July 2007 Archives

Day 4 (Tuesday morning). Internet went in yesterday. We contracted for 10Mb. We got 19Mb! w00t! We so rule! Monday's goal was to have the NOC live on the net. Done!

Been doing our best to avoid any Vortex(tm).

We had drinks last night with a couple hotel staff. Followed by dinner at Kristopher's steakhouse here at the Riv. Not too bad. Not the best, but okay, fine, we were hungry :)

All the domestic crew got in Sunday nite (I'm blogging backwards, apparently). Got to play with Dave & Heather's German Shepherd, Tomoe. She successfully make her mark in both my room and Zac's room.

I found out that my room is a smoking room. I'm also not sure my A/C is working 100% (I get in at midnight and it's 75-degF in my room, and the therm is set to 72. I've never seen it below 74 in there. I should call & have that fixed (or get a new room-- maybe one that's non-smoking :).

So far so good. Going to the spa today with Zac (I hope he's on time! :)(see Vortex).

So far so good!

Day 1 (of the trip) - not too fast, not too slow. Limited drama, limited Vortex. Traffic driving up was spotty - good for a while, then bad for a while, lather, rinse, repeat. Took right about 6 hrs to drive up--which overall not so bad. If it were clear the entire way it would have been 4.5 hrs. I did get concerned when, south of Barstow, there were signs saying "15 Fwy closed north of Hodge Rd. Use Alt Rte." AIEEEE! What?! there *is* no alternate route from here to Vegas?! So I continued on. And of course there was a 10mile section just prior to Hodge Rd (I had no idea where that was, btw) where traffic backed up. I figured "eh, I have time"-- wasn't too horrible. Whatever had the freeway shutdown was not there by the time I got thru that section.

Got in, got into my hotel room A-OK (the gentlemen at the front desk says the magic words - "your room charges are already taken care of" - w00t!). Pulled a couple bags up to my room - most of them sit in my truck still - I figure Monday morning I'll pull the truck over by the convention center and me and my team can all come grab a bag or two and haul it all into the NOC in one run.

Meanwhile, a gentleman who was not going to be able to make DefCon may indeed be coming now. So that's pretty swell. I always try to get people to come each year, rarely does it happen (unless they're local). I continue to have good feelings about this year.

So last night - dinner at In-n-Out (remember, my California friends, most people don't have the luxury of such fine food, so it tends to be a priority for them when they get to Vegas) - afterwards we went over to the Hilton, to Quark's Bar so we could enjoy Warp Core Breaches. They're quite tastey :) I also acquired a bright shiny new torch! It satisfies the "shiny" and "bright" in BrightShinyObject(tm) :)

Most of my crew get in this evening, so I'm looking forward to that. Then we hit the ground running tomorrow!

DefCon. Yes. That time of year. I'll head up this weekend. I'm kinda excited to get it all going this year. Perhaps it's because it's the first year in a LONG time that my group has started doing some really visible development work to make CoolStuff(tm) happen - I'm going to be very interested to see what Derek & Major's projects turn out.

And it's always good to see your friends again, too. I already feel the love from the hotel staff.

But I swear the next couple days are going to DRAG!

I also started into the new Harry Potter book last night. I stayed up late reading - I kept wanting to get in one more chapter :) I'm up to the wedding (about 135pgs last night).

I found this video clip posted over on Stonewall Champions (my WoW Alliance guild). I don't think it's new video - it's all of 6 seconds, but so incredibly funny - doesn't make any kind of sense, but you can't help but watch it over & over.

I did NOT do this on purpose - I swear.

I get home, I usually change clothes - or at a minimum, take off shoes/socks, and change into shorts. Today was no different.

I'm sitting here chatting with a friend of mine, providing design feedback on a t-shirt design for DefCon coming up shortly - when I glance down.. and notice...

...I am wearing my orange Longhorn t-shirt...and my orange UT shorts.

I love my Longhorns! I can't wait to go back this fall for a game.

0840hrs/PDT marks the end (~45mins) of the first successful inaugural bike ride! I went out Clairmont Mesa Blvd towards Tierra Santa. Getting home I mapped it out on GoogleMaps and it didn't look as far on the maps as it felt--but for the first real bike-ride since Texas (4 yrs ago) I can see where one's perspective may be skewed (by the loads of toxins in ones body which need be purged by successive such rides). That being said, it was a good 7 miles round-trip. Admittedly there were a couple of long hills where I only made it half-way up, then had to walk a bit. I'm just not in shape (yet). But I remember riding much bigger hills back in Oregon when I was a kid--and it took a while even then to conquer those much-stepper mountains. I'll have to try to get out again tomorrow morning, too.

Sorta busy weekend. Went to Tijuana for the first time ever. Interesting place. Wow, talk about microclimate! (San Diego is rumoured to have the most number of micro-climates in the US, btw). It's 23 miles from my place to the border. It's interesting that crossing into Mexico (I walked across) there was absolutely no check-point or anything. You walk through a gate, down a pathway, then out the exit gate. Done. Coming back on Sunday - wow! Took me nearly 2 hrs to get through the walking line. There were 3 (and a 4th opened up as I stood there) Customs Agents handling paperwork checking for this line of literally hundreds of people deep. Took nearly 1.5 hrs to get to the flow-control point outside of the customs building, and another 30 mins to get thru the building itself. When I came up to the customs agent checking ID's, I showed him my CA driver's license and he just waved me through. Nothing to it. It certainly seems like the process could be improved (eg. a "US resident only" line, maybe?).

So that was interesting. It's amazing what a third-world it is down there. Such a tourist town, too. Wow.

Oh, but speaking of microclimates - something down there touched off an allergy attack. My throat got all dry & scratchy while I was there (only 24 hrs!), and now today it's blown up into allergies. My head is all stuffy, nose is yucky, throat still scratchy. I have my Barry White voice going on. Took a benadryl this morning to counter-act some of those issues.

But... on the good news front - I got my bike back! On the way back from TJ, I went to the bike place, got my bike, good as new! Then swung by the old bike place, picked up my brakes (I really don't think I ever want to go back there -- they're so disorganized, and I swear have different personnel everytime I go in there). I was feeling pretty rough yesterday afternoon so I didn't actually take it out for a ride. If I feel OK, I may do that tonight. I should put the new brakes on first, tho (at least the front at a minimum, since the old brakes are rubbing the tire itself). So I'm pretty eager for that. Gut feeling says "I'm done" at this point. All systems GO!

And DefCon is quickly approaching. It feels like a more complex year. We've evolved away from having to solely focus on infrastructure -- we've mastered that. We're doing more special projects this year. I need to post up on DefCon Networking about some of the stuff coming. I'm excited. Zac asked me to come in early - I've asked for my room-stay to be moved so I can do that.

Hmm - time for a meeting - that's my update!

Today my dad would have been 76 years old. He passed away 6 months and 2 days ago. Yet he is not gone.

Transformers. See it. See it. See it. See it.

20 mins ago I watched the credits roll. If I see no other movie this summer, I'll be a happy man.

For those of us who grew with (the real) Transformers (not the crap they have on TV now) - ZOMFG - this is the movie we waited 20 years to see.

Yes, the story is a bit altered - okay, fine, I can file that under creative license. From 10 mins into this movie I started saying "this is the movie we've waited for." Is it perfect? No. No movie ever is.

See it. That's all I'm saying. See it.

I woke up Saturday - very ready to go biking -- now that my bike was all together (tho I needed a different kind of brakes). Went out and a couple miles into the ride promptly had my right pedal strip out of the cranks. Ended up having to walk the bike back home. The new cranks were toast. *sigh* - $124 down the drain.

Went to a different bike place this time (also close by, tho) - he had one that he thought would fit. He wasn't busy, so I stood right there as he tried to make it work. It wasn't fitting as nice as it should, so he asked if I could leave it for a couple hours, but he expected to have it done by the end of the day - okay, no problem.

He called back around 4p - no go. The bracket was just a bit more thread on it than the frame did. He didn't have anything else for this old a bike in-stock. But he could order something for $60 -- of course it would be in Friday. That really kinda put me in a funk for the rest of the weekend.

Slept poorly last night. Woke up tired. Been lethargic all day. fell asleep several times. Missed a board meeting because I was asleep.

On the other hand - I remembered I needed some cables for my PS3 at work. Found a bunch. Biggest problem is getting the PS3 to do HD, not 480i. I just didn't have an HD cable of any sort at work. Well, I have several spare HDMI cables at home, but the LCD I have doesn't have HDMI. Funny thing - leave it to me - I found an HDMI-to-DVI cable in my stash here at home. So I may be in luck!! I could drive up to the office today to play - but naw. I'll veg here, avoid any stress from the office.

It has indeed been a rough 5 or 6 weeks. Not bad rough, just one stress item to another. Lots on my shoulders right now - amidst trying to settle into San Diego, find my groove. Truely it's not as easy as it was in the OldDays(tm). I'll feel better when my bike is working. It'll be a big personal goal to get checked off as completed. Yeah, I probably could have just trashed this bike & bought a new one for less than what I've spent on this project so far... but now it's just the bloody principle of the thing.

DefCon approaches. Man, I still gotta buy a PoE switch. Someone remind me, will ya? :)