Stadium Bliss

Last night my dad and I went to Gillette Stadium to watch the New England Patriots play the Chicago Bears in their final preseason game. This was the first time either us had been to a Pats game in almost 8 years. Neither of us had even seen Gillette up close.

Let me tell you, this place is absolutely amazing, especially when you compare it to the old Schafer (Foxboro) Stadium. The first thing is that the stadium seats quite a few more people, but not only that, but all the seats in the stadium are actual seats. No more sitting on frozen bleachers that numb your ass. The seats are super wide to allow even the fattest ass plenty of room. Probably the most amazing thing about the new stadium is the concessions. When the Kraft's built Gillette, they invited in area business to open concessions inside the stadium. So now as opposed to have just burgers and dogs, they have Seafood, a sandwich vendor, and buffalo wings (which I decided to have). The choices are not all though, as the concession areas are open air, so while you are waiting in line for a brew or some food, you can still see out on the field.

Both my dad and myself agree that we want to go to a regular season game this year, even if it's in the nose bleeds. The stadium is just so good, that it's practically impossible to have a bad experience at a game, no matter where you sit.

3x Thursday: The First Day of School

Another week another 3xThursday:

1. When you were growing up, did you welcome or loath the first day of school? Why?
   It depended from year to year. Before I got to high school, I actually enjoyed going back to school because it was were I saw a lot of my friends. After I got to high school though I loathed going back. At that point I just wanted to be done with school. My college runs a coop program, so the five years I was there I was always doing something involved with the school, even if I wasn't taking classes. I actually looked forward to my classes though, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that I got to choose what to take for the most part.
2. If you are in college, do you still feel the same way when another semester starts? If you're not in school, do you miss it?
   I only miss school in that my responsibilities were minimal: get to class on time, study for tests, etc. I guess I just miss being a kid more than school really.
3. What do you/did you do to get prepared for the beginning of another school year/semester?
   I always made a trip to Staples (or something similar) to stock up. My mom's a teacher, so she always made sure we had good supplies: file folders, notebooks, etc. I'd always try to get organized by having a homework planner, spiral bound notebooks, etc, but usually all that went out the window about 2 weeks into school.

Bonus: If you could go to school to study anything, would you? What would it be?
If I could, I wouldn't mind checking out the University of Hawaii's Masters program in Japanese.

Sometimes it's nice to be busy

Last night was the first night I've been home for something other than sleep for 4 days. Thursday and Friday I spent out with some friends and didn't get in until late. Saturday I went down to Connecticut to visit Mike and Sibi, who recently announced their engagement. I hung out with them, had a few drinks and thought it best to spend the night. Sunday afternoon I headed home, only to grab my dirty clothes to make a trip to my parents' house. I go every couple of weeks, do my laundry, get a good meal, and in return I do some things around the house for my mom (usually it's fixing their computers). As soon as I was done there, I dropped off my clothes and headed out to a bar to meet up with a girl and again didn't get in until late. Last night I ended up falling asleep at about 9:30 but my body certainly needed the extra rest.

Today's been a pretty stressful day, so I'd imagine it'll be another early night for me. I'll probably just stay in and give poor Tenchi some attention. He's been awfully lonely the last week with me out and about and Shane off to Burning Man. Not to mention I'll be at the Patriot's game tomorrow night, so I should take the opportunity to placate him or he'll start trying to shed everything in site again.

3x Thursday: Website Madness

Gonna get this one in just under the gun. Once again from Missy Williams:

1. If you have your own website, what and when was the first one? What was that experience like?
   I had a personal link site back when I was using AOL as my ISP. When I first started keeping a website I had no real idea what HTML was and only an inkling of what the web would become. I built the site using AOL's shitty WYSIWYG HTML designer and had the requisit animated gif files and horid color scheme. I used the site more as a portal for my web browsing more than anything else.
2. How do you feel about blogging? Is it a good idea? If you don't already, do you have any desire to start one?
   I love blogging. I've been a follower of a few blogs for at least the last 3 years, and tried to keep one for 2 years (think this time it'll finally stick). I'm not a big fan of reality television because it seems like the people on the show aren't themselves. The thing about the blogs I read that I like is that the people are real, and don't feel like they have to make shit up to please their "audience".
3. Is the Internet a better place in the year y2k+3 as far as websites (availability, content-wise, etc) go?
   As far as overall content, I'd say it is better, but the amount of free content is going down. I've had to stop going to certain sites because I just couldn't justify spending the money to get subscriptions to all of the sites. I would love to see some sort of micropayment system so I could pay more reasonable prices for the content I view.

Bonus Question for Comments: If you had to power to change one thing on how things operate in the i-net world, what would it be?
Like I just said, a micropayment system that would allow me to pay small amount for the content that I view. It would allow the small time websites that produce good content to maintain it.

I'm #1

Like I said last week, the other developer in my group is now telecommuting out of Seattle. This means I've been doing a lot more customer related issues and dealing with other stuff that before now I had only infrequently come in contact with. The major issue over the last two weeks has been migrating our application to Oracle 9i. When I first rejoined the company, the guy I was replacing was "finishing up" the work on the migration. He told me everything was taken care of and that I just needed to be aware of the issue so I could support it in the future.

Well fast forward 2 months to developments first CD to QA. None of the 9i tools work correctly, you can't build a database instance on any of the platforms we support. I come to find out that the former coworker hadn't put some necessary files into the scripts to be put on the CD. This only solved the problem on Windows. He hadn't even bothered to put together anything for the UNIX platforms we support. So I had to rush to translate the windows tools to something that would run in the UNIX install, during which we had serious issues with just installing Oracle on the machines.

Finally, the database creation issues were resolved and QA continued trying to setup their test machines. One giant problem, the applications we gave them were linked against Oracle8i. Somewhere along the process of this release someone said that an Oracle8i application will connect to Oracle9i databases. After some initial testing on my own I was satisfied of this fact. Apparently my testing wasn't broad enough, as QA was seeing crashes right and left. So yet again, I had to spring to action to fix our builds so we could build both 8i and 9i versions of our software. Windows was easy, it was mostly done already. UNIX was a little harder, but after some simple changes to our make files I got the application build on HP-UX. Solaris didn't want to cooperate though. We were seeing some weird undefined symbols, things that should be defined.

They were coming from the Oracle libraries, so we thought we'd give Oracle support a call. I call them up only to find out that some time in November (around the time of the sale of the company) we stopped paying our maintenance, so they wouldn't answer my question. It took almost a week for Oracle to finally get back to our Controller about renewing maintenance, and in the meantime we couldn't build against 9i on Solaris. QA was able to do some testing with what we gave them, so it wasn't a total stoppage thankfully.

Finally, yesterday I started conversing with someone at Oracle support. They weren't very helpful in figuring out the issue. They kept suggesting I use their included make file which is woefully inadequate for our application. He suggested I re-install, which I did. At the end of it all though, I was playing around with the order of some included libraries and managed to get the application to build correctly. It was ld-voodoo at its finest. So now everything seems to be set with something that should have been done 3+ months ago and I finally feel like I've earned the spot of "#1" (The head of QA likes to come in my office and say "How's #1 doing today?" or "Don't worry, #1 will fix it.").

A couple of anniversaries

These past two weeks saw two anniversaries. First, as of August 10th, I've lived in Nashua for a full year. This is now the longest I've ever lived in any one place since I graduated from high school. I don't really forsee me moving in the very near future either. I have a good job, and I'd need to save up some money if I were to buy something.

The other anniversary isn't so pleasant. Some time this week (not sure of the exact date), will be the one year anniversary of Kate leaving. I wish I could say I'm 100% over that whole mess, but it still pops into my mind every so often, but more in the sense of a "what in the fuck was I thinking?" sort of way. As I've discovered, you're willing to put up with a lot of shit when you think you're in love. The lessons learned, though, have made me a better person and hopefully the next go 'round will be better.

Flexing my code skills

Helped out Dave with the new hdtc site (DNS might still be pointing to the old site, but here's a link until it's live). He ran into a strange bug with PHP where converting from a UNIX style date stamp to a date value was causing some issues with the archive page. Took me a while to figure out that was the problem though. Dave did some cool stuff with the new site, like allowing the rest of the crew to post comments. That's something I'm looking forward to doing. So keep an eye out for my comments.

Ahhhh, off-line editing

Today while I was surfing around looking at MT Plug-ins I wandered into the mt-dev Y! group. Once there I found a link to a great new off-line entry editor, Zempt. It even has spell check! Now I don't have to cut and paste from another editor if I need to do spell checking. I'm very excited about it.

Looking around at all the neat stuff people are doing with MT has got me thinking about some things I might like to do with it. I may have finally found that outside project I've been looking for.

New Responsibilities

So I haven't been posting much over the last week. Well there is a very good reason for that. The team I work on consists of me and one other person. He's an awesome programmer who's managed to balance a lot of responsibilites over the last 2 years (he's actually worked there less than I have, but full time for a lot longer). Well he recently got married and decided that he wanted to move outside of New England. So he and his new wife decided to move out to the Seattle area.

Luckily he's still staying with the company, but obviously in a telecommuting fashion. This means that I have had to pick up a few of his responsibilities. I now have even more respect for him than I did before. Over the last 2 weeks I've had to work on 3 different releases, resolve serious customer related issues, and resolve serious issues with a new release that is a scant couple months away.

All this has lead to me working all out from the moment I get in until the moment I leave. This leaves little to no time to post to the blog during the day. Of course, when I get home I want to unwind, and I've often forgotten completely about the blog and other things (I've got a huge backlog of anime to watch). On the bright side, I think I've managed to figure out how to manage all the concurrent tasks, so I shouldn't be so stressed ::crosses fingers::.

3x Thursday: Life Changing Events

Once again from Missy Williams

1. What's the one piece of technology (it can be anything) that has changed your life profoundly? How?
   Definitely my first PC, a Dell 486 DX66. It totally changed how I looked at computers and lead me down the path of becoming a computer programmer.
2. What piece of software or hardware changed how you use computers?
   Probably have to say Linux. Before I installed it for the first time, my only experience with another OS outside of DOS/Windows was the original MacOS. The fact that I could get into the actual source code of the OS and see how things were handled internally really changed my focus while writing code. I stopped worrying about how great the user interface was and tried to make the guts of the program as efficient and clean as possible.
3. What modern day convenience would you be hard pressed not to do without?
   I could live without TV, computer, and video games fairly easily, but other "regular" appliances like dish washers, clothes washer/dryer, hot water heaters make menial tasks a very small part of my day. If I had to hand wash everything and heat water over a fire, I'd have a lot less time to do other things.

Bonus: Did something ever happen in your life where you went, "Now it's all going to change"...and it did?
Graduating from high school. After I graduated, I moved out of my parents place (and only went back after my freshman year), got a real job. For the first time I really felt like I was in total control of the direction of my life.

3 for Thursday 8/7/03

3 for Thursday

1. What are the 3 driving laws you see broken most often?
   
   1. Most obviously the speed limits (55 mph is a joke on Rt. 3)
   2. Not using blinkers on turns or lane changes.
   3. Rolling stops at stop signs or lights.
2. What are 3 things that drive you nuts about other drivers?
   
   1. Following people at 2 cars lengths or less on the highway.
   2. Not following proper merge etiquette (if more people did this, there'd be a lot less traffic)
   3. People who go straight in right/left turn only lanes
3. What are 3 things you do while driving that you shouldn't - or if you're a perfect driver, what are 3 things you think others shouldn't be doing while driving?
   
   1. I'm guilty of speeding 90% of the time (though I'm hardly the fastest person on the road)
   2. I occasionally eat breakfast in the car, which is a slight distraction
   3. I don't do this, but people who talk on their cell phones the entire time they're in their cars and they don't use a headset.

Bonus: Have you ever experienced or seen a bad case of road rage?
I think I came close to the other day. I was taking a right, and a guy coming in the opposite direction cut in front of me taking a left. I made a gesture about my disgust in the fact that people were blocking access to the second lane, but I think he thought I was motioning to him. I saw him trying to pull up next to me a couple times later and he didn't look particularly happy.

Bonus-Bonus: Are you a "backseat driver" when someone else is in the driver's seat? (like your significant other or a family member)
I don't tell people how to drive, but until I feel comfortable with someone, I will often flinch if they get closer to another car than I normally would.

3xThursday: Vices/Habits

Once again via Missy Williams

1. Do you have any substance vices? (cigs, caffeine,etc) Are you aware of them? Do they create problems for you? Ever want to do anything about them?
   I've gone through multiple substance "addictions". I hate using that word, because in the end I quit once I recognized the problem. I smoked off and on for most of my time in college but I quit when I started hacking things up. I still light up occasionally when I'm out drinking (though obviously not any more in Boston). I just quit drinking caffeinated beverages about 3 months ago after my doctor told me that it was one of the major reasons I'd developed GERD. I crashed for a good 3 days afterward, but now I'm fine without it.
2. Do you have any non-substance vices? (pr0n, puters, driving) Do you think they're bad? Or good?
   My computer is always there, but I've come less and less attached to it lately. Obviously I can't get away from it at work, but when I'm home I try to find other things to do. Driving is an utter joy, especially the back roads of New England, but I don't have to drive all the time. Pr0n is good in small doses, but of course, I tend to archive all my data, so I have a fairly extensive collection of various kinds.
3. Are habits necessarily bad? Why or why not?
   Habits are only bad if they are self destructive (smoking, other substance abuse problems). They're are plenty of good habits: a habit of brushing your teeth every day; a habit of going to the gym regularly.

Bonus: We're all creatures of habit. Got any you wish to share with the class (present or past)?
The beginning and the end of my days tend to be very structured. In the morning, I exercise, then shower, eat, then go to work. Once at work, I read my e-mail, read my comics, then start my work day. At the end of the day I check sports scores, watch the news, brush and floss my teeth, then wash my face before bed. Otherwise my days are extremely free form. Of course if I'm away from home, all that goes out the window.

Last Week Redux

So I promised I would write about my great week last week, but this week has been the exact opposite, so I haven't had any time to do so! I finally have a free moment, so I can finally post about it.

The week didn't really get started until Tuesday when the boys from NU and I played a little poker. We got quite drunk and I lost all my money (luckily it was just $20 in change). I drank a little bit too much, because I overslept Wednesday morning and didn't get up until almost 9:30 (6 is my normal alarm setting).

The only problem was that Wednesday I was suppose to give a short training class at work in XML/XSLT to our consultants. I developed the reporting engine in our product, so they asked me to give a day long presentation on it for them. Luckily I didn't have to be in until 10, so I jumped in the shower, got dressed, booked it to work and made it with about 10 minutes to spare. The session went off pretty much without a hitch, and I got a free lunch out of the deal to boot. That night, Shane and I hung out with our friend Dewey. I hadn't seen Dewey in almost a year; the last time being when Dave came out from CA for a full couch crew reunion. We went out to eat at Hooters and had a good time just catching up.

On Thursday the company had a cookout for the employees, so again another free lunch. I had my fill of burgers, dogs, and pasta salad. Then, after work there was a get together at the Lowel Brewery Exchange. We shot some pool, had a few beers, and I got a chance to get to know some of my new coworkers (since they were the only ones there, I was the only developer from WTC there).

The weekend was actually pretty quiet. I spent a lot of time around the apartment; Shane and I slightly reorganized the living room to make it a little better for entertaining; I put together the file cabinet that came with my desk (it had been sitting in pieces for almost 2 years) and I'm using it as a bed side table. I also went through an old pile of documents and other assorted things. I found a few buried treasures in there like:

1. The $50 savings bond I mentioned earlier
2. The picture from my senior year experience on FIRST
3. A web browser tutorial I wrote for new secretaries at the law firm I used to work for (I'd link to them, but they closed their doors this summer).
4. An autograph book I had that had notes from people in my 6th grade class. I either had more friends than I remember back then, or a lot of people were just patronizing me... I'll just assume it was the former
5. My old handwritten journal I kept for a couple of years in high school. A lot of note so good memories in that thing.

But of course, this week has been hectic. I've had to do a lot more work since the other developer on my team moved to Seattle. Speaking of which, the build is done, so I should get back to my testing.

Found money

I've been finding money left and right lately. First, I got 2 $50 rebates I'd forgotten about from when I got my new cell phone. Secondly, while going through a box of old papers and things I found a $50 savings bond my grandfather got me about 15 years ago. Then yesterday when I put on my new Hawaiian shirt, I found $10 in the pocket. And soon enough I should be getting a $70 rebate from the hard drives I bought. This is definitely a good thing as I was starting to hit the bottom of my bank account and I won't get paid again until the 15th.

Hopefully back to normal

Took a little more than I thought, but I think I've managed to get my desktop back in working order, and probably better protected than it was.

At first I tried to just repair the installation of WinXP I had. This went fine until I tried to reboot after the install was complete, at which point I was prompted by the safe mode screen again. So after a second repair, I downloaded the latest version of McAfee Virus Scan and did a scan on the machine. Turns out my hard drive was infested with the W32/Valla.b virus. Basically every executable in the Windows directory was infected (including svchost and explorer).

So after cleaning all the files I could (obviously explorer can't be cleaned when it's running), I did one last repair (making sure to delete the infected copy of explorer) and everything seemed back to normal. Thankfully the McAfee software also came with a software firewall that will allow me to keep the box outside the NAT but still block certain traffic (even though I turned off DCOM as Microsoft suggested, someone was still able to use another RPC exploit shortly after I got the box up). Every day I get closer and closer to just flipping the bird to Bill and his buddies in Redmond. At this point the only thing that's keeping me on Windows is the fact that I have to develop for it.

Not the way I wanted to start my week

After having such a great week last week (I'll write more about that later), this week is not getting off on the right foot. When I got up this morning, I found my desktop on, but nothing displaying on the screen. After a reboot, I got to the safe mode selection screen. This wouldn't normally be a problem except none of the options would actually boot correctly, not even Safe Mode w/ command prompt. At this point I'm suspecting that I've managed to get a virus after someone tried out the new RPC exploit out on my machine.

Thanfully, it appears the partition tables are still intact, so I might be able to get away with just "repairing" my install of WinXP. This has seriously made me consider putting that box back behind the router as Shane would say to keep it away from the "dirty, dirty internet". It's either that or consider going to a linux desktop. Last time I tried to go all linux, there were some issues I had with some of the software, but that was 2 years ago and after my experience putting Red Hat down on the new file server, it might finally be ready for prime time. But for now, all I can do is think about it, as I need to get some work done today.