Las Vegas Trip Report - Day 3 (Saturday)

(Again, some pics mine, borrowed a couple from others, contact me if you want them down)

I woke up Saturday in fine shape, really. A mild headache, a little tired, but nothing I couldn't shake off with minimal effort. It was early again, though -- even trying to sleep in I was up before 7 and out and about well before 8. Still, I had gotten a solid five hours of sleep, a fine achievement for the weekend :).

We had a scheduled brunch with the WoW Guild at 11, so I just headed over to Krispy Kreme for coffee and conversation. Sure enough, I met Russ there and we chatted about video games and life for a bit before others started filtering in. Before long, we had a couple tables full of people waking up and multiple conversations going on (as tends to happen in big groups). Some people ate, but I held out -- I wanted to get my money's worth out of the buffet!

At 11, we got our big raid group together (I cannot tell you how many "raid" jokes went on during this trip) and went from one end of the casino to the other before packing into taxis and cars for the trip to the Rio for their buffet. Unfortunately, instead of seating all 23 of us (I think it was 23) at one table, we got split into 3 that were fairly separated. It worked out okay, though; we were all friends :). I ended up at RH's table so people were constantly coming by to chat with him. Also, with wait staff constantly refilling champagne glasses, the drinking began.
The buffet was actually very good; I was in a huge breakfast mood so I filled up on breakfast stuff, and then realized I had only seen HALF the buffet and there was all this other stuff I wanted to try. I tried to squeeze some in but goddamn was I full. So I snacked a bit here and there and sipped cheap champagne as people complained about the lack of L60 tanks and warlocks, and discussed Onyxia strategy (over my slowly-getting-drunk head). People rotated from table to table and we pretty much just mooched free champagne and talked WoW for a couple hours.

The slightly buzzed trip back to Excalibur led to a relaxed afternoon. We sat by the same old quiet always-abandoned-during-the-day Minstrel's Lounge and people smoked cigarettes and talked about their families and other serious real-life topics. I skipped out instead of boring them with my own sad tales of woe and went shopping instead. I figured I had to buy Jess something. I also won 15 bucks in a slot machine after putting in a dollar (I probably put 3 bucks into random slot machines during the trip as I walked by and they caught my eye -- generally just the progressive ones with huge jackpots), and got depressed at the lack of cool things to buy Jess. Everything was either completely cheesy or wicked expensive -- and I didn't want to go either way. With her birthday and related expenses coming up, it wasn't the time to buy anything costly.

I ended up buying a jigsaw puzzle with a medieval knight/lady theme, which is kind of cool because we always do puzzles when we travel and it sort of keyed into the whole "you aren't with me but I'm thinking of you" vibe :). Also bought her a very nice artsy card.

At 5, we met for a drink (or, you know, four) to our friends who couldn't make it. Not just couldn't make it, but couldn't make it because they are serving overseas. One of them in particular has stayed in touch while he does his tour of duty in Iraq. His squad does all sorts of highly dangerous and visible stuff like giving kids vaccinations and disarming IEDs. They've lost 4 people in the past few months, out of like 50. So the vets and former .mils in the group talked a little about what it means to serve, we read the local newspapers' stories on the 4 people who died in that guy's platoon, and we toasted them all. Ice and Jan sipped from a scotch in his honor. Very somber but solid event, with many people in attendance. Drew a lot of stares from passersby, obviously.
This took much longer than it sounds like it would have, since almost everybody wanted in on this but took time getting there. Add that to "gotta run to get my camera" type delays and we didn't get done until after 6.

After that, some of the people went off to play craps but I just sat and chatted with some people and sipped a couple beers. With less than an hour before our big dinner, I said I was bored and wanted to pass time and suggested just sitting at a nickel slots for a bit. Tara joined me, but nobody else seemed too interested.

Of course, I won 30 bucks right off the bat at that, so we bailed rather than risk any of it. I cashed in the money and we all went our separate ways to get ready for the big party.

Side note: if you think a lot of drinking was going on, you're right. I didn't dip in as heavy as some people did, but I was pretty well buzzed from about noon to midnight, Saturday. I was "smart," though, and kept finding and drinking water the whole time.

At 7 we met in a banquet hall for the big party. Basically this was like the sort of room you'd have a wedding reception in, but sized for only 50 instead of a couple hundred. We had a buffet, a cash bar, and a dance floor. We had our own band (The Bacon Boys ... Bacon being an anagram for ABCon) made up of 3 Basiners (there's actually a fourth in the band who couldn't make it at the last minute, resulting in them renting some kind of drum beat machine, which worked out fine even though we missed Terry).

The food at this event was average, but there was a bar and there was live music, and we had fun. The band members all wore kilts and were funny as hell -- the sort of thing that I guess you'd have to be there and be a part of it to understand. Various guest singers popped up -- TPJ sang his wife a ballad because she puts up with all our (and his) shit, Mouse sang all the female parts of various songs, and Alan (who I play WoW with every Tuesday) guest-guitarred and sang on one song.

After a few songs, the band reminded us that this wasn't a concert, so a few of the ladies started dancing. Most of us hung back, but the girls finally got tired of being the only ones dancing and started pressuring people to go up. Once there was a somewhat mixed crowd I finally let myself get pulled in, and had an amazing time the rest of the night dancing like an idiot. It seemed like my arrival on the dance floor broke some sort of odd balance, because from then on the floor was always full.
At midnight, we capped off the party with a huge line of drunken people kick-dancing to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" while singing along at the top of their lungs.
It was no-shit awesome. Everybody was getting along (mostly, heh -- but what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and that includes the good gossip), we were all pretty buzzed, the music had us in a great mood, and it was just great.
By 12:30, people were finally done taking pictures and were heading off in various directions. I was wired, but I could have fallen asleep. Instead, I got talked into playing poker. I ended up at a 2-6 table with RH and Zofox, and once again made forty bucks before giving up for the night around 2:30. It was much less stressful the second time, but there was one really rough hand where I folded pocket kings after spending 20 bucks to see the flop and not getting any of it (flop was AJ4 -- and the only guy who stayed in with me bet $12 to start [it was a kill pot, stakes doubled]). General consensus the next day was that I had done the right thing, hard as it was to do. Heck, it wasn't that hard to fold -- I was up and wanted to quit that way.

(Summary for those keeping score: 100$ won playing poker, $80 in the casino, $20 in a casual game. I got silly lucky, but the only reason I managed to not get a big head about it is that I know enough to know how little actual skill I was employing, and was in the presence of people who won 5x that amount on the trip against much stiffer competition).

I had stopped drinking when the party ended, and drank water all the time while playing poker. So when I stumbled off to bed I was just exhausted, not drunk. And when I woke up, 3 hours later, I wasn't really hung over as much as just dead with exhaustion and bodily protest. The rest of the day went by way too fast, and I was at the airport by noon. The rest of the story is pretty dull (airport delays, long drives home, etc) so I won't bother with it. Let's leave the story with me winning money at poker, ok? :)

I had a great time and would do it again in a heartbeat. Can't wait till ABCon VI in Chicago!

Las Vegas Trip Report - Day 2 (Friday)

(Most photos mine, one courtesy Icewind)

I woke up around 6, and wasn't able to get back to sleep.

Welcome to Vegas. Here's your complimentary hangover. Holy shit, I was hurting. Much too late the night before, I realized I hadn't been drinking any water. I had tried to solve this problem, but it had been too little too late. Now I was paying for it, big time.

I went looking for coffee, and ended up at Krispy Kreme with a couple donuts and a halfway decent cup of coffee. A couple people showed up, other early risers. I had a chance to talk a bit more with two folks I had met the night before (Russ and Icewind), great people who are still active in just D2. Yes, those people do exist! Anyway, both of them had been around the block a time or two more than I had, and it was great to hear some of their stories.

Various people dropped by and got coffee and chatted, and it was nice even though I was fading fast. My head was pounding and the donuts I had eaten felt like a pair of lead weights in my gut. I went down to the convenience store in the Casino and bought some advil and some fruit juice, but the acid in the juice was not helpful. I kept drinking water, but it was rough.

We ended up in the dark and quiet Minstrel's Lounge. People drifted in and out and I sat back in my chair wishing it would just turn silent, but knowing I wanted to be there anyway. We had plans that night to hit the Star Trek bar that night at the Hilton, but we found out that there was a Trek Convention in town and that the entire Trek area of the Hilton was going to be closed down and dedicated to that starting at 4:30 Friday. So someone had the bright idea of heading over right then -- around 11. I was -starting- to feel human again, so I decided to come along.
I was glad I did -- we had a great time just sitting and chatting it up at the bar, watching the joint fill up with hardcore trekkies. I think about 10 of us went, maybe? Anyway, drinking began again, and while I couldn't stomach the idea of beer I was able to slowly nurse a giant rum drink. We ate appetizer type foods and shot the shit about D2, WoW, GW, the community, and various people's stories. We kept swapping seats and getting to know each other, and those of us who wanted to get a good buzz on, did (I wasn't really looking to, but kind of did anyway). We caught up those who had missed the party on what had happened, we laughed far too loudly at things that were only funny to us, and we basically had a great time for a couple hours.

My hangover was quieting down quite a bit by this time, so I really enjoyed the company and such on the trip back. We took the monorail, wandered through MGM Grand and NYNY on our way back, and somehow I kept hydrated through it all. I knew I would be drinking again on Saturday so I paced myself Friday.
Upon return, I ended up meeting a couple new people who were getting together for a "Casino Clinic" in Zeede's room. We ended up talking craps a little but that was about it as far as casino clinic went. Someone brought out Settlers, but I headed down to the casino floor instead, since I had told Russ I might play craps with him. He was nowhere to be found but Tara/Sisqui and Jim/ReptileHouse talked me into going to play poker with them and Steve/Zofox in the Excalibur poker room. Tara and I each bought a hundred bucks in chips and got sat at the same 1-3 table, Jim and Steve at a 2-6 (both spread limit, unusual in Vegas), and we played for a couple hours. I was feeling mellow and quiet, so poker suited my mood just fine.

What followed was incredible addicting fun. The Excalibur is VERY newbie friendly, so I didn't feel that out of place. And at first it was fine; I was folding, calling, checking, not really doing anything tough. But then I took a hand to a showdown and won it, my first real pot in Vegas. I am not kidding you, my hand was shaking as I stacked my chips afterwards. The incredible fear of thinking you have the table beat but not being sure, questioning every single little thing, trying to act like you've done it a million times ... sheer terror. It was intense.

Most of the time, though, it was quiet and slow. We had a fairly quiet table, not a lot of joking around, and I was starting to feel tired instead of hung over. So a couple hours of quiet poker went by, big stretches of boredom punctuated by short episodes of terror. Insanely fun.

When we quit to have dinner, I was up 40-something bucks. I wasn't playing aggressively -- probably a little too passive-tight. Still, I had a ton of fun and won plenty, and saw a Royal Flush win a guy a small pot (he had a short stack and couldn't capitalize enough).

I think five or six of us went, afterwards, for dinner. We hit one of the semi-fancier restaurants in the casino, and enjoyed a nice meal paid for with our winnings (Jim and Steve had won hundreds already playing poker -- over the course of the trip Jim paid for his flight and hotel in various cash games and tourneys). The food was pretty tasty, and the conversation casual and enjoyable. Not a bad dinner, considering it was in a casino restaurant we had never heard of :).

A little while after dinner we were able to get two different rooms of people playing .25/.50 poker with chips and cards that people brought from home. This was more like my usual casual game, people doing stupid stuff like playing entire hands blind, etc. But every hand was hold-em. We had a weird night, probability-wise, with some amazing flushes and straights, and 3 different hands involving pocket aces. I doubled up -- buying in for twenty and taking back 40 at the end of the night. Not bad (sorry guys)! Didn't drink much since the room with all the booze in it was one floor up and we didn't want to trek back and forth with it. Laziness keeps me sober!
Once the game fell apart, I ended up back in the party room, sipping scotch and tequila and chatting a bit. I think Jim and Steve went to earn more money at the poker tables -- I was winding down. A short stay with the single-malt guys, and I was ready for bed at midnight -- sober but exhausted. TPJ had finally showed up, but he was busy with his own thing and I was falling asleep standing, so we didn't talk much. I took off, hoping I'd wake up Saturday a little better feeling than I had Friday....

Las Vegas Trip Report - Day 1 (Thursday)

(Photos not mine: taken by WeeScot, Venom2099, and Mephista. Will be removed upon request.)

I timed things poorly and ended up in a rush to get to the airport. I was a bit OD'd on caffeine, listening to The Crystal Method, and feeling stressed out at every little delay. About halfway to Hartford I realized I was, in fact, going to make it, but my heart might asplode if I didn't calm down. I eased up on the gas, switched the CD player to Beck, and managed to arrive feeling more mellow and with a little time to spare before boarding began.

Flying into Vegas is completely different than driving in. Driving in, you approach the city with this sense of awe and wonder; there's all this desert everywhere and all roads seem to be leading to this one place. As you drive through the "city" you eventually arrive at what we think of as Las Vegas, with all its billboards and neon. Flying in doesn't have that same sense of magic, though it does offer its own surreality as you view the strip from the air.

I checked in, ditched my stuff in my room, and started making phone calls. I soon hooked up with a half-dozen folks sitting at the Minstrel's Lounge bar with a pile of empties listening to an awful lounge singing act and found out that another half-dozen were currently out procuring much cheaper liquor. I was tired from the flight and starving, but after eating a crappy cold cut sandwich and enjoying a couple cold beers, I started to perk up.

Before long, we were all lugging 200 dollars worth of alcohol from a van in the parking lot up the elevator to the room shared by the members of the Bacon Boys band. Coolers, ice, several cases of beer (and fine malk litta), a box of wine, a bottle of Grey Goose, and some 1800 all were successfully deployed, much to our amusement. Security gave us a couple eyeballs but nobody said anything.
Side story: we had a real Vegas moment here as one of our party (name removed since what happens in Vegas stays there, right?) just randomly started talking to a cutie wearing a "Talk Dirty to Me" t-shirt while we started deploying the booze. She ended up taking one of our beers, of course, and wandered off with her friend instead of joining our party. Still, it was an awesome "You're in Vegas now" moment.

So. Once we relocated upstairs, the party really took off. I didn't know most of the people there, but I did know how to drink beer and meet people, so that's what I did.


I couldn't list everyone I met there right here; it would take too long and I'd forget someone :). But I probably spent the most time talking with Tara/Sisqui. A Basin "record keeper," she handles paperwork type stuff, procedure stuff for counting votes, tracking who is applying, who got in, making sure people who apply aren't just banned people reapplying, etc. She does a LOT of work and takes a lot of shit every single time something goes wrong. Anyway, she has no power to actually make changes in people's system status, so we interact a lot -- I do the flipping of various software switches in response to the work she does. Anyway, she and I had a lot to talk about, bitch about, and joke about, so we ended up spending a fair amount of time getting stupid drunk and talking "shop" (shouting over the drunken din).
And I do mean drunken din. I pity the fools stuck in the hotel room next door.

Tons of people showed up, getting into Vegas and calling around to see where the party was. We just kept crowding people into this one room, since nobody had adjoining rooms. A lot of these people I "know" online but had never met. Others I was "aware of" online, and still others were like "who is that?" Anyway, it was great to meet them and chat a little, but eventually it just degenerated into drunken silliness. Lots of shouting of "HEEEEEYYYY" every time a new person showed up ... you get the picture. After a shot of tequila, I realized that even though my cell phone said 12:30 AM, it was really 3:30 AM as far as my body was concerned, and sleeping might be a good idea. Some of our group had already drunkenly stumbled back to their rooms (Tara, for example, had to be helped down the hall), and I decided to follow suit. I managed to flop into my bed before my brain completely shut itself down, but it was a close call.

For a moment of foreshadowing, you'll notice that nowhere in the list of beverages I consumed will you find a single drop of that rare Vegas commodity known as "water."

Back from Vegas

Sorry no updates, still recovering from Vegas. I've been typing up my notes and will post a "trip report" here soon.

For those who bet along at home on my hours of sleep, here's my best guesses.

Thursday night: 5
Friday night: 5
Saturday night: 3

Probably slightly above median for Las Vegas :).

Viva Las Vegas

These eager feet are getting on a plane in a few hours, destination Las Vegas.

If you'd like to gamble along at home, you may place bets on how many hours of sleep I will get each night.

I am not going to bring my (and by "my" I mean "my employer's") laptop, because I don't want to have to worry about it while I'm there. So no blogging from Vegas.

Fear not, I'll provide a detailed summary on my return :).

(In other news, giant yellow construction vehicles are tearing the shit out of my apartment parking lot. It's fascinating in a little boy "wow look at the giant machines" kind of way. )

South Korean dies, gamers panic

I told you I was hardcore.

I used to get all worried when I read stories like this, that people were going to see my hobby as some great evil. But at this point in my life, I just don't care. People die all the time for all sorts of stupid reasons, and I'm not worried about the future of "computer gaming" because of a little bad publicity.

You know, I never really got into Starcraft. It must be doing something right to be killing people off left and right :).

Out of touch: back to Africa

Today's "now what?" moment came when I was browsing the news and saw a headline on Mauritania, a West African country which recently underwent a bloodless coup. The headline which caught my eye stated that the new government had released "Islamist" political prisoners held by the previous government. Without CNN or Fox News spinning this for me, I wasn't sure how afraid to be :).

I first turned to BBC, which had a nice "Q&A" story.

For some dark humor, check out this quote:

This unit of 150 men is still in Nouakchott and failed to notice any change of behaviour in the National Guard.

This refers to US "consultants" in the country who were gathering intelligence and working with the local government in the "war against terror." I'm sure they won't be offering to teach the new government much.

I also found this story from six months ago, where the new government sentenced previous coup plotters to life in prison. Worth noting is that the president who was ousted in this particular coup put himself into power via coup in the 80s.

What a mess. What's the American spin? I went to CNN and read the most recent AP story. It doesn't attempt much spin. Although the message is clear (Islamic fundamentalists take over government, free Islamist prisoners) the overtones are very vague and soft. The story is full of criticisms of President Taya's policies and actions, and very little mention is made of the implications of losing an ally.

Surely Fox News would satisfy my craving for, as the kids like to say, "OMG TERROR." Not so -- Mauritania isn't mentioned on the front page at all, or even the first page of "US & World News." A search found the most recent story from August 3, a full five days ago. That story was just an AP story.

Of course, maybe the real issue here isn't faith or democracy at all:

The country is expected to begin producing crude for the first time in early 2006. Initial output is expected to total about 75,000 barrels a day, significant for impoverished Mauritania but relatively insignificant compared to regional powerhouse Nigeria, which produces about 2.5 million barrels a day.

In any case, it'll be interesting to see how and if this story develops in the US media. The best I can come up with is "more of the same" -- a struggle for power in a poor nation grasping at straws for its future, under the guise of "the will of the people." For once, I don't feel out of touch.

Very Brief Movie Review

Shaun of the Dead. It's a terrific movie, funny, lovingly crafted parody/tribute to the zombie movie genre. Instant classic.

(Yeah, that's all I got right now. It's been a busy week, and today's only going to be busier.)

Half-Blood Review

Yesterday I finished the latest chapter in the Harry Potter saga, and I am completely satisfied.

I'll avoid spoiling anything here, and just speak in generalities.

The story, and the way it is being told, is continuing to grow more "dark," if by dark you mean mature. This isn't the darkness of pointless torture described in detail, but rather the darkness of a young man growing into adulthood with an incredible burden and finally understanding its full extent and its full cost.

Every single chapter I read, I was happy with. I never put the book down without thinking "when can I pick this back up?" Is it because Rowling is some kind of technical genius at the intricacies of writing? No. There wasn't a single time when I stopped reading and admired the actual technique she used to tell the story. I just ate up the setting, the characters, and the story, and let her tell it any way she wanted.

In fact, there was only one time I thought about the techique of the storytelling, and it's towards the end of the book. A couple important events happen simultaneously, and intsead of giving them both "face time," she follows Potter through one and then has the readers learn about the other event through Potter's eyes as he hears about it from those who lived it. It works, but it felt a little awkward.

Other general comments I can make? The characters are sixteen now, and growing up. There is dating in this book, couples "snogging" in the hallways, sneaking off together, and so forth. Some readers might wish we weren't subjected to quite so much of the teenage romance angst, but the books have always focused on the problems of the "kids" at each age. It's a fact of life at 16. I'm surprised the kids had enough mental focus to care about Voldemort at all :).

Anyway. I had a ton of fun reading this book, and will be buying book seven on release day as well. There's a lot left to wrap up ....

My Own Mortality

Yesterday I received the third death notice by company email I've gotten in the past few months. The first two were for people I knew, this one is not. Still, it's never a pleasant email to open. Sad news, tough times, we'll update you about arrangements, etc.

All three died young. Two were somewhat expected, coming after struggles with fatal diseases. One was a complete surprise, an assumed heart attack in the middle of the night in an otherwise healthy individual.

It's hard not to think about your own mortality, and that of those around you, when seeing those messages. It's a cold reality that some day you will wake up to face the day without those you have faced it with for so long ... or someone else will do the same in your absence.

I keep writing and erasing words here, trying to capture what I'm thinking. I'm failing miserably.

I guess it boils down to this. Many people have some kind of mental checklist of things to do "before they die." The whole idea is ridiculous. You could die tomorrow, you could die at 105. If you wrap up the list by 45, are you going to stop living? It's not about what things you do, it's about how you do them. I may never jump out of a plane, or see the Great Wall of China. But when, each day, I make a hundred small choices, I know I make them right. And that's what matters.

I try not to worry about whether I do it all. I just try to do it right, whatever "it" is.

Blackstone River Hiking

Saturday, Jessica and I had some free time due to a canceled BBQ. Instead of doing what I suggested ("play video games and watch TV while you study, dear") we did what she suggested. We dug out the Nature Walks book she got me for Christmas last year, picked a place, and went for a hike.

We ended up on Lookout Rock Trail in Uxbridge. I'd have pictures but the camera batteries died after just one shot -- so that's what you get. The picture was taken early in the hike near the flat wetlands area.


The hike wound through a very brief meadow area and then quickly into the forest, up a hill and to an incredible view from a rock which rumor has it was used by Native Americans as a lookout point (this has been said about almost every prominent rock ledge in New England, I guess). I wish I had a shot from that rock, the view of the river, the valley, and the distant road was great. It was interesting to hike a couple miles and be able to look down at the road where you knew you were parked and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with saying "that's how far we walked!?"

Anyway, I don't have any deep thoughts to offer on the subject, but I figured I'd at least share the moment.

Football?

Is it too soon to start talking football? Probably. I have done ZERO research into next season's fantasy football potential. I know next to nothing about off-season moves, etc.

But this morning on the radio they announced Ted (Big) Johnson's retirement.
And we already know Ted Bruschi is taking a season off.

It could be a tough year for the Pats' defense, folks. But goddamn if we haven't had a good run. I hope they can keep it up.

I admire Belichick's class:

Although his retirement is unexpected, we thoroughly respect his decision and support him as he moves on. Ted's signature was a work ethic and toughness that were second to none. He retires a champion.

Reading further into the article, I see that we're in a contract dispute with Richard Seymour, who more than once we heard referred to as the best player (period) on the Pats team last year. I imagine this is just a little more ammo in his arsenal....

Out of touch

My usual morning routine involves reading a news page (I happen to use Yahoo, might change some time), skimming over headlines and reading anything interesting. One of the sections I browse is "Full Coverage" which sort of collects stories under categories. So, instead of a half-dozen different headlines on the bombings in London, you get "London Bombings." Same with "Iraq Conflict" and "Space Shuttle." This morning, the fifth topic down was "Niger."

And, you know what? As I read that, I realized I had no idea what events were unfolding in Niger.

And so, I clicked on the link to find out just how out of touch I am.

...

And, yes, I am a complete tool. People are starving to death due to massive drought, famine, and locusts.

I might not be the only one out of touch, though. The five news stories listed? All from non-US sources.

One story had this quote. "I had 50 cows. I sold 20 to feed my family and the rest are dead. Now I have two cows and two calves. I put my future in the hands of God." The countryside is littered with the corpses of cattle who have starved. It sounds hellish to me.

The Boston Globe asked almost a full week ago, "Does US care about Niger now?"

I'd have to say, from where I sit, it doesn't look good.

People crack me up, technical edition

So I'm doing some work-related research, and it leads me to reading this magazine review of JBuilder 2005, the IDE I use at work.

The review is a pretty standard review, talking about IDE features (including code auditing, the feature I was interested in hearing about). In the middle of the review, the author included the following information about Crystal Reports support in JBuilder:

Enterprise supports a wide variety of Web frameworks and libraries, including Struts/Tiles, Java ServerFaces (JSF), Cocoon, and even taglibs for Crystal Reports Engine and JSR168 Portlets and, of course, the Java Standard Tag Library (JSTL).

Makes sense, sure. And then you get to the end of the review, and you find this gem of a comment from someone:

I want to know about crystal report

And then, 30 minutes later, because obviously nobody has answered his question, he follows up with much more information:

how create crystal report in the java program

Thanks, that cleared it right up. Sometimes it's nice to know my job is safe :).

Nerdcore Hiphop

Wired magazine has a bit on nerdcore.

In honor of this moment, I am currently listening to all my Frontalot tracks. And realizing that I'm out of touch -- I gotta find some new nerdy shit to get down to.

Well, I don't really mean "get down to." I more mean "download."

I hate numbers

I actually love numbers, but I hate the way they scale, and I hate the way we use them today.

We constantly hear about how big the national debt is, how many people die per minute from different diseases, how much oil we're burning, and so on.

But the fact is, anything you tell us which scales with population is going to seem immense once you multiply it out. MSN in Australia tells me the average person passes a liter and a half of gas a day. There are almost 300 million people in the US, so each day America releases almost 120 million gallons of flatulance.

That's a lot of stink, by the way.

"US OIL DEMAND, 2004: Over 20 million barrels per day" - from this site. They further tell me that this is about 777 million gallons. The site tries to be helpful as it goes on telling me how deep that much oil would be covering a football field, how many times those barrels would circle the earth, etc. And trust me, that's cool to know. I love having the visual.

But it doesn't mean anything to me. Is it normal for a nation to consume 6 times as much oil as it outputs in ass-gas? What are the ass-gas to oil-consumption ratios for other nations? What do we get in exchange for our oil usage? How much of it is used in cars driven by one person and how much is used in transporting food from the rural areas into the cities? What are the facts behind the numbers?

I'm not saying we aren't being grossly irresponsible in our oil consumption. But tell me about that, don't just give me a number and hope I run away screaming. You have to give me some context.

This same fact applies to the people who try and tell me how many people starve to death each minute. I love this site which tells me that "One person every other second needlessly dies." Now that's a truly useless number, designed simply to scare me. How many people actually die every second? How many are "needful" deaths? How many people are needlessly born (not a very nice thought, I know)?

They further tell me that 578 species go extinct each day, which seems to contrast with Wikipedia's statement of 784 documented extinctions in the past 500 years. This further contrasts with Sierra Legal Defense's estimate of 50 to 75 species per day being eradicated, and SaveTheRainforest's "conservative" estimate of 25 per day. This site tells me (again, "conservatively") that 50 to 150 species are wiped out each day in the tropics alone.

This is even worse than "scare me with big numbers." It's "scare me with completely made up numbers." Do these assholes even know what "conservatively" means when estimating something?

I hate it. It's gotten to the point where I feel no emotional impact from numbers any more. With every statistic I hear, I first question whether they're even right, and then question what it's supposed to tell me. In the end I'm left with one impression: people are much more interested in making me terrified than they are in educating me, and I resent that.

Let me decide whether I should be scared shitless or not, ok?

Important People

Yesterday my wife and I ran into two people who were important to us, growing up.

I really need to rephrase that, because it doesn't make it clear what I'm trying to say. These people knew both of us, but never dealt with us when we were "together." And yet we both remember them separately as wonderful people who were important to us getting where we are today.

One was Ed Shaughnessy, who was The Man at our high school. I use the title The Man because whatever his actual title was (Dean of Students? Principal?), his real job as far as I knew was to walk the hallways and act as the father figure to a bunch of blue collar kids with attitude problems. This was the guy who handed out punishments, who told you to "take your goddamn hat off" inside the classroom, and who broke up fights. And this was the guy who got a standing ovation during graduation ceremonies.

Mr. S, as we called him (because that's what his wife called him; see below), was a real rarity. He knew how to talk to kids, how to get results, and how to earn respect. And he'd known it for decades: he was teaching at the school when Jess's parents were students there.

Jess and I weren't problem kids; Mr. S. didn't need to give us a lot of shit. But he still had to keep us in line, and both of us dealt with him on a couple occasions. I specifically remember getting caught typing an obscene poem in typing class (I remember how it started: "A jolly old elf that old saint nick, had a two-foot seven-inch motherfucking dick") while Jess and her friends all showed up late for school one day with permission slips from their parents, and still got in trouble ("I don't care if they're real or not, you can't just skip your first class and get breakfast at Abdow's. You know what'll happen if word gets out this stunt worked? You tell all your classmates you have detention!" [they didn't, of course, but they had to say they did...]).

Anyway. As far as I know, he retired shortly after Jess graduated. A quick web search shows him back at Smith school, though, as athletic director and baseball coach. I'm sure he's still keeping kids in line. Way to go, Mr. S.

The other person we met was Jane Nagle, who taught us English Literature in our Junior and Senior years. Miss Nagle was married to Mr. S., but kept her own last name. She had a talent for recognizing and nurturing independent thought, and rewarded creative expression of ideas, even unpopular ones. I still remember specific classroom discussions from that class, and it was 15 years ago! I still have my journals, my papers, my homework assignments with comments scribbled in the margins. Both Jess and I spoke at our respective high school graduations, and Miss Nagle helped us with our speeches like a nervous hen. She begged us not to embarass Mr S., and of course we ignored her advice and made sure we gave our peers ample opportunity to applaud him.

Miss Nagle didn't earn the same kind of respect Mr S. did, though. Jess and I both remember her very fondly, but I know some other students didn't. She never connected with the "collective consciousness" of the student body with the same ease her husband did. And there may have been some resentment of the way she seemed to play favorites ... it was hard to see that at the time. Still, I feel the environment she created in that Period 1 English Lit class really helped shape me and prepare my mind for higher education.

Miss Nagle didn't stay at Smith School. She had been working on her doctorate for some time, and after Jess graduated she moved on to a new calling -- instead of teaching kids, she's teaching new generations of teachers. A quick web search shows her at Westfield State now.

Seeing them, still happy and together all these years later, was a powerful moment. Mr S. recognized us right away, pointing at us across a crowded room. We shook hands, hugged, made small talk for a couple moments, and went our separate ways. I wish we had talked for a little while longer, but so it goes.

I think they know how important they were to us. And now you do to.

I, Robot

I'll start today with something light: a brief movie review of I, Robot.

I am probably best described as a casual fan of classic sci-fi. I've read the core Foundation novels, spits and spurts of Clarke and Heinlein, and dabbled in a half-dozen other classic authors in bits and pieces. I'm far from an expert, but I've accumulated some exposure over the years.

I went into I, Robot not knowing what to expect. I left it feeling much the same way. I'm not sure the folks making the movie knew what they wanted, or what they got.

First off, Will Smith fails in this role. I don't know how -- but he does. He nails half of his character's personality, but just isn't convincing enough at other times. I can't really blame him, because it seemed like they didn't know what they wanted his character to be.

This is the continuing problem with the movie. Is it an action movie or a deep sci-fi movie? Is it trying to be both (ala The Matrix) or neither? I can't tell, and I'm not sure they could either while making it. They wind up an interesting "hard sci-fi" sort of open-ended story, and then at the same time try to spoon-feed everything to you with a pretty bow and lots of explosions.

The movie basically makes promises it never delivers on, and leaves you wondering what you just watched. It was a solid disappointment, because instead of aiming low and succeeding, or aiming high and failing, it just sort of limps along with uncertain expectations and uncertain delivery.

Am I crazy (work-related)?

So I went to JavaOne a few weeks ago and enjoyed the hell out of San Francisco. Somewhere along the way I actually derived some satisfaction out of being at a conference full of people who shared my profession. This is not something I'm used to. If you know me, you know I'm pretty cynical about "work stuff" in general.

I wrote a 10+ page summary of my time at JavaOne, sent it to my team, and people actually read it and commented on it. I was blown away. But this didn't completely finish me off; I had these weird ideas about how we have this fragmented developer environment and we could be doing much more than we are.

In a moment of weakness, I described some of these ideas to my manager, who thought it would be good for me to put them in a more coherent form.

So I wrote a short little proposal explaining why I felt we needed to improve things, what we should be aiming for, and what specifically we can do to start getting there. I even included some critical comments on our corporate culture. I finished it off by explaining that I didn't really expect this first "system" to change the world overnight, but hoped that in its inevitable failure it might impart some minor changes in attitudes (well, not in those exact words, but you get the point).

Is this the kind of stupid stuff that gets people in hot water? Or is this the kind of focused stuff that gets people credit?

What does it say about me, about this industry, that I am questioning the difference between these two?

I'm putting off passing this in to my boss. I'm smart enough to at least suggest that I be allowed to count this proposal towards my quarterly objectives for Q3....

Why do I still read PvP?

First off, let me just say that if there's one thing that I find less amusing than a drawn-out PvP story arc, it's one done by a guest artist. I'm not sure why I check there anymore, except for force of habit. Just for kicks I went back through the last month's archives to find the last time I got a real chuckle out of it.

I mean, masturbating blaspheming cats is worth something, right? That's the only one. And I'm stretching here.

(Yes, this is a poor excuse for a post. I'm sorry, it's Monday morning.)

MLP: Environment

I meant to link these but forgot about it in my rush to post about my geeky adrenalin rush. Yesterday I read some interesting articles and discussions about "Peak Oil." Links:

K5 Story (Part 1)
Wikipedia (linked from K5)
Economist POV

I find the entire subject pretty fascinating from an academic standpoint. It's an interesting time we live in.

On a related note, I recently watched Penn & Teller's Bullshit! as they talked about the environmental movement (the episode was from season 1). They weren't arguing that environmentalism is bullshit, but more that the movement was being hijacked by political activists who were using the mental capital of environmental concern to support a whole variety of anti-corporate, anti-globalism causes. They also talked about how much of the movement uses sensationalism instead of science, and so forth. Nothing really new but still useful to see. The moral of the story was to do your research before you give your money, and spend your energy in the rigth places for the right causes. Solid advice.

Geek Out, Geek Star.

Now is the humid summer of my discontent made glorious season-neutral-indoors by all the cool nerdy shit coming my way this weekend.

• Stargate SG-1
• Stargate Atlantis
• Battlestar Galactica
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

On a side note, I am so glad Potter came out after I was "grown up" because as a teenager I probably would have been too full of myself to get so much enjoyment out of a "kids' book." Unlike, say, The Pope, who is obviously still too full of himself to enjoy them. I should invite Darth Benedict over to my place for the weekend. Let him see what a corrupt soul really does with its spare time.

Blogs increasing information scatter?

The other day I noticed something about the "blogosphere." It all started when I tried to search my blog, just as you'd search your gmail, for something I knew I had written. The search box at the top didn't show anything -- obviously at this point Google isn't indexing my blog. That's fine -- I've never submitted it to be indexed, and very rarely if ever linked to it from a place where google indexes.

But it made me think about something else. Obviously people who blog enjoy being read, or they'd just keep a diary, right? And part of the appeal of a blog is supposed to be its interactivity. I write here about the new Harry Potter book, and you post a followup telling me I'm a geek, and then some SA goon posts a slash image of Harry and Hagrid, and the collective concsiousness grows, or something. Anyway, I stumbled onto something the other day which relates to all this.

I've lost the links, but it's a trend you've probably seen if you read blogs at all -- Author A posts something, and Author B writes a reply ... in his own blog. Then he just replies in Author A's blog: "I replied -here-" with a link back to his own blog (probably in an effort to drive readers or search engines to his blog). The conversation probably ends here, but maybe not ... maybe people reply to one or the other, and maybe some of them use this self-promoting "I replied here" mechanism. You end up with this fragmented mess.

I wonder if this is common. I'm new to this whole blogging thing, as you can probably tell. But it seems like something which isn't rare, and isn't necessarily healthy....

Firefox, Shuttles, and Childish Fascination

Just some random notes to fill space on a Wednesday morning:

Firefox 1.0.5 is out.

Of course, my browser hasn't figured this out yet, even though the download's been available all night. Mozilla delays auto-notification so the technocratic elite can get the patches first, evidently. I kid (sort of). It's an interesting topic, actually, which has been debated to death by people with far more energy than I have.

The space shuttle Discovery is set to launch this afternoon after repairs had to be done on the pad. Interesting to note that CNN calls it "emergency repairs" and Space.Com calls it "minor repairs." I guess they're both right. Enjoy your spin. I've set my desktop wallpaper to the beautiful glory shot of Columbia preparing for its first launch (STS-1), which I snagged off of APOD a while back.

Finally, on a more personal note, while eating lunch yesterday I watched a pair of street sweepers operate on Route 20 in Northboro. I got to watch them operate, empty the accumulated debris into a dump truck, which in turn covered the dirt with a sheet and turned around to drop it off somewhere. I felt like a little kid watching construction equipment at work; I had never really thought about the process of street sweeping. I thought I'd find more info on the process on HowStuffWorks, but no dice. Instead, I found this page, which talks about street sweeping from a municipal standpoint: how it improves your city to do it. This is why I love the Internet :).

Eager Feet keep moving

Well, these eager feet got back on the pavement yesterday, in the humid upper-80s sun. Let me tell you, after about a month off from running, this was an interesting way to remind my body what it "enjoys." The pain was relatively short-lived, afterwards, however.

In any case, "they" say that you generally will be sub-par for twice the period of your layoff so assuming I actually try and work this back into my schedule, I can expect it to take a couple months before I feel like my old self again. Well, my old "new" self.

In other eager feet news, these eager feet are headed for Las Vegas next month. A bunch of Amazon Basiners (not to be confused with, say, people killing monkeys with blowdarts in Brazil) are meeting up in Vegas for ABCon V. I was so focused on San Francisco that I haven't really started to get psyched up for Vegas yet. So, to remedy that, I'll try and focus my mental energies over the next few days on the sounds of slot machines, the sight of omnipresent neon, the taste of cheap booze, and the smell of cigarette smoke. Vegas, baby, Vegas!

Seriously, though, people are starting to get nutso about it on our forums, so that's cool. How will we meet, what will we do during off times, who wants to gamble vs. who wants to play Gamecube, who wants to hike, who wants to drink, etc. My wife has informed me that as long as I'm not leading a bunch of "internet nerds" over to the Bunny Ranch for a party I'm okay to go without her. Fine, be that way ;).

San Francisco Part 4 (w/Pics) (Last one!)

(See previous posts: 1, 2, 3).

SATURDAY

Last day in the city, and we were busy again. We slept in a little and then hoofed it over to Chinatown as they opened the place up. Jess and I both compared it to Cancun -- you're seeing the edges of a real "other" culture, but you're seeing it through this lens of tourist-friendliness. We walked into total tourist trap stores with tons of junk (neat, cool junk, but still junk), and we walked down alleys where various businesses with no english names operated. We saw a funeral procession go by, and we gawked at the vendors and their weird foods. We hit the district too early to catch the locals buying and selling things like live animals and such, but it was still plenty interesting.


We went to the Golden Dragon for Dim Sum, based on location and description in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was suitably Chinese -- not much English in their interactions, kind of confusing, but fun. Dim Sum deserves its own whole story -- the end of the story is that we ate until we were full for 15 dollars, including tip. Total. Amazing. The sad part of the story is that we left so many foods unsampled. Going with 4 is definitely the way to go -- either that or just leaving half the food uneaten. In any case, it wasn't long until we were passing on every dish they brought out, just because we were full.

We had a good laugh about Dim Sum, later. There were several Chinese families there, and a European family, who were obviously quite accomplished Dim Sum eaters :). We were a bit out of water, doing our best to get by. But there was a family there who made us look like we came from Hong Kong. The waittress comes by with the cart of food and says, "Dim Sum?". The guy responds by taking out this piece of paper, which turned out to be a flier from the restaurant promising "One free Dim Sum with Lunch Special." He points at the words "Dim Sum" and speaks with exaggerated volume: "DIM SUM?" It was hilarious. They ate their lunch special with their free plate of Dim Sum, though, and were evidently quite happy.


We know this because when the couple who looked like they were from Texas arrived, they sat down and the husband asked the guy at that table, "What's this Dim Sum stuff?" The guy answered, pointing at the small plate of Shumai he had, "It's these little dumpling thingies. We had some, they're good." Wow. So, yeah, evidently I'm like all cultured. Go me. As I mentioned to Jess later, though, it clearly takes a certain kind of courage to walk into a Dim Sum parlor having no idea what you're getting. I'm sure they were very proud of their adventurous spirit.

We ditched Chinatown and took the subway to Golden Gate Park, next. We spent the afternoon walking through the park, which is really beautiful. We had tea at the Japanese Tea Garden, ate Japanese cookies and snacks (including some Pocky ... honestly I don't understand its odd appeal to the anime fanboy set), and took some pictures of the pretty flowers and whatnot. Very relaxing, and a beautiful afternoon for it.


Then we got back on the subway and rode to Ocean Beach, where we stepped foot in the frozen Pacific. We strolled back to a corner bar right by the beach which turned out to be this cool neighborhood cafe with an awesome vibe. We relaxed, I had a beer, Jess had a soda, and we just took in the place. Very cool, and it was nice to be reminded that people -lived- here. It had a very college town feel to it, which was perfect.


On the way back, we got off the subway near the park and stopped at this Japanese place we had walked past before called Hotei, and ate noodle soup that was way too big for us. Still, delicious and again a perfect atmosphere, sitting in a window booth watching everybody walk by as the sun dipped down. The relaxing walk and subway ride back to the hotel really put the cap on our time in the city.

San Francisco Part 3 W/Pics

(See parts one and two)

FRIDAY


The conference was done, and this was our guided tour day. We started the morning with breakfast at a nearby cafe, followed by a bus ride to Muir Woods where Jess and I were consistenly overwhelmed by the beauty of nature. These trees are amazing -- the entire atmosphere is great. Super tall trees reaching up into the fog, etc. It's awe-inspiring. One thing that I didn't remember from my previous visit was the rich healthy smell of the place. One thing I could have done without was the crowd of people ... but what can you do? It's not your planet, it's everyone's. Heh. It was humbling and beautiful, and the 75 minutes we spent there was not quite enough time. Still, compromises must be made.



Our tour returned to San Fran via Sausalito, where we had lunch at a famous hamburger place whose name escapes me. I don't even think the sign for the place had a name, it just said "Hamburgers." Excellent food, eaten outdoors by the Sausalito marina. Jess fed pigeons, I took pictures of boats, and we hopped back in the van for the ride back to the city.


That was back across the bridge to Pier 41 (and 39), where we poked around a bit (Jess bought some cool earrings) before catching the ferry to Alcatraz. Alcatraz itself was also cool, especially with the audio tour. The audio tour is narrated by actual convicts and correctional officiers from the prison, and has various subtle non-cheesy sound-effects scattered throughout. I can see why it's won awards. The island was also covered in cool plants and birds, including a healthy amount of baby sea gulls. On the other hand, it was cold and windy, and we were ready to leave soon after the audio tour concluded. We took the boat back and tried to decide how to conclude our day. We were tired, we had walked around quite a bit, and we weren't sure how much fuel we had left. I certainly wasn't up for going back to the hotel, dressing up, and hitting anywhere fancy.


We decided to just walk until something caught our eyes, and after poking at a couple little stores we ended up at (you're going to laugh) Hooters. I have never been in a Hooters, so it was fun in that way. I was amused by how many couples and families there were there; only a couple tables had all-guy groups. Anyway, pretty girls, hair metal on the radio, cold beer, decent chicken, basically fuel up and head on out.

We waited in a HUGE line for the cable car home, suffering through a very poor performance by a street entertainer. The real joke here is that the people behind us seemed to think they were in a comedy club, constantly critiquing the performer's "act." "Is this his whole schtick?" Yes, dude, that's his whole schtick. You didn't pay a cover charge, you aren't in a nightclub, and be happy he doesn't turn outright hostile when you don't put money in his hat, ok?

EMC JavaOne Pic

Think of this as "Part 2.5" -- a picture of the EMC crew.


I'll get the rest of the report up this weekend.

San Francisco Trip - Part 2 (w/Pics)

(See part one)

MONDAY

I was at the conference all morning and all afternoon, and had lunch with Jess at the Metreon food court in between. I won't bore you with conference-related stuff, but the opening day was special. The first general session, where they welcomed us all, was very cool in a "relax and geek out" kind of way.

Side note: It was very difficult to balance the two vibes this trip had for me. On the one hand, you spend all day with 15,000 other geeks doing geeky stuff. During off time, there is tons of geeky amusement to be had, which I almost completely skipped to maximize my time with Jess and in the city. It led to some minor feelings of time and energy conflict which took some getting used to.



Moving on: the conference went to 7:00 PM and by then I was pretty wiped out. I didn't feel like doing anything ambitious, so we went for a walk to a nearby Indian cafe that gets rave reviews: Chaat Cafe. The reviews were right: awesome affordable Indian food. Very fun, very relaxing, and my only complaint was that the service was awful. The story here is that they are very busy at lunch, where you give your order at the counter, fight for a table, and scarf down your food with no real service. At dinner they seat you and take your order, but they really don't "serve" you that much after your food arrives. Not much in terms of drink refills, and it took forever to get our check.

TUESDAY

Probably my best day at the conference; lots of interesting sessions, with a convenient one hour break where nothing interested me too much. I grabbed lunch at a noodle place in the Metreon food court and got primo seats at the first session after that. Interesting content, kind of hit my tech groove.


This was the day Jess braved the subway and went to the zoo, which is her own story to tell. Still, way to go Jess!



After the sessions we hopped on the subway and made our way to the financial district, where we had awesome Greek food at Kokkari's. We were a little underdressed; most of the people there were still in their "I work in a bank or ad agency" uniforms. But our waiter was awesome. He made us feel totally at home, answered all our questions without a hint of condescension, and basically made us feel like the only customers in the place. Awesome from top to bottom. On the way back we walked through a neighborhood where wild parrots hang out in the trees, and poked around through various parks and such before heading back to the hotel.

Side note: obviously underlying all these little stories is the current of "city" experiences. Street musicians, pan-handlers, homeless people, insane crowds, busy traffic, stopping in random cafes for soda/coffee/tea, etc. I don't bother to add that in but it was part of the whole experience for us and one which we don't get that often.


WEDNESDAY

A very busy conference day, with no real breaks at all. I created one, though, and spent a little time exploring the vendor booths on the floor, because otherwise I would have felt cheated.

Side story: I had an amusing encounter with a "booth babe." There were not many of them, and even these were not true "booth babes" but probably just "attractive sales/marketing people." Still, it was obvious what this girl's job was, and she did an okay job of it. Now, I was interested in hearing about the product, but really I could have just grabbed their flier and reviewed it later. But I got completely sucked in. I thought I was above this, but once she made eye contact and smiled her huge pretty smile, I was like a deer in headlights. Yes, tell me more! That's fascinating! No, I haven't heard of your product before. Ah....yes, I see how that would be useful. Anyway, the story has a happy ending: I snapped out of it was she tried to hand me off to an engineer for a more in-depth demo of the product. I made my escape and grazed the other booths for minor trinkets, handouts, and brief sales speeches.

All part of the fun.

I don't remember what, if anything, we did Wednesday after my sessions. But we had dinner at a place we had walked by a dozen times, Max's. Their tagline was something like "everything you ever wanted to eat," and it was always crowded. The food was well-executed middle-of-the-road fare, with a slightly quirky but very "safe" atmosphere. The drinks were not the best, though, and the portions were too big. I hesitate to count that as a negative but it's hard not to -- our soups could have been meals in their own right, and each of us left half our dinners uneaten. Still, they were decent dinners and it was a fun, laid back time. We were able to sit in a booth where our seats were kitty-corner from each other, with good views of the streets outside. So we could people-watch and chat about the day.

I think I was pretty beat at this point, but there was one more day of "work" left.

THURSDAY

The vibe of the conference changed on the last day; the vendor booths closed up, the late-night sessions stopped, and I said goodbye to the various EMC folks I had met from across the country.

Side note: I met lots of interesting people at the conference, just random people you'd start a conversation with in line. Where are you from, go anywhere interesting yesterday, etc. Nice times. I am not really an extroverted person but it's interesting to see the contrast between me and truly shy people. I got involved in a 3-way conversation where one guy was really outgoing but the other was totally quiet. It was odd watching him just get quieter and quieter as the other guy and I kind of took over the conversation. Random humanity :).

The general session on the last day was the "here's the future" session, and it was pretty cool and inspiring in its own way. I hit all the sessions I could on the last day, again with no real break, but skipped the last session of the day so I could be out by 3:30. We made plans to meet at the movies at 6 with Ura and another EMC guy
named Steve, and that was that.

After checking and seeing the movie didn't start until almost 7, Jess and I grabbed dinner before the movies. We ended up at a Mexican place that was actually part of a chain, called Chevy's. Still, huge high quality ritas, fresh tortilla chips, spicy delicious food, and Mexican music added up to a great time. We hit War of the Worlds after that, and then wandered around the city with Ura and Steve, ending up back at our hotel bar for a couple drinks and some vague work-related discussion. A solid evening.

San Francisco Trip - Part 1 (w/PICS)

Having recently returned home from 8 days in San Francisco for the JavaOne conference, I thought I'd inflict upon my faithful readers (ha) a little summary of my trip. We start with the first weekend in the city and I'll follow up with later days. Background info: this was my second time in SF and my wife's first. I know this will read backwards but such is the life of the blogger.

SATURDAY

We got a ride to the airport in a "shared van" which cost us like 60 bucks each way. Considering the cost of parking for 8 days plus the convenience factor, it seemed worth it. There's a good chance the company will pay for this expense, making it even more worth it. They picked us up at 3 AM, and the only reason I even mention this is that when we left a skunk was chilling out by our back porch (as in, it ran away from me when I came out by running between my grill and my steps). After this little adrenalin rush subsided, the trip there was pretty uneventful.

We got to SF, exhausted, and were checked into our hotel by noon their time. We headed out for our first brief excursion by walking around the immediate area until we found a place that looked about our speed for lunch. We ended up at a place called the Daily Grill, which was quiet, casual (enough), and good. We ate sandwiches and returned to the hotel to nap for a few hours because, you know, getting up at 2:30 AM is tiring.

Late afternoon, we headed out for a little laid-back exploration. We walked to where my conference was held, and I picked up my registration materials. Along the way we got a little lost (Moscone West != Moscone, fyi), but it was no big deal. We poked around downtown a little, bought a weeklong public transit pass (great deal at 20 bucks per person), and settled in to dinner at some jazz bistro that was completely empty. The food was completely average -- I imagine the real appeal was the music, but we were too early for music. Remember, we were 3 hours off schedule and operating on weird sleep too.

Side story: a street musician, later in the week, responded to my friend Ura's question of where to go for some cool music by naming this same jazz bistro.

SUNDAY

This was our real welcome to the city day. We started with breakfast at Sears Fine Foods, a short walk away and evidently a famous breakfast joint. Good food, but I'm not sure I understand how it got so famous. Maybe staying in business for decades and decades has something to do with it.

After breakfast, we headed downtown and walked pretty far down Market St (heading west). This was the Pride Parade day, and the street was blocked off and tons of cops were hanging around to set up. As such, we walked with confidence through some fairly sketchy areas :). We turned around as we got near the civic center, and walked all the way back to like 5th St or so, where we found a gap in the crowd and saddled up to the barriers to watch the parade.

The parade was MASSIVE. It opened with the 600-strong "Dykes on Bikes" and went from there. Jess was moved to tears at the start of it, which I wasn't expecting. She said it was sad to see these people who were so obviously happy with their lives and yet had to fight for the simplest recognition and respect. That gave me a little pause and cast the event in a slightly different light for me.



In any case, it was a freakshow. We saw a couple topless women and a couple bottomless guys, float after float representing various groups, companies, and causes, and just tons of people marching. Overall, though, it was much more tame than we were expecting. I guess growing up in Northampton, living in liberal Massachusetts, and traveling as much as we have, we've already seen a lot. Maybe the Internet has something to do with it too. But it wasn't the "OMG insane" freakshow we sort of were hoping for. It's like we secretly wanted to have our boundaries tested and pushed, and instead we just stood by and watched stuff we've seen before, and applauded with everyone else.




Side note: it was deeply moving to see the very strong anti-establishment crowd applaud as one when the (very few) gay veterans marched by, again when the gay police marched by (with partners), and finally again when the mayor marched by. You see so much stupid "I hate everybody" rebellion that it's nice to see properly directed "I can hate the war but still applaud the vets" energy.




Anyway, it was quite an experience. The crowds were huge, and friendly. We saw NO anti-parade protesters, which was another surprise. Plenty of anti-war, anti-Bush signs, of course. Heh. Eventually we grew tired of watching people march by, and it was clear the "big bang" stuff had already gone by, so we moved on. We walked east and ended up at the Ferry Building, Pier 1, Embarcadero. We had lunch at The Slanted Door, Vietnamese food, and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere of the building. Lots of little shops, small farmers' market, lots of people milling about, great views of the Bay Bridge (to Oakland), etc. Then we waited for the restored vintage subway car to take us to Pier 39.



At Pier 39 we just kind of walked around, went into a few shops, checked out the view, the seal lions, etc. We were really kind of wiped out, though, to get much out of this. We took the cable car back to our hotel and rested up a bit, meeting one of my Amazon Basin friends for dinner. It was supposed to be two friends but one never showed. In any case, she took us to the Cliff House, where we waited for an hour to get a table and chatted while admiring the killer views of the Pacific. If you haven't been up there, make a point of it next time you're in SF. It's downright surreal to see the ocean from that angle, and the sunset wasn't half-bad either.



So that was our first big city day; exhausting, long, but awesome.

Feeling Rejuvenated

My plane landed a couple hours ago, and I'm back home, safe, sound, and not quite tired enough to sleep. Three cheers for time zone changes!

I figured instead of wasting away my energy playing a video game, I'd pop in here and write up a short comment on how this trip has made me feel. The best word I can use is rejuvenated.

My wife and I this past week experienced things both wondrous and mundane, spectacular and tacky. We met new people, saw new places, and learned new things. We were pampered and humbled, awestruck and saddened. It was everything we travel for, and I couldn't ask for it to be more.

In addition, I spent four days with my industry peers and felt my excitement for my industry rekindled. I have no idea how long it will last, but I have realized how out of touch I have become with the state of the art, and how easy it would be to invest just a little more time into staying more in touch. I'm looking forward to sharing with my co-workers everything that I took away from the convention. Someone slap me, I'm losing touch with reality.

I'm thrilled to be home. But part of me is sad knowing that the energy I feel right now will fade over time. Maybe I can find a way to preserve and channel it. Only time will tell.

Connectivity in San Fran

My time in San Francisco is almost at an end. There's so much I could write about, but right now I'm thinking about connectivity.

My hotel room has an ethernet port, through which I am currently connected. To use it, I must activate a service for a period of up to 24 hours (actually it's from "now" until 3 PM the next day), at a cost of ten dollars. Compared to my home broadband fee, this is highway robbery. Compared to being offline, it's a bargain.

Like many of us, I have begun to take it for granted that "cyberspace" is an always-reachable extension of my own mind. I don't need it 24 hours a day, but day after day it really starts to add up. What was that movie, what was that trivial fact, what was that restaurant I read about, how far is it from point A to point B, and what's the buzz on that microbrewery/tapas joint by the Moscone center? I am so used to being able to answer questions like this within seconds, that being unable to answer them even after a whole day has gone by is painful.

Not to mention that I find myself completely unable to absorb news from my surroundings without it. I see something in a headline, see a piece of a news report, and my first thought isn't "turn on CNN" it's "I wonder if there's a thread about this on Ars or Slashdot." I need to know not just what is happening, but what "my peers" think about it.

Don't get me wrong. I am not sitting there consumed by my lack of connectivity while taking a slow walk through Muir Woods. And as I enjoy a great Greek beer and dip my grilled pita bread in an eggplant and garlic spread I am not thinking "I wonder what today's Penny Arcade was." There's a place for being disconnected, and certain states of mind which only seem to be reachable when you're out of touch. Not only that, but I recognize and value the experience of sitting down for a meal at a restaurant you've heard nothing about and being blown away by the surprise -- of reading a book nobody told you was going to be good and thrilling at making a secret discovery.

But the fact is, those times, places, and experiences are few and far between. I need my cybernetic brain add-on more than I need to be without it.

And apparently I am not the only one. Today I saw a street musician with his hotmail email address written down on a piece of paper in his guitar case, among the nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar bills. It was surreal, but at the same time I kind of identified with him.

Aching for more time in San Francisco

So I'm in San Francisco for the 10th JavaOne conference, and every day is full of exciting stuff I want to write about -- but time in front of a PC is not a common commodity. There's a big part of me that wants to write a blog entry for each day, detailing everything I'm seeing and doing, but I just don't have the time.

We'll see. Maybe I'll get some free time today and will be able to write something at least....

Burning Political Issues

The US House of Representatives has approved a constitutional ammendment making it legal for Congress to create a law banning the desecration of our flag. It now has to be approved by the Senate and states.

Some links:
Yahho News
Wikipedia
Flag Burning FAQ

This has happened in the past, but each time the Senate has overturned it. Many observers expect this time around to be different. For example, 49 of the 50 states (thank you, Vermont, and fuck you, New Hampshire - live free indeed) have expressed non-binding support for this amendment.

Regardless of how you feel about burning the flag in protest, let's look at some facts:

• The Constitution has been in effect since 1789
• It has been amended only 18 times in those years (the first ten amendments arrived all at once)
• In the past century, only 12 amendments have passed. These include our system of taxation, women's rights, and various voting and representative technicalities.
• Two of those amendments "cancel each other out" -- Prohibition and its removal.
• The flag is already hevaily protected: you cannot even use in it advertising (someone tell car dealers this, please).
• Congress estimates 7 flags are burned in protest each year.
• Our elected representatives do not have the power to tell us what to hold sacred.
• Most flags that are burned are burned in protest of flag-burning laws.
• A theoretical law protecting the flag will be impossible to enforce equitably.
• Our "old" laws against flag-burning were terribly written and we cannot assume new ones will be better.

In summary, our elected representatives feel it is worth modifying the founding document of our nation in order to make illegal something which happens, according to their own estimates, seven times a year. They further willingly walk into the minefield of legislation of religion, as they take on the task of defining the sacred and punishing those who disagree (see: Jehovah's Witnesses, who refuse to hold the flag sacred due to strict interpretations of Biblical prohibition of "idolatry").

I'll wrap this up by stating that I feel this is the single most frightening step this administration has taken against our freedoms, and that's saying a lot (USA PATRIOT act, anybody?). If we do this, we create a nation where it is now actually possible to commit a thought crime.

Let me put it this way. Our Contitution is more sacred than our flag, and our nation as a whole will desecrate it by passing this amendment. That desecration is not worth the benefit of giving our cops another way to harass the dirty hippies whose flag-burning protests don't convince anybody of anything anyway.

I'm ashamed of every single vote in favor of this amendment.

Morbid family

Why are our families so morbid and uninformed?

So, evidently there have been a few earthquakes in California recently. And it's got my family rattled, pun intended. See, my wife and I are headed there soon, and after having never mentioned it in the past both our parents recently asked us if we had wills set up.

After all, they both said, you don't want your stuff to go "to the state."

First off, yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence. I fully expect to come home safe and sound from this trip.

Second off, what "stuff" do we have? Barring items of sentimental value, we're talking about a very small savings account, a life insurance policy, a car which is mostly still owned by the bank, a couple pieces of jewelry which are more sentimentally important than financially, and some substandard consumer electronics. We're not talking about real estate, substantial savings, or a hidden sack of precious gems.

Third, "the state?" Come on.

But, you know, just to be safe I did a little research. My life insurance policy goes to a list of beneficiaries in the order I specified when I signed up. I don't even remember what I did, but I'm sure I made the right choice and didn't somehow accidentally list "the state" as one of the recipients of my death loot. Even if the only recipient was my wife, according to the plan if all my beneficiaries are dead when I die, the benefits are paid out to a surviving family member in order of spouse, child, parent, etc. So, no worries there.

But what about all my stuff? Who gets my substandard consumer electronics?

Evidently, the body of law dealing with what happens if you die and leave no will behind is called Intestacy Law. According to the wikipedia,

In most contemporary common-law jurisdictions, the law of intestacy is patterned after the common law of descent. Property goes first to a spouse, then to children and their descendants; if there are no descendants, the rule sends you back up the family tree to the parents, the siblings, the siblings' descendants, the grandparents, the parents' siblings, and the parents' siblings' descendants, and sometimes further to the more remote degrees of kinship.

So, again, if we both die in a terrible accident, our "stuff" goes to our families. Only if it becomes impossible to identify such an individual does the mysterious "state" get my mad loot. I guess there's some concern that the person dividing up the loot belongs to the impersonal "state" but, really, is that enough to lose sleep over? Some further research into Massachusetts law brings up a lot of arguments in favor of a will, but most of them revolve around making sure your "assets" go to the "right people" in your family or in expediting the process (counting on the courts to divide your assets can take over a year).

So, yeah. I know I "should" have a will, so I can determine that Clint gets my D&D books and my mom gets my cat and Jess's cousins get her jewelry, or something. But, really, at this point? Give me a break.

On second thought, maybe I should make up a will. I'll leave everything to charity.

I Built God's House

Ok, not really. But I did lend a hand in turning what used to be a golf store into a church this weekend.

Now, obviously, I am not a church guy. I am not what you'd call a god guy. But I'm surrounded by family who are god people, church people, even "pray for your broken appliance" people. This weekend, as part of a Father's Day "present" from my wife to her Dad, I contribued a ton of untrained manual labor to some family work. Some of that was basically demolition work on a house, and some of it was helping put their storefront church together in time for yesterday's services.

We moved a few dozen chairs from one place to another. We built a podium and carpeted it. We took down blinds and hung them up, curtains, decorations, A/V equipment, signs, even an American flag. We cleaned, we climbed ladders, we carried all manner of heavy objects around, and in the end it looked almost respectable.

And there's a small part of me that felt strangely satisfied yesterday knowing that somewhere, a few people were praying, singing, and listening to a sermon in a building that was once a golf store and was now "God's house" as far as they were concerned.

Of course, the sign on the street still says "Al's Caddy Shack." And I'm still an atheist stuck in an extended family of fundamentalists. And I try not to think about the fact that the people who get sucked into that church are being handed a belief system which cripples them and sends them back into the Dark Ages.

Because I say take your satisfaction where you can get it, people, and don't overanalyze it :).

Rampant Consumerism - Food Edition

Who needs movie reviews when you can read FOOD REVIEWS?

I've tried 2 new food products this week:

Nabisco Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits
It's kind of a weird dark secret of mine that I can't get enough rosemary. It's like I discovered this herb about 2 years ago and am catching up on a lifetime of not using it. I try to sneak it into foods we cook when my wife's not watching, and every time I manage to enjoy some restaurant food with it as an ingredient I'm happy like a little kid who found "Chocolate Bread" on the menu.

That said, the taste on these was a little overdone. It tasted (sort of) like rosemary (kind of like bacon bits taste sort of like bacon), but it was a little greasy and heavy for what I wanted. I think they could have gotten away with a lighter taste and still teased the edges of my rosemary craving.

Don't get me wrong; we still ate them. But they aren't the next big thing....

Side note: how did Thomas Cutter end up with the triscuits.com domain?

Coca-Cola Zero
Yes, another diet coke variant. This one is made with asparteme and Ace-K, a relatively new sweetener which has been in use in Europe for a few years but has only recently showed up in the US. You may have seen Ace-K previously as a "filler" sweetener when products who intended to use just Splenda ran into a shortage. In any case, Coke Zero tastes a hell of a lot like regular coke. That same somewhat-heavy taste you get when you drink sugar soda is there -- but there's no sugar. It's a very odd sensation.

In any case, I've been drinking plain-old-diet coke for so long that I associate that sugary flavor with "bad" instead of "good." So, I'm not sure if this new potential flavor will win me over or not. It might work well in a rum&coke drink, where the heavier sugar-like flavor is more desirable....

Monday Grab Bag

I had hoped to update this blog twice a week. Instead, it's being updated every two weeks.

Bi-weekly vs. semi-weekly.

I guess I could just say I intended to publish bi-weekly and let the confusion over the term rule the roost. Reference this quote:

Be aware that these terms have come to mean either twice a year, month, or week, or every other year, month, week. To avoid confusion, use either twice a or every other, according to need.

Why can't I use both? "Twice an every other week." Yeah, figure that out. You'll be so busy you won't notice I'm not updating.

I was going to sit down and write some kind of thoughtful entry, but instead I'll just dump some random thoughts down for perpetual safekeeping on the internets.

• Probably four times in my life I have bought non-dairy flavored creamer, expecting it to make my coffee taste like mildly sweet flavored coffee with creamer in it. Instead, it consistently makes it taste like someone dumped a ton of sugar and some heavy cream into my coffee, and it's a struggle to get it down. And yet, I keep trying, every couple years. It just sounds so good.
• I watched Along Came Polly yesterday. It's nothing. Hank Azaria's small role as a nudist SCUBA instructor is damn funny, though. The guy's a chameleon. He can play anything.
• I ate "healthily" six days out of the last seven. It was a welcome change and reminds me how good it feels to eat right. And how good it can feel to skip off for a day, binge on margaritas and tortilla chips, and come crawling back.
• On a related note, I had no idea we hadn't started cultivating blueberries seriously until the early 20th century. Hot damn, I love blueberries. Peak season for blueberries starts now and lasts until mid-August. Indulge today!

  A one-cup serving of fresh blueberries will give you 5 grams of fiber, more than most fruits and vegetables and 15% of your daily value for vitamin C at a cost of only 80 calories.

And that's what I got....

Weekend Trip Report

We spent the weekend at Hollister Hill Farm Bed & Breakfast, in Vermont.

Our weekend was the uber-relaxer. The drive to the place we stayed was a bit over 4 hours, and we didn't rush it either. Once you clear Lowell things get nicer, and once you get onto Rte 89 it's just beautiful driving. I was already feeling pretty good by the time we got up there.

I won't bore you with a play by play, but it was a nice change of pace. The innkeepers are folks who gave up their day jobs back in the 70s and moved up to Vt to try and raise their families and be self-sufficient, live off the land. Now they run what they call a "diversified farm," a farm where they know they can't live off what the farm provides, so they add to the income in little ways. The B&B is one of those, selling honey and maple syrup is another, selling their own meat is another, breeding golden retriever puppies, etc. They get by, but they live very simply.

It's interesting to meet people like that, with strong convictions, who have really put their money where their mouths are, so to speak. To stay with them for the weekend was a peek into a totally different way of life.

The location they have for themselves is amazing, by the way. I mean, you stand with your back to their house or barn and just rotate in a semicircle and see nothing but hills, fields, and trees. No planes flying over, no sounds of nearby highways, nothing. At one point we realized we could hear the cows chewing grass. Pretty wild.

We didn't do a lot; our main recreation was driving into Montpelier for some light shopping and exploring. Montpelier is the capital of Vt, but it feels more like a small town than a capital of anything. I think it's got, what, 8K people in it? No McDonalds, no Starbucks, etc. Lots of interesting people, very diverse in a Vermonty way (meaning, all kinds of white folks - heh).

We capped off the weekend with a long drive home, taking mainly 2-lane highways and avoiding most of the holiday weekend traffic. We got held up in one small town when their Memorial Day parade went through, so that was a little piece of Americana :).

In the end, we did a lot of nothing in a very quiet place, but met some characters which have enriched my internal "cast list" and gave us some pause in terms of looking at where our society is going and what people are doing who feel strongly about changing it, at least for themselves and their communities.

Two thumbs up.

Cat Humor

Data point 1:
For graduation, my grandmother sent Jess a wonderful hand-knit/crocheted/something blanket. Very nice. It's on our bed now.

Data point 2:
Last night, shortly after midnight, we were awakened by a loud crashing noise followed by the cat tearing ass out of our room. I got up, looked around, saw nothing unusual. I walked to the top of the stairs, and saw Smokey at the bottom, looking up. Without my glasses on, I couldn't make out the details, but it looked like he might have had something in his mouth. Squinted, shrugged, went back to bed.

This morning, I woke up, went to work, etc. I had forgotten data point 2.

I get a call from Jess as I'm walking out of an early-morning meeting with my boss. "Yeah, the cat threw up last night, on the blanket your grandmother gave me." Oh, boo-hoo. "There was blood in it." Oh, crap, our cat is sick. He's vomiting blood. This is bad, right?

Ah. See, no. It wasn't his blood. Jess, in the process of cleaning up the vomit, solved the mystery -- evidently our cat not only caught, but ate, an entire small mouse last night. And then proceeded to barf up the resulting chewed up corpse.

So, yeah, go Smokey. Poor Jess. "I mean, there was a foot, a tail, pieces of a head, intestines, ... " Oh, damn. So glad I somehow managed to wake up, get ready for work, and go to work, without seeing that.

We've been very pest-free in this apartment, but we have seen evidence of mice in our attic before. We have seen exactly one mouse outside the attic, in our bedroom, and smokey chased it back under the door that leads to the attic. This one clearly will not be returning to wherever he came from.

Lazy Feet?

These eager feet of mine have been a bit lazy in the past couple weeks. Things have been so busy with "real life" that I haven't had much energy to focus on maintaining fitness. As such, my exercise has dropped way down.

Watch this space: I'm sure I'll write more about how I'm struggling to stay regular with fitness. How exciting for you, eh?

Another aspect of having eager feet, though, is my constant desire to be traveling. We indulged this last Friday when we took an impromptu day trip up to Maine and enjoyed hanging about our haunts in Ogunquit for an afternoon. I'd post a picture but it was so impromptu I didn't even bring a camera :).