Story Archive - May 2004

It's a Pretty Good Day (05/31/2004)

It's hard for the modern generation to understand Thoreau, who lived beside a pond but didn't own water skis or a snorkel. - Bill Vaughan

I've never been a huge sports fan. I get no satisfaction from watching any sporting event. I get nearly no joy from participating either. Sure, all through high and college I went to nearly every school sporting event with the Pep Band, but really, that was about the music.

This weekend, to remember America's fallen heroes, I spent Sunday on Folsom lake participating in the one sport that has always struck my fancy. I think it was the Native Americans who first realized that with sufficiently strong rowers and a canoe, it's possible to pull someone behind on a pair of flat wooden sticks. Today, we have it easy with our motorized boats and fiberglass sticks, and skiing is among the most enjoyable sports I think there is.

After learning over the past summer of my new nickname of Mr. Glass, I sat out the winter snow skiing season. Sports that have a tendency to attempt to bend bones into incorrect positions are not high on my list of good ideas. But water, unless impacting it after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, is quite a soft landing spot and water skiing is a rather low risk sport. So my muscles are aching after a little use due to a year of atrophy, but it was worth every second of it.

When the water is smooth and the stars are aligned just right, one can achieve the mellifluous turn required to make a rooster tail, and life is good--a day like all days.

Alas, global warming is causing more draughts in Folsom Lake, causing lower water levels, causing the lake to closer early this year. It's all the fault of the SUV drivers. I hate them.

I Am Not Shakespeare (05/29/2004)

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly. - John F. Kennedy

The year is 1995. The location is a classroom at my high school. I was having a discussion with a teacher about how I had generated some of the graphics on my recent work. It told that it was "computerly" done. He gave me a dumbfounded look and stated that "computerly" is not a word. So I quickly retorted that William Shakespeare had made up words. The response from this ancient venerated sage was thus, "I knew William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was a friend of mine. Jordan, you're no William Shakespeare."

Well, despite the edged attack of a man I hold in high esteem, I continue to make up words. Just last week I commented about an "awesometastic" gift I was going to give a friend. Another buddy concurred with the "awesometasticity" of the gift. I corrected him to "awesometasticness," foolishly thinking that since I had created the word I controlled the derivations of it. He kindly told me that "-ity is for words of Latinate origin; -ness is for words native to English. The 'tastic' suffix is Latin."

I suppose in the end, I am no William Shakespeare.

Dirty Pennies (05/27/2004)

I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them. - Alfred Hitchcock

Here's a story. It's not mine; it' belongs to a friend of mine. I like it.

He drives to work each an every day. It's a long commute. He wears his safety belt each and every day, because it's saved his life at least one, and he's not an idiot. This week was national safety belt awareness day, or something toward that affect. As he was making his way through the gridlock streets of downtown Palo Alto there was a police trap set. Some people were being waved over to the side, while other people were being let pass.

He was waved over to the side.

"Do you know why we pulled you over?"

"Nope."

"Well, today is national seatbelt awareness day. So, we're issuing tickets for people not wearing their seatbelts."

"I see, but I'm wearing my seat belt."

"..." "Well, you weren't wearing it when you were waved over."

"No, I always wear my seat belt. Maybe, because my shirt is gray and the belt is gray, you didn't notice I was wearing it."

"No. You weren't wearing it when you were waved over. I'm going to issue you the ticket."

"..."

When faced with a Hobson's choice, there's not much else to do.

Five Years Later (05/22/2004)

A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there. - Charles R Darwin

I have held many titles in my day "Student," "Resident Communications Consultant," "Day Care Provider," "Resident Assistant," "Sign Maker," "Consultant," "Engineer," "Senior Associate, Technology," and "Senior Lackey" are among my favorites. Though, I really enjoy this new one I'm now going by, "Senior Technical Artist." Yes, as a senior technical artist I help to create amazing relevance through the synergy of artistic creativity and technological brilliance. It's what "we" like to call, "La Holistic Difference." Would you like come Kool-Aid® with that?

Anyway, I'm doing my five year college reunion gig this weekend, and it's kind of fun to throw my title around. As throughout college I made no end to insulting the engineers, it's a relief to not have engineering anywhere in my title. For example, who can forget this brilliant line I posted in the college study room: "We're mathematicians, because we're too smart to be engineers, but too lazy to be physicists." Or this lovely keepsake, "Most computer science students take one of the engineering courses when they need to boost their GPA." Yes, I described engineering as a "dirty" major. Ha!

Last night, after the first festivities I went wandering around campus late at night and went into the math building through the secret entrance that only students who want to access to the computer lab at 3am know the secrets of. I'm surprised they still have closed up that particular security flaw on campus. I left a few calling cards to old professors. Muhahaha.

Anyway, now I can hold my head up high and say, "Why yes, I'm a struggling artist living in San Francisco." You know what? It's barely even a lie!

Thinking of my college buggies, I took at peak at the list of everyone who had RSVP'ed to go (I have secret methods of HUMINT to figure this stuff out), and of the 250 people RSVP'ed I know three of them, and none very well. What the heck is up with that?!? Then again, I was just looking at the alumni directory and noticed that I have almost no Class of '99 people bookmarked in my "circle." I guess living three of four years in a freshman residence hall does that kind of stuff to your social life.

Unsticker (05/20/2004)

When war breaks out between the cool kids and the geeks, I'm standing on the side of the geeks. - Wil Wheaton

Poor eScoot had an injury today! The pieces of plastic that hold his battery in place on the back snapped as I was zooming down Battery. I will get out the duct tape tonight. Yep. If you want get something stuck, use Duct tape. If you want to get something unstuck get WD-40.

I don't recall what age I was when I was at hardware store and walked by what I had always thought was "Duck Tape." I looked at the sign that clearly read, "Duct Tape" and suddenly things made a lot more sense.

(Aside) Over the past few weeks I have learned or been reminded that WebLogic 6.1 does not like jars with more than one period in the filename. WebLogic 6.1 does not like jars which have a manifest with quotes in it. WebLogic 6.1 does not like jsp:param tags if you put the value attribute before the name attribute. This product was a market leader? Wow.

Larry Putter (05/17/2004)

[Harry Potter's] a glory hog who unfairly receives credit for the accomplishments of others and who skates through school by taking advantage of his inherited wealth and his establishment connections. - Chris Suellentrop

I'm still reading the three books listed in my "Now Reading" section, it's just that two other books have taken precedence. It is unfortunate as well, because I am not a huge fan of either of these books. Silly me! Why am I taking the time to read books that I do not especially enjoy? I think I am a masochist at heart. I long to be part of the illiterate majority.

One of the books is the fifth Harry Potter book. This book is 1,241 kilobytes of text. Think about this for a moment. If you are not an e-reader, let me give you some perspective. The Old Testament 1,625 kilobytes in size, and it was written by dozens of people over hundreds (if not thousands) of year. The only conclusion I have reached is that our sweet Ms. Rowlings is paid by the word.

I am currently 43% into this monstrosity and it has not left the exposition. Plus, I'm quite sure that roughly one out of every four words used is an adverb. Yes, Harry cannot help but do things quickly, cleverly, astoundingly, spuriously and such. I am none too enjoying this book.

So why do I force myself though? It reminds me of when my father was listening to a Sir Mix-a-lot a decade ago and said to me, "It's part of my 'know thy enemy' plot." Yes, I will drudge through the pain of this book so that I can be properly educated when I criticize it.

If there is one moral lesson I have learned from Ms. Rowlings it is this: if you have a difficult life, simply discover that you are rich, famous and a tremendous natural athlete and everything will work out well for you.

WEF (05/14/2004)

Don't mess up the environment until you're quite sure what you're doing. - Arthur C. Clarke

I was at the Whole Earth Festival in Davis last weekend. That place is awesome. I had a lot on my mind and didn't get myself into carefree-mode as much as I would have liked to or have done historical. Still, dancing a little bit to the two-bar electric mandolin was groovy. He's a cute picture of the girls.

Like the Country (05/12/2004)

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. - Barbara Jordan

It not longer surprises me when people misspell my name with an O. For some reason, the amount of people who spell it "Jordon" is ridiculously high. I especially enjoy when I get an email address to one of my "Jordan@..." accounts and it begins, "Hello Jordon." I'm not sure what these people are thinking. They must be spelling it like the country. No, wait, that's not it. They must be spelling it like the famous basketball player. Nope, that wouldn't do it either.

Well, thanks everyone's tax dollars, the social security administration keeps track of how common names are in the US, based on social security card applications, and publishes that data. "Jordan" is just over fifteen times more common than "Jordon." Got it? So never spell it the wrong way, okay? What did surprise me is how common "Jordyn" is for girls. Nearly one-forth of girls given a "Jordan" like name are named "Jordyn." Those poor girls.

God's DB (05/10/2004)

Facts are stupid things. - Ronald Reagan

asuka:~ mysql universe
mysql> select count(*) from people;
+---------------+
| count(*) |
+---------------+
| 6,399,264,394 |
+---------------+
1 row in set (0.43 sec)

mysql> select count(*) from people where country="US";
+-------------+
| count(*) |
+-------------+
| 293,197,470 |
+-------------+
1 row in set (0.40 sec)

mysql> select count(*) from people where country="US" AND intelligence > 0;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 6 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.40 sec)


I thought so...

Behind the Scenes (05/07/2004)

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. - Walt Disney

Making amazing things happen by sheer chance is never easy. I've been working my poor little self to death to make a miracle occur. When it happens, there will quite a few people in awe of the spectacle; people who are amazed that such an amazing thing happened to come together so astonishingly. Then, I can merely sit back and smile. It's the thought of that moment that keeps me going.

A lot of people like for everyone to know all the hard work put into something. Other people just like to be recognized for the accomplishment and not the effort. I love the Disney effect. Knowing everything behind the scenes can take away from the magic.

Work (05/05/2004)

At the end of the day, it's only a [expletive] website. - Nic Shay

Vita or Vitae? (05/02/2004)

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. - Paul Theroux

I was mucking around with my curriculum vitae recently and finally took the time to do an exercise I have always wanted to. I listed out where I physically was all the time at my past job to figure out what percentage of the year I was traveling (normalized for vacation but not for holidays). Without further ado, this represents that percentage of workweeks where I was not at home:

1999 - 0%; 2000 - 13%; 2001 - 65%; 2002 - 42%; 2003 - 40%.

Patrocolos: I don't see why you were frustrated. You were clearly trending in the right direction.

Mr. Squirrel: Quiet you.

The current year of 2004 is prorated at 2% right now, and I hope to keep it right around that number.