Story Archive (06/2003)

T-minus 1.5 days (6/16/2003)

A little less than a day before we leave for Scotland and I'm almost packed for it. I don't think I can say I'm really prepared for it. Thirteen days off and abroad has the potential to be tough on me. It also has the potential to be a whole lot of fun.

I just learned that my digital camera battery charger works great on the UK voltage system, so I'll be snapping pictures the whole time that I'm there. I hear it's rainy and foggy. So, I assume it'll feel just like home.

I just dropped off over eight-thousand dollars in expenses reports at the office. Yikes! It's crazy to think that I spent that much money in the past couple months. It's also crazy to think that I have a credit limit that supports it. Those foolish people at American Express are out of their minds.

(6/15/2003)

It was a good week at JavaOne and I shipped my coworker back off on Friday. I had a nice lazy Saturday recovering from the week. Though I forgot to return a movie I'd rented last weekend. Do'h! Guess that'll be a billion dollar fine when I bring it back tomorrow.

This comming week begins my massive vacation.

JavaOne (6/12/2003)

I'm at JavaOne this whole week with three other co-workers from the Boston office. So far I have gotten a JavaOne t-shirt, a TopCoder t-shirt, a stuffed Tiger (Java 1.5 is code named Tiger), and a retractable network cable. Only one and half days left in the conference to get more free stuff.

I also knew I had to shoot up a message from my Mac while I was here. The Macintosh saturation is pretty impressive. At the CyberCafe I'm at there are nine people with computers and four of them are Macintoshes. You go Apple!

I need to get some server-side feature that lets me update this from where ever I am... maybe I'll write a nice cgi this weekend.

Schaumburg Again (6/8/2003)

I spent another two days out in Schaumburg, Illinois, helping out. They have a new site going live in a couple of weeks and are having very bad environment issues in their cluster. It's the kind of nasty stuff often referred to as Heisenbugs. It's a joke on the Heisenburg uncertainty principal associated with quantum mechanics. The basic idea with the Heisenbug is the more you attempt to reproduce the bug, the less likely it will appear. Of course, this implies the moment you assume the bug is gone, it will return.

I used some of my United upgrades to fly home on first class. I'm writing this from my lovely first class seat right now. It's the first time I think I've ever flown in the first class cabin. People often say that this is the beneif I get for travelling so much. Though I think I prefer the benefits of never travelling.

Next week is JavaOne in the Mascone center in SF. It's often refered to as "Java Disneyland." It's a big conference full of smart (and dumb) Java people of all ranges. The objective is to get as much free cool stuff as you can while minimizing the amount of free crap that you get. It's really a trick. We've got the whole US-based Java Framework team going. Should be a blast.

A project tried to pull me out of JavaOne next week to help them out. It would have made the third year in a row I was scheduled to go, but then missed it at the last minute due to some project having an "emergency." I said no. "Poor planning on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part."

Spring Cleanin' (6/1/2003)

Welcome to the beautiful month of June. I spent the weekend doing some long needed spring cleaning. My place is now spotless. In college I had a good friend who said he could tell my mood by the cleanliness of my room. When I was in a good mood, I hated being in a dirty room. When I was in a bad mood, I didn't care about the room. So I suppose I'm in a good mood? Who knows.

My friend Debbie gave me a call yesterday and gave me a hint about what her salary was working on a cruise ship. I did some math with my salary. Took out taxes (she doesn't pay taxes on money earned out of the country). Took out room and board (that stuff is free on the ship). Our adjusted incomes are pretty darn close. Neat.

One of the many PBS stations in the bay area (KMTP) has this great show on Sundays called "International Variety - Brining the World Closer through Entertainment." They show lots of music videos from India. I find it surprisingly familiar and entertaining. If only I spoke Hindi I could understand it.