I'm tired. My overseas work is finally taking off, so I had a call at 8:AM with India this morning and another one coming up at 11:PM tonight.
In between, I managed to have dinner with my sisters at Bess Bistro. My one sister who is out-of-town is in-town for a legal conference. I had the Roasted Red Snapper: "pan-roasted, line caught Gulf snapper served with grilled mushrooms and braised leeks, finished with a Meyer lemon beurre blanc." I'm a sucker for Meyer lemon anything. It was really good.
Speaking of food, over the weekend I potted the basil cuttings that Betsy gave me a month ago. The initial shock to the plants was pretty bad. They shriveled up and became all limp. Didn't think they'd survive, but it looks like they're recovering nicely.
Ah, this past Friday was my last day at LibreDigital. I had an exit interview at 10:AM. Co-workers took me out to lunch at 11:30. Turned in my laptop and key card, and I was out the door by 2:00. The whole thing ended rather ignobly. My exit interviewer was a bit argumentative. Come on, if you ask me for my opinion as to why the development staff is frustrated, I'm going to give you my honest opinion. Just take the information and try to do good with it. It's my opinion - don't try to convince me it's not valid.
I got home from work around 2:30 and was just exhausted! I didn't realize how much stress I had been carrying around until I laid down on the couch. I was on that couch a good 3 hours before Maurie texted me and asked about seeing 127 Hours. At this point I thought I should at least get off the couch (if only to take a bio break), so I said sure.
Let me tell you, 127 Hours is an intense film. Not relaxing at all. Don't get me wrong, it's really good. And James Franco does an amazing job. It's just not very relaxing. And definitely not for the squeamish.
Looking to re-unwind, Saturday morning, I went out to Town Lake and ran 10 miles in my new shoes, the Asics Gel Nimbus v.12. Nice shoes. I tend to forget how much cush leaves a shoe after a year until I get a new pair. Nice flashy lime green too.
I wonder if the shoe industry will take a cue from the mattress manufacturers and point out that the weight of your shoe nearly doubles in 8 years due to sweat, dead skin, and dust mites. Yes, dust mites.
I've also decided my favorite bands to run to are the Allman Brothers, the Raconteurs, and the Flaming Stars. I really need to take the Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star off the iPod.
I started to call it an early night, but lying in bed I remembered that I needed to adjust the eccentric bottom bracket on the tandem for Sunday's ride. The chain kept falling off the last time the tandem was out. Very frustrating. Well, the task turned out to be a little more involved than I originally thought - requiring me to remove the crank arms and actually touch a greasy chain.
The Sunday morning tandem ride with Alison, Karen, and Glenn was a lot of fun. Cold and windy - I think it was below 50 degrees when we started (and I think minus 30 with the wind chill factor) - but a lot of fun. We headed East from Hyde Park along 51st Street to Springdale Rd. Springdale to East 12th. Up 12th to 11th. Then brunch at the Blue Dahlia Bistro. It was my first visit to the Blue Dahlia - the food was good, but the chocolate croissant was amazing.
We took Red River and Speedway back to Hyde Park. After a long, long, hot shower, I was pretty useless the rest of the day.
This last shot is just me doing the dishes sometime this afternoon. I though the blue dish in the white porcelain sink looked pretty cool.
First day back at Dell tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
In case you're wondering, I've been working on a couple of product launches. Both are going live this week (hence the long nights and weekends).
First up is the new Barnes and Noble Nook Color. It's positioned in the space between the more basic black and white ebook readers and the full blown iPad. The reading experience for newspaper and magazines is especially improved, allowing the reader to easily navigate between PDF content and reflowed (ebook format) content.
Press so far from the WSJ and engadget has been positive.
The other product should launch today, but I can't say anything about it until it does.
It's been a busy week. A couple of re-orgs at work. I was promoted for a week - then unpromoted. One of our 3 remaining developers quit. Ah, well... at least the weather has gotten cooler.
Friday was a nice night to celebrate the grand opening of Link, a place for co-working. If you work from home and need a quiet, well-equipped place to work, this may be perfect for you.
Saturday morning, I checked out the Texas Custom Bike Show at the Music Hall. I guess I was a little early, because not all the lights had been turned on.
James from Alchemy was there with a full array of custom bikes.
However, the coolest thing I saw may have been the carbon fiber travel bike, with a frame that breaks apart with carbon couplers.
After a quick tour of the other exhibits, I met up with friends at Inks Lake for a quick camping trip. Couldn't beat the weather - sunny days and cool nights. And lots of dogs (not all pictured - but trust me).
I got a fortune cookie when I ate at First Chinese BBQ last Thursday. Fortune cookies lack balls these days and usually say something stupid like - Time is not measured by a watch but by moments. So it seemed odd to me that this one was more specific.
Yesterday (Monday), I went back to the same restaurant and got the following:
When I returned to work yesterday, I got an email from our CEO saying our Director of Engineering and our VP of Engineering had been fired.
I went for a haircut at lunch today (I've never learned to smile in my self portraits):
...and came back to an empty office.
Turns out a meeting request for an off-site company meeting was sent out while I was out getting trimmed. It was one of 'those' meetings - those who were invited still had a job, those who didn't were in the main conference room getting their layoff paperwork in order. Pretty crappy.
Since we were let out of work early, I took out my frustrations by chainsawing branches in my back yard.
Part of my job at work is to test the software we write that creates ePubs. Recently, I was reviewing some NY Times publications that we built. While scanning to see if everything looked ok, I came across this op-ed column by Camille Paglia regarding middle class sex (for those of you not registered with NYT, here's a PDF version). I found it amusing - much more so than the first book of hers that I read back in 1992. That book was polarizing drivel meant to shock. She's seems to have mellowed and matured a bit over the years. Thankfully.
I'm taking a couple of days off from work, so I went for a run this morning. A trio of songs accompanied me.
Robert Smith looks a lot like the Heath Ledger Joker in the last video. Oooh, scary...
I have the 13 inch one. Because it's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it.
Speaking of work, did you see the story about B&N investing heavy in electronic books and losing a lot of money (so far). Betting on the future is such a tricky thing.
I started work as a Project Manager today. Same company as before, but I'm a permanent employee now. Signed the offer letter yesterday and was converted today. My official title is Project Manager, but my offer letter says I'm also the team lead and ScrumMaster. I agreed to be all 3 for one year, to help the company transition and to also give them time to find a lead to replace me. Looking forward to the many new challenges.
My homework for the weekend... putting the New York Times on the Barnes and Noble e-book store for use on the iPad. Now, that's a mouth-full.
Speaking of good marketing campaigns, I have to give Pilot House Coffee their due for going door to door with a carafe of hot coffee and free samples. They also provide the first pound free, and you can sign up to have additional coffee delivered monthly. The coffee is roasted down the street and delivered by scooter. Nice folks, and their coffee smells great.
Btw, I'm the new ScrumMaster at work for our development team. My first official act was to schedule some meetings.
Eloise is spending some time with me while Alison is visiting family for the holidays. She's very social - unlike my previous guests.
In case you're wondering, this is what I've been putting in 10 and 12 hour days to complete. So far reviews have been very good. Keeping 4 bosses (WSJ, Sony, Barnes and Noble, LD) happy was/is an interesting challenge.
Hope everyone has a great Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or whatever you choose to celebrate.
Oh, btw, look what came in the mail this week. It's really nice. Yes, I paid extra for the plastic pedals.
Spent a nice chunk of the afternoon trying to create symbolic links to remote drives with Windows XP. Yeah, I know; it can't be done. Looks like there's a good reason to upgrade to Windows 7 after all. MKLINK...sheesh.
Was informed earlier this afternoon that they need me to work this Friday. This results in my shortest Thanksgiving visit to Houston yet. Oh well, happy turkey (or tofurkey) day to you all.
Speaking of Black Friday, have you seen these? Crazy, huh? Not sure why I'm on the email distro for these (well, you can probably guess). However, the idea of a Schrader valve stem in a carbon rim makes my smile. I'm pretty sure that bent spoke won't hold much weight, so you best leave your winter coat draped over a chair.
For the more pedestrian types out there, aluminum versions are also available.
Started a contract job at Libre Digital this morning. I'm on a team that takes in news feeds and converts them into ePub format for display on digital readers like the Barnes and Noble Nook and the Sony Reader. Java programming with a lot of XML/XSLT. Fast paced. Should be an interesting gig.
While in Houston last weekend, I checked out a Japanese dollar store. Actually, it's a two dollar store. They sell stuff that would normally be sold at 100 yen shops in Japan, but since they have to import the goods to the states, they double the price. Still, it's pretty cool stuff - and much nicer packaging than the stuff you find at dollar stores here. Check it out - they have 3 aisles of office supplies (all neatly arranged), which may not sound cool, but trust me, it is.
Not sure I like the blogger video tool. For comparison, here's the video when uploaded to youtube:
I was reading the paper this morning and noticed an ad for $99 window tinting. That's a really good price, so I called Mother's to get more details. I was told it was their low-grade tint that comes with a one year warranty. And - it turns out for my Tribute, they want $199. I hate the bait and switch. There's nothing about variable pricing in their ad.
Well, I've been wanting to get my car tinted for some time now, so I decided to give Sun Tint on 2222 a call. They said they'd do it for $179 with a lifetime guarantee. I found a $10 coupon on-line (because I'm cheap), so I took that to be a positive sign. I have to give the place credit for having a cool shop dog and the most interesting array of magazines I've seen in a waiting room. BTW, I was talking to one of the guys there about cable rub damaging my bikes. He says he has something that might help, disappears into the back for a minute and reappears with a sheet of protective clear film - gratis - how cool is that.
Speaking of magazines, I was sorting some boxes yesterday and found the first issue of MacWorld. This is the pre- jeans and turtle neck Steve Jobs. Out of curiosity, I checked eBay to see what the magazine might be worth. Turns out about $100. That's a 2500% return on a $4 investment over 25 years. Not bad.
I also found the manual for the original MacPaint. Nice, yes? Remember when they used to have competitions in MacWorld to showcase the best MacPaint work. Of course, you don't.
Also yesterday, I had a meeting with the dev director of a local start-up. I guess it went well. They want me to come in to meet the rest of the dev team. Also got a response back from another company I applied to. They wanted me to fill out the following questionnaire. Is this standard?
1. Why do you want to work for (company x) in particular?
2. Describe a time when you failed at something and what you learned.
3. Describe something you’re proud of having accomplished (doesn’t have to be related to work).
I've been eating bagel burgers most of the week. They're not bad, but after the 5th or 6th one, I kinda got tired of them. Tonight, I was in the mood for some comfort food. So naturally, I think Black Eyed Peas. Usually, when I'm in this mood, I think Threadgill's. But they're typically pretty busy, even on a Wednesday night. I can always count on the Pea to be pretty empty most nights.
In neck news, it appears my physical therapist and my primary care doctor have given up on me. I got a call from my doctor today with a referral to a neurosurgeon. At my PT appointment last week, I was told maybe my spine is now stacked in a way that may never completely loosen up, so my neck and back will always be tight. It turns into a pain management issue at that point. She conferred with my doc, and my doc refers me to a neurosurgeon. The earliest appointment I could get is 3 weeks out. And no PT appointments in between. That sucks.
And finally, I went running for the first time in 6 months today. Just a couple of miles around the neighborhood. Felt awkward at first, but I started to settle in after a half mile or sot. Nothing huge, but it's a start. Now, I'm harboring delusions of the Austin Marathon in February.
Had a nice 5 hour interview with Dell yesterday. 6 sessions, 7 people, and HR didn't bother to schedule a lunch break in there. Btw, originally, it was suppose to be 4 sessions with 4 people - I guess it was just my lucky day. Kind of a mixed bag - some of the sessions went really well, some not so well. I could have prepared better, but this was my first interview in many years, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.
Needed to unwind after all that, so I went to the Platforms show at the Mohawk later that night. 3 bands - June's was in the middle. Nice turnout for her show. The other 2... well, not so good.
Stayed out too late and promised to ride this morning at 7:00. That was probably a mistake. I overslept, but Glenn was kind enough to call my home phone from my front porch to wake me up. Ok, I said I would be up for a 30 - 40 mile ride out to Manor. How the hell did we end up in Elgin? Granted the breakfast tacos at the Mexican place in downtown Elgin were good, but I'm not sure they were an extra 20 miles good.
Leaving for Dallas soon for a short visit with Jeremy and Erin. Erin promises to smile more this weekend.
I was staring at my Speedvagen this morning and thought the tires looked fat. Upon closer inspection, it turns out the width is 25mm, not the usual 23mm I'm used to. That extra cushion should make the chip-seal on the HHH seem like smooth black top. I can't wait.
Speaking of which, I confirmed our stay at the lovely La Quinta Wichita Falls this morning. $135 a night is amazing, considering their normal room rate is only $52. But then, I'm not complaining (maybe I am), because check out the great amenities - a deluxe room with 2 double beds, a continental breakfast, and a semi-private pool - where I'm sure to be regaled by stories of the heat, double pace lines and missed attacks by Bud Light drinking freds (phreds, for you international folks). Ah... but I'm still looking forward to it. And I look forward to telling everyone I'm going to ride the 100 mile route for real this time, but will again end up riding the special 75 mile route instead. Pete, you have been warned. At least this time we'll know to skip the Cajun food in Waco. What were we thinking?!
In job hunting news, it's still a hunt. I haven't posted my resume yet, but I'm getting closer. Again, is it "walks on water" or "walk on water"? I suppose it's all in how you use it in a sentence.
Last day at Borland was today. Micro Focus is closing down our Austin office, so I've been laid off (along with 90% of R&D). Officially, I'm still a Borland employee for 60 more days, but I don't have to go into the office.
Ahhh... 2 months to work on my tan and find a job. Oh, wait - I already have a tan. Just need a job now.
Thankfully, minimum wage is now $7.25 per hour and engineers are still in demand.
