Learning

Today I learned that The Little Boy teaches me more then I teach him. In him I can see my bad and good habits. He teaches me that hating traffic is something you are born with and is not learned. That a 4 year old can drive better then many adults. He has taught me that there are many more uses for a cresent wrench than I originally thought including, pry bar and dispilinary tool for the dog.  I've learned that when I'm in the garage working on something, that he wants to be there too. And more importantly, that he really wants to help work on whatever I am working on, be it a car or a cutting a piece of wood. I've learned that it's hard to argue with the logic of a strong willed 4 year old, especially when they think they are right. I've learned that starting the morning by watching cartoons and not the news is the best way to start your day.

Retro Phones of the Future

I fought getting a cellphone for the past 4 years. I had one in 1999 and after a two hour long phone interview while driving in evening traffic, I decided that I just didn't need that kind of stress. Now I have one, I have had one for about 6 months now. Of course mine is cool geekware. At the time I got it, it was the smallest phone that had bluetooth and all the other groovy things that the new phones have. For the most part its been a great phone. However I have found that accessories are a little slim for it. Then I come across this site POKIA. I am not sure whether to think this is really cool, ore really dumb. After looking through the site some more, I fined the ultimate in Retro meets techno. The Dj Convoy, because there is nothing better than making something big and bulking connect to something small and convenient. Don't get me wrong, I do think it is kind of a cool idea. It just doesn't seem that pratical is all.

Mac guy trapped in a PC world

At heart I am a Apple computer guy. I have always loved their designs. The OS is so much easier to use, and prettier to boot. However I make my living writing code for and on Microsoft machines. But I am still a Mac guy trapped in a PC world. Engadget.com has a great article on how to make your PC look like you are running OS X. So yes, you still have the beige box, but at least what is on the screen looks a whole lot cooler.

Upgrading your G3 Powerbook

A G3 Powerbook is still a great computer. I would love to have one, the design, the keyboard it is all poetry, with the exception of one thing. A design flaw that has been haunting Mac fans for a long time. For some reason Apple made the backlit logo upsidedown. Well, one guy couldn't take it any more. This is his story.

Coordinating colors for the rest of us

Not all of us have taken color theory classes and know which shades of purple compliment green. Fortunately behr paint has made it easy. The other day My Beautiful Wife and I were in Home Depot and played with this really cool computer kioski that had a color scanner and color coordination in one easy to use interface. They also have the same thing sans the color scanner online. http://www.behr.com/behrx/workbook

Bored?

So here is something to do if you are bored http://www.holdthebutton.com/

10 minutes before the next meeting

So I know the blog hasn't been getting much love lately. I do intend to resolve that little issue. Work has been kind of nuts lately. I have the whole home banking conversion thing going on, which requires a lot of planning and quiet time. Of course there are about eight other , top priority projects that need instant attention as well. Now this is a little bit of an enigma to me, how can there be eight top priority projects. By the definition of the word priority should there only be one, maybe two?

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, we are going to upgrade the Database server here at work. Now this is something that we have tried to do once before, and the results were less then stellar so we put it back like it was before. I firmly believe that IT people should subscribe to the same hippocratic oath that doctors do: "do no harm". Nothing is worse then working on a computer and making it worse then it was before you touched it.

This weekend was alot of fun. First My Beautiful Wife and I had a fieldtrip to Fry's. After two hours and two DVDs later, we decided it was time to leave that techno-wonderland. Then on sunday My Beautiful Wife, the Little Boy and I got to go to Disneyland. It has been a while since we had been. (mostly because a. it was too hot,  b.it was tourist season and 3. because our annual passports where blacked out). It was amazing how short the lines were. The longest line was 30 minutes. Well, my outlook alert just popped up telling me it's time for another meeting.

 

 

The Garage Is Clean

Today, was a day, but they all are aren't they. Anyhow one of the goals of the three day weekend was to clean the garage. A daunting task to be sure, but we did it. To our amazement, it only took 6 hours. Now I know what you are thinking, 6 hours is a long time. Well it is, but we expected it to take a couple of days. So 6 hours seems like gift.

We worked in stages, I took the early shift, I got out there at 6:45am (yes, I really wanted to beat the heat) and started the heavy duty cleaning and sweeping. By 7:30 I had found the floor. This was quite an accomplishment. Okay, now that we had a path, and a floor it was time to make some headway on the tabletops. 20 minutes later, I find that we have three of them...who knew. Now with a place to put things and a path to and from the door, we can start going through the boxes, and sort through all the stuff.

Now stage two, the box trot. My Beautiful Wife jointed me for this stage. The box trot is where you move boxes from one end of the garage to the other, and back and forth until they find their correct place in the garage. The box trot only took a couple of hours and in the end we had it all sorted, tons more room and we can find our stuff again. Now we have more room for more stuff. Tomorrow morning we are hitting the Yard Sales.

Early morning, late night

Today, I got up way to early, especially for not getting home till 9:30pm last night. So up dressed and out of the house by 6am, ticket purchased and on the train by 6:20am. Working on the train, just to get it all done. It is going to be a long day.

Goodbye Aunt K

Today was Aunt K's memorial. It was quite lovely, yet sad. On display was pictures of her, her and her friends and some of her art. They read one of her poems, and some passages from her diary. They were lovely, artistic and sweet, like her. My sister had the best comment on the day. "We have to figure out a better way to have family reunions". Grandma and Grandpa K, came up, and we meet Grandma and Grandpa C at the services.(Yes, I know how great it is that I have both sets of grandparents and how I wish that I had more time to spend with them. They are all amazing people who I dearly love) We saw a lot of people that I haven't seen in a long long time. Some I remember, some I didn't. My Beautiful Wife has been there all day for me. I truly appreciate her. She never got to meet Aunt K, and I really wish should could have. I think they both would of really liked each other.

I have come up with something that have made it easier to deal with her loss. The saying we've lost someone, when they have died. I like the idea that we have simply misplaced them, like your car keys or watches and will someday find them in the last place we looked (of course it's the last placed we've looked, after we find something we typically stop looking for it, but I digress). Someday things will be right back like they were. I have hope that I will see Aunt K again and she won't have any of the pain she had in this life. Also you never really lose someone that has helped you be the person you are, they are always a part of you, so they are always with you.

After the service, we met up at Mom and Dad's. We had dinner, and watched T.V. and talked about funny TV commercials, and things we had done in the past. We told jokes, and funny stories. This is how my family deals with these kind of things. We replace tears with laughter, we always have, and I kind of like it that way. Is like some sort of unwritten rule. Laughing is always better than crying. We didn't talk about Aunt K much tonight, but between the jokes, stories and food, you know that everyone still was thinking about her, I know I am. I'll miss her.

First Impressions

Today I got to spend some time in the code of the new Home Banking system. Spending time in the code is when a developers come up with their first impression. Mine is a good first impression. After spending two days with the Developers installing the product and looking at the code, I am looking forward to working with this product. I know you are thinking you, just bough the product why would you have to work with it. Well the way that most of these kind of things work is what you buy is very vanilla. So we don't buy the product for what it can do today, but what it will be able to do tomorrow.

 

Got a little bad news

Yesterday was the long day of meetings. It went as well as those kind of things go. Afterwards my boss, the people with the new homebanking system and I went out to dinner. We went to the place we always go, the steakhouse established in 1947 across the street from the WB lot. After getting there and getting seated I got a call on my mobile from my brother J. At first I sent it to voicemail because we were talking about implementation strategies and that kind of stuff. However I got a funny feeling about the call so I excused myself and tried to call him back. First time, I got his voicemail, so I check my messages and he just said to call him back in a somber tone. Now this J, he is the one that leaves me voicemails pretending to be someone else, and yelling at me for dating his daughter, or stealing his cat, or driving thru his house. So the tone of his message really meant something was up. I got nervous, so I called him again.

One of my favorite thing about J is that he doesn't sugar coat things, he just says them.  He told me that a really close friend of the family had passed away. She was someone us kids called Aunt K, because well she was like an Aunt to us. She was one of those people in your life, that lets you know that you are pretty cool just the way you are. I mean your family tells you that as you grow up, but somehow there is more validation when someone else says it, we expect our family to say that we are great. I remember that Aunt K use to say that I was a "neat kid". Well, I always thought that she was a "Neat Lady". She didn't have any kids of her own, which was what it was.  She was a very artistlc person, she would draw and write. She was the one that taught me that it was okay to be a Sci-Fi geek (mostly because she was one too). I remember going to lots, of Star Wars and Star Trek Conventions with her. I have a picture at home that she took of my brother K and me standing infront of the "Galileo" from the orignial Star Trek series. She always made me feel like I was fine, just the way I am. That is kind of a big thing for a kid, especially, when the kids at school and everything on the TV is telling you the exact opposite.

Aunt K had a great laugh, it was one of those laughs that made you smile. You knew it was her from across the room when you heard her laugh. I am really going to miss hearing that laugh. It's sad to know that this person isn't on this planet anymore. I could get into the whole argument of the unjustness of such a good person dying when there are so many bad people keep on living, but I think that would taint my memories of her, and I just don't want to do that.  I will miss her. She was one of those people that is a part of me. She really had an positive influence in my life, and my self-respect.

A light drizzle

Yesterday was much more of the light drizzle before the storm. We only had one hour long meeting. Which isn't too bad, and I was kind of charged and looking forward to the project from it. I did leave the meeting with homework. My homework that I am still working on this morning. I am install windows 2000 server in Virtual PC on my XP workstation/Laptop. That way I can have the Home banking server software running on my machine. So far it is going pretty smoothly. Though it takes a lot longer to load up then a regular machine.

Today the downpour will start. I came in early (6am) to finish up the install and have a couple of hours before it all starts. Meetings are scheduled from 8:30am to 5:30pm. It is going to be a long day. I am not looking forward to all day meetings, but I am looking forward to getting some time with the Home Banking Developer.  He is a C# guy too, even though the product is written in VB.NET. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

One of the things that cleared the clouds away last night was reading with the Little Boy. We have about 4 or 5 books that we read every night, one of them being Green Eggs and Ham. And it is one of his favorites. Well last night, we read it together for the first time. He would pick one page and "read" (recite from memory) what was on the page, and I would read the other one. It was amazing. It really made my heart glow. To see him growing and learning is just one of the most wonderful things in my life. There is something really terrific about ending the day laying in bed with my Beautiful Wife and the Little Boy and reading them to sleep. So this is going to be my umbrella today, every time I feel a drop of rain, I will think of them and be dry and warm.

 

The Calm before the storm

This weekend was the calm before the storm. Today starts three days of meetings. The first in many steps in the Home Banking Platform conversion. This is going to be the biggest project our E-Commerce department has ever taken on. I am excited and nervous about it at the same time. But enough about that, lets talk about this weekend.

Saturday morning My Beautiful Wife and I snuck out and got a cup of coffee at suckerbucks (That's what the Little Boy calls starbucks) and got to sit outside and read a newspaper. I know that doesn't sound terribly exciting, and it wasn't , but it was amazingly calming and something we hadn't done in a long time. (Since we lived in Pasadena about 3 years ago)

Upon returning home, the Little Boy was Up and full of.... Energy. So we loaded the Little Boy and Max the wonder dog up in the car and headed out to the sports park. We got there, and what did we see, people playing sports at the sports park. Honestly what did they think they were doing, we were going to have the The Little Boy and the Dog run amuck in those fields. So we couldn't let the furry that is the combination of The Little Boy and Max the wonder dog loose there. So we decide to take them to San Dimas creek. This was a good choice as no one was there. So after walking down the trail a little ways we let Max off of his leash. This had about the same affect as launching a rocket horizontially. That dog ran up and down the trail, though the streams and over the streams and up the hills and down the hills. He would jump so far down the hills that he would just about swapping head and tails except that his speed would keep him moving forward. Well after this little adventure, everyone got bath.

Sunday I had a lot of serious sitting around to do. Some of it was even done in Mom and Dad's Jacuzzi. There was also some serious gaming that needed done. So I played a couple hours of Red's Dead Revolver.

My favorite moment of the weekend was The Little Boy riding his bike with amazing speed down the driveway and skidding into the garage, and hit my Beautiful Wifes bike. He knocked it over, and startled himself.  I walked in the garage, and picked the bike up, and looked at the Little Boy, and said "A Little to fast, huh?" to which he responsed, "just a little."

 

The long weekend

I took Friday, Monday and Tuesday off of work. Mostly because if I didn't, I wasn't going to get any time off till the end of the year. It turned out to be good to have some time off. I worked hard at not checking me work email too often. (Once or twice a day) I took care of some of those things around that house that needed done. Overall pretty good.

Yesterday, we got to go down and see my Grandma and Grandpa. It was so nice to get to see then and spend time with them. They are such sweet people and they really mean so much to me.

I have to go to work tomorrow, and I really don't want to. But being an adult means I have too.

100 miles later

last night riding to Mom and Dad's I finally broke 100 miles. So since I started riding again in June I have ridden 100 miles. It kind of feels like an accomplishment. I told My Beautiful Wife last night, that when I break 10,000 miles, then I can get a new carbon fiber bike. Till then, me and my steel framed steed will keep pedaling down the road together. I think will name my bike Hildalgo. The little painted pony that could. And it kind of fits, because of the blue paint overspray that is on the frame from one of my brothers paint projects that went awry.

The interesting thing is that after 100 miles, I want to ride more not less then when I started. I'm feeling better and like I can handle stress a little better too.

Riding In The Dark

This morning I woke up very early. Well, that isn't exactly true, I was woken up very early this morning. It seems the Little Boy snuck in to bed with us last night. I found this out after being kicked repeatedly. Apparently he was either dreaming about riding his bike, kicking the ball, or kicking the dog. (My vote is for the latter) So about 3:30am I move down to the floor, but never really got back to sleep. At about 4am I decide to stop trying to sleep and just get up. Mostly because I couldn't get the endless loop of "Five little Monkeys Jumping on the bed" to quit playing in my head.

Well, what is there to do at 4 in the morning? I couldn't work because I had left my computer at work. Humm, I know I will go for a ride this morning, I think to myself. Now I haven't ridden my bike at 4am since I was a teenager. I use to get up early and ride for an hour before going to work with Dad. I had even gotten them to gotten him to go with me. We had our mountian bikes and I would go to the local park and race down the stairs, and then try and race back up them. (We never made it back up to the top of the stairs)

After a shower and getting dressed, I head out to the garage and adjust and fit my new helmet (The dog ate my other one) and got on my bike. Okay, I am ready to go, I decide not to do any hill climbing as those streets don't have any lights. So I start riding and I notice how quiet it really is. I had forgotten that riding at that time of the morning is so nice. The sound of the pressurized tires (110 psi) rolling along the asphalt. Birds just waking up, chirping as if to say good morning to the day. It's interesting how with the lack of light your other senses really come alive. The smell of the bakery down the street, of the trees, and flowers. Riding through some sleepy little neighborhoods, seeing the occasional person turning on the kitchen light to make coffee.

It really gave me a good outlook for the day. I got myself home, and had some breakfast. (I almost never eat breakfast before 10am), watched the news and got ready for work. Driving to the train station, and waiting for the train, I had a poetic narrative of the morning going in my head, and I wanted to write it down. However I didn't have an pen in my bag, so the revelations of the morning are gone, and I am settling back in to work.

The Tale of two stalls

I am a guy of average height. I don't consider myself to be extremely tall, but not short either. Lately however I have notice a trend that need discussed. You see in the restroom at work we have two urinals. (I know the post has gone in the toliet by the second line). For those of you who don't know about the two urinal configuration, they are set at different heights. Usually the one on the left is a foot lower then the one on the right. It is your basic short guy, tall guy configuration. Being that I am about 5'11" using the tall guy urinal is my right. Why, well because the short guy urinal makes anyone over 5'8" feel like they are peeing on their shoes, not a terribly good feeling. Now that I have set the ground work lets discuss this disturbing trend.

Almost every time I go to the restroom there is a short guy at the tall guy urinal. Some of these cases have  been extreme, as in the short guy is tippy-toeing to reach the tall guy urinal. Now, I don't care what kind of short guy neopolen complex you have, if you are a short guy, use the short guy urinal. I am not willing to pee on my shoes to make some short guy feel better about himself. Look if you are a short guy, just accept that you are close to the ground the some of us. There is nothing bad about that. Short guys don't have as far to fall and there are some very interesting advantages as far as eye levels and the opposite sex. Relish being a short guy. Be short and proud! Be short and proud and use the short guy urinal.

So you are asking yourself, what is the height requirement to use the tall guy urinal. Since it isn't like disneyland having a sign with a "you most be this tall to ride this ride", I have done some informal polling and it seem to be the concensus among most average height guys that 5'8" and up can use the tall guy urinal, while 5'7" and down should use the short guy urinal. Now you are asking yourself, why in the world did he write about this. Well, It needed to be done, and being that guys don't talk in the restroom (it's an unwritten rule) it needed to be somewhere guys feel comfortable talking about this stuff. Which would be anonymously on the internet.

Where's the tech

So you have probably noticed that I haven't had any recent post here or at twocsharpguys on any techie stuff. I know I have a few that can be called techie, but I mean the post that explain a problem and the source code I used to solve it. Those post always garner the most visits from the search engines. So why haven't I done any...cause I don't feel like it. Well that and I haven't been doing much coding lately. We have a really big project coming up. We are converting home banking platforms. With this there are lots and lots of meetings. In fact I am sure that we will have meetings about meetings. This always reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon I read, it said that with any subject or project that requires more than five meetings, then the meetings become more important then the project that the meeting was called about in the first place.

Now with this big project looming in the near future, don't you think I should be getting to know the new system. Familarize myself with the code base? Me too but, that's not what I am doing. I'm doing a bunch of "back burner" projects. Which leads to my next question, if they are "back burner" projects, why are they the first on my plate over the HB conversion. Anyhow most of these projects are server software configurations. Not terribly hard things, but terribly time comsuming.  In other companies I worked for, we web administrators to do these things, but being a Sr. Web Developer, in a small IT department means that you get to wear many hats. Todays hat should be bowler I think! 

Monday Morning

This morning I hit the snooze bar 4 times, and my alarm clock is on the other side of the room. Now that is pretty tired. I get myself up, showered and shaved and hug and kiss my Beautiful Wife. Its one of those days that you just want to stay in bed. Its one of those days that you want to call in sick even though you aren't really sick. Anyhow get my stuff together and walk to the train station. I walk kind of slow, since I didn't expect to catch the 7:21am train. Its August 2nd and I still need to buy my august monthly train pass. So I get to the station at 7:19 and the train is still there and I am kind of surprised. I figured it will leave any second, as I walk up to the ticket vending machine. There is a metrolink "Ambassador" standing there helping people. As I walk up I see two people per machine, so this makes me think that I am right, I will catch the next train. As I get close two people walk away from the machines, and one woman tries the second machine because the first one isn't taking cash. The Ambassador asks me if I am using credit card, I say yes, and walk right up to the first machine. I do my order (there is about 5 buttons you have to press in the correct sequence to get your ticket/pass) and it goes through in record time. I mean I had my pass in like 30 seconds. So with pass in hand I walk right on to the 7:21 at 7:21 and the doors closed behind me. I really couldn't of timed it any better.

So why did I write a post about catching the train? Well, its because I have been in this whole running late and trying to catch the 7:21 and missing it. I would power walk to the station, rush out of the house and miss it. Today, I figured, there was no way I was going to catch it, so might as well not rush and what happens? I catch it with 10 seconds to spare, and had to buy my pass. Maybe this is going to be a good monday.