Story Archive - May 2007

Maker's Faire 07 (05/30/2007)

This whole fair represents something that was so prominent when I was young. Sit down and make something fun. - Woz

Went to the Maker's Faire a few weekends ago. It was everything I hoped it would be. We basically spent the entire day there watching all the craziness. Right after you walked in the front door you could choose to sign a liability waiver. If you did, you got a wrist strap that let you do all the really cool and dangerous stuff.

I have to admit, I really liked the Tesla Coil that shot lightening bolts of death at things. We saw Kid Beyond do beat boxing at the very end and we fantastic. Please don't sue me Trent:

The whole time there I was doing my best to stalk some of my secret online friends I knew were suppose to be attending, but never was able to track any of them down.

We Call that Class (05/26/2007)

I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy. - Bern Williams

The drunk tanks have been legendary in the office. These are legend-making events and songs are sung for a long time after they take place. Last time out, my coworker Kamakazi from India told us that until his son was born, he ranked it as the greatest night of his life. This time, I was the leader of the crowd. While I can hold my own in a night of drunken debauchery, I.m not as good about weaving it all together. I was nervous.

I planned out the schedule of when we had to leave the office to make the express train. Fifteen minutes before we needed to leave I rounded up the kids, .we need to be out the door in fifteen minutes. Everyone ready to leave at that time?. They all nodded in agreement. Five minutes to go and I round them up, .laptops down and let.s roll.. This is the first time our drunk tank had a woman in the crowd, and I forgot to recalculate for that. Sparkles vanished into the bathroom to pretty herself up and few minutes passed. We waited diligently, and then in moment of excitement, waited some more. Finally she came out, work clothes shed, club clothes on and glittering lipstick. We jumped in the car. Go! Go! Go! We get to the train station just in time to see the express train zoom away. That.s why I plan for a backup. The next train showed up just a few minutes later, but instead of taking thirty minutes into the city. It took an hour.

After dinner we.ve got Grey Goose, Fernet and wine in your system. When we took Kamakazi out, we took him to Lusty Ladies. Sparkles has an innate desire to prove she can do anything he could do better, and asks (demands) to be taken to a dirty peep show. We go. We do our best to dissuade her, but she is on a mission. Brander and I wait outside while the rest of the crowd goes in. When she comes out we ask what she thought, .that was boring.. .Boring?. .Yeah, I can see that for free in the mirror.. She makes a good point.

We bounce to Impala right up the street. I.m doing my best to try and round up one of my city friends, but can.t find any. Sparkles picks the drinks and she goes with Tequila shots. Wow. Downstairs in the Impala is a little bit of a club and the tequila is flowing.

Then it happens, Yellow says .I haven.t seen Brander in a while. I.m going to go check on him.. He goes into the bathroom and then comes out laughing. The downstairs bathroom in the Impala is tiny. It.s around the size of a single cubical at an office. It has a bathroom attendant. Yellow walked into see Brander on his knees, with a towel and plastic glove cleaning the wall. Why? Because when you projectile vomit across a wall of a bathroom and there.s an attendant there, you clean it up yourself. That.s class.

How the Mighty have Fallen (05/10/2007)

Everybody hates their phone and that's not a good thing. - Steve Jobs

My Old Reliable Ericsson My New Offensive Blackberry

"Sent from by BlackBerry." It is so. I've been waiting for months for my Apple iPhone to be released and I'll still buy it the moment that it comes out, but a free phone arrived at work and I couldn't resist.

The mobile team at my company needs sim cards for testing and you get a sim card by getting a service and in the US, you're basically guaranteed a free phone with said service. So recently a T-Mobile BlackBerry 7100t showed up, they pulled out the sim card and tossed the phone onto my desk (I sit roughly three feet from the team lead for Mobile). I am not a T-Mobile subscriber; I am a very proud Cingular Blue (formerly ATTT Wireless) customer. ATT Wireless treated me well for a long time and after the acquisition by Cingular, those people who grandfathered as Cingular Blue still get a lot of deals and special treatment that true Cingular Orange folks do not.

The first step in my quest was to unlock the phone to be able to slide my ATT Wireless sim card into it. Thanks to recent legal rulings, it's not illegal to unlock your phone, so I have no moral or other issues with the process. I searched the wired high and low to find out how to unlock a phone for free. I was eventually defeated in the process. I am amazed that there isn't some warehouse of unlock codes or programs that can do this. There is no shortage of sites you can pay for the service, but I could not find a single hacker or warez site with a DIY option. I guess I'm just too out of the scene; I even buy my music these days.

My next attempt was to call T-Mobile and get them to unlock my phone for me. T-Mobile has a corporate policy that once you own a phone for three months, they'll give you the unlock code. This phone had only been around for about 2-weeks and by the time three months have gone by, I will be the proud owner of an Apple iPhone. I still gave it a shot and called into customer care:

"Hi, I was recently issued a BlackBerry by my company, I'm traveling to India in a few weeks on business and I was given a card by the IT group that I was told would give me service in India, but when I put it into the phone it says 'Invalid sim card.' Am I doing something wrong?" The guy talked me through what a GSM phone was, talked me through how sim cards work, and asked if I could provide my business' TIN. He said once I provided the TIN, he could look up the account, see if it was over 3-months old, and give me a the holy unlock code. Well, I knew the account was only a few weeks old, so I hung up frustrated.

I started browsing around the various unlock sites online and was tempted to do it, but I don't trust putting in my credit card on them. I use my credit card online all the time, but only at established places. Phone unlocking sites seem too sketchy a place to put in the real one. Then I remembered that way back in October when I took first price in the office pumpkin carving contest, I won a $25 Visa gift card. The unlocking site I was looking at did the unlocking for $24.99. PERFECT! Gift card code in, and just a bit later I was e-mailed the program that ran against my BlackBerry. Viola! Unlocked.

I slid in my ATT Wireless card and I got no data. Huh? More internet research and I discover that apparently my unlimited data plan didn't work for BlackBerry data. Huh? Okay, I called Cingular to get a BlackBerry data plan. When I called they warned me, "Ohh, you're a Cingular Blue customers, so we don't make phones that support your sim card anymore. You'll need to get a new Cingular sim card and that will lock you into a new contract." WHAT?!?! Well, she thought I had a Cingular Orange locked phone, but that was not the case. "No, I can make calls and send SMSes, so I'm sure it's just the data plan." They turned on the data plan for me. Everything is working. Awesome.

Bullet Time (05/09/2007)

You moved like they do. I've never seen anyone move that fast. - Trinity (The Matrix)

Pictures finally came out from the party a couple weeks ago and I forgot about my little flippies. While I spend most of my time sitting at a computer starting wistfully out the window, I do get my ass outside sometimes too. Why, when I was young and strong I used to hand springs and other such fantastical things.

So when we were hanging out and I was laying on the lawn barefoot, I couldn't help by think about trying. It started it off with just doing some head stands, but that became handstands, but that became kip-ups, but that became hand springs. I look just like Neo dodging bullets from the agents; it must have been done in bullet time.

Handstand Dodge Agent's Bullets Backflip!

Weekend in Three (05/06/2007)

Drink or You're Fired (05/04/2007)

Let's just do it awesome and free. How's that for a business model! - Alex Albreight

The winds of work died down, like the do each Friday afternoon. The east coast customers are gone and India won't be in that night. I might have a million things still left to do, but they're not due until Monday. It's the weekend, and this is when life is good.

My company went to watch Spider-Man 3. It's the type of thing that keeps me from leaving for other work, even after the sixty hours of struggle through the week. When the movie ended, those with children, those with spouses, they vanished from us. The rest went to a bar nearby the theatre. One of the big guys up the chain of corporate command opened the tab. It's an important part of social promotion; it's how the game is played. I tell everyone on my team "go get a drink afterward, if not, your boss' boss' boss' boss will think a bit less of you. You don't need to pound back the whiskey with him, but at least have soda." He watches for that sort of thing. We are a customer-driven company, and if you show your wit and charm around him, he knows you'll show it when it counts.

A year ago, I would look for my first opportunity to duck out of this sort of thing, but I'm in party days right now. I call it First Life 2.0, and I have found an appreciation for this type of outing that I've never had before. While I still love a good night at home playing board games and watching the tele, a Friday night out bar hoping no longer scares me petrified. I used to be terrified of these settings; now though still frightened, I push past it, and look back smiling the next day. I'm proud as I defy my own inhibitions.

Three women walked into the bar talking about their girl's night out. I was a few drinks into things and slipped over to talk with them. I don't do that, but somehow, I did. I bought them drinks and told them about Spidey 3, pointed out some of my nice co-workers, and heard about their crazy night. One of my nice coworkers noticed me and swung over to join my little side party. He started talking all about our company, what we do, and he went into a sales spiel. It's a nice idea in some settings, not such brilliant one talking with drunk girls at a random bar. It was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen. The women's eyes glazed over with that "bored as hell" look, and one said she was going to wait for the other two outside. I smiled my embarrassed smile and suggested the other two join her, quickly following them out the door. A an apology, they were off to their movie, and I was back into the heat of the office schmooze fest.