Kevin

Prop 8

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:15:30 GMT

For what it's worth...

Age 18-29 -- Yes 39% No 61%

It's not fair, but sometimes equality takes time.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

General Election, 2008

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:47:09 GMT

Recently a friend sent an email to me encouraging me to vote for John McCain. For anyone who is interested, a trimmed down version of my response is behind the cut.

I was strongly in McCain's camp in 2000 and was pretty disappointed when he lost the nomination... so much so that I wrote his name on the ballot for the general, fully knowing it didn't count since he wasn't declared as a candidate.

Anyway, if you'd told me then that he'd be the Republican nominee in 2008 I'd have thought you were nuts. I would want to believe it, but there's no way you convince me he'd survive the primary season. And as hard as it would be to convince me in 2000 that McCain would be the 2008 Republican nominee, it would be harder still to convince me that I would be supporting the Democratic candidate.

Why Obama? It probably has more to do with my disgust for the way the national GOP has been acting for the last 8 years. I lean right on economic issues and I lean left on social issues. I'd be a moderate libertarian if such a thing was allowed. So my support basically comes down to this:

Anti-GOP (all apply to McCain):

I like the current left/right balance on the Supreme Court. Republican appointed judges would cause a lurch to the right.
Questioning the patriotism of anyone who objects to abuse of executive power and protection of the rights of the accused.
Using fear/terrorism for political gain.
Being weaselly about torture
Everything about social conservative absolutism that any Republican candidate needs to support if he wants voters to show up in November.
The neo-conservative agenda for "transforming" the Middle East via Iraq. We've created some pretty nasty monsters in the last 50+ years by destabilizing regions and setting up puppet governments, and we're still doing it today.

Anti-McCain:

His support for the torture bill in 2006
Palin--my mind was made up long before she was picked, but she certainly doesn't help

Pro-Obama:

Doesn't demonize his opponents
Temperament--he's stable, respectful, and thoughtful
I appreciate his sense of community and public service
A clean break with Bush's foreign policy is needed to start repairing our image overseas. Regardless of how much is substance and how much is style, we get more accomplished with our neighbors if they don't see us as a bully.
I like the image of a mixed-race POTUS--I'd be lying if I said race wasn't a factor
Inverse of everything under the Anti-GOP list

I'm not voting for Obama just because he's anti-Bush. I certainly would have voted libertarian if Hillary Clinton had been the Democratic nominee (I think she shares some of Bush's worst qualities--hyper-secretive, politicizing everything, and intolerant of disagreement). Obama is the first major party candidate that I've ever supported for the general election. I'm very enthusiastic about voting for him in the fall.

(yes, this is a shorter version)

For the record

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:53:50 GMT

Many of you know that in the past I've been a supporter of John McCain. I want to be clear for the record that most of my respect for him evaporated in 2006 (torture bill). More recently, this is completely disgusting. And now, McCain thinks he can keep playing the terrorist/fear card, but still "respect" Obama. He's fanning flames of hate that he can't hope to control. Oh, and if he's trying to tone down the rhetoric, he might want to make sure that his campaign staff is on the same page--unless he really does approve of this message.

This one was perfectly innocent... in context.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:57:22 GMT

A quick follow-up to B's 'Hate People' post: Today while we were driving home B was talking about a snail that R was fascinated with. He was very curious, but wouldn't go near it. I remarked that this was probably because "it might jump up and bite me." B chuckled a bit, and then R started yelling, "Bite me! Bite me!"

Of course, laughter from the front of the car just encouraged it.

Monterey

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:25:08 GMT

On Monday we took a trip down to Monterey to visit the Aquarium. We'd been talking about taking R for a while, and for several reasons this last weekend seemed like a good time. We had a blast. R did really well, considering the car ride down, lack of a nap, and constant activity from 10am to about 3:30pm. We got to see pretty much everything, though I think we spent half of our time in the Wild About Otters exhibit (mostly because they had a slide there that R refused to leave).

Anyways... some pictures behind the cut.

Note that this is just a sample of all the pictures. There are many more pictures (good ones, even) at worcesterworld.com. If you don't have the username/password, email kevin at the same domain and I'll send it to you.

The one where I talk about family

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:48:04 GMT

I've been lj-nudged. I suppose there are many things to write about, but I'll break the posts up into a few entries over a few days. This is the one where I talk about family (including a new family member).

R is almost three. His vocabulary is exploding, finally. After a long period of a relatively small set of words and a few short phrases, he's finally starting to use words for almost everything. He still signs a few things but he's using about half dozen new words every day.

The whole family is going to have to make some adjustments now, because R is going to be a big brother. We have another little boy on the way in May. May 15th is the absolute latest date for the delivery according to the Doctor's orders. If there are any complications it will be sooner. I should post the ultrasound video when I get a chance....

B hasn't had any of the severe precursor symptoms she had last time, so hopefully that's a sign that things will go more smoothly *knocks*. She finished up her last week at the school on Tuesday of last week. She's going to do the stay-at-home mom thing for a while.

The Big G gives me 7 weeks paid family leave, and I can break that up in week-size increments over the course of a year. So I'm going to try to take 3-4 weeks initially and maybe another 3-4 weeks when extended family visit later in the year, but that depends on how things are going at work (in short: really well overall, but that's another post).

R is finally going to try sleeping in the "Big Boy Bed" tonight. We'll see how it goes. He's getting out of the bath now and it's my turn to do nite-nite.

So yeah... "Nite-nite, everyone!"

Confession: I started smoking

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 03:59:25 GMT

Barbecue! Pork shoulder smoked with hickory.

I've been meaning to try home-made BBQ pulled pork for about a year now, but I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to control the heat on my charcoal grill. I finally tried it on Saturday. Smoked the pork for about 4 hours, and finished it simmering in apple cider. The pork came out great.

I tried two different BBQ sauces. One had too much vinegar (home-made), the other was too sweet (pre-made, but you can't buy it in stores... yet). I have some left over scraps and I'm going to try another home made BBQ sauce tomorrow. If the new sauce comes out right I'll probably post a recipe sometime this week.

Anyone have any barbecue/smoking tips to share?

We hold these truths

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:55:53 GMT

It has been a while since I last read this. Today seemed like a good day to revisit it.

The Declaration of Independence.

Old MacDonald

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:06:35 GMT

Occasionally when R is going down for bed time he likes to have us sing Old MacDonald for him. He'll make an animal sound, and that's the animal that Old MacDonald has. Apparently Old MacDonald has acquired an elephant... and a train.

First week

Sat, 26 May 2007 04:44:28 GMT

Well, this is the end of the first week at the new job. Obviously I can't share much. Though there are two observations I can discuss.

1) The commute is not fun. On the way home it's around 45+ minutes. It's pretty consistent no matter when I leave (any time between 4pm and 7pm). Definitely longer than before, but it's tollerable. On the way in, it's a different matter. If I leave at 6:40, it takes about 25 minutes. If I leave fifteen minutes later it takes nearly an hour and a half (87/101 is crazy like that). Fortunately there's a shuttle stop near my place, so I'm thinking of checking that out next week. If nothing else it'll save me 2-4 gallons of gas per round trip.

2) The variety and quality of the food is great. Which can be a mixed blessing if you're trying to lose weight (as I am). The upside is, it's pretty easy to differentiate between the stuff that's good for you and the stuff that's bad for you; and the stuff that's good for you still tastes great. I had two lunches this week without any meat, and both were delicious.

But I'm not sure I can resist the pulled pork sandwich next time I see it on the menu...

Leaving Global VR

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:19:29 GMT

The proverbial cat is pretty much out of the bag at this point. I'm leaving Global VR.

I really do like my job. I like my co-workers. I like my boss. I like the VP of Product Development and the CEO. I have confidence in their ability to move the company forward. I like the project I'm working on. I'm well respected at GVR and I'm fairly compensated. I wasn't looking for a new job, but an opportunity came up that I simply couldn't ignore.

May 21st will be my first day at Google. Obviously I'm excited about it, and a bit nervous.

Anyway, there's a lot on my mind but nothing I feel like specifically adding to this post. Just wanted to keep all y'all in the loop.

CMS recommendation?

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 03:28:48 GMT

Question for everyone out in LJ land. Have any recommendations for a website Content Management System?

I need something for non-techies to edit content with a WYSIWYG interface... text, images, tables, etc. Open Source preferred, but not required. I'm not worried so much about page style, navigation and things of that nature. Just the content itself.

I'm looking at open source CMS systems right now, but I really haven't used any. The only thing I've actually looked at so far is Joomla (but that was only for about 20 minutes). I'm not too optimistic about finding something that is at the ease-of-use level that I'm looking for.

100k, and other stuff

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:07:52 GMT

I was working on MM3D last week and I realized that I hit 100,000 lines of code.

That includes vertical whitespace, comments, copyright headers, and a fair amount of dead or duplicated code (I'm not sure but I wouldn't be surprised if the dead/duplicated was as high as 5%, maybe more). At least 5% of the total is contributed by other developers. So it's a "100,000 lines of code" milestone in the same way that 2000 was the start of the third millennium CE--arbitrary, inaccurate, but noteworthy nonetheless.

In total, it works out to about 2.2k lines of code per month.

I have a survey posted on the project website for user feedback. I don't check responses very often--probably every 6 months or so. I have no idea how truthful the responses are or how accurately they represent MM3D's user base overall; but I do get some useful information out of these surveys, particularly when people fill in specific free-response answers.

I went through the responses today. For the curious, here are some things that I thought were interesting (as of 12/31/2006)... behind the cut.

Operating system:
63% Windows
30% Linux
15% Mac OS X
2% Other (unspecified)

The largest age group (by far) is 25-34 (39%). This surprised me. I expected more college age kids (14%) tinkering with hobby games and such.

40% of people found MM3D through a search engine (mostly google). This matches what my logs indicate. The next highest source was word of mouth, 18%. Software websites (such as freshmeat) accounted for 14%... though many of those (esp. freshmeat) may never hit the project home page or even see the survey. Regardless, Google does seem to be the most common way for people to find the project website.

61% are not native English speakers (the most common non-English language is German, followed by Spanish).

67% have recommended MM3D to others.

36% use MM3D at least weekly. 45% at least monthly.

18% use MM3D exclusively. 65% use MM3D along with other programs, each for specific needs.

User types (these categories overlap):
47% Artists
39% Gamers
39% Hobby programmers
33% Professional programmers

User types among the 25-34 age group:
50% Professional programmers
45% Artists
32% Hobby programmers
27% Gamers

33% are involved in other OSS projects (13% run their own projects, 20% contribute to other projects). One user checked the "FOSS developers are evil/communists/hippies" check box. :-)

52% provided an email address for follow-up questions.

Back

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:14:01 GMT

We're back.

20 days. 33 family members (including all inlaws and outlaws). 2 close friends. 4906 miles (not including 4 round trips from Denver to south Colorado Springs at 140 miles each [not in our car]).

CA -> NV -> UT -> WY -> CO -> KS -> MO -> IA -> MN -> IA -> NE -> CO -> WY -> UT -> NV -> CA.

Longest single travel day: San Jose, CA to Salt Lake City, NV, 13.5 hours, including stops.
Shortest single travel day: Rochester, MN to Des Moines, IA : 4 hours, including stops.

It snowed all day on the day before we left Denver. Fortunately ice and slush was minimal on 80 on the way back. That was the only real weather we had to deal with (missed the snowstorm that hit MN by about 6 hours).

All things considered, R did very well on this trip--even dealing with some 24-hour viral thing with vomiting and explosive diarrhea (TMI?).

Pictures will be up sometime this weekend (not including explosive diarrhea). I'll post again when they're ready.

Now that I've taken three weeks of PTO, I need a vacation.

Fortune

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:32:53 GMT

Ryan got his first fortune cookie today. His fortune: "Seek out the significance of your problem at this time. Try to understand."

For the record, his problem at the time was keeping his left shoe on (or not being able to get his right shoe off, depending on how you look at it).

General Stuff

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 04:32:21 GMT

I haven't had an update on here in... well... forever. New car, heat wave, baby toddler updates, Talmud reflections--all behind the cut.

Also, some home-grown herb questions (of the completely legal variety) for the culinarily inclined.

It's a long post, so I put headers on everything in case you just want to skip to the part of the teaser you're interested in.

New Car

So I finally decided to ditch the Saturn SL2. I put $3000 in repairs into the thing in the last 9 months and that pretty much sealed the deal. It's been nothing but trouble since the warranty expired.

The new Car? Honda Civic LX Automatic, Shoreline Mist. Everyone I've talked to who has owned a Honda Civic says they never have any problems with them. And that's just what I want, something that just works.

Back in 2000 when I bought my first car I was debating between the Civic and Saturn SL2. I went with the Saturn because I just felt like the SL2 drove the way I expected--it was just "more fun". It stopped being fun when I had to pay $1000 in repairs every 6 months.

Heat Wave

It was 106 in San Jose when I was at the Honda Lot today, and it was still pretty busy there. The salesman I spoke with said they were less busy due to the heat, but they still had plenty of customers coming by the lot.

At the apartment we've been trying to avoid using the air conditioning. We'll turn on fans and just use the AC during dinner time. With temperatures over 100 yesterday and today we just broke down and started using the AC any time it got uncomfortable, which was pretty much all day yesterday and all afternoon today.

I'm not used to using AC in California. I guess I'm not living on the coast any more... :-)

Every day the weather forecast says it's going to cool down 10 degrees over the next two days. The forecast has been saying that for 1 1/2 weeks now. Someone needs to give this high pressure area a ticket for loitering.

On the plus side, I'm just now feeling my first cool breeze since Thursday. I suppose that's progress.

The Adventures of Monkey Boy (toddler update)

The little guy isn't dealing well with the heat. That's one of the main reasons why we're running the AC. Need to make sure he stays cool and hydrated. The news keeps talking about how California is setting records for energy usage. So every time we have a brown-out (3 times now) I worry that the power may not come back on. Sure we could abandon the apartment and go to the mall, but apparently the nearest mall (oakridge) blew a transformer today, so that's not a 100% reliable solution.

For those who haven't seen him in a while (or ever, in some cases) he's walking really well. He's been cruising since December, and taking steps since April. But he first started really walking when we flew out to PA for B&S's wedding... at the Philadelphia airport, in fact.

Air travel with a young child was... interesting (in the Chinese proverb sense). All in all he did pretty well but we did have some difficulties. The fortunate thing was we were able to wear him out before the first flight and during our layover for the second flight. So he slept almost the whole way on each flight of the trip out to PA.

The night before we returned he started vomiting, he couldn't even keep breast milk down. The doctor on call said to give him a couple tablespoons of water every half hour. After 8 hours he could start on other fluids and then work his way back up to real meals. The morning of the return flights he seemed to be doing better--until he had his pears. The pears ended up on the Philadelphia airport carpet. So on both flights back we had a young child with an empty stomach who couldn't have anything but a couple ounces of water to drink at a time.

It's one thing to deny him something he wants a get a tantrum or a "why are you doing this to me?" pathetic reaction. It's totally different when he's completely exhausted, extremely thirsty, has an empty stomach and doesn't understand why he's being tortured by his parents with only 2 tablespoons of water. The look of confusion and betrayal was heart-breaking.

We get back to CA, he gets back onto his regular foods, and then two days later it happens again. Strangely enough the doctor insists that these two episodes within 1 week are almost certainly unrelated. It's something viral that he caught, cleared out of his system, and then another bug that he caught. He said the only other thing that it could really be would be food allergies or dehydration. He didn't have any signs of dehydration and hadn't had any new foods (the second time) so it must have been viral.

He's talking now and the only words he uses that are completely distinguishable are "yes" and "no". He uses "no", much more frequently. You'd think that would be the one word he heard all the time...

Anyways, the kid doctor says that signs of the terrible two's start around 18 months. Apparently our little one is strong-willed enough that his terrible two's started at 15 months.

[Condensed] Talmud Reflections

Anyways, with the heat being as bad as it was we weren't willing to go venturing out into the wild world of San Jose over the weekend. So on Saturday I parked myself on the couch in front of the AC to finish my book.

A few weeks ago I was looking for books on Jewish theology... something that would give me a good Jewish overview of Jewish scriptures, just by way of contrast to the Christian interpretation I'm familiar with from church, university classes, Christian scholarly texts, and personal study. Someone recommended (somewhat facetiously) "The Talmud"; then more seriously "Everyman's Talmud" by Abraham Cohen. It's a condensed overview of the Talmud, organized into major themes.

It was a fascinating (though occasionally tedious) read. It was interesting to see the dialog of differing views between various Rabbinical traditions. Also there was a bit of a cautionary tale about inflexible scriptural interpretations and dogma (re: the disappearance of the Sadducees).

One thing is for certain: I could never be a serious talmud scholar. For my taste there was far too much emphasis on out-of-context quotation, Hebrew-specific meaning (down to relying on the spelling of words to draw out meaning), and general semantic juggling. Things that roughly translate to using "There's no I in TEAM" as a proof text.

Cooking / Grilling / Herbs

We picked up a grill right before Memorial day. We used it three times before the 4th of July. Then 5 times over the weekend of the 4th. And pretty much every day for the last two weeks because it's been too hot to run the oven (just keeps coming back to the heat).

I picked up some Santa Maria Style tri-tip seasoning (because NO ONE in San Jose does it right). It seems the Santa Maria Style seasoning is actually very simple (salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried parsley), but I need a control sample for my own seasoning experiments.

If anyone has any interesting grill ideas they'd like to share I would love to hear them.

Back to the heat wave, I've decided to make an extra effort to help stop global warming--reduce CO2 by starting an herb garden. I'm pretty sure I use oregano and parsley often enough to grow my own. Anyone out there have other suggestions for herbs you like and what you use them for? Also, which herbs have you had the most/least success with growing your own?

So... yeah... aside from work stuff I can't talk about that pretty much catches everyone up on what's been going on.

Anyone actually read that whole thing?

Dear Lucas Film

Fri, 26 May 2006 02:09:40 GMT

To whom it may concern at Lucas Film,

I've been waiting patiently for the original (non-special edition) Star Wars DVDs. I was very happy to hear about the upcoming release that would include the originals as bonus material.

Today I learned that the original versions will not be 16x9 anamorphic transfers. I am surprised and disappointed that Lucas Film would attempt to do this "on the cheap" when the films were so financially successful. To say that you are doing this "for the fans" is a bit insulting, when the fans of the original movies are exactly the sort of people who care about these technical details.

I know that as a fan and a customer you do not "owe" me anything. However, I hope you will reconsider your decision and do a proper DVD set. Otherwise you would be wise to not waste your time. I will not be wasting my money--and I will be sure to tell my friends and family why.

Yeah, I know they don't really care what I think. But I love these movies enough that I want to see them done right.

Da Vinci Code

Sun, 21 May 2006 00:28:07 GMT

I came across a quote recently and it perfectly summarizes something that's been bugging me for years. Specifically it's from Brian McLaren (a pastor and author) in reference to "The Da Vinci Code". I discuss the Da Vinci Code behind the cut (includes conspiracy theory details, but no plot spoilers).

One of the problems is that the average Christian in the average church who listens to the average Christian broadcasting has such an oversimplified understanding of both the Bible and of church history - it would be deeply disturbing for them to really learn about church history. I think the disturbing would do them good. But a lot of times education is disturbing for people. And so if The Da Vinci Code causes people to ask questions and Christians have to dig deeper, that's a great thing, a great opportunity for growth. And it does show a weakness in the church giving either no understanding of church history or a very stilted, one-sided, sugarcoated version.

Regarding over-simplification of biblical theology and church history, there isn't much more I can add to that. I know Church history is almost never discussed in the protestant churches I grew up in--I don't know if it's much better in mainline protestant or Catholic denominations or not.

Regarding the Da Vinci Code--I always enjoy a good conspiracy theory, so I found that aspect of the book very entertaining. The weak plot that Dan Brown wrapped around the theory was less interesting. Additionally, his writing style of using short chapters with mini cliff-hangers made me feel like I was watching a made-for-tv movie. I expected to turn the page and see a Cadillac ad with Led Zeppelin lyrics.

Personally I found the history channel's week-long specials on the Da Vinci Code much more compelling than the book that inspired them--particularly the stuff about the Knights Templar.

Regarding the conspiracy theory--While I'm willing to accept the possibility that Jesus could have had children, and that some descendants may survive today, I find it somewhat hard to believe. In its infancy, the early church communities really didn't have the power to stamp out anything that was a threat to their theology--hence the many passages where New Testament authors provided arguments to persuade believers away from heresies. Persuasion was the only real means the early "Church" had to discourage alternate viewpoints in the first couple centuries of Christianity.

Furthermore, if the church suppressed knowledge of Jesus's descendants centuries after the events, wouldn't they suppress things like the history of Arius and the early Christian sects that disagreed with orthodox belief in the divinity of Jesus? Isn't that just as troublesome (if not more so)?

Is it possible that Jesus had a more... "empowering" view of women than the Church of the last 2000 years? Sure--I find that completely believable. Though, I wouldn't go so far as Dan Brown, who seems to be suggesting that Jesus (a Jewish Rabbi) was trying to start a fertility cult. That just seems downright silly to me--it rates a chuckle anyway.

Patience Rewarded

Thu, 04 May 2006 16:54:00 GMT

I always believed that Lucas Film would re-release the original (non-SE) Star Wars trilogy on DVD after the Special Edition DVDs had been out for a while. I refused to by the Special Edition DVDs and today my patience was rewarded.

http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/release/video/news20060503.html

I'm going to go have a cookie now. Maybe when I'm done with my cookie the source control server will be back up and I'll be able to start my work day.

In Season

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 21:28:01 GMT

So a few weeks ago the grocery store had Peaches--I finally got to try making Peach Cobbler. Now as it turns out peach season isn't until May-Oct. I have a serious peach cobbler craving that I can't satisfy. So I've been looking for peaches every week since then with no luck.

Fortunately chocolate pudding is always in season.

It's officially unofficial

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 07:43:58 GMT

I had my "annual" performance review at work. In the process my supervisor clarified something that had been on my mind.

I'm currently an engineering team of one. The project I'm on needs two more engineers. The question on my mind was: "Am I expected to act as tech lead for the duration of this release, are we planning to hire someone to take that role, or are we going to pretend that no one needs to take that role?" In short, the answer was that I'm going to "unofficially" act as team lead for this release. Depending on how the project goes (among other factors), a determination will be made next year on whether I will be officially promoted to this role.

Over the past three years I've been pushed to take on more technical responsibilities and also I've grown to be much more vocal about my opinions (particularly in the last year). According to my boss, my abilities and opinions are highly respected by my superiors as well as my peers. My supervisor remarked that I'm already doing what I need to be doing, he's confident that I can grow into this role.

The good news here is that I know this product very well, and there are far fewer unknowns for this release than the last major release and other incremental releases. Even better--I can't imagine a more supportive environment in which to start developing the skills needed for a tech lead position. I have a solid handle on the technical aspects of the project; and I have the complete support of my current boss, my former boss, and my boss's boss. Communication is excellent and there is complete, mutual respect all around.

Concern 1: I have no experience with long-term scheduling. Compensation: Pad the schedule liberally, and give my dates in ranges. Have backup plan if dates start to slip (my boss has already demonstrated a willingness to cut time-consuming features, which is the only thing that really helps a late schedule).

Concern 2: I have very little experience with assigning tasks to others (just short-term two week periods when the last lead was on vacation).

Concern 3: I need another engineer (have a junior starting tomorrow, but I need another with more experience). :-( More interviews coming up, but the ones I've had so far haven't been encouraging.

Concern 4: I'm used to getting work (read: coding) done. I'm not sure how badly non-coding tasks will affect my ability to get "real work" done.

One way or the other, this will be an "interesting" year.

W4

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 05:11:01 GMT

I make $X. My wife makes $Y. We have one kid, student loan interest, and some charitable contributions. No house. There should be nothing complicated about my W4.

Yet, if I fill out the W4 according to the instructions the IRS withholds far too little and I end up owing a lot of money (around $2000). If I fill it out as "withhold as single" I get a refund of over $1000.

You'd think they could add a little checkbox that says "Even though I am married I cannot afford a house because I live in the bay area; therefore you should not assume I have mortgage interest to write off".

If I were smart I would figure out how much I underpay with a correct W4, fill out the W4 correctly, and add the difference as extra tax to pay per paycheck. But I'm not smart, so instead I just whine about it every year.

At any rate, I opted for the ridiculous refund this year instead of the ridiculous under-payment.

Ben--Beware the Married W4 of Tax Death!

Software Engineer Wanted

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 03:53:34 GMT

My employer (in San Jose, CA) is looking for a senior level software engineer--windows game development is strongly desired by not strictly required. If you or someone you know might be interested, please pass a resume on to me. E-mail me, or leave a comment here if you do not have my email address.

End of year wrap-up

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 07:57:11 GMT

Life is good, though not particularly noteworthy. Just a couple things to round out the end of 2005:

New recipes: General's chicken, Pizza, Lasagna. Still working on the General's Chicken, but it's pretty good as is. I'm trying to do one new dish per week. I've gone through most of the dinner experiments I had on my TODO list. Time to hit the cookbooks and google to find some more experiments.

A Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer (cobalt blue!) is on the way, so making home-made breads and pizza dough should become more common.

Finished American Gods and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. American Gods was fantastic, highly recommended (I'm eagerly awaiting Anansi Boys in paperback). Neverwhere was good. Also finally got around to reading Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Much better than other stuff of his that I've read. It was longer than it needed to be (he could have cut about 20% without sacrificing the plot or character development), but the extraneous stuff was still entertaining--not tedious. Pratchett's Feet of Clay is next on my list, after I finish Feast.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through GRRM's Feast For Crows. While most of my favorite characters are absent from this book, I'm still enjoying it. Usually his Ice and Fire books are total page-turners by this point. This one, not so much. At any rate, once I finish this book I'll join the ranks of readers who have to wait years upon years for each installment. On the plus side, I have plenty of good stuff on my reading list (and recommendations, fiction and non-fiction, are always welcome).

Since I first heard that an Ender's Game movie was in the works, I've been concerned that it can't be done. The story can't be told in a movie form without being completely re-worked--which neither Card nor his fans would tolerate. The news about Orson Scott Card taking another attempt at writing an Ender's Game screenplay has me firmly convinced that the movie is doomed (at least within Card's lifetime). I love the book, but I just don't see how a movie will ever work.

Work is busy. Busy is good. Can't say much more than that.

Ryan is 10 months old now. He has two teeth sticking through and he's crawling much faster that we want him to. ;-) He likes the toys he got for Christmas almost as much as he likes chewing on the wrapping paper. He also seems to enjoy having mom or dad read to him. I figured he was a bit young for this, but if he likes it I'm perfectly happy to encourage it. I will hopefully have more pictures and videos up soon on Worcester World.

We had 3 weeks worth of company in our apartment up through last weekend and the FLL tourney is next weekend... so I'm trying to keep this coming weekend as open as possible. I just need a chance to relax for a bit. Anyways, that's pretty much everything. As I said, not much that's noteworthy. Just a bunch of stuff that happened.

Calling all interested parties

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 06:48:27 GMT

Two things coming up:

1) First Lego League needs judges and referees for the Northern California tournament on Saturday, January 14th at San Jose City College. It's a competition where kids build Lego robots. It's an all day event (approx 8am to 6pm), and it's an absolute blast. No prior experience necessary.

2) A guy I know is running a turn-based galaxy conquest game called Celestial Empire. Start from your homeworld, expand, make treaties, break treaties, destroy other civilizations. That sort of fun stuff. You play by email and get one turn per week. Check out the documentation here: http://www.celemp.org/

If you are interested in either of the above you can email me at ${lj_username} at gmail.com or leave a comment below. I will pass your info along to my contacts.