it's a beautiful day

2005.01.30 10.43

I walked north on 3rd street. The crisp white snow was crunching beneath my feet. I looked up toward a trash bin that was visibly moving to and fro. A homeless man popped his head out of the top and said, ''Yo! We're goin' to the Superbowl!!!'' Ahhh. Philadelphia.

I arrived on Friday at 5 PM. The temperature was around 10 degrees or so. I didn't go out that night. Instead, I opted for the savory home-delivered delicacies offered by Pizza Rustica. I ordered half a pizza Pomodoro style -- that's tomato pie with anchovies and capers. There was also a pizza cheesesteak involved, but I decline to name names. Okay, her name was Heather. She inhaled that pizza cheesesteak like it was oxygen. Okay, I'm kidding. She ate a half of a half. Like a bird. Like a disinterested bird. Okay, she was full. Like a full bird. Okay? I can't write my blog while the person I'm talking about is looking over my shoulder.

I've been instructed to finish up because ''we're going to IKEA.'' Those are magic words to me. They're right up there with ''Take this -- it's yours'' and ''feel free to do with me as you please.'' On Saturday, I worked out with Justin Mudaliar, best trainer in Philadelphia (call The Old City Ironworks today for an appointment). We did upper body. I later ran 1.5 miles. I think an even six miles an hour is the ideal speed for me. It's just below the speed where I think I may die after I've run a mile. Good to know.

I then went to Manayunk, PA to get a haircut. Sona, my usual stylist, was ''calling in sick'' so I instead opted for someone named Jennifer who was ''also trained by the same person as Sona'' (the telephone chick assured me). The haircut turned out terrible. Too much length on the top. What? Are they afraid to cut that hair? I look like a friggin' New Kid on the Block. Sona chops it down without batting an eye, but this girl was so apprehensive. After asking her to shorten the length of the top -- and not really getting a good result -- I realized that I needed to cut my losses and get the ''F'' out of there. The shampooer before the cut was good, at least. I feel dirty after I get the shampoo, though. They massage your head and other non-hair bearing parts of your skull when the Conditioner Stage comes into play. I guess that's to loosen you up so when you get a crappy haircut that you don't freak out and start taking people out.

After the cut we then decided to have lunch at a restaurant in Manayunk called Sonoma. They should rename that place Suckoma. It was terrible. Grocery store quality frozen fried shrimp and calmari. Bland dipping sauce. I ordered the pork chops and a piece of one of them was friggin' UNCOOKED. Gross! I didn't realize that until I'd nearly polished them off. They were bland and boring. There was barely and brocolli given. It was decent, but it seemed to have been frozen at some point in time as well. Ugh. Do everything you can to avoid eating here. Even the seating sucked. The shoved us in between two full tables of people when the entire restaurant was practically empty. The table on my right was filled with the most boring, loud, obnoxiously inert people. By inert, I mean their actions will have no bearing on the future of humanity -- trust me. I got the hell out of there and paid a nice tip to the waitress (the only highpoint of the meal). I filled out the comment card and pretty much let them have it. A visit to Starbucks for my venti half-caf (H/C), sugar free vanilla (SFV), non-fat (NF), with whip (W/W), Caramel Machiotto (CM) saved the day in the end.

To top off the evening, we walked to The Ritz on 4th and saw ''A Love Song For Bobby Long'' starring a depressingly miscast John Travolta. This movie wasn't as bad as Spanglish, but the plot was so convoluted that I was often disinterested because it involved stupid people having a lot of drama with one another. I think OktoberNight said it best years ago regarding stupid people: ''The shouldn't be allowed to breed!'' So true. So, avoid ''Bobby Long'' if you can. You'll never get back those two hours again.

continuous integration

2005.01.27 11.50

I've decided to make a return to Philly for the weekend. I have my dog already checked into the Jersey Village Animal Hospital kennel facility. I was supposed to bring the DeLorean to this Back to the Future Party thing on Friday night. I hate to flake out on them but I'll make it up to them when the next one rolls around. I get to work out with my trainer on Saturday morning. Good times. The fact that I'm going someplace where the temperature is 15 degrees and there's a foot or two of snow on the ground doesn't seem to bother me. As an added bonus, I have not yet been assigned a seat for my return flight on Sunday night. I wonder if I can check in and grab a seat on Saturday at 5 PM, then use that as a bargaining chip to get the coveted ''$300 Travel Voucher'' that I prize so highly. I'll report back from Philly in my next update.

Before I forget... I've now turned the theoretical Continuous Integration into reality here at The Office. I have three environments: INTEGRATION, TEST, and PREVIEW. Everytime someone checks in a file to the source repository, CruiseControl.NET detects it and starts a build. If we encounter Yet Another Successful Build after someone checks in some code, everyone with the CruiseControl.NET system tray icon will hear a WAV file of Homer Simpson saying ''Woo hoo!'' (if they want). They can also hear about when a build fails (''Doh!''), when it continues to fail (that is, if it continues to fail), and when it succeeds after it had been failing earlier (''Woo hoo!''). Yes, we are easily amused.

seems a bit unstable

2005.01.22 18.38

It finally happened. I cracked at the movie theater! While watching ''Spanglish'' with the roommate, a cell phone call interrupted everything 70 minutes into the show.

Rude 45 Year Old Dude (on bright blue cell phone): ''Hello? Who's this? Oh. You wanna talk to Randall. How you doing? Heh. Yeah. I'm at the movies. Ummm, hold on...''

Guy One Row Behind: ''SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!''

Rude 45 Year Old Dude shares a few more words with the caller and then hands the phone to his adjacent friend Randall (aka Rude 25 Year Old Dude).

Randall (to his wife): ''It's [unintelligible] calling.'' (to phone) Hey, what's up?''

Guy In Row Behind: ''SHHHHHH!!!! SHHHHHHHHH!!''

Another Person Near Guy In Row Behind: ''Man, get off the phone!'' (kicks seat)

This goes on for about 20 seconds. I'm pissed. I give them The Glance several times. Nothing! I then give them The Head Turn. Nothing! I combine The Eye Roll with The Head Turn. Nothing!

Rude 45 Year Old Dude: (out loud) ''I paid my ticket and I can do what I want.''

At this point I'm furious. Just because you buy a ticket does not mean you can do what you want. For example, what I wanted to do was drop a steaming bucket of cow urine on this moron's head. Unfortunately, a steaming bucket of cow urine was neither close at hand, nor was it appropriate. I chose to do the only thing I could do -- make a giant scene.

Me: (standing up) ''Hang up the phone right now. You're in a public theater. This is not your living room.''

Guy In Row Behind: ''Yeah.'' (kicks chair)

Rude 45 Year Old (as Randall continues to chat): ''I paid for my ticket just like everyone else. I can do what I want!''

Me: ''Wrong. Silence is golden. Remember the cheerleader commercial at the beginning of the show that was supposed to shame you into turning off your cell phone? It said Silence is golden!''

Rude 45 Year Old: ''Hey. I paid for my ticket, okay? Shut up.''

At this point I throw down my hands and briskly walk outside of the theater. Someone tells Rude 45 Year Old that he'd better knock if off because he has the whole theater against him. I hear another person say: ''We're trying to watch the movie.'' I walk outside and get the theater manager who'd earlier helped me out with the house lights -- they had stayed on after the show originally started. He was sooo nice to Rude 45 Year Old, asking him to please be considerate. Guess what he got in response?

Rude 45 Year Old: ''Look, man, I *paid* for my ticket. I didn't do anything wrong! I was taking an emergency phone call! Now, go away and leave me alone!''

Nice Movie Theater Manager says, ''Okay,'' and pleasantly walks away. I walk back to my seat because I know what's coming next...

Off-Duty Harris County Sheriff (to Rude 45): ''Sir, please come with me.''

Seeing that The Law has now become involved, Rude 45 Year Old makes no further effort to bring up his special Emergency Phone Call again. He walks out of the theater with the officer. His wife follows him out about 30 seconds later to see what's up. About two minutes after that, she comes back to signal Randall (Rude 25 Year Old) and his wife to come with her. They all leave for the rest of the film. Peace in the universe has been friggin' restored.

As far as the movie itself was concerned, Rude People On Cell Phones notwithstanding -- it sucked. I hated it. It. Was. So. Boring. The actress who plays the plus-size daughter of Adam Sandler was soooooo annoying. Her acting skills were terrible. Over dramatizing. Ugh! Conversely, the kid playing her brother was non-existent throughout the picture. I suspect his boring scenes were excised. Adam Sandler was completely unfunny. No variation on Happy Gilmore here. Tea Leoni played her Neurotic Housewife character -- yet again. It didn't help that you simply hated her character and couldn't sympathize with her. At one point she cheats on Adam Sandler even though the story lacked the customary Foreshadowing Of Trouble In The Marriage. It was done as a crude plot device to drive the story forward and create drama (where there was none). The movie tries many times to desperately make you feel -- something -- but what you mostly will feel is annoyed and confused. What a waste of money! I will never watch it again. Avoid this film at all costs! Review over.

15 minutes

2005.01.14 11.51

It only took me fifteen minutes to get to work this morning. That rarely happens. I stopped by the fabrication place to pick up one of the five DeLorean vents that I've had in the works since Thanksgiving break. Click here to view my beautiful aluminum DeLorean vents. Please note that there's a little work I still need to do: Attachments for three hoses, lowering the deck so it touches the trunk, adjusting for the ''hump'' on the back, painting to give it that ''I've Traveled Through A Fiery Wormhole'' look, etc. I assume I'll be using some kind of router for the adjusting. My plan is to avoid losing fingers. Last year wasn't any good for two of my fingers. The other eight feel threatened.

In The Office, I'm working on an auto-repair shop super-hybrid application that is way heavy .NET laden. The project is fun and the timeline is tight, however, so I'm enjoying the work I get to do. Most of that is related to Release Management and Configuration Management. NAnt scripts will do most of the work getting the latest code and compiling. For my hardcode Java geek friends, NAnt is a blatant rip-off of Ant. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm so into the automation now that I need to write a script that will automate the process of my getting up, letting the dog out, showering, and getting dressed. There are no methods to do this within NAnt. I'm going to Number's tonight. Maybe I can talk someone into helping out with the showering and getting dressed parts. I think that'll be how my pickup line will go. ''Hi, would you like to help me shower and get dressed?'' My mom tells me that the ladies love that.

remember when milf was a typo?

2005.01.09 15.31

I'm sitting on my bed using my laptop. My dog is in his newly procured from Petsmart doggy bed. To his right are six new chew bones and a rope-doll combination toy (it looks hideous but he likes it). My room is an enormous mess. I'm going to find a photo of me from 1974-ish where I'm sitting in the middle of my old bedroom with a big smile on my face. My room looked like it had been burglarized numerous times. Vinyl records on the floor, clothes everywhere, toys all over the place. I'm feeling like that. Right now my critical need is to get over the sentimental connection that I have with some of this junk. My old out of style clothes, for one thing. Do I need this Genesis Invisible Touch tour t-shirt anymore? Should I eBay it or donate it? Everyone was telling me to donate my stuff from Philly before I left in lieu of the CraigsList.org path, but I was like, uh... they never give you money at the donation place -- just that little tax write-off thing. I want cash!

I'll briefly touch upon The Ride now that I'm back. It took 27 hours hours to return. That's a long, long time. I love the new GPS, however. As soon as I can reduce my stuff, I'm going to get a mounting bracked to hold my laptop in my car so I can drive to faraway places (like North Houston) and not get lost. There were no near accidents on the way back. The tires held steady. I did not go stir crazy. I did blow out my cigarette lighter fuse when I was trying to use this power-adapter thingy from Best Buy. Dang -- that's another thing I need to track down and find. It's best to return something that blows out your cigarette lighter fuse. Gotta have that cigarette lighter at the ready. You never know when someone will need something set on fire.

baby duluth

2005.01.05 7.40

I'm in Duluth, Georgia and the fun just doesn't stop. I need to be out of here in 26 minutes so this will be the super briefest update ever. Got lost in Virginia. Found wireless connection in neighborhood. Got new directions. Got lost in North Caroline. Couldn't find wireless connection. Bought GPS software from Best Buy. Drove as far as Duluth, Georgia before I started hallucinating and saying things in my head like, ''crashing into the ditch won't be so bad -- you could get some sleep once you're there.'' I'm at the Wellesley Inn and Suites. They're so awesome because they accept pets with only a $10 additional fee. Chew is on the flow chewing his ear. I think that's okay. That must be how it gets cleaned mysteriously. Anyway, I'm off into the shower, to pack, and to drive off into the distance. I am hoping to make it back in 12 hours, but I'll need to go 90 MPH for at least 4 hours in a row to cut back on the time. It's good times.

i hate packing

2005.01.04 6.24

Not only do I hate packing, I hate the whole compression and decompression that one most go through in order to move. You get cuts and scratches and headaches and stress as a result. Not so fun. I'm leaving here for Houston this morning after piling my car sky high with my possessions all yesterday. Anything I couldn't bring was shipped via UPS Ground 3-Day for $100. If I actually have to change a tire I'm totally screwed since said tire is buried deep beneath my goodies. The moral of the story? I need a bigger car. My days in the Eclipse are numbered. I'm eyeballing the Honda Element and watering at the mouth like the Big Bad Wolf learing over Red Riding Hood.

still worried about the election?

2005.01.01 16.00

Happy New Year! It's coming on five years that I've had a blog. They're quite mainstream now. The original blog that I used to follow on a daily basis, puce.com is now a lame ''I'm Too Mature To Have A Blog'' punk-ass site. Has anything really changed? I'm heading back to Houston after a three and a half year sleepover in Philadelphia. When I woke up I knew Java and a million things having to do with UML processes, Actuate Reporting Server, class and sequence diagrams in Rational Rose, javadoc'ing, ActiveX controls, javascript superpowers, css superpowers, MQ messaging, Oracle 9i, the WebSphere development platform, Tivoli / WebSeal Security manager, BDoc Letter Writing software, and a slew of other abilities that can only make me better at what I do. I have no clue what I'll be doing when I return to the office, but I assume Being Awesome will be part of it. Was that my ego, again?

As far as my new year resolutions for 2005, I am definitely going to be sticking with my training and workout regimen. I have a little flab that never went away from my belly that I'd like to get rid of somehow. I don't get why it stayed there when I was down to 147 pounds (I'm 170 at the moment). Oh, but let's stick to the topic. New resolutions. I'd like to renovate the rest of my house. I'd like to pay off my house. I'd like to buy a loft in Downtown Houston. I'd like to get rid of the green carpet in my current house. I know this fits under the renovate the house resolution, but I hate the carpet so much I figured it was worth mentioning twice. I'd like to get rid of a lot of the junk I've been storing in my attic since the 1980s. I'd like to own a decent sofa so I can cuddle up with my future girlfriend. I'd like to figure out who my future girlfriend is. I'd like to figure that out quickly. While I'm on the subject, I'd like my future girlfriend to be petite, brunette, with blue or green eyes. Where can I put that on my Amazon.com wishlist?

Speaking of the WishList, my roommate Daniel came through for me and got me two items off my wishlist for Christmahannakwanzamas. So awesome! The book ''America'' by Jon Stewart and season one of ''Curb Your Enthusiasm.'' My parents outdid themselves and got me a Starbucks credit voucher for $60, clothes from JCrew, a juicer (sweet!), American Eagle tee and jeans, and a few other items that were awesome.

I can't wait to get back to Houston to see my stuff again. When I left for Houston from Philadelphia, I took four giant suitcases with me. When I returned to Philly, I only brought back my laptop and bag. When I drive back on Monday morning I'll need to squeeze as much as possible in the Mitsubishi Eclipse. This means leaving behind amenities like clotheshangers, bulky boxes, toiletries that I can toss and buy anew later on, basically everything in the kitchen cabinets, etc. I hope I make it into Alabama by Monday night. I may even try to stop where I had the palm tree twill removed from my finger during the summer. I think I may have forgotten to mention that in the blog. Whatever. Ask me about it and I'll show you the half-inch scar.