Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Hurray for the UPS guy!
Today, Yimay and I went to lunch with Winston and Patrick Fox. On the way back to work, we pulled up next to a UPS truck at the stoplight on Sixth and Lamar. Apparently Yimay had been wanting a UPS hat for sometime — you can get them on Ebay but they're expensive — and she used this opportunity to get one.
I rolled down my window and said, "Hey man, she wants your hat. Can she have it?" He replied, "But it's all sweaty!" and Yimay yelled, "I'll wash it!". Then he tossed the hat over to me and we drove off. ("Werd" to the UPS guy.)
Of course, a woman is never satisfied and Yimay immediately started complaining that she had wanted a baseball cap, but this one was actually a visor. Argh! I think visors are cooler in Texas' hot weather, but what do I know? It was free, wasn't it?
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
No soup for you... Six months!
My brother, Neil, is shipping out for Afghanistan later this week. He's in the Army and will be over there for about six months.
They say he will be sleeping in a tent the whole time. I hear it gets pretty cold over there, but they can't use any heaters until the cobras go into hibernation. Yikes! Suddenly my problems seem small again.
I was going to tell him, "Good luck, and don't do anything I wouldn't do." But then I thought, "Wait, I wouldn't go to Afghanistan, would I? Or sleep in a tent for six months... Or join the Army in the first place..." I think the Armed Forces personnel deserve a pay raise. I'd gladly take a paycut to keep from having to do the things they do all the time.
Good luck Neil, and don't fail to do the things I wouldn't do...
Monday, October 28, 2002
Whose profile is that?
Denise posted this article about our AIR developer team on the Austin FreeNet site. There's still not a great picture of Matt Sansbury, but he's on there in profile... ;)
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Whose knee is that?
There is a pull-out centerfold article about the AIR-Austin event in this week's issue of the Austin Chronicle. There was a nice picture of our team on the back, but someone cropped out Matt Sansbury, dammit! You only get to see his knee and part of his hand in the lower left corner.
He's got a sense of humor and is probably laughing about this, but I want everyone to know that Matt Sansbury played an invaluable part in the process of building the Lanier web site. He deserves more than a cropping. Sorry, Matt. ;)
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
And the winner is...
The AIR-Austin awards banquet was last night. Out of thirteen in the "stock-car" division, our site for Lanier High School won second place.
Congratulations to the winner in our category, Symphony of Soul, as well as to the winners in the other two categories. The results will be posted soon on the AIR-Austin website.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Breakbeat what???
Do you ever wonder what people mean when they describe music as "Acid Breaks", "Intelligent Jungle", or "French House"? Well, wonder no more! Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music contains genre and subgenre listings along with audio examples.
Of course, being the electronic music connoisseur, I've found several examples that I don't think are the best choices, but it's, by far, the best reference like this I've ever come across. Study hard. The test is on Friday...
It's about 70 degrees outside right now but golfball-sized hail is pummelling my car. Weather is weird.
Monday, October 21, 2002
No more pajama work parties...
I haven't shaved in 4 days and I've been wearing my pajamas all day, yet I still did some freelance work and got paid for it. Sweet!
Unfortunately, not every good thing can last forever and I'm going back to the old 9 to 5 grindstone on Thursday. I've still got a couple days worth of freelance work, but I might even shave tomorrow cuz I need to make an appearance at the AIR-Austin Awards reception. Wish us luck!
Saturday, October 19, 2002
Latest favorite track...
I've been listening to the latest Ninja Tune Amon Tobin album and I've found my latest favorite song: Verbal featuring MC Decimal R. The new album, Out From Out Where, is very different from his first three experimental jazz albums, but it's definately good and overall I'd give it a good review.
The other good news is that Amon Tobin and another of my favorite Ninja Tune artists, DJ Food, are coming to Austin next month for a show at La Zona Rosa. I've promised to come out of the woodwork for this one.
Friday, October 18, 2002
Prize whores...
Jessie and I got another offer in the mail last week... Come look at some investment property in Horseshoe Bay to get a free TV and Foley's gift card. So today we went to go get it.
Everything started off fine. We told the salesman at the beginning of his pitch that we only came for the prizes and weren't interested in the property. He seemed nice enough and admitted that everyone came for the same reason. We listened to him for a while and let him drive us around to show the place. I have to admit, Horseshoe Bay was extremely nice and fairly inexpensive, but we stuck to our plan and told the salesman we weren't interested.
That's when Dick Simpson, the salesman, got really unprofessional... He snapped at us, kicked his desk, and threw our "offer letter" on the ground. We just said, "Thanks, Dick", and walked out with our gift card and television.
After we got back to Austin, we went to Foley's to spend our gift certificate... Yay! Jessie bought a hat and some socks; I bought a George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine.
Overall, it was a pretty good day. Daniel hooked me up with an old monitor that frog was getting rid of, we got a fifty dollar gift card to Foley's, and we got a free, small, but nice television set. Not too shabby!
Kickin' some 9-ball bootay...
I mentioned last week that I lost my first APA pool match but I feel somewhat validated after last night's match. My opponent's handicap (skill ranking) was double that of mine, but I still managed to beat him, 19-8 (14-6 in match points) in 8 innings. That means I averaged over 2 balls per turn. We played at G-Cue Billiards, a little place up in Round Rock with amazingly fast felt on the tables.
Last week, my handicap started off at 4 but because of the loss, this week I was a 2. After last night's game, I'll probably be pushed back up to a 4 next week.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Going back to work next week...
After quite a long hiatus, I'm going back to a full time job again next week. I'll be working with Yimay at a place called S1 for a two month contract.
I've got some mixed emotions about working there. I know I would be fine, except both of the guys that interviewed me said something along the lines of We just want you to know beforehand that it's not very glamorous work and it's probably not going to be creatively stimulating... Are you ok with that?
What kind of pep talk is that? I've had some crummy jobs before, but I've never had an interviewer warn me during the interview... They might as well have said, "We just want you to know this job is not fun." Oh well, at least they are honest about it. Sigh...
I'm not ungrateful for the work and I think it will probably be fine, but I almost wisth they hadn't told me. At least then I would be going in without anticipating a negative experience.
Thievin' fools...
Somebody stole our "For Sale by Owner" sign out of our front yard this week. It even had our address and phone number written on it in permanent marker. I wonder what the jerk is going to use it for...
Monday, October 14, 2002
Running back to the safety of Windows...
While it's true I'm now using my Mac for most daily work, the true test came last week when Nathan passed some freelance development work my way.
Graphics programs like Photoshop and Fireworks are almost exactly the same nowadays (give or take a few keyboard shortcuts) so using those on the Mac was no problem. However, 99% of my web development work is done in a text editor and I haven't found a good one for Mac yet... I use UltraEdit on Windows and when the time crunch came, I quickly left BBEdit for the safety of my standby Windows editor. Cop out? Maybe...
Mac-heads, what editors do you use for coding? I'm thinking I might use the Dreamweaver editor (it's Homesite 5, right?) but I've never liked Homesite as much as UltraEdit on the PC. What are some other good text-only editors for Mac besides BBEdit?
Sunday, October 13, 2002
web log snob?
Nay, my friend... I'm perfectly willing to link to random strangers websites. Just check the "blog snob" section at the bottom of this page. I saw it on Gabe's site and had to have it for myself.
Friday, October 11, 2002
Wired compliant...
I noticed today that Wired News updated their web site using standards-compliant XHTML, CSS, and access-friendly structure. This is big news in the world of web standards and universal access. It's nice to see a major website do their part to help lift the Web out of the dark ages.
Thanks to Dane Knecht for the tip.
Thursday, October 10, 2002
9-ball boo ya!
I joined a pool team in the Austin pool league and my first match was tonight... I lost.
Since I hadn't played before, I had a higher handicap, and my opponent had the advantage. Next week my handicap will be adjusted and it'll be on! But seriously, I had a good time and now I have an excuse to play pool every week.
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Switch-a-roo!
My wrist has been hurting lately because I've been typing on a straight keyboard ever since I switched to the Mac. I had wanted to get a natural (curved) keyboard like my other one, but the only natural Mac keyboards I saw had those unbearable black keys; an Apple UI flaw second only to the "puck" mouse.
Fortunately today, I found a Mac driver for my Windows keyboard, and vice versa. Now I'm using a Microsoft keyboard on my Mac and an Apple keyboard on my Windows machine. Ah, the irony...
Monday, October 07, 2002
Quaoar, the tenth planet?
Earlier today, the BBC reported astronomers discovering a new planet-like object orbiting beyond Pluto. They've dubbed it Quaoar, after a creation myth of some Native American people that once lived near Los Angeles.
Quaoar won't officially be considered a planet because of the small size and location. This article also mentions that most astronomers today agree that Pluto shouldn't even be considered a planet, but they don't want to "demote" it since it's been known as the ninth planet for so long.
Finished...
Whew! We finished the AIR website for Lanier High School on Saturday. I'm really happy with it and think it's definately the best out of the one's I've seen. Of course, I might be biased...
We got a quote back from Sharron Rush, one of the competition judges and co-author of a book entitled Maximum Accessibility. She said that our site really rocks
and that it looks like a contender
. We'll have to wait to see if she says this to all the teams, but I think it's probably a good sign.
During the day, the internet connection at St. Edward's kept going out, so work was less than productive for a good portion of the day. They finally got the connection working in the mid-afternoon, and fortunately extended the deadline until midnight the next day. We took an extra 5 points for finishing on Saturday, so hopefully that will help us, too.
Saturday, October 05, 2002
Last minute preparations...
Five and a half hours until the competition starts and I think I'm finally ready. Now I gotta get some sleep.
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Back in school today...
We're in full swing for the AIR project. We had a kick-off party Tuesday at Scholtz Bier Garten where all the developer teams met their non-profit organizations. Our team will be building a website for Lanier High School. This morning, a few of us went up to the school to take photos and get some content for the site. We can't start any coding until Saturday (Oct. 5th), but we've only got 8 hours to finish the site then so graphics and content have to be organized in advance. I've got so much to do between now and Saturday; don't be surprised if this is the last post for the week.
ps. The title of the previous (September 29th) post is "cookie crook" translated into Spanish through the Babel Fish translator: "ladrón de la galleta". It literally translates back to English as "thief of the cake".
