Wandering Across the Digital Landscape

So Many Things Going On

2009-09-20T22:42:39Z

My godsister (not sure that's a real word, but it is the easiest moniker to explain with) is getting married in couple of weeks. She's the closest thing I have to a sister. Her father and my father were good friends in the Navy and my mother and her mother were good friends in college. My parents met and started dating and eventually got married and they introduced their two best friends together and those two started dating and got married. Then my parents had me and their friends became my godparents and a couple years later they had her. Our two families are very close, my godsister and I grew up together and most holidays include all of us. I've very excited for her since she's found the love of her life and has found the person that she wants to spend the rest of her life with. I'm flying back east, meeting up with my wonderful girlfriend, jls_debs, who lives in Florida, and we are going up to spend the weekend with my family and getting to see Ellen get married.

Earlier that week, out in Los Angeles, they are having a symphony concert entirely devoted to the music from Star Wars. If I can find an accomplice, I would love to go. I believe the concert is moving up to San Jose a bit later in the month as well.

And for those people that are in the southern California region the weekend that my godsister is getting married (Oct. 3) there is the Catalina Buccaneers Day. Apparently everybody heads out to Catalina Island on boats of all sorts and then sails around the harbor, dressed like pirates, partying, drinking rum, and yelling "Arrrrgh". It sounds like fun!

Hanging out in Baltimore, Ireland

2009-07-04T16:23:10Z

I've spent the week in Ireland with good friends in a castle. It doesn't get much better than this. I've been having a great time wandering the countryside and renewing old friendships. I'm off to Italy tomorrow for a U2 concert on Tuesday in Milan. Then I'm off to the other Baltimore to spend the weekend with my parents. This has been a good trip.

A Walk Amongst the Foothills.

2009-03-24T07:49:30Z

This weekend my roommates and I went for a great hike. We set out for a particular hike listed in one of the books we have, but things didn't go entirely as planned. The park entrance was closed, so it was a three and a half mile walk to the trail head. We made it to the trail head, which was a pretty walk in and of itself and found out that due to earlier fires, the bridge was out and that trail was closed. That was OK, because seven miles was plenty walking for one day. But it was a beautiful day, so everything worked out.

Pictures of the trip can be found here.

Trips down the Sunset Coast

2009-03-03T10:55:34Z

I took a three day vacation with my folks this weekend. We flew into San Jose and headed down to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Big Sur. It was beautiful! And it was really nice to spend some time with my parents. The weather was very accommodating for the first couple of days which allowed some breathtaking hikes. When the rain couldn't be denied any longer, we spent the last day indoors at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is a fantastic place. They even had river otters, whose general approach to life makes me laugh and smile. I picked up a new camera back in January and I am very happy with it. Pictures can be found here (and a sunset from earlier this month). I haven't really taken or posted photos in quite a while, so it was fun to get back into it. I apologize for the number of them. I culled them down quite a bit, honest. I may go back and organize them a bit better in a day or so, but they are available now if you are curious. The last evening was more somber, but the late night company of an old friend made things easier. The next morning I flew back home in time to roll into work without causing too much of a stir.

Happy Birthday L_stBoy!

2009-01-28T20:44:59Z

Congratulations on another year of adventures successfully completed!

Beautiful Day

2008-12-19T02:32:45Z

I went for a run this morning and things were gorgeous. It felt like several seasons were all showing up at once. The hills were green from all the rain we've had. The trees are red and orange and the mountains off in the distance are capped with snow.

Defying Gravity

2008-12-16T21:18:13Z

Last week I went to the first meeting of the Orange County Jugglers.

It was a whole lot of fun. My roommate and I went and met some wonderful people and had a great time. The club used to meet a long time ago, but had lost its space and stopped getting together. Now that we have a new place to practice, the meetings have started up again.

I don't know what it is about jugglers, but I like the type of people juggling attracts, maybe it is the sense of amusement and levity mixed in with a determination to work hard at having fun. I have been learning to pass juggling clubs back and forth with another juggler. On Thursday I got to pass with 3 other people at once. There are a lot of different patterns. I got started with a pattern where one juggler passed (or feeds) clubs to two other people at the same time, alternating between the two. The other two jugglers do not pass between each other, but both are juggling with the feeder. Then we added a fourth person and had two people feeding and two others, each passing with one feeder. Then we did a box, which was really crazy. Four people stood in a square and passed with the person diagonal from them, with one pair one toss behind the other in time. That means that 12 clubs where in the air at once. It was really cool, until I started watching all the clubs and got mesmerized, at which point I lost all my concentration and clubs went flying everywhere as they collided.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

2008-10-31T19:39:49Z

I'm heading up to Hollywood tonight with my girlfriend and a couple of other friends. There's usually quite a crowd up there on Halloween. Lots of amazing costumes.

I'm doing a rather sedate steampunk outfit this year. With the costume, it's a shame I'm missing the steampunk convention up in San Francisco tonight. It sounds like fun and Abney Park is playing on the maiden voyage of a zeppelin that is going into service this weekend.

But R is coming down to visit for the weekend. I can't wait to see her again. I'm looking forward to a fantastic weekend.

Naked Face

2008-09-23T18:04:08Z

I figured it has been too long since my chin has seen daylight, so I've gone clean shaven. Not sure what I think about it yet and it feels a bit weird after having a beard or goatee for so long, but I'm giving it a try. We'll see if it lasts.

Foggy with a Chance of Pomeranians

2008-09-23T17:25:22Z

I woke up surprisingly early this morning and felt disturbingly productive.

I looked outside and it was gray. Not grayish sky with the sun obscured, but gray as in can't see more than 20 feet out the window. The fog had rolled in pretty seriously. So that immediately made think, as it would anyone, I should get out of bed and swim for half a mile in the pool.

I threw on my bathing suit and some sandals and headed out into the mists. There might be gorillas in the mist somewhere else, but I live in southern California, so we have pomeranians. Some lady was walking a gaggle of these things on her morning walk.

I got to the pool, which is maybe a quarter mile walk and hopped into the deserted, but wonderfully heated pool and did a number of laps (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly - butterfly is still the hardest for me by a fair amount and my backstroke tends to wander in random directions which made the empty pool part a plus).

Then I even made an omelet for breakfast before cruising in to work and I wasn't especially late to work. Hopefully I haven't used up all my motivation for the rest of the day. We'll see...

Buskers

2008-09-16T19:06:19Z

Hey pictsy, this might be right up your alley. Apparently there is a new independent film called "Buskers, for love or money". I guess it is being shown at various film festivals around the country. I'd love to catch it if it gets shown near me.

Beware of the Flying Burrito Snatchers!

2008-08-19T21:26:25Z

On Sunday I grabbed some lunch from a local mexican fast food joint. I got it to go and walked out with a soda and a paper bag containing one large burrito wrapped in paper, some napkins, and hot sauce packets. I hopped back in my car and drove off. When I arrived at my destination, I got out, went around to the passenger side of my car, set the bag and drink on the roof, opened the passenger door and sat down on the seat to change my shoes. About 20 seconds after I heard a slight thump on my roof. It took me a second for the sound to register and then I heard a weird rustling noise. I stood back up just in time to see a crow on the roof of my car, with the paper clad burrito removed from the bag and the bird about to fly off with it. I yelled at it and it took off, thankfully without my lunch and flew away.

The things that I find remarkable are: 1) The crow knew exactly what a fast food bag meant 2) It knew how to remove a burrito from the bag with minimal effort, not even needing to rip the bag 3) It was confident that it could actually pick the burrito up and fly off with it. 3) It has done this enough times that it is actually quick and efficient about the whole process

It never occurred to me that my lunch was vulnerable to air borne extraction.

The Circus is in Town

2008-08-05T01:21:52Z

There are a set of train tracks that run behind the building where I work. I looked out the window and there is good old P.T. Barnum's legacy, train car after train car. The train looks like it goes on forever. And after yelling a question to a guy hanging out of one of the cars, we determined that yes, the elephants are on board, they're in the back. What I really want to know is how many clowns you can fit in a train car. It must be an awful lot given the number that can fit in a Volkswagen beetle. I think I prefer Cirque Du Soleil, but there is something nostalgic and traditional about Barnum and Bailey. They were THE circus for all practical purposes for many years in America. I know that many people disagree with me, but I'm still a fan of the clowns!

A Good Weekend

2008-07-29T22:16:58Z

The last couple of days have been good.

Friday, thanks to whale_girl, I found out that Cirque Berzerk was performing, so a friend and I made a last minute trip to the circus. I really enjoyed it. It was somewhere halfway between Barnum and Bailey and Burning Man, with a winery sponsoring the event and providing tasty things to drink.

Saturday I helped a friend add floorspace to his attic. For the record, inland southern California attics are hot and stuffy. I was sweating buckets just being up there, much less hammering 2x4s to the existing roof structure. It was fun to spend time with my friend and get to build things. After a quick shower, I then headed off to Pasadena for a monthly Debate Night Dinner, which as usual was absolutely fantastic food (Pesto Salmon, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, ginger lemonade, pomegranate sangria, tomato and fresh mozzarella salad, and homemade sour cream cheesecake covered in crushed blueberries) and the topic this time was nutrition, which turned out to be a fun topic. I learned a lot, we discussed a lot and the company was fantastic. I'm on the hook for hosting next month's. Not sure what I'm going to make yet. I'm considering trying my hand at Cajun and still working on the topic.

Then Sunday I woke up early and went down to ComicCon in San Diego with a friend/co-worker. I hadn't been to a con in quite a while. It was fun. The people watching was great, I saw most of the artists that draw my favorite daily online cartoons. Being in a room with 1000 other people singing along to "Buffy, the Musical" was pretty funny and a bit scarily like watching Rocky.

And Monday I got up and swam 15-20 laps and then joined up with a friend at the local running club in the evening and ran 5 miles up in the hills. It felt good to get out.

It's a good start to the week. And today a little excitement with the earthquake.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

2008-07-29T19:55:15Z

We had a 5.4 earthquake today, centered in Chino Hills, near LA.

This is the strongest one I've felt. Not strong enough to really do damage that I know of, so it was kind of fun and exciting.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2008-07-15T17:39:01Z

The first part of Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" internet series is up on the site.

It's pretty funny. I'm looking forward to seeing the next two parts. Apparently he got bored during the writers strike...

<edit>Apparently the demand has crashed the site temporarily, which is funny, because Joss has a post thanking people for overloading it. He is enthusiastic about the amount traffic. There is more info at the other site</edit>

The Amusement of Life

2008-06-21T06:52:27Z

I started out with the intent to make a semi-philosophical post about the beauty of life, commenting on how amazing it was to spend an evening with my best friend and his girlfriend, her family and the guitarist from Don Henley and Stevie Knicks (we met up for some live music) and how beautiful the night is while pleasantly walking off the affects of a Mai Tai and a Margarita on the beach with the stars overhead and the sand between my toes and the Pacific lapping at my feet, but the night has become much more comical. As I walked down the beach in a slightly alcoholically induced euphoria, I realized that I was surrounded by people standing on the beach in the dark, with flashlights staring both eagerly, and some apprehensively at the water. After passing several hundred nocturnal beach goers, my curiosity got the best of me and I asked what the hell was going on. Apparently the answer should have been obvious. The grunion are running! The whole spectacle is hilarious. Hundreds of people standing in the dark in the middle of the night, tying to catch fish in Tupperware containers. Maybe it's the alcohol talking, but this is really bizarre. Some people are even wearing rubber gloves because they are afraid to touch the fish, but they still want to catch a grunion. People are weird. I will edit this or delete this tomorrow when I am sober, but for now I am laughing my ass off.

Moving Mountains...

2008-06-16T22:16:40Z

This weekend a friend and I drove down to another friend's place to help him get his yard ready to pour a concrete patio. The three of us moved over 11 tons of gravel with shovels, rakes, and 2 wheelbarrows. It was quite a job. I was definitely a bit sore the following day, but there is something satisfying in putting in a full day's labor, seeing how much you have accomplished, and then falling into bed and sleeping like the dead.

A Good Weekend

2008-05-27T09:30:37Z

Friday: Happy Hour with co-workers and one that used to be, who was in from out of town.

Saturday: Helped a roommate move heavy furniture, then headed off to help a friend celebrate his birthday. Met some cool new people at the party.

Sunday: Saw Abney Park play live at The Edison Bar in downtown LA. It was pretty awesome. Almost everyone was dressed up in Steampunk attire, brass goggles and all (myself included). They even had a aerial silks artist performing up in the rafters. The band was a lot of fun and at the end of their second set, they filmed a music video for their most popular song with us cheering them on in style. There is probably no more appropriate venue or audience for that to occur. The lead singer said that he was talking to the owner of the establishment and the owner remarked that this was the first time that the patrons of the bar all looked like they belonged there. It was quite a sight.

Monday: Had a good sized cook-out to celebrate recent accomplishments and gathered together a group that I hadn't seen all in one place in quite a while.

I finished my Nixie Tube Clock

2008-05-23T22:12:52Z

At the Maker Faire in San Francisco I bought a nixie tube clock kit. It's been fun to have a project to build and it has given me a chance to relearn how to solder. After many nights in the lab, I finally have it working. Now I just need to build a case for it.

Maker Faire?

2008-04-23T01:04:02Z

I just noticed that the Maker Faire is happening May 3rd and 4th in the Bay Area. Is anyone interested in going? I've been twice (usually as a sidetrip of the build party for the Burners) in years past and really enjoyed it. I'm thinking of driving up or flying in.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T17:55:35Z

Be it spiritual, chocolate or a nice spring day, enjoy!

I Drank the Kool-Aid

2008-03-07T09:21:09Z

Well, I've finally given in. I bought a Mac today.

It started so innocently. A little iPod Shuffle never hurt anybody. It's tiny and really convenient for listening to music during a run. What harm can it do? It was great.

Then my cell phone started dying. It was 5 years old and it was time to upgrade. But I was kind of sad when I looked around at my options and for the most part, nothing had changed in those 5 years of cell phone technology. The only ones that showed any promise were smart phones. But they felt clunky. Right about that time I starting hearing the rumors about the iPhone. The more I read, the more excited I got. The big day came and the iPhone was released. it was so damn pretty. The stores were swamped. I stopped by the Apple store out of curiosity that day and the line literally stretched around the block... for a computer store. I didn't want to wait in line and based on previous gadgets releases, I figured that it would be months before I could get my hands on one, which would give me time to decide that I could be perfectly happy with one of the clunky phones. But no, two days later, iPhones were available to anyone that wanted one. After a week or two, I gave in. I had heard that you could buy them directly from the hardware manufacturer. To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened before on a large scale. You weren't forced to go through the cell provider. I wandered by the AT&T store and people were buying them, but they all looked annoyed and hassled. Then I wandered over to the Apple store and people looked happy. I took a deep breath and walked in. I fiddled with one of the store demo models (some more) and decided that it was too cool to resist. I walked up to an Apple salesman and said the fateful words, "I'd like to buy an iPhone." He smiled, walked over to a stack of pretty boxes, picked one up and handed it to me. I handed him my credit card and he swiped it through his handheld sales terminal and said "I hope you enjoy it." I blinked and asked, "That's it? What about setting up a cell plan? All the other stuff?" He smiled again and said, "Just plug it into iTunes on your home computer and you'll be ready to go." Still a little surprised, I wandered out of the store, clutching my pretty shiny box. Sure enough, once I got home, after a couple of simple questions, my phone was up and working. It was fantastic.

That was the moment my fate was sealed. The iPhone is so much better than all the other phones for internet access, maps, it let me put my music on it and it was actually a decent phone with really slick contact info integration. I was sold. Strangely enough, the iPod part of the phone is one of the features I use the least often. The screen, the multi-touch interface, accelerometers and cell/wifi work together very well. It's not perfect. The 2 and a half G data access is slower than I would like, there is no GPS, the external speaker is too quiet, the headphone jack is recessed just enough that most standard headphone jacks need an adaptor, and you have to use AT&T. But even with all those things, I'm never going back. It really is that much better for me. With each software update it gets a little bit better, and the last update almost gives you GPS. It uses cell tower triangulation, which is not nearly as good, but it has still gotten me to my destination when I was lost more than once.

My previous job had me working on wearable computers in the Media Lab and I see the iPhone as a reasonable next step from where we were. There are things we were working on that it doesn't have, but maybe they can get there and beyond.

Today the SDK finally came out. I had been waiting a long time for this a little impatiently, but it finally happened. I had heard rumors about all the ways that Apple could screw it up, but as I watched coverage of the event, one by one they kept getting things right. Again, it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn impressive. Apple hasn't felt the need to make the development tools multi-platform. Given the difficulty of building the toolkit in the first place, I really can't blame them. All the ideas I had in the Media Lab have returned and the knowledge that other people will fill in all sorts of other gaps to fix and improve makes me very curious where this can go.

And then the final nail in the coffin. The illustrious vileone keeps putting out these posts telling us how nice and wonderful it is to develop in Cocoa. That the Windows group was asking him not to add features, because they just didn't have the power to do the the things he was doing on the Mac.

I finally realized it was time. A giddy co-worker/worshiper at the altar of the Mac accompanied me to the Apple store and I picked up a Mac Mini for less than a grand and we immediately went back to work to start downloading the iPhone SDK.

I have my new machine up and running, I am starting to learn the development environment and I am awaiting Apple to send me a digital certificate that will let me upload newly created apps to my phone. My journey to the Dark side is complete.

Happy Birthday l_stboy!

2008-01-28T17:25:16Z

Have a great day!

Smoke in the Air

2007-10-23T00:36:04Z

The fires are about 5 miles from work. The air is definitely smokey and visibility is much less than normal. It's kind of creepy, but I doubt that there is much danger for me right now. Our office is in a giant concrete building in the middle of an office park. Not much to burn here and thankfully my home is pretty far from any areas of activity. The foothills on the other hand are ablaze. Hopefully they will be able to contain the fires. Govenor Schwarzenegger has called in the National Guard to help. Hopefully they will be able to help with enough fire breaks to contain things. The real problem is the Santa Ana winds. Last night the wind was really howling. That's the thing that makes the fires so hard to manage. A spark can move pretty quickly and go pretty far. Three firemen have been hurt. I hope they are not too badly injured. Thankfully I haven't heard of any other injuries. Some family friends lost their house back on the east coast a while back due to fire. It was pretty devastating for them. My thoughts go out to all those people affected. But houses can be rebuilt and property reacquired. I hope that everyone is safe and evacuates when they are told to do so. Some of the news has mentioned that some people did not leave when they were asked and as a result have forced vital firefighters away from containing the fire to rescue some people that should not have been there. I hope that most people stay safe and make the fire fighters jobs as easy as possible. The forces of nature can be powerful untamed things. Sometimes we are sharply reminded that not everything under our control.