girmander

so, i have this new blog. not sure what to do with it. altho i love MT's functionality. this thing is wicked cool and much better than blogger (sorry google/pyra labs but i still love ya google).

i have another blog and address that i might get the dns switched to here. but then i still need server space to hold all my portfolio crap and random stuff i'd like to upload (aka playlists or songs for my nearest and dearest peeps). so, i'm thinking about getting space from a ex-coworker of the lion's. but he's prancing around in france for the whole month of july (bastard!!) and won't be back for a week. he runs a win2000 box with cfmx7. and since i'm mostly coding cfm, me thinks that it would be wise. not only to add to that, i have a unix account and 5 email addresses that i check. ARGH! must simplify!

i also helped out a a friend of a friend of mine's bf (oh hell.. she's my friend too i guess) on the cf coding front. it's very cool to take matters into your own hands. hopefully he'll enjoy it just as much as i did when i first started (heh).

i got myself a new toy this week. i'm not really into "gadgets" usually. i mean yeah, i see some cool things like the alarm clock that i'm lusting after or things like this, this or this.

BUT, when it comes to athletic gear. i become such a gadget whore. i got myself new running shoes, i'm always looking for more workout clothes, in fact that nano i want just for working out. I'm also really wanting a road bike now. (isn't it beautiful? it even has a carbon fiber front fork!) i even want a cruiser!

so, when i saw this on sale here(for 40% off!). i HAD to get it. and you know what? i love it. LOVE it. it's probably overkill for what i need ( a compass? altmeter? weather? what?!?) but honestly, it takes my heart rate/tracks my time/has 3 alarms/has 2 time zones. i mean who knew my max hr (heart rate) running was 184 and that i can finish 3 mi under 30min now. * albeit sometimes the watch can't read the HR belt. i'm thinking that it has to do with the belt being new and stiff. and i found out something cooler, all the polar ready workout equipment also picks up on my watch. yep, i was riding the bike today and it kept on telling me my hr and it kept on corresponding with the watch. and i'm like... dude, i'm not even touching the metal things to get the hr. omg, it was so slick. i just thought it did it for the lion's polar watch. i mean i knew suunto used polar's tech but, they also said that they decided to bring it in-house to develop further. anyways, the point is, it was cool!

so, yeah, did a brick today. i've been running with realitively no pain. i mean, today, i feel my calves being a little piquant. but it's not bone. so... i hope this is a good sign. also, i have a bone scan monday so, wish me luck on not having a stress fracture.

tonight i have pilates. aparently lee wants me to do mat class tt and then eventually segway into the reformer and the cadillac and take in my own personal clients. it's an interesting proposition. we'll see if i get there. it's like 500 hours of on machine time and apprenticing. yikes!

ok.. so the new designer here got a mac. the ONE and ONLY mac in this building. She fought hard for it, i fought hard for it for her. and lo and behold... the shiny new g5 with cinema display gets delivered on the 30th. IT sets it up, installs adobe and macromedia on there. and then the honeymoon period is over...questions come to ME!! last time i checks i didn't work for IT nor did i get paid by them.

IT - where is the macromedia software suite? i looked EVERYWHERE!
me - umm right here outside of the applications folder.
IT - why is it there? why didn't it dump it into the applications folder. stupid mac (bitch bitch bitch)
me - umm.. i can move it to the applications folder. no big deal you can just pick up the folders and move them if you want them to be there.
IT - nevermind, don't move them. we'll let the designer figure out how she wants to set up her machine. it's just stupid that there's an applications folder and it didn't dump them into the applications folder. well here pop this disk in the "ifruit" (microsoft office for mac)
me - ok... whatever.
IT - how do you install this thing? umm.. i guess go through the "wizard"
me - (ignore) and drops the office folder into the applications folder (installs automatically and i open excel and it works w/o serial codes or license stuff)
IT - that's stupid! you can totally pirate that software on to billions of macs. why don't they put safe guards on that stuff. damn "ifruit", damn mac.
me - iono, no big deal to me. (not my fault micro$oft was stupid enough to do that w/ office)
IT - so what's this mail program she's supposed to be using?
me - (clicks on entorage) wysiwyg comes up.
IT - (fills out information, presses enter... *username/password cannot authenticate and cannot connect to exchange*). why doesn't this work? this should work. why doesn't this work? damn mac.
me - umm.. try some one's account that does authenticate. hrmm.. like yours.
IT - it should work. this is stupid. (mumble grumble)
me - just put in your username and password.
IT - ok (does it.. and automagically! WOWIE! it authenticates!!)
me - oh wait let me put in mine (automagically! WOWIE! it authenticates!! *eyeroll*)
IT - ok, well maybe so and so messed up her account. i'm going to have to check with him.
me - umm.. i think so. i don't think it was the mac. (could he have not thought of this on his own?) (connects to the servers and puts them on desktop. forgot about smb:// so, had to go through network to do it)

2 days pass by.

IT - i knew that you put the servers on her desktop but, upon reboot, they disappear. don't they mount automatically?
me - iono, i have to mount the servers on everytime i vpn. not sure if there's a way to to do this.
IT - it doesn't just mount automatically? what do you mean? i thought this *ifruit* was simple! starts heading out)
me - i'm sure there's a way. i just don't know it. (fires up exploder and GOOGLES it, find something and emails it to designer and heads over to her cube)

me - so i sent you this email to see if i could set this thing up to automatically mount your servers.
she - i saw. i got it. i just got the ip address from him.
me - well, i can try the thing i emailed you.
she - nah it's ok
me - dunno why they just didn't freaking GOOGLE it.
her boss - i know. (she and boss comiserate with me)
me - oh yeah you can do it by server name too.
she - oh ok.. i'll add that on to my favorites.
me ok later (heads out and runs into IT)
IT - oh we got it, we just used the ip address
me - yeah, you can do it by server name too. i forgot the smb:// protocol
IT - what does SMB mean?
me - iono.
IT - i know what it means, Stupid Mac Bullshit.

like wtf? i mean really? stop with the hate. it's here. deal. i mean i don't cuss out our windows network here. i know it's subpar. i just DEAL. and what is this aversion to GOOGLE-ing for the answer? do they have an aversion to GOOGLE? is it because they might take down the altar of micro$oft? for the love! isn't this a great opportunity to educate yourself and add another line item on to your resume?

i was going to write more but, i leave that last statement alone. i leave you with this, i got reintroduced to the designer by my head boss (who is also in charge of marketing) and he said, "well, if you have any questions and IT can't give you an answer, they'll probably go to (me). so, you might just want to circumvent and just go directly to (me) cuz they'll probabbly be asking (me) anyways.

after listening to the addicted to race podcast in january and their fabulous interview with octavia butler, i went to get her latest book fledgling and i couldn't put it down. i have plans of purchasing other books of hers as well.

but, in my rss agregator today, a slate article caught my eye. it simply had the title of octavia butler. sadly, octavia butler died last month unexpectedly.

:(

umm... NOT.

but anyways, since i come from a crazy g33k3d out family, it's natural i like technical things. hrmm you may ask how g33k3d out we are? well... i am a coder, i'm marrying a info sec lion, my brother yam was a coder and then went back to school @ u ill–urbana-champaign (he needs to googleplex himself and then ME!), my sister sassybat graduated in MIS and she's marrying petyrrahl who works wonders with open source tech and python, my other sis chibiuk is graduating in vis com, and my brother jujiet is in ece. whew. and that's just immediate family. let's not get into extended family.

so, i went to the spring <br/> conference @ OU (go bob cats!) this past thursday and i had alot of fun. saw alot of people that i haven't seen in a long time. it was nice! i realized that i knew quite a bit of people. it actually shocked me.

what really caught my attention was the session on AJAX. but, not just AJAX. specifically ruby on rails. ok, i've done like 2 tutorials on it. but, whoa... very cool. i'm slowly transitioning myself into a more OOP state. and in some aspects fusebox has helped alot. also, going to the mook flash OOP boot camp in LA was very good too. it's hard for me to do this since i work in a real job 40 hours a week and i'm self taught. sometimes, i just don't have time to play around with these concepts until i have something i can work on in downtime. and THAT gets thrown out the window when my downtime is like 4 hours a week (not consecutively. are you crazy?!?!). so i was talking about petyrrahl about ruby and he's as excited about it as i am. he currently codes alot of python. but i think he'll be looking into ruby at the same rate i am. i'd like to make a killer web app but since our set up here isn't the standard setup (mySQL, apache, ect.. ect..) i'm not sure how that will work. not only that, we're a CF shop. i don't think i want to subject anyone to something they won't know how to fix. so, maybe a goofy fun project? who knows. on the other hand, not sure what i'll code as AJAX. it seems pretty overkill and not useful for the things i do or need to get done.

things that make you go hrmmmm...

yes! i finally finished my first soduku.

ok, muki you can laugh at me now.

so, i started the new job. it actually feels good to work for a non-profit. i had a day and 1/2 of orientation where they scared the living crap out of me with diseases and the certification entitiy that allows us to get the money we get. but, other than that, i realized i did miss working in the IT/IS department. i did that intermitently when i worked for a consulting firm and then i went to small places where they really didn't have a "department" per se. i remebered the "vibe" and it just came to me that i missed the "vibe". i mean where can you go and crack a random geek joke and EVERYONE at the table laughs at it? yep, there are perks.

thank goodness that i'm not on any "mission" critical systems here. altho, my group does take care of the kronos time clocks. interestingly enough in all my years in the tech field i never had pager duty until now. and i even have my own pager for whatever "critical" stuff i get into. it is silent now. not sure i'll be able to say that in a year. my group is merciful enough to let me slip into pager rotation in a couple of months instead of right now.

this is my 10th day here and quite litterally after i got out of orientation, i had my first meeting on day 2. i actually did change management the first week and pushed up 2 changes. now, i'm in the throws of modifing all our documents in our content management system and figuring out an enterprisewide search solution. do i contact google and check out the appliance/mini or go with something else? and like i say this is my 2nd week.

they don't mess around here. it's been great to be busy and not "copying and pasting"

love it!

i'm sure that most people have read that warren buffet is giving away $40 bill of his wealth. with $37 bill going to the melinda and bill gates foundation. big whoop right? i mean c'mon this guy is some rich dude. he *should* give it away. hmm... yes. but this man is definitely my hero.

some of you may or may not know, i received a BS in economics. and in some respects, econ is still my first love when it comes to what interests me. still to this day i think alan greenspan is damn near a god. and i've always admired the open ceo letters warren buffet writes yearly - they're informative and mostly written in a conversational style. not only that, when i read "millionare next door" that really cinched it. this man drives a 2001 lincoln town car signature with license plates that read "thrifty". he is definitely not your typcal CEO.

so when i heard on NPR today that he was giving away damn near 91% of his wealth. i was definitely imppressed. but, what imppresed me the most was the article that the NYT wrote about him this afternoon aptly titled "Buffet Always Planned to Give Away His Billions".

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and executive, said today that he never seriously considered doing anything with his $40 billion fortune except giving it all away.

"I think Warren will not only be known as the world's greatest investor, but the world's greatest investor for good," said Mr. Gates

wow and well said. he is definitely a secret yogi. namaste warren. namaste.

this week is banned book week. in protest bold the books read:

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

damn.. i knew that library card would get me in trouble ;D

i'm back to the tundra called ohio. 40 degrees and balmy. ha!

my time in sin city was horrible, as i predicted... i actually had a stomach virus that started sunday night for me in SD. it was actually worse in vegas. therefore, i didn't see much of the strip. the only other place i went to other than my hotel (the venitian) was the forum shops. awful huh? the indoor smoking made it MUCH worse. thank god i'm not a gambler or a drinker.

the conference itself was pretty cool. of course it was adobe + macromedia so, what's not to like? they had some very slick apps and platforms. i'm pretty excited about they ajax framework they've built called spry. it look pretty easy to implement. all the .js libraries are downloadable on labs.adobe.com.

as always, there are parallel themes going on. on one hand, there is ajax/spry and on the other hand, there's the flex platform. now granted they are different in delivery methods. but their core is both rich internet apps - each hides server calls. the only difference is that flex has it's own app server and the files are complied through the flex server and packed to the user in a .swf. my co-worker had a very good point about useability for those who are handicapped. flash isn't as accessible as html. adobe kept on reiterating that the SDK for flex is free but, i'm llike dude... enterprisewide it's still quite a bit of money to implement. not only that, the IDE is an arm and a leg. coding in notepad for this... uhhh, don't think so. an RIA isn't useful if the only person who can see it is the developer.

of course ben forta was there spinning his word of wisdom on coldfusion. there is a new major release codenamed scorpio that includes an image manipulation class. FINALLY! i should have gotten his latest book (coldfusion 7 webapplication construction kit) and had him sign it (y3$, 1 @m @ g33k). but... i was already pushing the weight limit on my luggage because of my yoga mat :(

i had a great practice sunday in SD (in the morning) thank god i made it there because tim was going on vacation with his family. but i didn't get to go back because of my stomach virus :( i wanted to buy a shirt this time. well, there's always next time...

i would have done binary but, that would have made the title too long. kekeke.

so, 'tis the season. my brother yam has written the name picker for this year's gift exchange. i wrote the one last year. i think we'll make the young one junjiet write the one for next year. we are such g33k5. lst year i wrote it in coldfusion. this year yam wrote it in perl during his office hours @ uiuc. hmmm, i take that back.. this would be a great learning experience for chibiuk to brush up on her actionscript.

so, my holiday card list is getting larger. i'm at 24 now. and i can't decide if i want to decorate.

decisions, decisions...

via kottke... an autistic woman speaking in her language and the translation

watching the first part of this video made no sense to me at all. it was slightly disturbing at first because of her sound patterns and her movements. but, then when she "translated" it, her message was so beautiful.

to gain insight to her world and listen to her thought provoking and intelligent explanation of her sounds and movements moved me. to be able to interact unabashedly with all 5 senses at the same/different times is truly amazing. she is right about the "normal" world that we live in. it is such a shortcoming in all of humanity to disregard people like her as *weird* when in reality, she feels, knows, and communicates so close to the divine source that runs through all of us.