
The track: King Without a Crown [via iTunes].
A video [via YouTube]:

Posted at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2006

Flickr

For xmas, I received a Canon PowerShot SD450. It's a nice compact, fast, quality digital camera that will allow me to take actual pictures instead of fuzzy blurs from my cell phone. I'm quite pleased with the device and hope to capture some visuals of value.

It's been many years (1988?) since I had the responsibility of commiting life to film so my skills are lacking; but it should be a nice journey and fun at that. Naturally, there is more to the camera than just taking pictures, and I've enlisted the help of the rather slick photo sharing site Flickr. Some of the earlier pictures are test photos or pics from other sources, but this is where I'll be depositing some of my work. Now, I just need the weather to cooperate so I can go outside for a few snaps.

Posted at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

The Passion of the Lion

We saw The Chronicles of Narnia this weekend and given all the religious fervor surrounding it, I must say the Christian groups are really reaching.

Overall, the movie was about as good as can be expected from the previews. It is a visual feast with average acting, average direction and ample tie-in opportunity. The story is obviously meant for a younger audience and the movie seems to cater well enough to that crowd. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Narnia has that "it" that people thought the latest Harry Potter movie lacked; I'm just not sure what that "it" is.

The Christian angle is present, but like nearly anything now, it has been completely blown out of proportion compliments of overabundant news coverage. The sacrifice, the resurrection, the tolerance, the prophecy... we get it. The (intended) parallels are there, but given the amount of hype the connection was given made the movie-going experience a bit clouded for me. I kept looking for parallels that weren't there. "Does the lamp post represent the burning bush? The forces of 'good' sure seem to incorrectly look a lot like Roman soldiers; why?" And so on.

The biggest feature of the movie for me was the incredible job they did with the creatures. Clearly, the puppeteers and animators have easily lept the Uncanny Valley as there were very few odd movements that brought the fake. I found myself just marvelling at the incredible colors, textures and mechanics of some of the fantastic creatures. Even the rendering of Jesu...the lion was enough to distract me from the rough acting of the kids. Granted, they weren't Anakin Skywalker bad, but more on par with Harry Potter bad.

If you're on the fence about seeing the movie, go see it. The religious corollaries are easy enough to ignore and the visual splendor for a good part of the film will keep you well enough distracted from the average elements.

Posted at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2005

LiveCD vs. Manual TCP/IP

Gonna get a bit technical on this one, but it's information so simple yet seemingly difficult to find on the net.

First, some background. A LiveCD is an operating system that runs entirely off a CD ROM. Download the LiveCD ISO, burn it, boot up the computer using the CD and you have a fully armed and operational battle stati... err workstation. Save your settings and files to a USB drive and you have a portable work environment that you can use on nearly any computer. Usually these LiveCDs are some flavor of linux.

The problem I've encountered is that all the live cds assume you're connected to a network with DHCP, and I'm sure by and large most people who would use a LiveCD would need that functionality. But at work, I need to specify the network settings manually.

So here's a quick setup guide that should work for most LiveCDs. Replace [x number] with the actual number sans brackets.

# ifconfig eth0 [IP Number] netmask 255.255.255.0
# route add default gw [Gateway number]
# nano /etc/resolv.conf
search [search domain]
nameserver [DNS IP #1]
nameserver [DNS IP #2]

Of course this is only a session fix. Next time you boot, you'll need to go thru the same steps. I'm sure there's some files somewhere to edit to make this a permanent thing with settings on USB drive.

Why it took hours of googling and bothering my sysadmin to get something that simple is beyond me. That seems to be the largest hurdle for the jump to linux. Everyone either assumes you're a linux guru or is too elitist to care about n00b problems. :P

Posted at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2005

Trekkin'

No, it's not Trekkin' as in the Star Trek series (ewww). It's Trekkin' as in a Trek 4500! My recent venture into exploring freelance employment has been interesting and a lot of work, but I finally cashed in the fruits of my labor and bought a mountain bike.

It has been around 18 years since I rode a bike with any real frequency and nearly as many years since I plopped down in front of a computer. Now, I battle 5-degree grades with copious amounts of sweat and hyperventilation. I've been rather lucky in that the weather has cooperated such that in the thirteen days that since its purchase, I've gotten to ride the bike for eleven days.

Apart from the effects of the sudden and drastic change in personal activity level, it's been a good investment. I think the diameter of my thighs have already grown 1/3 of an inch. Gee, that's what muscle tone was like--I'd forgotten. :)

Anyway, I hope you have (or had) a pleasant turkey day. Gobble, gobble!

Posted at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2005

Hard Time

I was sitting at my desk, toiling away on a web site with music playing on my G4 laptop to my left and heard a rather strange tune. It was much like a mistracked scratch or strange drum line but with an air of "uh-oh" about it. I quickly muted the speakers and the sound continued.

Ah, I recognize that sound. I haven't heard it for quite some time, thankfully. It was the horrific sound of the heads on the hard drive physically crashing. A reboot confirmed that I was now the proud owner of an aluminum doorstop. Fortunately, I have the AppleCare Protection Program, so now I get to see how well they take care of their customers. Oh boy! :P

Posted at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2005

Programming zone

I've been rather quiet the past month and a half or so as I've been deep within the bowels of the PHP language working on my Content Management System (CMS).

Beyond that, I've been sitting in on a Graphics and Game Programming class as school. The primary development platform is Flash so it's fairly easy and rapidly deployable. Flash is rather fun once you get around a few hurdles, and it's surprisingly powerful. I've already managed to use it to improve the kiosk campus events scrollers on display around campus. Wheee!

Anyway, back to work.

Posted at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2005

3 x 5-7-5

Content management --
Both my headache and savior;
I think in objects.

Style sheets, data,
Users, news, syndication;
What is sanity?

Long week, long hours, lights;
The even longer weekend.
I need air, tea, sleep.

Posted at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2005

Minute Confluence Geo Tagging

Can you see the spot? There's a minute confluence point right there. (Well, to be technical, the picture is taken from the supposed confluence point, but considering there's a margin of error of 6 meters, it could actually be in the photo.)

So what's a minute confluence point? Lattitude and Longitude degree lines were devised to divide the earth into more consumable chunks. Because even these chunks are large, the degrees are further split into minutes and seconds. A minute confluence is where these minute lines intersect. Read GeoProjectUSA.com for a better description.

Anyway, on to answering the next question; geo tagging is the visiting of these confluences and documenting what's there. This involves looking at maps, more maps, and of course, google maps then traipsing about with a GPS, camera, and umbrella (being Hilo and all) playing a game of find-the-zeros. After a bizarre dance of side-stepping and spinning about, success can be attained with golden numbers such as 19°42'0"N 155°5'0"W.

Isn't that exciting, kids?

Actually, it was rather entertaining. The sloughing through streets and brush and traffic, was tempered by the mesmerizing dance of liquid crystal 42.001s and 41.999s looking for the lovely triple zero. The triumph may be minor and a complete mystery to the myriad of the various onlookers, but that was all part of the strange new geo tagging game.

Posted at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 08, 2005

Change is Relative

Change is relative, and I'm not talking about the stuff rolling around between the couch cushions. For me, this weekend has been very much a visit to the past.

Ben Discoe, a good friend from Parker School, visited with his new wife, Debra. I hadn't seen him in ages and many memories of high school were discussed or triggered.

On Sunday, Sherrie Ann and I took a round-the-island trip with stop-overs at Hapuna beach and south Kona. Hapuna was quite nice with low surf (but choppy); body surfing and otherwise frolicking in the sand and waves further drew images, smells, sounds, and feelings from my childhood spent on that side of the island. South Kona deepened the experience as I met people whom I'd either not seen or have known for two-thirds or more of my life.

And yet, all of this nostalgia was sprinkled with the salt and pepper of change. A healthy dash of new housing development here, a speckle of new stop lights and stores and roads there. However, besides being more crowded and less open than before, the Big Island hasn't changed much over the past 30ish years. Of course, any of us who've spent time here could site specific points at every turn as to how it's different, but the overall feeling is much of how it was back then.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that not only has everything changed, nothing has.

Posted at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2005

Back in town

I returned from the trip to Ohio with only minimal blood loss. It was certianly an eye-openner and restored the truth to the axiom "lucky you live in Hawaii."

I have stared directly into the eyes of a red state where suburbia stretches beyond comprehension and it's probably an actual law to have an American flag or similar stars and stripes paraphernalia displayed on your: a) front door, b) front window, c) car, d) t-shirt, e) children, and f) dog. I wasn't aware that confirming one's loyalty was just a matter of $20 worth of red, white and blue. It's very much the band-aid approach of modern American society: appearance plays catcher to outfielder while substance just warms the bench.

There's a significant advantage to Hawaii not having a majority ethnic population. It really helps even out the stereotyping and bigotry that can breed so easily when the scales of prevalence are tipped so drastically.

Here's some observations in no particular order (cause that's the best kind of order).


Overall, the trip went well. It was more of a surreal experience than a vacation, but given that some of it was digitial detox, that was to be expected. I did meet a bunch of nice folks and got a very different taste of life. Nothing to evoke an epiphany but still rather interesting.

Posted at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2005

Gearing up for the mainland

Next week launches my trip to the mainland. I've made the trek countless times and each one seems a little harder to take. I'd say it's a ripe mixture of fewer liberties, fear mongering, and good old fashion age. But thankfully, there are new pain killers to help offset these. The most recent is my PSP. With movies, games, music, etc., the 7-8 hour flight should almost be tolerable. Ah, whom am I kidding? It should at least help until the battery dies. This will also be my first trip on American Airlines. But I suspect all airlines continue to change significantly in their thrashing throes of thlipping thales (sorry, alliterative license).

I've not quite entered the "what the hell am I going to pack" stage--that's usually an hour before it's time to head to the airport, but I have a ritual of thinking about thinking about packing well in advance. It goes well with my procrastination. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

Regardless, I'm hoping it will be a successful trip to a part of the country I've never been.

In preparation, I've already weened myself off of World of Warcrack. But I found both a new and old habit to keep my occupied until the flight: Battlefield 2 (single player), and Master of Magic.

MoM, released in 1995, is quite possibly the best strategy game of all time. Not for it's depth of strategy, but simply for the pure and simple enjoyment it brings. Like all games, it suffers from bugs and play quirks, but damn it all if I can't stop playing it.

Posted at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2005

Slippery Slope

Several opportunities have been popping up for freelance web work. I'm undecided as to whether to take them, as that would be, in essence, bringing work home--strictly verbotin! But the extra money would certainly help out. Decisions, decisions.

Back in high school and for several years into college, I ran a consulting business (fixed computers, taught software, removed virii, etc.), and there was a specific peace gained when I stopped taking on clients. Do I grow up and deal with that again?

Posted at 05:26 PM | Comments (1)

March 22, 2005

March Madness?

Ok, so I haven't updated in a long time. Too bad. Here's a short one of what's been going on.

My World of Warcraft addiction is still in full swing. There's a big content patch today so the servers are about as stable as a soup sandwich.

I recently attended a conference in Honolulu for work. One session was great, some ok, and some induced paralytic narcolepsy. :P As with any conference, though, it was the people networking that was the best part of it. Spending a few days in Honolulu wasn't bad either. I got to eat Curry House again, w00t!

With the demise of PastePad, I've written my own online clipboard. The url isn't as friendly as pastepad, but at least this way it will be around as long as I am.

I got a new cell phone: the Motorola RAZR V3. The phone is really sweet and Bluetooth so rocks! The camera on it is pretty crappy, but not paying Verizon to use the camera more than makes up for that. In fact, not paying Verizon for anything sure feels good.

Posted at 09:39 AM | Comments (2)

January 26, 2005

Oh yeah, the blog

It's not that I've forgotten the blog--it's just that regurgitating my adventures in and obsession with World of Warcraft hasn't changed since the last post. WoW still garners a significant portion of my life and, for the most part, it has been rather enjoyable.

The downsides are, of course, lack of human contact, lack of sleep, and lack of ability to stop thinking about WoW for more than an hour or two. ;)

Anyway, I've also been writing a new PHP-based gallery system for use in various projects. One of which happens to be integrated with the Natural Hazards Hawaii site I just re-launched. Fortunately, the content provider has been very receptive to suggestions and after an initial dubious reaction to the self-service gallery system, has been excited about its capabilities. Time will tell as to how extensive the gallery system will turn out to be, but simplicity from the users' and visitors' perspectives is a key goal (as it should be with any self-service site).

In other non-sequitur and miscellaneous news, today is a much needed reprieve from the vog; congratulations to Angel, Ernie and Avalon; I've almost completely stopped coughing from the december illness; and I've finally tasted a decent Malbec since the extraordinary deLormier 2000--I just need to do some maintenance on my wine log.

Posted at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2004

World of Warcraft -- The Dark Side

World of Warcraft (WoW) is, by the Star Wars definition, the Dark Path of the Force. I think about WoW far too often. It's engaging, engrossing and most importantly, entertaining. When one wants to just cruise around, it's easy and spectacular in environment variations. When one wants to group up with other adventurers, it's easy and much can be accomplished. When one wants to play solo, there isn't a problem of being the wrong class/skillset/level/race/etc. When one isn't playing, one wants to play.

Simultaneous curses and kudos to Blizzard for WoW. Now I just have to make it another 3 hours before I can play some more. ;)

Posted at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2004

Back in the Gamer's Zone

It's been the better half of a year since I faithfully dedicated too much time to gaming. The drudgery that EverQuest had become wore thin and while City of Heroes was an incredibly entertaining replacement, sadly the best part of the game was creating new characters.

Enter fourth-quart 2004: Sims 2, Doom 3, Evil Genius, Half-Life 2, Halo 2, EverQuest 2, World of Warcraft. Here's a short breakdown of how I see these (some of this is also in the gaming section).

Sims 2: Fun romp thru familiar Sims territory and had other, more actively stimulating games not come along, I would have put more time into this one. Definately a game to revisit on the next games dry spell.

Doom 3: Engrossing, entertaining, and tired. It was fun to play thru once, but without a $600 video card, it's not astounding. It basically brings nothing new to the FPS genre.

Evil Genius: Fantastically fun and humorus until the weight of micromanagement crashes down upon the player mid-game. There are three aspects of the game that require full-time attention: base building, base protecting, and world map activity management. Two of these can be managed fairly well, but adding a third just makes the game more frustrating than fun.

Half-Life 2: By far the best FPS I've played and definately in the top ten games of all time. Was a bitch to install and get to work initially and suffers from frequent and long "Loading..." interruptions though. Still, immediately after beating the game, I played thru it again.

Halo 2: Haven't put much time into this game yet, but so far it looks polished and entertaining much as the previous one, but suffers greatly from the lack of a usable controller. Using a console controller on an FPS is like paddling a canoe with a two-by-four.

EverQuest 2: Basically only a sequel in name as this game "borrows" so many corrections to EQ1 that other games had made. It suffers from heavy video card requirements like Doom 3, but I imagine with the right hardware, both games are simply stunning visual masterpieces. But, after my fifth run thru the Isle of Refuge, trying different characters, it got old. Really fast.

World of Warcraft: Here's where the majority of my time will be spent. Polished, clean, forgiving, generous, and a visual treat, this game has a lot going for it once you can log in. I had to move off the PvP server where other friends were because the anti-griefing hasn't been implemented and getting cleaned out by bullies unwilling to pick on people their own size/level.

Now, back to work so I can pay for all this gaming. ;)

Posted at 07:43 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2004

Gaming Otaku

Well, EQ2 was released. The first one only consumed five years of my life. We'll see what this one does. So far, it's been a very different game than EQ1 and yet vaguely similar. I guess the closest I can describe the experience is going from a 1989 Honda Accord to a 2004 Honda Accord (not what I have). It's still a car and it's still a Honda Accord, but beyond that, they're entirely different machines.

There is a ton of content in EQ2 and the gaming experience is very engaging with a lot of mood, flavor, story, and emotion. It's an intensely immersive world (or pair of worlds--one aligned good and the other not so much). This is evident in the fact that last night I dreamt of elements of the game. Not a big deal? Well, in the five years of EQ1, I only had two dreams that related in any way to the game. Sadly though, this dream also had elements of the nearly ultimate in geekdom: LARPing. /shiver

Anyway, I've been way overdue on blog entries, but frankly with an incredible workload at the office and a plethora of good games available, blogging isn't a high priority. :)

Posted at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

October 08, 2004

So very tired

So... much... hate... for dogs. I'm beginning to hate dogs more than I hate stupid people. And that's saying a mouth full.

Fortunately, work has been fairly stimulating and this week has gone by really fast because I've been so engrossed in several projects. I'll post the link to a site I'm particularly proud of once it goes live.

You'd think that as an Evil Genius I would hire henchmen to take care of the day-to-day operation of my underground base. But this time, I started a new game and have planned out my base a lot better with a lot more room for expansion. Hopefully it will help. rawr!

Posted at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2004

Carpal Tunnel Part 2

Ahh, it's been quite a few months since I've been in the gamer groove. My wrist is down from really sore to just a dull ache. ;)

With such a dearth of good games for pretty much the entire year, there's now a flood of promising games coming out. Doom 3, Sims 2, Evil Genius, World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Half Life 2, Halo 2, and more. Of course, as any gamer can tell you, probably half or less of that list will actually see daylight by xmas--but hey, even if that's the case, it's still a good group. Sims 2 and Doom 3 have already proven to be winners and the demo for Evil Genius was quite fun. So far, I haven't been selected for the WoW or EQ2 betas, but the games should be out soon (in theory) and the buzz has been promising.

This weekend, I paced my gaming a bit to keep the CTS down to a managable level. During the downtime, I was cleaning house a bit and saw my wine collection in the cupboard. I had just recently cataloged all of my books using a nice program called, curiously, Books. I figured I'd do the same for wines. There weren't any wine cellar programs that looked interesting, so I wrote my own, stole some layout and graphics from Karen's Flog and SquidFingers. The result is my Wine Log (or wlog). As I find time, I'll clean it up and make it more personalized and customizable--possibly over a glass of wine.

Posted at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2004

The White Light at the End of the Carpal Tunnel

The Sims 2 wasn't the only thing I played this weekend, although I did get quite a few good play hours in. I also finally got to experience the newly released Doom 3 demo.

First thing on Monday morning, my right wrist ached like hell. It's been quite a while since I had a good CTS attack since it's usually been tennis elbow instead. But only today has my wrist actually felt better. I've not played any games since Sunday; babying it has helped and watching Star Wars on DVD has allowed me to do that.

So anyway, back to Doom 3. As with previous iterations, Doom 3 is a swirling palette of brown, black and red with occasional swatches of silver, yellow, blue and green. When people say the game is dark, they're most likely talking about the actual graphics, not the story. My nVidia 5200 is barely able to pump out better than 640x480 with reasonable frame rates and graphic options turned on. But that said, even at such a crappy resolution, the game is still ground breaking. The models and textures are extremely well done and the game is abundant in the oft overlooked gameplay element: mood. The story, while tired and overused, is presented in an incredibly engrossing manner.

When my wrist heals up some more, I just might have to buy the full game and spend another week or two in pain. Ahh, such is the life of a gamer. ;)

On a side note, I've been very impressed with the NewsFire RSS reader for the Mac. It's clean and simple--something a lot of software authors incorrectly consider poor design.

Posted at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2004

Oh no... The Sims 2

It's taken a gazillion expansions and innumerable years, but The Sims have reared their heads again in The Sims 2. Yet again they become a threat to productivity and bring life to a grinding halt.

There is a bit of MMORPG/skinners influence to the game as creating a Sim is now mired in screen after screen of clothing choices and facial attributes (structure, makeup, accessories, hair styles, etc). It doesn't come close to the same level of enjoyment when customizing your hero in City of Heroes, but it's certainly entertaining to play with endless possibilities. And I'm sure it was a decision they consciously made, but this game has broken the mold for character customization and not provided a breast size modification option.

The engine has also been upgraded to a fully 3D environment. The controls are a little clumsy. You press and hold the mouse wheel for rotation and angle, but many mice don't have wheels that are really meant for click and hold.

The new animation is fantastic. The 3D models allow for subtle things like one character looks up from what they are doing and watches another character, whom they are interested in (good or bad), walks by. Simple actions such as cooking and serving food and sitting down for a bit are also much more fun to watch now.

Sadly, it's still The Sims in many respects. 2 also suffers from the time discontinuity that 1 suffered from. A Sim can change clothes in Tazmanian devil whirl, yet it takes them 20 (game) minutes to walk from a back room to the car waiting to take them to work.

All said, it's a very interesting and time consuming game and promises to be one in which you don't experience the entirety of the game until after many many many hours of play. Now I just dread the possibility of 17 expansions for The Sims 2. :P

Posted at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2004

Mmmm...Mac

Ok, so I haven't come up with an epiphany, or some sort of mind-melting mental masturbation, but what I have done is some brainless code cleaning. Working on someone else's code--especially someone who wasn't trained properly--is very much like, well, metaphors fail me at the moment. There's so much cleaning up, moving stuff around, fixing broken code, and cursing the coder's mentors for passing on all the wrong bad habits that the brain just shuts down after a while and goes into cruise control. There's no thought involved in fixing broken code after the "code" of the code has been broken. Like that one? I'm proud of it. :)

Fortunately my episodes of mental drudgery have been interrupted by the arrival of a new tool. This machine is fantastic and it all started with bypassing another computer chore--file migration. I turned on the laptop, and it asked me if I wanted to migrate from an old machine. I did, but was afraid of looking thru the gigs of files and folders to determine what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to move. It prompted me thru a short series of steps:
1. Plug the two machines together with a FireWire cable.
2. Restart the other machine and hold down the T key to boot it as a FireWire external hard drive.
3. Click "Copy my shit." (or, something like that)

About an hour later, it had copied over 27 gigs of settings, applications, data files, music, pictures and system settings. Another set of steps:
1. Unplug the FireWire cable.
2. Shut off the iMac and remove the network cable (because I'm using a fixed IP, they would cause network fits if they were both on at the same time).
3. Click "Continue." I don't remember if the Powerbook rebooted or not.

The next thing I saw was the familiar desktop from my iMac, on the Powerbook. Everything was as it was on the iMac--only on a 1.5Ghz G4/1G RAM. The pain of moving was gone. Simply, utterly, overly amazing. Bravo Apple. Bravo!

Now, if only moving houses had been that easy. :P

Posted at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2004

Moving Electronically

I'm rather amazed at how much of the move was accomplished electronically. I changed the address on nearly all of my magazine subscriptions online via (poorly designed) web sites and a few others via emails to customer service addresses. My postal service address was changed online for $1. Credit Cards were easy as well.

Surprisingly, on Amazon.com it was difficult to change my address. I had ordered a few things and didn't realize until I got the confirmation email that I had forgotten to change my address to the new one. I followed their FAQ to change address and it wouldn't let me make corrections where it said I should. I had to hunt and fight and circle around a few times to figure out how to make the changes and still I'm not sure I got all that I should have. Boo on them!

Of course, every day, I think of someplace else that I need to update my address. :P

Posted at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2004

As Good As Done

Well, there's still a few boxes to hide and unpack, but we're basically moved in... w00t! Tossing stuff was painful but great. I put in well over 300 miles between the two houses and the dump (houses 2.4m apart and dump maybe 3-4m away from either. There's still another run or two to the dump to go, but there are no longer huge piles of junk (except in our closets, perhaps).

As if to signify the end of the moving ordeal, I actually got a decent night's sleep last night! I'd forgotten what waking from a restful slumber was like--bliss!

I just received some photos of Karen and Nino's wedding in the mail. Truly, it was a fantastic event and filled with emotions nothing short of happiness and fun.

Posted at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2004

Almost There...

The wheels are finally going into motion! We sign the lease agreement today and bring the prorated rent check this afternoon. Tomorrow morning I pick up the key and wait at the new place for the utilities to show up and install. Apparently specifying a general time of day is not possible because time pieces haven't been invented yet that measure time with any resolution finer than Wednesday. So, rather than moving, I will do some routine inspection and wait for Wednesday for people to show up to service their customer. :P

I've also decided that for the inspection, I'm going to not only document damage via the normal form, but also with a digital camera. Sadly, I should have done that with my current/former house because the property manager has shown just how much of an asshole can be possible and there is little to no doubt that he's going to try and pin stuff on me that was broken/dilapidated prior to my moving in. The house was a piece of shit when we moved in, and we're leaving it as a relatively same pile of shit. At least it should be a sparkling pile after the cleaners we hire get thru with it.

This weekend was basically one huge dump run. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the amount of stuff one can collect over the years is both impressive and seemingly impossible. I've taken so much trash to the dump, I can't imagine fitting it all back in my room. It sure feels good to do a huge cleansing tho. If I weren't so lazy, I'd do it more often.

Posted at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2004

Fear and Loathing -- in Hilo

The next stage of moving is starting to set in...Dread. All this waiting has allowed me time to think too much about this move. I've discarded mountainous piles of trash, memorabilia, documentation, photos, mysterious objects and more. And yet, as I've started boxing up stuff, there's a surprising plethora of stuff I either cannot throw out or actually still use.

I keep trying to envision how I should lay out my new room and each time, it's an unrealistic minimalist vision. I see simple objects and contents without the inevitable clutter that follows me. Could I live with just those few things that I see in my woolgathering? Could my sty turn modern? I guess one way to find out is to just store all my boxes of crap and see what I can live without.

Sadly, thru different circumstances, many Floridians are evaluating their life of possessions in much the same way. After uncle Charley came to town, many, I imagine, are wondering exactly how much of their lives they're going to try to return to and how much they can let go of. I certainly count myself as being on the fortunate side of such a self-realization, but ultimately the raw emotions/sentiments are of the same core.

Now to shift gears. In case you've read previous blog posts about my move, you'll also notice another (possibly unfortunate) result of having too much time prior to the move: I have time to be overly philosophical about moving. While I don't subscribe to specifics about the idiom, the intent certainly rings true of: the devil makes work for idle hands. I definately haven't been idle, but I've had far too much time to self-actualize, and let me just say--when the id, ego and super-ego have a pow-wow, you know it's time to look for something else to keep you busy. ;)

Posted at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2004

The Waiting Game

Waiting, waiting, waiting. It's good that we (well two of the four of us) started throwing out old junk as soon as the move was initiated. Every weekend has been at least one dump run, packing the back of my hatchback with boxes and boxes of stuff. It's simply amazing how much we can accumulate over the years. I'm glad we didn't wait until now to start tossing junk. The pressure isn't nearly as bad as it would be if we had just started cleaning/simplifying now--two weeks prior to moving.

But, prepping early has had a reverse effect of sorts. It's given me extra free time to think about the move without the pressure of preparing and so I have been experiencing an overinflated case of "senior-itis." I just want to move and get it over with already. Sadly, the new place isn't ready for us yet, so it's just a waiting game. We can't pack up a lot of stuff because then we're just living in, around and out of boxes. And we can't sit idle because that's just boring and frustratingly inefficient. So the best we can do for now is just toss stuff out and go shopping for new stuff. :)

Posted at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

August 07, 2004

Moving House

It's time for a new house. The circumstances behind the impetus to move are sad, frustrating, infuriating and several other -ing words not suitable for general consumption. Regardless, the fact of the matter is we're moving at the end of this month.

Normally, I go to sleep quickly, rarely wake up during the night, and would be woken by Rene San Miguel and Kathleen Kennedy on CNN Headline News. After the (IMO) premature termination of my lease, I would wake 1.5 to 2 hours earlier than my TV is set to turn on. Yesterday, we found out we were accepted for a lease on a house which is a great step up from the "College" style house I've been in for 11 years. I would have thought having the pressure of searching for a new place lifted would have improved my sleeping, but oh no. That would be just too easy, now wouldn't it?

Asleep by 11:30 right after Family Guy. Awake at 12. Asleep a minute later and awake again at 12:30. Asleep again a minute later and 3:37--fully awake. What the hell?!?! All I can think about is dealing with getting the utilities moved, dealing with moving crap, and making sure the house is clean. Moving happens during a stressful time at work (the semester starts that week), and life will be going thru a massive change.

We'll see what tonight brings. Hopefully sweet, sweet slumber. And hopefully whining here and generally feeling sorry for myself will help as well. ;)

Posted at 02:42 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2003

Maturing Education

For me, higher education was more of an exercise in regurgitation than that of actual learning what I was being taught. Deadlines, research papers, exams, laboratory exercises and dealing with the paperwork involved in attending school was counter-productive to the actual learning process.

I learned the most when working as a student and working on individual/team class projects where we were given nearly carte blanche. I was free to develop my own ideas and see them to fruition without the constraints of fighting with a topic I had little to no interest in.

It was with the personal projects that I really got to use, understand and create with the rudimentary foundation that is only the first few classes of a discipline. Over the many years since I've been out of school and utilizing my education, bits and pieces of that foundation have crept back into my normal repetoire of skills--but really only those that I used in a free project. Because I was interested in the project during school, I actually learned the skills rather than memorized enough to spit back on an exam.

It's a shame that so much of education isn't focused on learning. I won't deny that there is value in the exposure gained by hearing, noting and then rewriting on a test, but that value is considerably diminshed when compared with actual retention learning.

Posted at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2003

Server Disaster

There's nothing quite like one's net connection going down to kill project development. Of course, this also brings new ferver to getting stuff done as well.

One of my web servers at work, an antiquated server really, decided to take itself down and a few subnets with it. Everyone who came in to work and turned on their machine in three different subnets all were greeted with "that IP address is already being used by another machine." Fun. :P One of the techs said that it very well could have been the 3Com card in the machine. He'd dealt with other 3Com cards wiping out networks when they went bad.

Or the machine could have been hacked. We couldn't find any trace of such after a rather extensive search. Maybe we just weren't looking in the right places.

Anyway, I've been rebuilding stuff from that server and putting out related fires. I was in the gradual process of phasing out that server anyway, but I didn't want to do it all at once.

And to top this all off, every time I type the word disaster, I keep typing distaster. Of all words to spell incorrectly, I guess that's a good one, eh? :)

Posted at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)