Life: January 2005 Archives

Every once in a while, I find something on the 'net that just bowls me over. Last night, in as I gorged myself on Internet access after finally getting my T-Mobile HotSpot account working (more on that saga later), I surfed on over to the website for the Bloggies. I just sort of skimmed through the list of nominees, but I paid special attention to the nominees for the "best designed" blogs. I have been wanting to fix up the design of my blog since I first started it, so I am always on the lookout for ideas. Of the five nominees, one in particular stands out: Karen Cheng's blog.

This site is truly amazing. The design is spartan, precise, functional, all with a dash of whimsy. I love the separator graphics in between posts -- how the day is contained in the image, and how it slides along the line, depending on how far through the week it is. Even more amazing, are the banners that Mrs. Cheng creates for some of her posts. Most of them contain a blend of images, some of which are astonishing. She is clearly a photoshop genious -- the graphics are simply amazing.

So, after spending some time browsing, and taking in the design, I started reading. In particular, I read her post from January 4th, entitled "No Place Higher". Truly gut-wrenching stuff. Amazingly written -- it conveys the exact emotional tone of her recent experience, without being too wordy or melodramatic. After reading this, it is obvious that that humanity, for all of its flaws and weaknesses, kicks tremendous ass.

-Andy.

Since I had to spend a weekend in Europe, I wanted to pay a visit to the only European that I know -- my friend Fredrik. Unfortunately, flights to Oslo from Frankfurt for the weekend were rather expensive (around $500 US). Luckily, Fredrik was in London on business last week, and he offered to extend his stay over the weekend, so that we could hang out in London. Flights from Frankfurt to London being much more plentiful (and hence cheaper), I was sold.

Aside from freezing ourselves schtoopid on Saturday in the early afternoon (I misjudged how cold it really was, and dressed too lightly), we had a kick-ass time. London is an amazing city. For one, the size and scope of the city is amazing (definitely on a par with New York, and much bigger than San Francisco). For another, the sense of history that the city has is breath-taking -- there has been a city in this area of the world for well over 2000 years. America really can't hold a candle to that.

Fredrik and I took a bus tour of the city, and saw a lot of the major sites quick (since we really didn't have that much time). We also made good use of our Tube day passes, zipping all over the city. We checked out Madame Tussaud's, but it was rather expensive, and we wouldn't have had much time to see it before closing. That is one thing about London -- most places close rather early, especially in the winter. So, the next time I go, I'll have to start my day earlier, and plan the evening more carefully -- finding a restaurant that was open when we wanted to eat was a bit tricky.

In a shocking twist, Fredrik and I went to the theatre for the evening's entertainment. We saw a play called "Fix Up" at the National Theatre. It was interesting, to say the least. Not experimental theatre or anything, and not a big show-tuney production either. Fredrik and I went into it pretty-much cold, with no expectations. And I wasn't disappointed -- because I think that the play defied pretty-much any expectations that I might have been able to supply, given the opportunity. The performances were quite solid, and I definitely came away feeling that the experience was worthwhile. I think I could be guy who sees more plays, as long as they aren't in the Le Miserables/Fame/Jerry Springer vein.

-Andy.

Thing have been busy lately, and I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like. One reason is because I'm in the midst of my second business trip for EDS. This second trip is a two week affair, during which I am going to be training a team of engineers on how to support the product that I work on. The rub (of course, there is always a rub), is that this team is based in Rüsslesheim, Germany. So, last Sunday, I was dispatched to Germany.

From a work perspective, I would say that my first week in Germany went okay. My position on conducting training is somewhat lukewarm -- I generally like teaching, but I don't like being in the position of talking about things of which I'm not an expert. If I had plenty of time to prepare, I could have learned a whole bunch more about our product, and things would have been great. Unfortunately, like everybody else on my team, I don't have any extra time, so I really only know the parts that I coded well. And of course, as is my luck, the team in Germany won't be using 2 out of the 3 components that I coded. sigh.

But, the team in Germany has been great to me. They are quite helpful and friendly, and they seem to be interested in what I am saying. I'm getting quite a few questions, which is provoking some interesting discussion.

Now, from a me-travelling-abroad perspective, once again, things are only going okay. I was super sleep-deprived when I arrived in Frankfurt. I arrived on Monday morning, after leaving San Francisco very early the previous morning. I had a lot of material to cover, so I worked almost a full day on that Monday. But when sleep-deprived, things can happen. Within an hour of being in Germany, I had forgotten to get a receipt from the Taxi that I took from the airport to the office (which means I probably can't get reimbursed for that), and even more distressingly, I lost my cell phone.

My phone wasn't working in Germany, even though it is a "world phone". It was able to connect to several different European GSM providers, but I wasn't able to actually roam on their network. So, I was fooling around with the settings on my phone in the Taxi, and that is the last time I remember having it. So, I either left it in the Taxi, or dropped it on the sidewalk while walking to the EDS office.

Damn.

I'm not really too upset about it, however. The most important data on the phone (all of the phone numbers) is backed up -- thanks to Bluetooth and iSync on MacOS X. It is just been really annoying -- not only do I never know what time it is (on top of all of the jet lag), but I am also forced to screw around with pay phones again (ug). But on the upside, whereas before I was just toying around with getting a new phone, now I have to get one.

Other than that, I have been eating some good German food, recovering from all of the jet lag, keeping up with my American TV interests (via my Linux PVR), and experiencing a different culture. But still, I'm not much of a traveller, and I do miss being at "home", and going to sleep in my own bed. :|

-Andy.

Every once in awhile, Wired comes up with an Earth-changing-amazing story about how some kick-ass people are doing some kick-ass stuff that is going to change the world. I just read this article in the dead tree version of the magazine after work today. Basically, this article is about how some engineers over at MIT are figuring out how to build basic electrical circuits, using biology. The implications of this work are simply staggering. I mean, I am continually impressed by what the principles of engineering are able to achieve. And now, applying those some principles to the biological realm just seems like it is going to bust the whole field wide open. I have been fairly skeptical of the whole biotech field (sure it's going to exist, but is it going to boom and change the world?). Now I'm starting to see the light.

-Andy.

Following Mark's lead, I have also donated some money to the Red Cross and Care for their Tsunami relief efforts. I have been thinking about doing this few the last few days, and I saw yesterday on Omar Shahine's blog that Microsoft matched his donation. I thought it would be really cool if EDS did that -- and lo and behold, I had a message from the CEO in my inbox this morning, claiming exactly that. So, I just donated some money, and got EDS to double it.

I am starting to feel rather impressed at how different companies are contributing to the welfare of the world. After spending the last several election cycles mired in cynicism, this Tsunami thing has been refreshing (excluding the massive loss of life, of course).

-Andy.

So, I'm on my way back to San Francisco, after having spent about 10 days in Chicago and the surrounding areas. As always, spending time with my family & extended family was great. We went over to Aunt Cathy's for Christmas Eve, and had the extended family over to our house for Christmas. Everybody seemed pretty happy to see me, especially Scout. Good old Scout is getting on in years, and is starting to show his age. He can still bust out with his playful puppy antics of old, but now for much shorter bursts. But that is okay, he still makes for an able companion to our family.

I completed trips to Peoria and Champaign. I went to Chicago twice -- once to consume Due's pizza with my family ("true" Chicago pizza), and the other time to see Fall Out Boy. My dad and I installed grandma's Christmas gift -- a new ceilling fan for the kitchen. I went to Oak Park for Mark and Laura's New Year's Eve party. And my folks took me on a drive all the way out to Woodstock, IL (hint: it's pretty far from Wheaton), in order to swap-out the 1Gb SO-DIMM that I bought for my PowerBook (more on that later). I saw a couple of movies: "Flight of the Phoenix", "Sideways", "The Ladykillers", and "Love, Actually". And of course, I went to Fry's (since my dad is such a nut about that store).

It seems like my trips to Chicago are always jam-packed with stuff to do. This one was more successful than most -- in that I accomplished pretty much everything that I wanted to do. I was glad to be away from work, and am not looking forward to going back. Although, I am looking forward to finishing moving into the new apartment -- there is something about not having my house in order that I find unsettling.

-Andy.