Category: life

I am back in the country after wintering abroad. Toronto: still cold.

While away I managed to get some work done on the latest installment of the Rio Karma project: a FUSE-based implementation of the “Optimized” MPEG Filesystem. This one has the advantage that it theoretically will work with the busted every-byte-swapped ReplayTV, and that it takes approximately 10% more time than the kernel driver for a given task. There still isn’t an official release because it will destroy your hard drive and wipe off the serial number so you won’t be able to replace it. Plus it gives another excuse to use git, which has finally replaced svn in my day-to-day.

Meanwhile, work is continuing to suck, with two more people gone this week. So, I’ll be on the market shortly. I’m not sure what I want in a new job but my usual criteria apply: linuxy, interesting, not evil, and convenient commute-wise (I’m about 1 for 4 at current job). I don’t particularly care if it makes millions or not.

Not a whole lot is going on otherwise. Santa brought us a Wii and the wife kicks my ass in tennis. Weird that no matter which controller I use, it’s always the broken one. Just like when playing soccer on the Sega in college…

The first snow has fallen, and so begins our inevitable slide into winter. Why does winter have to be so cold?

I haven’t been updating this or doing many projects recently, as work has occupied my life. Over the last month or two I’ve been prepping and shipping a 6-month-late, extremely buggy software release and cleaning up the ensuing mess. Unfortunately, I saw this coming a year ago, and continue to see danger ahead: our customer has retaliated by shortening our schedule for phase 2 from six to two months. Those whose managers have never read the Mythical Man Month are doomed to repeat it. Well, it’s about time to start taking off the month of vacation time that I’ve stowed away.

Joe and Jessica can throw a good costume party. As we did 2 years ago, Angeline and I hit up the toons for inspiration. This time we went as Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go!, respectively. Who were just as obscure as Venture Bros. to everyone in attendance. Oh well.

I didn’t do as much engineering with this one as I did with the Monarch costume, but I did do some craft work: I replaced the black strap on a $10 messenger bag with an orange strap, hemmed Dora’s shorts which were originally jogging pants (yay for my new sewing abilities), and spent an hour or so drawing out the logo for the button to the right in Inkscape. I only saw the logo for a brief period at Toys ‘R Us and then worked from a really low res bitmap, so I was particularly pleased with how that last bit turned out.

I only saw it in pictures, but I think Jerome’s baby in a pot costume was the best there.

I’m married now, woot! Angeline and I were wed in a quick ceremony in Rockville with 80 of our closest friends and family. I’m so lucky! I feel so grown up.

We’ve spent the last week on Oahu, and today we’re hopping on a plane to go visit Kauai for a week. Also, this marks the last day of free hotel internet, so I guess I might as well blog a note or two.

Our hotel is situated right on Waikiki Beach. I would definitely stay at this spot again – it’s extremely convenient to plenty of dining options and, while not the largest beach on the island, Waikiki Beach has plenty of charm. At this time of year it’s not too terribly crowded.

While here we climbed Diamond Head (a former volcano crater with excellent views of Waikiki), visited the Polynesian Culture Center for a luau, circumnavigated the island, visited a pineapple plantation, went swimming near the Banzai Pipeline (non-existent at this time of year), ate some incredible meals, and just generally relaxed. One of the coolest things was snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, where we saw a large sea turtle eating algae off of a rock. We were close enough that we could reach out and touch him, if that weren’t frowned upon by the park service.

It’s actually a bit too windy here to fly the kites, especially since I left my 150 lb line at home. I may try to fly my eddy this week on Kauai even so.

From: privacymanager@bestbuy.com

> Bob said:
> Someone signed my email address up for reward zone program and it wasn't
> me. Please remove it, thanks.

Bob,

I am Chazy with Best Buy Customer Care.

Thank your for contacting Best Buy about your Reward Zone account. I
will be more than glad to assist you.

I am pleased to inform you that in order to provide the best service
possible, we will need more information from you. Please reply to this
email with your full name, mailing address and phone number so we can
find your Reward Zone account.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. We
look forward to your next visit to one of our stores or to
www.BestBuy.com.

Thank you,
Chazy
Best Buy Customer Care Team

Yeah… I’ll get right on that, guy. I’m pleased to inform you that you are a moron.

We’re down to 31 days until the wedding, and pretty much everything is done, modulo the odd vendor meeting, dance lesson, and so forth. We have also sent sharp sticks by way of courier to the invitees who haven’t sent their cards in yet. *Poke!*

It’s like those bees with dogs in their lap, and when they stand up they shoot dogs at you?

From my camera phone.

I suppose I must make a blog entry this month so that I do not get logged out for inactivity. Like the blog, I have let the projects slide lately. I have a half-drawn schematic sitting in Eagle and a new kite in the design phase, but I haven’t hit these particular projects too hard. How have I been spending the last month, then? Here’s how:

• Working. Yay for compulsory overtime.
• Teaching myself Spanish. I don’t know why.
• Various wedding things. Invites are in the mail.
• Going to a baseball game.
• Guessing the plots of Sherlock Holmes stories after reading the first two pages.
• Being unmotivated to do other stuff.

Angeline and I had engagement photos taken and we got a couple of proofs back. Check out the one I put one on the website.

I’m killing time in the Toronto airport after having spent the last couple of days visiting with Angeline’s family while she and her sister and brother-in-law are here for an endocrinology conference. All in all it was a great trip if too short — I had a nice time playing with Angeline’s nephews, drinking beers with Sameer, and wandering the city on my own whenever I had unscheduled free time.

Rather than bore with details, here are some of my general ugly-american impressions of the city from my fourth visit:

• Toronto wants to be NYC it seems, but I have to say that I find TO more enjoyable than its stateside counterpart. Perhaps it’s the general lack of rudeness.
• Every Canadian knows every famous Canadian. This is because every time Alex Trebek, say, is mentioned on Canadian TV, they say, “oh by the way, Alex Trebek is from Canada!”
• In Toronto, the movie “13th Floor” was called “2nd Floor,” because in some buildings only non-prime numbers that start with ‘S’ are considered lucky. Okay that’s a lie, but the elevator in Angeline’s brother’s condo really takes number skipping to an extreme.
• There’s a store called ‘Bowring Canadiana’ which I pronounce “boring” in my head and I giggle to myself
• Lots of US brands here have different names than in Canada. I saw a commercial that said, “It’s not delivery, it’s Delissio!” And it makes me wonder if DiGiorno is the name of a Canadian serial killer or something. You know, it’s the little things, le big mac, and so on.
• Meals:
  • best: eggs, bacon, potatoes, crepes, cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberry and
    two pieces of toast at Cora’s which I found serendipitously a few blocks
    from the hotel
  • worst: Ritz Caribbean, which had jerk chicken for $3.99 CDN. Cheap and
    edible, but the pointyness of the jerk-flavored chicken bones was somehow
    off-putting.
  • trendiest: SushiTrain on Yonge, where Angeline and I split four maki rolls
    and a pair of nigiri. The Japanese-modern decor blended well with the
    dance music overhead and the tasty fusion style offerings. Place was
    dead on a Saturday night though.
  • best deal: danish and (harsh) OJ for $2.68 at the airport Tim Horton’s.
    Same would cost $8 at Charbucks.

I am looking forward to a nice nap when I touchdown in DC in a few hours.

I used a complicated computer model to make bracket picks this year, and I’m 83.7% so far, which is good enough for 4th place in our office pool of eight (1 point off the 3-way tie for first). Ok, that part about the computer model was a lie but that would be cool wouldn’t it? Random guessing ftw!