Live Life. Life is Short. Life is an Adventure.

Diary: 28^th March 2007

This week I’m working at eBay, which is kinda cool. Certainly the largest web presence I’ve worked on.

eBay also owns Skype which is next door at the South Campus. At the north Campus is PayPal. The photo is of the north campus, which I spent one day at. Note in the top left corner three flags, I didn’t realise until I uploaded the photos, the US flag, the California State Flag, and the eBay Flag.

These IT related lists are really quite accurate. I sound like a broken record sometimes when I repeat these things. The articles provides very good detailed descriptions, I’ve included the bullet points just to temp you to read more.

Top ten things ten years of professional software development has taught me.

1. Object orientation is much harder than you think
2. The difficult part of software development is communication
3. Learn to say no
4. If everything is equally important, then nothing is important
5. Don’t over-think a problem
6. Dive really deep into something, but don’t get hung up
7. Learn about the other parts of the software development machine
8. Your colleagues are your best teachers
9. It all comes down to working software
10. Some people are assholes

The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School.

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work
3. If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
4. Don’t over-think a problem.
5. Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
6. Don’t forget your goal.
7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
8. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
9. It all comes down to output.
10. The rest of the world counts.

As I mentioned earlier, You Tube cut out the last two seconds of audio (I’ll be trying a competitor soon).

So not to ruin the original post as well, what I said was.

“Oops, sorry about that”.

And no, I didn’t run into a tree. I stayed perfectly vertical, it was the camera that took the fall.

My employer had it’s first official Sports Day on March 21^st. We were encouraged to partake in a sporting activity (but not take a day off to do it) on or around the 21^st.

With many factors including:

• A mention on IRC about lack of time to organize a skiing trip
• I love skiing, and have only gone a few days this season
• New ski boots worn only once
• A comp day this week already scheduled (lucky me)
• Recent Snow
• A rather stressful and extremely long week last week, including 2 days delayed in Houston due to canceled flights home (that recent snow remember)
• The strong desire for something enjoyable
• The opportunity for significant exercise

So at the last minute, I decided that skiing was the go. Was able to convince another friend on short notice, and we booked tickets on Tuesday for our Wednesday trip. I had an excellent day at a new resort for me Hunter Mountain which is 2 hours north of New York. I managed to do most of the mountain in one day (except the double black diamonds).

I also for the first time took video (while skiing). The long list of excuses include, it’s just a compact camera, I’m not a videographer, I was skiing down the side of a mountain at the same time, it was the first time doing this. So the quality isn’t that great, I certainly learned a bit about how to hold the camera for next time for a more steady shot of snow, not sky.

For those impatient after the first 15 seconds, skip to 1:10 (it’s 1:30 in total), and for some reason You Tube, doesn’t keep the audio of the past few seconds (which is the best part!) What was the audio you say?

Diary: 9^th March 2007

Rocket before Launch.

Rocket after launch

Now that I have your attention, I got to spend a day touring the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was well worth the experience, I’m just disappointed I didn’t get to see the shuttle on the launch pad. It would have been there except for a severe hail storm a few weeks ago damaged the fuel tank, and it was being repaired.

Here are some photos of the day.

Those that know me, have heard me say “It’s not Rocket Science”. Well at NASA “It is Rocket Science”, and here is the t-shirt to prove it.

Diary: 19^th March 2007

It is with a sense of irony that the best laid plans of men and mice just don’t work out.
I arrived home at 6pm last night, almost 2 full days after my expected arrival. There is nice relatively clean remnants of the recent snow here.

So what did I miss? Well this week saw the third (and probably last) snow storm for New York. Why is this significant? My goal was to live in a city in the cold and snow, to especially experience NY Central Park covered in snow, to be there while snowing. Now, many people that live in the cold are going to say I’m a fool, so be it. I come from a temperate climate, where it doesn’t get below freezing (0C/32F). I’ve been away for all three times. I’d blindly figured when moving to New York, it would be covered in snow for several months. This is one of those goals you have in life, and I feel I’ve missed it, and I may not get the opportunity again. While NY is my home now, will it always be, I don’t know? There have been some doubts creep into my life which until recently has almost be surreal. As I say, Life is Short, Live Life. Our time is limited.

So, the outcome of my delayed flights were two fold. First I missed Saint Patrick’s Day. Given New York has one of the largest Irish populations outside of Ireland it would have been nice to experience it. Second, I had a forced layover in Houston. I had a great Friday night there, meeting a few fellow MySQL employees, but after spending an hour on the airline reservations, and then being given a flight home Sunday 10:55 am (I’d already heard of people flying the same airline getting booked the earliest at 9pm Sunday), I was also disappointed I couldn’t have taken the opportunity to spend more time in Houston (being I’d actually had Monday off work). I didn’t want to jinx the chance to return home, by asking the operator for a Monday flight. I’d just figured calling Saturday morning I’d get one (I couldn’t even get through Friday night to reservations). I get a forced layover in a city I’d never visited, met some new people, and before you know it I was gone. Following a rather horrendous work week I needed the comfort of an uncomplicated week, and also to hear from and spend time with some friends.

It was just two short weeks ago I had a great few days off in Florida. It seems so long ago, and while it was rather great in a number of aspects it lacked something to make it memorable and special, and that was to share it with somebody.

Diary: Friday 11^th March 2006

Today I experienced the height of our world’s erratic weather patterns. I’m in Houston Texas on stopover from Dallas Texas on my way home to New York on Continental. All flights into New York JFK Airport were being canceled. Now New York has three airports, JFK, La Guardia and Newark. Flights canceled into All. So was flights into Philadelphia, Boston and Washington DC. CNN Weather News gives a short description of the weather woes in the NE.

Generally, I’m traveling every week, so I guess I could just re-route to the new destination instead, as it’s a nightmare with people trying to get home. However, it’s ironic that next weeks work was tentative, and was only to be confirmed at COB Friday. This fell through, so that leaves me some home-base prep work next week at home (Home being NY, the one location I can’t get to).

The mass cancellations caused chaos at the airport. So I learned a few lessons today with flight cancellations for work travel.

• Even if your airline website or phone automated systems tell you your flight is on schedule, don’t believe it.
• The early morning news was saying there were 1,000s of cancellations, while I knew this, I was believing the information of the previous point
• When your flight gets canceled, get to Baggage Claim ASAP, to the manned desk, so you can make a manual paper claim for you bag.
• Be prepared, have the phone number of a hotel or two handy. Even with our normal operations of using Hilton, I book online. When I called Hilton reservations, I was then given the option of choosing which chain I wanted, I didn’t care, I wanted a hotel close to the airport.
• Be prepared that you may need to use the airport Internet, trying to make phone calls on cell phone gave me a Network Busy message. So have your laptop (I always do), have a battery fully charged (I always do for flights). I never wish to pay for Internet at the airport, but today I had to.
• It’s likely you are going to be there for days, due to generally full flights now being jammed with people on canceled flights. Depending on the city, you may want to get a car, so have your car hire phone number ready as well.
• I only use Avis for cars, but this experience has shown I should get preferred membership with another car company just in case.
• Never, ever buy a black suitcase. Mine is Maroon (a dark red) and this saved me a few hours in my bag being found between the thousands in storage somewhere. I think I need to have some custom pocket covers on my suitcase made with a unique light-colored pattern.
• Always have some snack food in your bag, and a bottle of water. Spending hours in a line on your own, you

I’m at the airport waiting for my bag, and I’m hearing people are being re-scheduled the earliest to Sunday 9pm. I figure after all the hassle, I got my bag after 2 hours BTW (the estimates were 4 hours), I’d just call Continental tomorrow to re-schedule. After catching up with some fellow MySQL Employees in Houston Friday Night, I did decide to try and call around middnight, I couldn’t even get through to Continental Reservations, with a recorded message something like, paraphrasing “We’re too busy, call back later”.

Diary: Friday 9^th March 2007

Today, I’m at Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Florida. I’ve caught up with new friend Dave, that I met a few weeks ago in New York. It was such a blast. Have heaps of photos and videos, but when O when the time to process. Here I am!
Angel Pop, I know you are envious!

Diary: Thursday 9^th March 2007

Today I spent the day at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Plenty of photos to come, but here is just one.

I didn’t however choose the best location (I was South, and the rocket went North). A fellow MySQLer and local did. Check out Chad’s photo here.

Diary: Sunday 25^th February 2006

It’s 6pm, I’m typing on my laptop and listening to the Batman Begins soundtrack via headphones when I’m interrupted by applause and cheers. The flight crew for our 2.45pm flight have finally arrived, the plane has been here the whole time.

A quick boarding, a full plane, no luggage space and a rather large lady in the next seat, so my bag crammed into a now not available leg room space, have all passengers raring to leave, it’s 6.20. I observe the adjacent plane beside us with a 6.15 departure fill up and promptly leave. We remain.

Of course the expected snow storm to hit NY has arrived. Drat, again my desire to see it snowing it NY is foiled. Waiting, there is hint of movement, but we remain. It continues to snow. Time passes. 7pm arrives and finally the plane is on the move. Of course we now have snow covered wings meaning de-icing will be necessary. Surprisingly this moves quickly, about 5 minutes, in Montreal it was like 20 minutes but that is also another funny story. Cool, we are on the runway, we are de-iced, and we a still standing still.

So almost another 3/4 of an hour later we are finally off the ground, 7:41 pm by my watch. This has been the longest delay for me in US travel to date.

Now one could complain, but in the past week there have been nightmare stories of JetBlue planes stuck (i.e. frozen stuck to the tarmic) at JFK and people on planes for up to 9 hours. I arrive into Kansas City without additional delay, get my car, and 45 minutes later I’m at my hotel. Now time for some dinner, it’s 11pm local time. My fellow work collegue coming from Europe didn’t even make it. His US domestic leg flight was canceled in Chicago due to bad whether.

Diary: Monday March 5^th, 2006 - Month 5

As I quietly slip into now my 5th month here, I enjoyed a lovely but smelly evening with some old friends and new ones at the Stinky Cheese & Wine 101, a class run at Artisanal Cheese by Waldemar Albrecht.

This was not just some cheese to eat, this ended up being a full on class about the types of cheeses, the cheese making process, and general cheese appreciation. So the cheeses on offer tonight were:

• Mont Saint-Francis from France (goat’s milk)
• Casinca Chevre from France (goat’s milk)
• Pont Couvert from Canada (cow’s milk)
• Cato Corner Holligan from USA (cow’s milk)
• Brescianella, Stagionata from Italy (cow’s milk)
• Forsterkase from Switzerland (cow’s milk)
• Pena Blanca from Spain (sheep’s milk)
• Rogue River Blue from USA (cow’s milk)

Now, it was not just cheese, but also the wine we were learning and evaluating. There was slight twist tonight with a beer included. The Wine/Beer list included:

• Newcastle Brown Ale
• Selbach Kabinett Riesling 2005
• Leth Steinagrund Gruner Veltliner 2005
• Domaine de I’Amadine Cote du Rhone Grenche/Syrach

Now just trying the cheese and wine was still not the goal, it was to score each combination as well (+2,+1,0,-1,-2).

Overall it was a great but detailed introduction, personally probably two many combinations (32 in total). I’d been happy with say not more then half that, say 5 cheeses and 3 wines.

My Conclusions:

• I think the Pont Couvert and the Mont Saint-Francis were the best cheeses on there own.
• Surprisingly the beer went well with a number of cheeses.
• The best wine was the Gruner Veltiner, but overall it was the worst with cheese combinations.
• Nothing for me scored the +2 - A marriage in heaven!
• Different combinations of cheese were definitely enhanced with various beverages.

Further investigation and attending a cheese making session definitely warranted at a later time.

Then, just to maximize the NY experience, we ended our night at a quaint Tapis bar “Boqueria” at 53 West 19th street. Also a good recommendation.