Andy's Blog

BART goes up in smoke

After work today, I headed into San Francisco for dinner. Blasting up the 101, I had a decision to make as I approached Milbrae: to park my car and take BART into the city, or drive all the way and deal with the traffic & parking. Today, I flipped the coin in my mind, and chose BART.

Things were mostly okay on the way into the city -- the train left from Milbrae a little later than the published time, but this isn't Japan, so I can't really complain.

On the way home, I had some time to loiter around the 16th Street Mission bart station, and I took this photo of a "No Smoking" sign:

As it turned out, this proved to be prophetic. I was 2nd to last car of a 9 car train bound for Milbrae. I had spent most of the ride diddling with my cell phone, not really paying attention to the train itself. But after we pulled out of the Colma station, bound for the South San Francisco station, I started to smell something odd. Something burning -- it smelled electrical at first, but as the odor grew stronger, it lost that electrical tint. And the train was struggling a bit. We stopped and started several times, before finally pulling into the South San Francisco station.

As we arrived, the acrid smell in the air certainly wasn't decreasing. I was prepared to put up with it, when a fellow passenger pointed out that there was smoke being pumped into the car through the ventilation system.

That was it for me, and I got out of my seat and made for the exit. When I poked my head out of the train, I saw that there was a lot of smoke, coming up from the bottom of the train. I saw someone running from the last car up to the front, to notify the conductor. So, I braced myself against the door, so that it couldn't close (allowing the train to depart), before the conductor was made aware of the situation.

During this time, the smoke continued to pour out from under the last three cars or so. It became clear to me that this train wasn't going anywhere, so I fully exited and made my way up to the front. As I looked back, I could see that the entire station (which is under ground) was filling up with smoke. The conductor told everyone to exit from the train, and I started trying to put some distance in between myself and the smoke.

After a short delay, an announcement was made over the PA telling everyone to exit the station. And so, my confidence in BART lost for the evening coupled with a strong desire to get home, I paid over $20 for a taxi to take me to Milbrae, so that I could get home, safe and sound.

But upon reflection, what is really striking me about this whole little mis-adventure is how quickly everything happened, from the time that I first smelled a bad smell, until I was out of the station, was probably around five minutes. But what is really freaky is that after I was up in the fresh air, I could still feel the smoke in my lungs (and had a bit of a cough). It is amazing to me how quickly smoke inhalation can become a big problem. Next time this happens, I'll be sure to exit not only the train more quickly, but the entire station as well.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: BART

Apple is releasing an FM tuner for the iPod

It is a remote/FM tuner, looks like a shuffle with only the control wheel part (the rest chopped off. You change channels through a UI on the iPod itself. The price is $49.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: Apple, MWSF, Macintosh iPod

Thanksgiving in Chicago 2005

I'm in Chicago for the Thanksgiving holiday, and it is mighty cold here. My dad and I walked Scout yesterday, and we had to make it a short one, because the wind could easily penetrate all layers of clothing, going right to the bone.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt Mary's house, and my dad was made a pest of himself, as per usual. Here is is, keeping a vigil for his dinner (because he was sooo hungry):

Dinner was great (as always), making the trip out here from California well worth it. As for the rest of the trip, so far I have just been taking it easy, and hanging out with the family.

-Andy.

Destination L.A.

Deciding that I needed to "get out of dodge" this weekend, Mike and I headed out for sunny and balmy (ha!) Los Angeles. The joke, of course, is that it was neither sunny nor especially warm the whole time we were there. But, that didn't stop us from having a good time.

Our first order of business was meeting up with Mike's office mate for drinks at a semi-trendy bar in the West Hollywood area. That was my first dash of L.A. culture -- where Mike and I were immediately outed. Our lack of designer jeans apparently shouted "outsider" to the natives.

We stayed with Tamsen, a friend of Elizabeth's that I first met on a camping trip last year. Tamsen lives in Manhattan Beach, a part of L.A. that I quite liked. It had a nice, small town feel, and is situated quite close to the Pacific (hence the name). Tamsen was a fantastic host, and on Saturday the three of us tromped around L.A., until we finally met up with Elizabeth on a dusking hike up Mount Hollywood:

L-R: Elizabeth, Tamsen, and Mike

Dinner was at a Sushi restaurant that Tamsen favors. I think that my opinion of Sushi has changed since living in California -- good Sushi is okay, bad Sushi is still off the list. Thankfully, this was very good Sushi, and I think that we all left the restaurant quite satisfied.

After staying up way too late, Mike and I headed off for Ojai, California, the details of which I will cover in a subsequent post.

Overall, I had a good time on the trip, and of course I took lots of pictures. I find it to be somewhat surprising that I have lived in the bay area for around two and a half years, and this is the first time that I have made it down to L.A. My impression of the city is that it is quite different from San Francisco, both in culture and in content. I didn't really have a chance to explore more than a small fraction of what the city has to offer. But it was nice to get away, and for sure I will go back.

-Andy.

Visiting with Lonnie and Randy

On the way back from L.A., Mike and I stopped by Ojai, California, home of my second cousin Lonnie, her husband Randy, and their family. I have not seen them in quite a long time, and it is probably some sort of travesty of familyness that it has taken me this long to get down there. Here is a group photo with Ojai in the background:

Mike, Lonnie, Randy, and me

It was a really good visit. Mike and I were fascinated by Lonnie's miniature horses. She has around sixteen of them, and she takes them to shows, etc. around California and beyond. These horses are a sight to behold -- they are so small, that hey almost don't look like horses. Yet, when they trot, snort, or neigh -- you immediately realize that they are the real deal.

Lonnie and Randy showed took us to lunch at a superb italian restaurant, and showed us a bit of Ojai. The town itself fits my mind's eye vision of an ideal, picturesque, California town. The view of the valley is akin to something of a storybook. The downtown, with its limits on growth and stores owned by mega corporations, has a pleasant feel to it.

Although we only had a few hours to spend there, Ojai was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. The pictures from Ojai start on page five of the gallery that I posted. On the way back to the Bay Area, Mike and I took 101 (on Lonnie's suggestion). This proved to be the correct choice -- as some of the scenery that you can see from the road is amazing.

-Andy.

Back from my first trip to Yosemite

I just got back from my first trip out to Yosemite, accompanied by Anjali and Pratima. Yosemite is simply amazing, I can't believe that I have lived in California for over two years, but just got to Yosemite now. Even in late summer, the beauty of that park is staggering. We left the bay area early on Saturday morning, and came back late on Sunday night -- which is nowhere near enough time to see everything. Still, we managed to cover Yosemite valley, Bridal Veil falls, crested Glacier Point at sunset, and went to the Hetch Hetchy reservoir:

The above is a view of the reservoir, facing the dam. Anyways, it was an awesome weekend. I took tons of pictures and short videos, which I will post in a gallery sometime this week.

-Andy.

My new computing environment

So, months after my ergonomic evaluation and new keyboarding environment that I got at work, I finally have one at home too:

I bought a refurbished Kinesis Advantage keyboard (per recommendation from Carl), and a Biomorph Exo desk.

So far, things are working fairly well. The keyboard is definitely a hit -- I can type far more comfortably on the Kinesis than I can on either a Microsoft Natural keyboard or the "straight" keyboard on my PowerBook. The desk isn't blowing me away as much as I had hoped, but it is solid. I chose it because I was looking for something where the keyboarding surface as height adjustable independently from the monitor surface. While the Exo does support this, it is not to the degree that I thought -- what you see in the picture is the maximum degree of separation that can be achieved.

Nevertheless, I am typing far more comfortably at home now than ever, which is great. The only thing that is missing is a nice new 20" iMac G5, to replace my aged Sony monitor and not-quite-fitting-on-the-desk PowerBook. If only Apple would release a dual-core model, to force my hand...

-Andy.

Weekend getaway to South Lake Tahoe with Stan and Anjali

While my grand plan for the Labor Day weekend was just to sit around on my ass, my friends didn't have the same idea. So, I spent two days in South Lake Tahoe with Anjali and Stan. We had a nice hike in Horsetail Falls, went biking around the lake, and I even rode a jet ski. And a grand time was had by all.

And of course, I am still in love with macro mode on my camera:

I took that shot while biking back from the beach. The rest of the pictures are of course online.

-Andy.

Umm, holy shit

That was pretty much all I could think about when watching the evening news.
The aftermath from hurricane Katrina is staggering. Right after the hurricane, I really didn't think to much of it -- at least, I didn't think it would be so bad. I mean, Florida had four hurricanes last year, and taken together, it didn't amount to the worst human tragedy that the United States has ever seen (link from Omar Shahine).

I missed the news on Tuesday night (was busy out to dinner with visiting dignitaries from work). So things didn't start sinking in until Wednesday night -- when I watched both Tuesday's and Wednesday's NBC Nightly News. I have been glued to the news since then, with what little spare time I have had this week.

EDS has announced a donation matching program similar to what they did for the Tsunami. I believe that I will be contributing when I go to work tomorrow, once again.

-Andy.

Ediri's wedding

Before OSCON, I flew out to balmy Pittsburgh, PA in order to take part in the wedding of one my friends from CWRU, Ediri Orife, to her fiancé, Mario Montoya. In short, I had an absolutely phenomenal time. I got into town on the evening before the wedding, and spent some time in the burgh with Akua. I got to meet some of her new friends, including Nef, Mia, Vic, and Ade. Food was eaten, sleep was not had, Bollywood was watched ("Mujhse Shaadi Karogi", which I have seen for the 2nd time now), and in general, much fun was had.

And then there was the wedding. It's hard to put down in words why, but this was one of the best weddings that I have been to. Just a tremendous combination of great people, good taste and design, great music, a wonderful setting, and being able to witness two families coming together in peace and harmony.

Ediri and Akua

I captured the event as best as I could with my still camera. And Akua has blogged about it, in terms of a wedding recap and a link to additional pictures. But suffice it to say, if you ever have the chance to go to a Mexican / Nigerian wedding, do not pass it up! :)

And I must extend massive thanks to Ediri for inviting me, and Akua for housing me as well as shuttling me to the airport (including at an ungodly hour).

-Andy.

Grearing up for travel

As per my last post, I'm going to be heading up to Portland, OR soon, in order to attend O'Reilly's Open Source Convention. But before I go to Portland, I'm actually heading out to Pittsburgh, to attend a wedding of an old friend from CWRU, Ediri. It's actually a little crazy: I'm going to spend practically all day tomorrow flying out to Pittsburgh, I'll have Saturday to spend in and around town (and attend the wedding), then early on Sunday morning I fly to Portland, where I will arrive, fresh-as-a-daisy, for OSCON. I will finally return to the Bay Area on the 7th, sometime in the evening. So, I'm going to be pretty tired when I get back, from all of that flying. But all of my trips sound like they are going to be a lot of fun, so I reckon it is all going to be worth it.

Tangent: it seems a little odd sometimes to advertise the fact that I'm going to be away to the entire Internet. I mean, of course I want to blog about the fact that I am travelling, and what I am seeing and doing, etc. But, if nefarious people were reading this, it seems like I'm leaving "my stuff" unprotected. Lucikly, I have this covered. You see, my roommate, Kevin, won't be going anywhere while I'm gone, and I have sworn him to protect "my stuff" at all costs. Kevin is bulldog, proficient in 8 different forms of the martial arts. He is a firearms expert. He works out constantly. He can kill a man just by looking at him funny. So take that, Internet! Keep your hands off of my stuff, or else!

-Andy.

Mt. Tamalpais Hike

I went on a hike in Mt. Tamalpais yesterday:

The hike was pretty spectacular. We started up in Mt. Tamalpais, and hiked down to Stinson Beach. There we ate lunch and lounged around, before starting the trek back to the cars. It was about a 7 mile round trip, but the only arduous part was on the way back up the mountain. Along the way though, we were treated to some incredibly lush scenery. Along for the hike was a whole cast of characters including Mike, Kevin, and many of Sheila's GSPP friends and hangers on. You can view the entire group here, and see my gallery of photos from the hike as well.

-Andy.

Big Basin hike

Went on a 5+ mile hike in Big Basin today:

Along for the hike were Mike, Koji, Chris, and Tanya. The hike was a bit arduous, but pretty fun. I didn't really know what sort of view I was expecting at the top -- but it certainly wasn't bad. Mostly trees, and the ridgeline. It's not quite the splendor of seeing the entire bay area that Mission Peak provides, but still, it was worth the effort. I have posted all of the pictures that I took today in my gallery.

-Andy.

Pictures from Steve's wedding

I have finally posted all of the pictures that I took from my jaunt out east, in five galleries:

• Albany
• Rehearsal dinner
• Wedding Ceremony
• Reception
• Manhattan

I actually managed to take a little over 200 pictures this trip -- it seems like I am slowly getting better at taking pictures, although I am still nowhere near what some of my friends achieve when they travel...

-Andy.

Steve's wedding wrap-up

So, I have finally made it back from New York, and am reasonably recovered (as recovered as I'm gonna be anyway), so it's time for me to wrap-up the weekend. All-in-all, it was a pretty good trip. The wedding itself was great, simple and direct -- the ceremony got to the heart of the matter at hand, without getting distracted by bells and whistles. The reception immediately followed the ceremony, so there wasn't any odd gap in the day that needed to be filled.

As for the reception itself, it as also lo-key and quite well done. The food was excellent, from the hors d'oeuvre to the main course. The speeches were on topic and well done. In short, the reception was the perfect compliment to the ceremony. Sarah, Justin, Chris, and I were seated at the infamous "Table 27", with Steve's high school buddies and their significant others.

As the story goes, at the first wedding from Steve's group of high school friends, all of the friends were seated at table 27, out of 27 total tables. This table was apparently in an unfavorable place -- in a dank, dark corner in the back (dinner took over an hour to get to them). So, the group apparently made lemonade, and had themselves a whooping good time. Ever since then, there is always a Table 27 at whichever wedding they are all attending, even as if in Steve and Ginger's case, there are only 9 tables total.

After the wedding, us 4 CWRU people played a couple of rounds of Euchre (it has been positively ages since I have done that). Justin and I took Chris and Sarah to school in the first game, but got schooled ourselves in the second. The next day, we drove to New York City for about 24-hours of NYC-based fun before we all parted ways.

In the city, we stayed at the Doubletree hotel located in the upper East side, which is a 3-star hotel that I managed to snag for $100/night via priceline. I forgot to take pictures of it (unfortunately), but it was pretty schwank. Probably the nicest hotel that I have ever stayed at. After getting into town, we tried to get last-minute tickets to the Yankee game via craigslist, but weren't able to find four seats together. So instead, we went to a nice dinner with Justin's high school friend "Wolfie" (nickname). After spending way too much money on a fabulous steak at Smith & Wollensky, we wanted to hit the town.

Unfortunately, NYC is actually reasonable dead on a Sunday night, especially if you're not into the whole "bar and club" scene. So, we did what any set of self-respecting geeks would do, and saw Star Wars Episode III at one of the best theaters in Manhattan (according to Wolfie), the Ziegler. I have seen Star Wars four times now, and I can't remember the last time I have seen a movie four times in the theatre. Maybe I never have. Anyways, Star Wars is that good (in my opinion).

Anyways, the next day, we went to the top of the Empire State Building as a group, and afterwards Chris and I parted ways with Sarah and Justin. At that point, I didn't have too much time left before I had to start my convoluted journey to the airport, so Chris and I just kindof walked around in the light rain. At one point, I was asking Chris why he said he would never want to live in NYC, when he is on record as saying that he could do the city-living thing in Portland. Chris said something along the lines of:

"New York City is just too big. Too many people, too much going on.... (long pause) And plus, there is some guy peeing over there in the corner"

He said it nonchalantly, as if it were a planned part of his argument, but sure enough, there was some dude relieving himself as we were walking by the interior of an L-shaped corner of some building. That's NYC for ya'. :)

-Andy.

JetBlue

So, for my trip out to the greater NYC area, I decided to fly JetBlue from San Jose to JFK. Primarily, I made this decision because they have a direct flight from California to New York, its cheap, and the idea of in-flight TV appeals to me.

So, the TV worked mostly as-advertised on the flight out. It cuts out occasionally, when the plane loses direct line-of-sight with the satellite. Other than that, you can watch like 36 channels from your seat. The only problem is that these channels are the same that you would get on DirecTV, which means you get commercials. I am so broken by my MythTV box, that I can't deal with commercials anymore. I also haven't channel-surfed in like, forever, and I have grown out of that as well.

Anyways, everything was flight-related was smooth on the way out to New York. Old man Murphy has struck, however, and I am hitting some snags trying to get back. There is some rain in New York today, which appears to be causing delays. Not only that, but there is really no room to sit near my gate, so that I can stay on top of when I can board. Even if there was room to sit there, I probably wouldn't -- because the only place that I could get the free WiFi to work is quite a bit away from my gate. I hope I don't miss it, being engrossed in all of this WiFi...

-Andy.

Off to New York

I'm currently at SJC airport, waiting for my JetBlue flight to New York. I'm going to meet Justin, Sarah, and Chris there, and together we're going to head up to Albany for Steve's wedding on Saturday. Then we're going to have about a day in NYC proper, and I will come back to the Bay Area on Monday night. It's going to be a fun trip.

-Andy.

Bay to Breakers

I ran "Bay to Breakers" today for the first time today, with Mike. Here's a shot that gives a sense of the crowd during the run:

The race is 7.5 miles long, starting near the bay and ending at the ocean. I surprised myself by jogging pretty-much the entire thing. The beginning of the race is so crowded that it is impossible to run, so I probably didn't get going until about 15 minutes after the race started. Still, Mike and I finished in 1 hour 33 minutes, which seems pretty good to me. I expected to be able to run like 3 miles and then poop out, but instead I was able to jog the entire race.

Dang, I'm so awesome.

I managed to take some pictures of the race, mostly before and after the running. Some highlights: Spear & tortilla, Mike finds a tortilla with a message, the starting line, sharks, dogs as babies, Mike (afterwards), and me (afterwards).

-Andy.

Gone Go Kartin'

We had a "team event" at work today (read: excuse to goof off on the corporate dime). The event was a trip up to Redwood City, to ride some go karts and play mini golf and "Malibu Grand Prix". Driving the go kart was actually quite a lot of fun:

(Photo credit: Dung Ngo)

The track is 1/2 mile long, and supposedly the top speed of the kart is 40 mph. The track has so many different curves, however, that it is quite hard to get up a lot of speed. I was told that doing the course in 60 seconds is "quite good". The organizer of the event claimed to have had a 56 second run. During my first 8 laps or so, the best that I could manage was 62.34 seconds. But towards the end of my laps, it started to rain, which definitely messed with the traction.

After it rained pretty hard, then stopped, and then dried off, I got to go out again. I did a ton of laps (I have no idea how many, but I was probably out there for 45 minutes to an hour), and managed to improve my time. I was stuck at 58.50 seconds for quite awhile, and thought that I was going to peak there. But near the end, I managed to get down to 58.25. Shaving any more time than that would really require me to study the track, and get the best lines down.

Still, for not having a ton of racing experience, I think that I did pretty A-OK. I also kicked butt at mini golf, until choking at the end by hitting the ball off of the course, which is an 8 stroke penalty... sigh

-Andy.

Calendar

Doings that are a transpirin' (and that I need to remember):

• April 19th: Umbrellas - "Umbrellas"
• April 29th: Apple releases MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger"
• May 3rd: Fall Out Boy - "From Under The Cork Tree"
• May 15th: Bay To Breakers in SF
• May 19th: Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
• May 25th: Sleater-Kinney - "The Woods"
• May 30th: Memorial Day (where will I be?!?!)
• June 4th: Sleater-Kinney @ The Warfield in SF
• June 6th: Coldplay - "X&Y"
• June 6th - 10th: Apple WWDC (wish I could go!). Chris &Tanya in town.
• June 23rd - 28th(ish): In New York for Steve's wedding
• June 27th - 30th: JavaOne conference in SF
• July 1st: Woven Hand playing live at Schuba's in Chicago

Whew!

-Andy.

So, like, I went skiing last weekend

As Rushabh and Mark have already stated (twice), there was a big massive ski/snowboard trip at Lake Tahoe this weekend. This was my first time going to Tahoe, and my first time doing the skiing thing. Well, my folks claim that I was on ski's when I was like 5, that time we took a family trip to the Poconos. And I think that I went cross-country skiing once, when I lived in Illinois. Anyways, I declare that none of those other times count, and that this is the first time that I have done real skiing in my adult life.

The skiing itself went okay. My first day, I batted down Rushabh's assertion that I was ready to head down the bunny hill right away, and held out for the beginner's lesson. That proved to be a wise choice, because the bunny hill was actually kindof steep. The instructor of the lesson was something of "an acquired taste". There was 9 people in the class when it started, and 3 when it finished. I stuck it out, however, and I think I learned quite a few things that helped me out on the slopes. I stuck to the green slopes my first two days of skiing, and I think that at this point, i am ready to take the intermediate lesson, before trying to conquer a steeper slope.

One thing about the trip that Mark only alluded to was the incredible array of people that were all housed under one roof. The first night that I was in residence, there were 14 people (myself included). For the next two nights, we had 19. That is a lot of people, all of different ages and interests. It led to a situation where there was a group of people who wanted to stay up late and have a good time, and another group that was tired and wanted to sleep early. So, I was pretty sleep deprived until the last night, when I found a quieter spot, and managed to get like 6 hours of sleep.

But, I learned an important lesson: when I travel in a group situation, I need to always make sure that I have earplugs with me. :)

-Andy.

D'oh

So far, March has been kind of crappy. Back when I was in graduate school (early 2001), I took a class that was very demanding with the coding, and combined with some poor ergonomics with my PC, I started feeling some pain in my hands and wrists. At the time, I freaked out about it, and went to the University doctor.

At the time, the University doctor gave me a quick diagnosis, told me to take breaks and do stretches, and sent me on my way. A week or two later, I went back to see a different doctor, to get a second opinion. I received this same basic treatment and diagnosis, so I stopped going to the University doctor about this issue.

Up until last week, I managed my hand and wrist problems through improved ergonomics, taking breaks, exercise, and largely ignoring it. But a week ago, the pain that I was experiencing changed, and became something that it really wasn't wise for me to ignore any longer. So, appropriately freaked out, I was motivated to go to the doctor, which appears to have kicked off a journey to figure out what is up with my hands, and how I'm going to manage my interactions with the computer going forward.

This is taking quite a toll on me personally. Computing has pretty much always been my career focus. And outside of my career, I derive a lot of personal enjoyment from tinkering with computers. So my response to typing pain has not been altogether rational. It seems like I can deal with most of my body is changing hardships fine, but when something changes regarding my ability to type. I'd just go into the sky is falling mode. So, going forward, I have to convince myself that I have a future, and then I have to do the leg work with my doctors, etc.. In order to figure out how I'll be able to continue to lead the happy and productive life style to which I have grown accustomed.

Giving Caltrain some props

So, I'm sitting on the 6:58 AM Caltrain from Mountain View to S.F. (it is a "baby bullet" train), and I feel the need to give Caltrain some props. First, they re-vamped the daily parking system at the station. No longer do yo have to park, walk to the machine, pay, and then walk back to your car in order to put the receipt in a viewable place. Now, you just park, look at the # of your space, and give that to the machine. Why does this matter? Because this morning it was raining cats & dogs right over the mountain view station (was it raining in Sunnyvale when I left my apartment? No.). So, this improvement lessened my soaking.

On the train, I am riding in one of their newer train cars. Not only is it amazingly quiet (I'm listening to Death Cab For Cutie without using the noise cancelling headphones!), but there is also an AC outlet for my powerbook! Sweet!

Now, if only they had onboard WiFi....

-Andy.

More Thanksgiving pictures

I have posted some more pictures from this trip to my thanksgiving gallery, and will be posting more as the days tick by.

-Andy.

L'Awesomea partie deux

So, after much shopping, soul searching, deliberation, and personal growth, Kevin finally decided on a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid, which he purchased on Saturday:

Actually buying the thing was about as much of an ordeal as I expected - we spent about 3.5 hours at the dealership actually buying the thing. And of course, the one that he wanted had to come from a different Bay Area dealership, so we had to come back 4 hours later to actually pick it up. But, this meant that they didn't have time to detail it, so Kevin had to drive back there the next day for that. But, the free detailing was worth it -- the car looks pretty sharp. I have posted all of the pictures that I took in the gallery.

-Andy.

The Awesoma RIP: Windshield

It is truly the end of an era: Kevin's 1996 Nissan Altima decided to make love with a pole making the exchange from 880S to 101S, on his way to work. I've posted two photos here (my silly iPhoto-to-blog integration made them two separate posts). Here is the windshield:

The picture that follows is more interesting.

-Andy.

The Awesoma RIP: The Body

When I went with Kevin to the towing place in order to clean all of his valuables out of his car, I managed to take a couple of photos of the damage. This was the most extensive damage that I saw:

The car was really hemmed in at the lot, so I wasn't able to get an wide shots. Also, Kevin claims that the car was rendered undrivable due the rear axle being damaged, but I wasn't able to get a look. Anyways, in a short but solumn ceremony, we cleaned out all of the important bits from the car, and said goodbye.

The accident happened on a rainy Thursday morning, on Kevin's way into work. So, we spent some time car shopping on Thursday night, and I skipped out of work a little after noon on Friday (those bastards owe me), and we did a lot of car shopping on Friday. Finally, on this fine Saturday afternoon, it looks like Kevin is pulling the trigger, and welcoming a new love into his life...

-Andy.

Pictures from bloggercon

I haven't taken any photos here myself yet, but other people have done so, and already posted them online @ flickr. I haven't really messed around with flickr yet, but it seems like a cool way to do photo blogs. Of course, if I take any pictures at this event, I'll probably post them on my own blog, not flickr. :)

-Andy.

Busy Day: Bloggercon and Death Cab For Cutie

I woke up entirely to early this morning in order to go to Bloggercon III. I registered late, but fortunately I was able to make it in to the conference. I just saw Lawrence Lessig and Dan Gillmor having a discussion on their way to get coffee -- so yeah, I think this is a pretty valid way to spend my Saturday.

After the conference ends, I'm going to drive to S.F. in order to see Death Cab For Cutie with Kevin. And after that, we may join Kalpana's birthday celebration which will already be in progress. So this is shaping up to be quite a busy Saturday, but also one which brings me a lot of fun and growth.

-Andy.

Gone Campin'

So, last weekend I was somehow convinced to shed my surburban roots and go camping in Sequoia National Forest with some friends:

Clockwise from top: Elizabeth, Tamsen, William, Mike,
me, Mariko, Jack, and Anson

On Saturday, we hiked a little under 6 miles to Jennie Lake. We spent the night there, and then hiked back out on Sunday. The hike in was more arduous -- it had more uphill parts, our packs were heavier (with food and water), and we got some nice rain/hail/sleet action about two-thirds of the way in. The camping itself was pretty good, although it would be fair to say that due to a "sleeping bag malfunction" (similar to a wardrobe malfunction), I was pretty cold. The ground wasn't that comfortable either, so it is suffice to say that I didn't sleep very well, and was dog tired by the time I got home. But all-in-all it was a fun trip, and I may do it again... Some day.

I have posted all of my pictures from the trip in a gallery that I have setup on redefine. So now they will be a permanent part of the digital life (until my next hard drive failure, anyway).

-Andy.

Chris and Tanya wedding wrap-up

So, I am finally back in California, after having a pretty long (but fun) day yesterday at the wedding and surrounding festivities. We got a late start yesterday, going for breakfast at around 9:30 AM. We ate at "The Baglery", which is a local place that makes their own Bagels. It came highly recommended by Tanya when we first got into Bellingham, and she was right -- it was pretty good. After that we checked out Fairhaven, which is the older, artier, cafe-ier, and yuppier part of Bellingham. We were joined there by Mike and Sheila, who made a precision strike on Washington for the wedding. The weather wasn't great -- cool, cloudy, with some drizzle, but we didn't let that stop us from our mission -- celebrating Rushabh's birthday!

We left Fairhaven in order to deposit Jim, Chee Wai, and Bill back at their respective hotels, so that they could change into their tuxedos and begin the pre-wedding picture-taking process. The slimmed-down group checked out one of the art museums in downtown Bellingham. It was pretty decent, for a small-town museum. It seems like the Bellingham area has a productive community of local artists. Some of their work goes to shops in Fairhaven (I was tempted by some pottery, but didn't want to bring it home), and other pieces are shown in the museum. There was one artist, RR Clark (word doc, sorry), who had a big display on the 2nd floor. His stuff was pretty neat -- some of the first "painting-in-museum-art" that wasn't afraid to have a narrative (comic book style) or make use of written text.

After this, the group slimmed down again, as the wedding neared. Rushabh, Kristen, Hong Eng, and I spent about 2 hours together, before making our way to the church. I can now say that I have been to the "Big K" in Bellingham, WA. Sweet.

The wedding itself was pretty good -- the church was beautiful (I probably should have taken some pictures of it -- oh well), the ceremony was the right length, the priest cracked some jokes (I told Justin and Sarah that if he had made a Simpsons reference he would have had me), and everything went off without a hitch. The bride and groom rode off to the reception on an old Ford Model A, in lieu of being pelted with rice or bubbles.

As this was an evening ceremony, the reception followed immediately afterwards. There was food (which was pretty good), drink (I snagged a picture of Chris and Tanya's first diet Cokes as a married couple), and dance. It went until about 12:30 or so, and then I stayed to help with the clean-up of the reception hall. After cleaning up, depositing various peoples to where they needed to go, and getting myself and Jim back to the hotel -- it was after 2:00 AM. And of course, we had to get an early start in the morning, so that I could get Jim and Bill to SeaTac airport in time for their respective flights. So, I rocked today on 4 hours of sleep -- 28 years old and I've still got it!

All-in-all, it was a pretty fun trip. There was a lot of deja-vu to the Norway trip for me, because I spent the bulk of the week with that same group of criminal masterminds. I also got caught up with some UIUC people that I haven't seen in awhile while at the reception, which was cool. I met some of Chris and Tanya's friends from their undergrad, but I didn't really hang out with them too much. I was also happy to visit with Justin and Sarah again -- they are a lot of fun.

So, all-in-all, a successful trip, from which I return home tired. So, I will have to recover by going to work and doing a half-assed job...

-Andy.

Airport Security (one good thing)

I am on my way to Seattle this morning, in order to do a mini UIUC reunion, capped by Chris and Tanya's wedding. The security line at SFO was pretty crazy this morning, there was a throng of people, and it seems like security was heightened (I had to take my shoes off -- a strong indicator). These days, if you have a laptop, you have to take it out of your bag and send it through the X-Ray separately. After getting past the metal detector, you have to wait for your stuff. They can usually people through the metal detector faster then they can X-Ray all of the bags, shoes, belts, and laptops.

Anyway, so I'm waiting for my stuff to come down the line, and a woman has gone through the metal detector, and is waiting behind me. When my PowerBook comes out, she says "nice laptop!".

So, I guess there is one advantage to the new airport security regime.

-Andy.

What does it look like from the top of Mission Peak?

I hiked to the top of Mission Peak again on Saturday, this time with Stan and Suzie, both of whom have never done this hike before. I don't think that either of them were prepared for this one -- it is a little bit rigorous (4 boots out of 5, according to Stan's hiking book). Anyways, we all made it to the top, and the view is impressive:

If you click on that picture, you'll be treated to a 6.5Mb, 19 second panorama from atop the peak. I took this movie with my new camera, a Sony DSC-P100 (which I plan to blog more about in the future). If you get past the wind on the audio track, you'll hear something funny at the end.

-Andy.

As seen in Portland

While Mike and I were in Portland attending OSCON, I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone, as we were walking around. I have been pretty forgetful about actually downloading them off of my phone, however, which is why I'm not blogging about it until now.

From top to bottom, some sort of Utility van that had a spiffy Ghostbusters logo on it. A random chinese restaurant that we walked by -- see if you can make out what it says underneath "chop suey". And the last one is of some weird sculpture that exists in downtown Portland. It is possible to move the center piece if given enough force -- it will swing around. I caught this guy trying to get his kid to do it. I think that the kid was actually able to move it a little. Cute.

-Andy.

The visit so far

Well, so far, things are going pretty good (at least from my perspective). My dad has had some disappointments -- he wanted to take the ferry to Alcatraz, but my mom doesn't like boats, so that got nixed. He also had a supreme bug up his butt to ride the "go car", but he couldn't get the whole family behind him. We could have bifurcated, and he and I gone and done it, but I guess that need for family separation hasn't crept in yet. If we go back to the city later in the week, then this will probably have to happen.

Anyways, we had lunch at the Buena Vista, where the Irish Coffee was invented (apparently -- my dad couldn't quit talking about it). And of course we saw the Palace of Fine Arts, the Golden Gate bridge, the Presidio, and Noe Valley. We picked the latter neighborhood, so that we could have dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with Stan.

Anyways, so far, things are going pretty good.

-Andy.

The Reitz's have landed

So, my parents and Sara arrived in the Bay area today, marking the beginning of their week-long visit here. My folks haven't taken a vacation in quite a long time, so this is truly a special event. I'm going to take the week off of work, but other than that, I'm not exactly sure what we all are going to do. In the immediate future, my mom is going to cook one of her signature "big meals" tomorrow, so that is going to be great. And I guess we're going to go out to dinner or something on Tuesday in order to celebrate my birthday. And one of my co-workers was really talking up Monterey and the 17 mile drive, so I may pull for a day trip down there...

-Andy.

A weird couple of days

The last couple of days have been -- weird. Last Thursday and Friday, I was forced to attend "TMS" training. I found out that I'm a "creator/innovator". And I guess since everyone on my team knows where they fit on the wheel, now we will like, be able to work in harmony, or something. Judging by my level of sarcasm about this, you can probably infer that I mostly think that it was a load.

Even more interesting, however, is that on Friday morning, my car wouldn't start. It worked just fine the night before, as evidenced by the fact that I drove over to Anjali's for some Bollywood action. But the subsequent morning -- no love. So, I walked to work (about 2.5 miles, it took me about half an hour). After work, I managed to hitch a ride back home with a co-worker. I tried starting it again, but still no dice. Google indicated that it was probably a bad starter. Anecdotally, I thought that I could have a dead battery as well, but I didn't think that was the case, because I still had power, and because I didn't leave the lights on or anything.

Well, I called a tow truck, and they guy tried to give me a jump first before doing the whole tow thing. As it turns out, that was $50 well spent, because that was my problem -- dead battery. So, I managed to scoot on over to Pep Boys in order to get a new battery installed, before having dinner with Kevin, and seeing "Mean Girls" with Kevin and Anjali. Then of course, we played hearts for 2 hours.

And this is only up to Friday. On Saturday, I looked at a lot of apartments. I think I have it narrowed down now, and I should be committal guy tomorrow. Basically, due to the combination of the fact that I am picky, and the fact that I am cheap, I could look at apartments forever. But thankfully, the process cannot go on forever, so I will know where I am living soon.

Afterwards, I drove up to Berkeley in order to have dinner with Stan, and his friend Jean. Afterwards, we were joined by Mike for some Albatross action. I will hand it to Berkeley on this one -- they have one very cool bar.

Today, I hiked to the top of Mission Peak with a bunch of IBM people (my "in" was via Kevin). That being a goodly hike, I was fairly tired afterwards, and just chilled out until it was time to meet Mike and Kevin for dinner. But then, of course, I pulled my "complete bonehead" move for the year, and simultaneously locked myself out of my car and apartment. How? By locking my fucking car keys in the trunk, as I was trying to unload a whole bunch of stuff into there.

Now, I did this right at about 5:45 PM. On a normal day, this wouldn't have been so bad -- I would have just gone to the office, gotten their spare key, gone into my apartment, gotten my spare car key, and ka-blam! Problem solved.

But did it work that way today? Oh hell now. As it turns out, the office closed early -- and by early, I mean that they closed yesterday, and will open again tomorrow. So, I had to page the maintenance guy in order to get the key. I think I'll be paying my apartment $40 tomorrow when I return the spare key.

sigh

I think that I need a keeper. Or at least, a keeper robot.

-Andy.

A Memorable Memorial Day

I took two days off of work last week, and flew from SFO to Kansas City, MO. My dad was there, attending some sort of conference on like, security or something. Anyways, he picked me up from the airport, and we drove to Lawrence Kansas, where we spent some time with my Aunt Bibi, and her son Skip. That was pretty cool -- I haven't seen Skip in like 12 years, or something.

The next day, my dad and I drove to St. Louis, in order to pay a visit to grandma Vi. This was the more "difficult" part of the trip, and actually the reason why I went out of my way to fly to Kansas City. My dad hadn't been down there to see his mom since Beth died, and since Vi has never been supportive of Beth, I didn't want my dad to have to go down there alone. I'm going to gloss over the details, but the point is that Vi is getting older, and as such she is having a hard time living her life the way that she wants to, which makes her difficult to deal with. It's too bad that they don't actually make a "clue stick".

Anyways, my Dad and Vi are like oil and water these days, so we only spent about 4 hours or so in St. Louis, before we were out of there like rockets. I did a lot of driving -- I got us past Bloomington, before the old bean took over. We got to Wheaton at about 1:00 AM, so we were both pretty tired.

The rest of the weekend was good. Visited Mark and Laura on Sunday, and the whole family got together at Uncle Tom's new place on Monday, before I had to fly out of O'Hare. All in all, it was a good trip. I'm glad that I was able to visit Bibi and Skip, and that I was able to back my dad up with the St. Louis leg of the trip.

-Andy.

Hail

Wow. Hail storms are pretty neat.

-Andy.

Please don't copy me.

I'm sometimes do some fairly unsafe things. Witness this:

That is a picture of the sunset today, taken while I was doing 65MPH on US 101 N. Two things: the picture actually turned out surprisingly well, considering it is from my phone. The second: this is the first time I actually found myself wishing for stop-and-go traffic, so that I could take more pictures. And the third thing: don't anybody try this, because it was a pretty stupid thing to do. But I was feeling like being stupid, so I did it.

It has been a busy few days. My employers decided that they wanted their money's worth -- so I spent a significant portion of last week playing the role of "crazy work guy". This culminated in a 12 hour work day on Friday, combined with a server maintenance which stretched until 6:30 AM on Sunday morning.

I will say that it felt pretty good to get that server maintenance over with -- I was fairly stressed about it, because life could have been "bad" if the maintenance had gone poorly. But luckily I work with a bunch of smart people.

In the midst of all of the weekend work, I did manage to get into S.F. to go to Stan's birthday party. He pulled off something pretty amazing -- a large group of people, a live (and bonafide) D.J., and some live music -- via a bluegrass band known as "Sugartree". Damn. I didn't actually see too much of Stan, but I socialized with the crew, and met some of Stan's co-workers.

Since I was such a good boy at work last week, I treated myself today by leaving at 3:00. This gave me some time to mess around with some stuff, and get ready to split for the City at a reasonable time (hence the picture that started off this rambling post). Mike and I both went downtown today to have dinner with a fellow UIUC alum, Adam Slagell. It was a good time.

I did the drive to Milbrae then bart thing, and on the way down there, I kindof wished that I had one of those oQo thingies that Stan was talking up a few weeks back. Then I could have written in my blog.

Oh, and I finally bought a new receiver this weekend. I went with the Yamaha RX-V2400. It is really, really, really great. I'll go into more detail in a subsequent post...

-Andy.

Japan

So, I'm going to Japan. The trip is set for March 19th - 28th, and I'll be going with Mike, Kevin, and Mike's friend, William. Will and Mike are, of course, the instigators behind the trip. Will because he has studied Japanese, his wife is from Japan, and he has been there several times. Mike because he is like some sort of travel vulture -- wherever he can get himself to, he will get.

Anyways, it's going to be a great trip. Way different from Norway, I reckon. But still, I'm pretty excited. EDS "gifted" me with an extra week of vacation this year, and I'm glad to be putting it to good use, pretty much right off the bat. The intinerary isn't 100% set in stone yet, but it looks like we're going to be seeing a lot of Japan in that one week. Man, it's gonna be great.

w00t.

-Andy.

Surgery

So, my dad had surgery today, and as a result, his colon is now 6" shorter. I've kindof been in a bad mood because work has been giving me the "big beat down", and this impending surgery hasn't been making me feel any better.

But, the good news is everything appears to have gone well. He had the less invasive form of the surgery, so that means his recovery time should be in the 2~3 week time frame. By that time, hopefully his work will have bought a new PowerBook for him (and then we can use iChat AV!).

I suppose that I have this whole thing to look forward to when I am my dad's age. Hopefully, by then, they'll have little ingestible nanobots that can go into my colon and munch all of the polyps right up. That would be sweet.

-Andy.