Random Stuff

Over the last few weeks I’ve actually put a good number of parts back on the Cougar.

The engine and transmission are completely bolted in.
The drive line is installed.
The brake master cylinder has been bench bled, but not installed.
I fixed the door latches and locks.
Alternator, power steering pump, pullies, fan, radiator, distributor, all installed.

Headers are next, followed by the clutch linkage.
I need to get some new brake lines before installing the master cylinder.
Lots more to go, but lots of progress.

I learned a long time ago that I always need to keep a notepad nearby. The main reason for this is to keep track of the numerous ideas I have bouncing around in my head at any given time. My brain never shuts off, and if I don’t get something written down, I quickly move on to the next idea, forgetting about the last.

Writing things down has allowed me to better keep track of these ideas, and even plan some of them to a point where I have a prototype. All of the prototypes I have built have been excellent learning exercises. On occasion though, I’d like to take things a step further. I just don’t know how.

This can be a bit frustrating at times. Most of all when I see some large company implement an idea I’ve had. Even more so when I see a small company get funded to do exactly what I am experimenting with. (Really?!? That work I’m doing at home is worth $5 million in round one funding?!?! For what I’m doing with the computers in my closet?!?!). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think people are stealing my ideas. Everyone knows that lots of people can come up with the same idea at the same time, it’s really about execution on those ideas.

Then there is the problem of a piece of paper I signed for my employer. It says all of my ideas belong to them while I work for them. (How do you own somebody’s ideas anyway?) If I do come up with something brilliant, how do I mitigate the risk of having GigatoMegaSoftwareCorp claim my idea? Technically I would have to quit my job before I came up with the idea. Actually I would have to quite at least a year before getting the idea. How do you do something like that? You can’t schedule inspiration.

So I continue on with my small ideas keeping them experimental and educational. But one day it would be nice to have something go big.

I wonder what it means when someone says I have an “aggressive” coding style. It was a comment made to me today by one of my co-workers while discussing a project that we are working on.

Did you notice that today’s date is a palindrome?

Here we are in 2010 and I’m starting off with a post a day late. I hope that’s not a sign of how the rest of the year is going to go. At least I’ve been busy instead of slacking off over the holiday.

I’m going to start this new year off a bit different than I usually do. I’m actually going to make some new year resolutions. Call it a midlife crisis thing. Rather than running off and doing crazy things, which I’ve actually done most of my life anyway, I’m going to set up a plan to reach some goals.

1. Pay off my credit cards.
2. Get more physically active.
3. Pay off my pickup truck.
4. Finish small shed in back yard.
5. Build another bigger shed in back yard.
6. Build awning for patio.
7. Clean out garage.
8. Start engine in my 67 cougar.
9. Move into Build Development at work.
10. Get rid of cable.
11. Get back into boat building.
12. Stop ignoring my poor neglected blog.

Paying off my credit cards.
For more than a year, I’ve carried a balance on my credit cards. I’m tired of it. All I am doing it lining the pockets of the major corporations that sent us into a recession. Not to mention the extra cash from not having to pay interest every month.

Get more physically active.
Over the last few years, I’ve gotten lazy and it shows. I’m up to 195 pounds from an optimum of 165 a few years ago. I don’t like it. More walking, more stairs, less or at least better food. I’ve toyed with the idea of jogging a bit each day. Not having the time is no longer an excuse. It would be easy to spend 30 minutes in the morning or afternoon doing a little bit of a workout. I’m tired of the little aches and pains that come with the extra weight, and tired of being tired. It also sucked last Wednesday to have to stop skiing half way through the day because my legs were too tired to safely ski anymore.

Pay off my pickup truck.
My pickup truck is close enough to being paid off that I can almost taste it. It would be nice to have it paid off and have one less bill to worry about.

Finish small shed in my back yard.
I build the floor to a 8×6 shed intended for storing yard tools a few months ago, then it just sat there. Over the last few days, I’ve managed to finish framing it up between rain showers. All that’s left is roof, wall covering, a door and paint. I think I just might have this finished before February. This also lets me get some things out of the garage that are taking up space.

Build another big shed in back yard.
I started building another shed in the back yard some time ago. I never finished it because I realized there were several things I could do better. So now the old start of the big shed is going to be removed, and 10×12 shed will go up in it’s place. This is where all the extra car parts for the Cougar will be going as well as some of my larger tools. After what I’ve learned building the small shed so far, this should be a lot easier. Just larger.

Build awning for patio.
The patio needs to be covered. There are a few things sitting out there which are not doing well in the rain. It would also be nice to go outside when it is raining. This is not only a request from my girlfriend but something I’ve been planning for a long time. I now have the tools and skill to do it.

Clean out garage.
There is so much crap in the garage, you can’t walk through it. Part of this will be taken care of when the sheds are completed. If the Cougar is running, I can also get that out of there. A few things have to happen before this can be completed, but it’s part of the plan.

Start engine in my ‘67 Cougar
I have not touched my Cougar in some time. In reality, there is not that much to make it run, but in being lazy I found a couple of convienient excuses not to work on it. Things like “It’s too hot” or “It’s too cold” or “The garage is too messy.” Just getting it started and rolled out of the garage will help.

Move into Build Development at work.
I have pretty much reached the top of what I can do as a Builder. Time to finally make that move from Builder to Build Developer. In addition to my normal day job of building, I’ve also been helping out two separate teams in with the engineering of the build process itself. It’s a big step forward from where I am at, but it is also something I’ve already been doing for a long time and my skills are being recognized. Time to make it official.

Get rid of cable.
Cable is getting watched less and less in my house. Most of what we watch is on the internet now. I also have a hard time justifying the cost. Currently my cable bill is $140 per month. All I need is internet. I don’t need HD tv or Tivo, or on-demand, or any of the other items I am paying for when I don’t watch it.

Get back into boat building.
I keep longingly looking at my wood working tools, boat plans, and thinking about how I really need to get back into working on this. It’s not just about having a boat, but also about the joy I get from woodworking.

Stop ignoring my poor neglected blog.
It’s been several months since I made a post here. Starting off a day late for this year, but I will find the time.

Just a quick note to say that I am still employed. It will be a interesting year to come. Regardless of what my current standing is, I am still going to be sure to have my finances in order.

I used to think it only happened on TV and occasionally to someone I know. But with a little help from facebook and asking some questions, I now know different.

30% of the people I grew up with.
Plus or minus 4 years in age.
All grew up within 50 miles of each other.

One died as a result of a brain tumor.
The rest of the %30 all suffered or are dealing with cancer. Mostly brain, thyroid, or pituitary.

We all spent our summers swimming and water skiing in the Columbia river. Less than 40 miles downstream from one of North America’s worst polluters. Cominco used to dump their industrial waste into the Columbia river. If you drove along the Columbia to where the Cominco plant was located, you would notice the land was baron. No trees, no forest. Dead. Just what were we swimming in?

Time was also spent riding motorcycles, hiking, and swimming along the Little Pend Oreille river or the various lakes there about. It was always interesting to come across a double chain link fence with razor wire and radio active warning signs while out in the middle of the forest. Uranium mines. Upstream. This same water that was our drinking water supply?

Forest fires were quite common. Ever see the pink stuff being dropped from an air plane to put out fires? Did you know that it is filled with Dioxons? Poisons that stay in your fat cells for decades. It was proven to be in the water supply we were drinking from.

Add to that three saw mills treating wood with arsenic, and one creosote plant.

Is 30% of the people my age who grew up in the same place at the same time a pattern? What about those same people suffering from only 3 different types of cancers? Is it a pattern yet? How about that those types of cancer seem to be rare in the general population? hmmm.

As for me, I don’t know. I’ve never been checked. But after finding out about just how high of an occurance it is happening among the people I grew up with, I think I should.

Those kinds of numbers really make me wonder.

A foot of snow! that’s how much snow I have here right now. It is still snowing, too. In fact, it has been snowing quite steadily since Thursday.

This is all quite surreal to me. I grew up with lots of snow. A dry, cold, powdery snow that stuck around all winter. In fact I took my drivers test in snow. But after living here for over a decade, I’ve gotten used to getting a day or two of snow. Snow that was reffered to as the “Seattle Snot”. Wet, slippery, and gone within a day or two. This snow is not the typical Seattle snow, though. It is dry, powdery, and cold. Very much like the snow where I grew up.

I find myself quite unprepared for it. My sidewalk really needs shovelling. I have no shovel. My car has no snow tires and has not moved in two days. I dare not move it because it will get stuck. Probably within ten feet of my house. Yesterday was running around in my girlfriend’s Jeep, taking time to spin a few donuts in a parking lot, and getting some holiday shopping done. But tomorrow when she’s at work, unless I want to walk, I have to stay put. This is the first winter in a long time that I haven’t had a 4×4 to drive. I think I need to change that.

But as unprared as I am, I still like this.

I’ve been sitting here in amazement for the last hour.

My son decided to figure out how to play “Carol of Bells”.

All by ear.

And now he is playing it.

As if he has always known it.

I’ve been working on putting my mapping website back up. So in the process of writing code and digging through old CDs I have laying around I stumbled on a set that was labeled differently than the rest. I thought I knew what they were but just to be sure I put in the first of ten to find an oddly named archive file.

When I extracted this file I found it was all of the original source code and web pages of my original mapping website. On the rest of the CDs were all of the tile images I had made to support the site. There are a couple missing, but I could have this site up in short order. It’s kind of exciting, but on the other hand, it shows how little I knew about programming when I put it together.

So, I may put it back up in it’s current form just to show what I did, but on the otherhand, I think it is going to need a full rewrite.

This is fun stuff to me.

I am thankful for my girlfriend, who has been unbelievably patient with me. Always putting up with my crazy ideas and looking forward to sharing whatever I am interested in at the moment. Most of all She lets me just be me.

My son, whose music constantly fills my house, which I miss terribly when he is not around.

My friends who really care. Who at time I don’t know how I would have made it without.

I spent thanksgiving day with a group of about ten friends and Debbie eating a home made dinner which everyone cooked together.  It was great. It’s not what I asked for but it’s what I needed.

The tree of giving is up again in the lobby where I work. It’s hard to just pick one (or three or four). You look at a card and try to decide from a few words which will have the most meaning. I want to pick one, but then I think about the others I could help. Who needs it most? Who would benefit the most?

A 5 year old boy wants a gift certificate to get cloths.

A 70 year old woman is taking care of two grandchildren and wants a gift certificate for a grocery store.

An 89 year old man wants a cane.

A 13 year old girl wants a coat.

Parents want a noise making toy for their baby.

An 80 year old woman wants a gift certificate to sears to buy a couple towels.

A 9 year old girl wants a barbie doll.

The list goes on. Above is just a small portion of the 100+ cards hanging from this tree.

There are a few with things I know they don’t really need. Things like a gift certificate to the Gap or GameStop. But the majority really are needed items.

How do you decide who needs it more when there are so many that need or want help?

I make it no secret that I was the black sheep of my family.

My stepmother has managed to remind me that I still am.

Was told that I was welcome the day after thanksgiving, but that because of other plans thanksgiving day was out of the question.

Those other plans are thanksgiving with the rest of the family.

Another historic moment.
I am hopeful.

I’ve spent some time this weekend improving my search engine. It’s amazing what lack of money with plenty of boredom can cause. There’s not a lot that will be immediately visible, but it’s there. A lot of work went into the crawler and the formatting of the search results. I also wrote an “about” page.

The crawler had a problem in that it never released URLs from the queue, so whenever the crawler started again, it would start with double the number of links it was supposed to scan. It has code to prevent rescanning web pages, but that takes time. When you are talking about 1000 URLs this isn’t a lot of time, but add 1000 more every time it runs, then it starts to cause problems. It now clears the queue for the specific instance of the crawler before it determines what it needs to scan. This also takes care of a crawler failing and being restarted. In all of this, I accidentally messed up the search data, so I had to reset the database.

The search results now have an abstract based on where the key words are located. Previously I just took the first 200 characters of the page, now it takes the first 200 characters starting where the key word or phrase was found. Failing that, it falls back on the beginning of the document.

The about page now touches a bit on why I wrote it, where I got my information, and a little about me.

There’s a long way to go.

• Records need to have a “time until next rescan”.
• A few more support web pages need to be written like help, legal, and contact information. The usual type of stuff.
• It needs to be able to read sitemaps
• People need to be able to submit URLs and sitemaps and I need to figure out how to put those into the queue and prioritize them.
• I have a couple more ideas on optimizing scoring of the search results, but I want to be sure they don’t slow down the queries.
• the html layout really should be controlled by CSS. It should not be hard coded tables and positioning. That way, I can format it easily by adjusting the css instead of editing the page. It would also allow me to format all of the web pages at once instead of needing to edit them all.
• and lots more

I’m assuming that the recruiter who called me today has read or is reading this blog. It is about the only way I can figure she knew to call me directly at  office at Microsoft rather than calling the number listed on my resume or my linkdin profile. Or maybe she saw my facebook profile as well. I don’t know. Either way it caught me off guard.

But what I really want to know is who offers $170k per year for a build engineer? I make a good amount of money, but not that much. But here are the reasons I said I wasn’t interested.

1. I just started back working with a team of people who I not only have worked extremely well in the past, but are close friends as well. I made a commitment to them and I cannot walk away from that. I really enjoy where I am at. Not just the money but the people.

2. When someone says “We are building the next Google Killer”, I believe it. I also believe the odds are as good as all other “Google Killers”. In otherwords, next to none. Most likely they will follow the same path as all others before you.

3. The fact that you are willing to pay nearly twice the industry standard for someone with my experience tells me that as a startup you are being extremely irresponsible with any venture capital. How much are software engineers being paid? What about managers? How about the execs? The burn rate of capital has to be very high.

4. Even if I would have been in a position to be interested, I would have been skeptical. This falls into the too the “too good to be true” bucket.

I would be interested in seeing what you are doing, heck, I might even provide consult for you in trade for equity. But work for you full time, even for what is a very large amount of money, I can’t do right now.

I wish you the best of luck.

The previous rants were all centered around discussions or events in the last week which I have been involved it. Thought I would share.

I feel better now.

Chevrolet just made a big mistake. Then again, it’s the same mistake the American auto manufactures have been making for years. They did what I call the video game rut.

When you go shopping for a video game console and games to go with it, most of what you will find are games centered around shooting, explosions, and general violence and destruction. It’s a good market, but the reality is that it is a 10% market. Most everything video game related is targeted toward adolecent and young adult males. Simply forgetting about the 90% of world that would buy video games.

Nintendo came along and made a game console that didn’t market to the young male, but targeted everyone else. Others in the industry laughed, but they are not laughing anymore. The Wii is now the number one selling console in the world. They are still hard to come by even after more than a year of being on the market. They made something that everyone else would like.

Just like the rest of the auto manufactures in the world, Chevy decided to make a production electric car. Ok, that’s pretty cool. Then they came out with their prototype vision of what it would look like. Surprisingly, it looked good! Unline the egg shape of the Prius, it looked like something sporty. I was actually excited about this. This wasn’t just a car targeted at a very specific market, rather it was made to look good. It wasn’t a design that said “I’m driving green!” it was a design that said “This is a good looking car.”

There was lots of buz generated around this car. Lots of people saying “Finally!” or “GM got something right!”

Then something happened. I’m not sure how. Committee maybe? Lack of vision? Fear of stepping out in front? I wish I knew. When the production model showed up, it was a major dissappointment.  By the time everything was said and done, Chevrolet designed another Prius. Another boring egg shaped car. When asked, the CEO simply said, “Well, the kind of people who are going to buy an electric car aren’t concerned about how it looks. They are buying it to make a statement.” In effect, the market for this car just got reduced to the 10% (or less) market instead of everyone else.

Drilling for more oil off our coast will not lower gas prices. It will be 8 to 10 years before any of the oil that is being prospected for off our coastline ever makes it into the system. Yet both of our presidential candidates have stated their support for it as a means of lowering the price of gas knowing this. In 8 to 10 years we could have alternative fuel derived from grains, grasses, and other means that uses our surpluses and wastes, using most of the current infrastructure we already have.

Gasoline cars can run off alcohol based fuel with very little modification. Not just a few, but all of them. You need to change the fuel tank and fuel lines to be stainless steel or plastic based (no rubber in the fuel system), That’s it. There will be a drop in power output, but only 15%. Yes there are formaldehydes put into the air instead of CO, but this is about supply, not environment. In fact, GM and Ford have already been producing cars that run only on alcohol for several years for the Brazilian market and doing quite well at it.

Diesel engines actually run more effecient than gasoline powered cars. More torque, better miles per gallon. Better yet, corn oil will work as a dielel fuel with no modifications to current engines. In fact, the inventor for which this fuel is named (Rudolf Diesel) originally designed his engine to run off vegetable oil.

With all of these alternatives, why do we keep pushing for petroleum? The only people who win in this are the big oil companies. That is short term at best.

Does it bother anyone that the largest financial institution in the United States is now 80% owned by the US Government? I can’t see how any good can come of that. That means that most of the capital that flows through our financial system is going to be under the control and scrutiny of our government. They’ve already proved they don’t know how to manage money, what makes them think they can do any better with this one?

Then there is the $700 billion deal that is being finalized. The idea is that the government buys the morgages of homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure so the banks no longer have the risk of losing more money. Great for the banks. They don’t lose the money they were about to. They lower their risk exposure. Now they can start lending money again.

On top of that the homeowners now get a lower interest rate from the government to lower their payments to something they can afford. Great for the homeowner who went into a loan they knew they could not afford.They now get to pay less for something they shouldn’t have in the first place.

But what about people like me. I get to pay for all of those through taxes. My kids will pay for it too. I never missed a payment, I don’t live in a house I cannot afford, and I am not a high risk. What do I get out of this? Same payment, same interest, same house. No gain for doing what I was supposed to. Yet my neighbor up the hill who bought that beautiful 5 bedroom, two story home, with two car garage that was way outside his means, now gets a bonus and gets to keep the house.

As for the banks, they won’t open up the credit market. Why? Because they have been burned so badly by their own lack of dillegence, that they are leaning far toward the other direction of not making loans that have any sort of risk. They are getting their money and hanging on to it. Using the bailout to get what they should not have risked in the first place. Leaving someone like me stuck.

I see nothing good in our current presidential race. I will be voting for the Democratic party, but the only real reason I am voting that way is because I currently support the Republican part less.

I listen to Barack Obama and all I hear is rhetoric. I have not heard any solid answers on any of the questions or policies posed to him. I get the feeling he is a politician in the truest sense of the word. It feels like a popularity contest. I want to hear a solid answers. I want to hear what he is going to do about the war in Iraq. I want to hear what his plan is for diplomatic relations with Russia. I want to hear what his plan is for the military. I want an answer not more carefully planned out speaches that run in circles without changing the subject. I want someone to ask him hard questions, then say “bullshit” when he spins the answer in a different direction.

I listen to John McCain and all I can see in our future is war. I do get the impression that he is a decent leader, but I flattly do not support his ideals. It is my belief if he is elected we will wind up at war with more countries than we already are. Nothing good can come of that. And the fact that his new running mate flat out lied, as well as specifically saying she would support a war with Russia over what is happening in Georgia (the country), really makes my blood boil. This point on war is a deal breaker for me. Period.

Why can’t we get a real person in there who has their priorities straight? This has become a battle of the ruling class at its worst.

A few days ago was an open house at my son’s school. I came away very disappointed. Actually, I came away a bit upset.

5. The gym teacher was 5′4 and quite overweight.

4. The science teacher said she if students are bored in her class or the curriculum is boring, or they are bored with the teacher, it is the fault of the student. Huh?

3.  The math teacher was nice enough but revealed that the curriculum for algebra was written around the WASL test and had very little to do with the kids actually learning the ideas behind algebra and was prepping them to pass the test instead of learn how to figure it out themselves. She said she would try her best, but was restricted.

2.  The music teacher said the only reason they have music and creative arts is that they agreed to teach math and reading directed at passing the WASL. To me that’s a bit of a stretch for a creative arts class.

1. This is probably the most rant worthy. PTA is no longer just for setting up events for students, or providing a line of communication between teachers and students. They now raise funds to pay for a lobbiest to convince our government that teacher pay and funding for student programs really is important. Why the hell should we even have to have something like that?!

I need to write more on this, but I need to figure out just how I am going to put it. I have lots of thoughts on education, money, and curriculum, and need to get it all structured before I go on to prevent it from becoming just another off the wall rant.

Since getting a chance to go skiing last winter, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Now that winter is just around the corner, the itch has been getting worse. It was that day that reminded me of just how much I like it.

It is one way of turning the nastiness of winter into something to look forward to. “It’s going to snow? WOOHOO!!!”

Debbie and I spent the afternoon at a ski shop asking about lessons for her, clothes to wear, equipment needed, ski or board? The more I listened, the more I wanted to go.

How come it’s not snowing yet?

This webpage is linked to maps showing the density(or lack) of different races and ethnic groups in every county in the United States. It comes from census data.

Perhaps I am being too cynical. Maybe the cold I have or too much politics on TV. But at the moment, I can’t think of a good reason to use this data for anything but marketing, politics, or profiling.

Do you have any suggestions of how it could be used for good?

If you don’t do it this year, you will be at least a year older when you do.
If you do it this year, you may not be a year older next year. — Warren Miller

I got paid Saturday. WooHoo!
I spent most of it on my son’s new computer. Uhg.

I went to Alki beach in the early AM and watched the fog burn off the bay. WooHoo!
Both of my camera’s batteries were dead. Uhg.

I finished the floor to my shed. WooHoo!
What i thought were allergies, have now turned into a horribly sore throat and sinuses. Uhg.

We had two awsome days of sun on a weekend. WooHoo!
I spent most of it sick. Uhg.

I got this link from BoingBoing. Caution: Stay well clear of this if you are afraid of spiders. I’m not afraid of spiders and it creeped me out a little bit.

Play with Spider

I’ve stagnated on my hobbies lately. Not a lot of pictures, no woodworking, no working on muscle car. I haven’t been doing a lot of programming. It’s time to get back into things.

Mostly I attribute it to having time, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that I’m just tired. Starting a new job is always stressful, trying to take in all of the information (and retain it) wears a person down. When I get home I just want to lay back on the couch with the remote and “veg” until bedtime.

The problem is that I find there is a feeling of missing something.

Time to get off my rear and start doing fun things again.

That’s what I think when wathcing the latest video from Dancing Matt. He’s had his last dancing trip around the world posted on his website for a while. I can’t help but smile while watching it.

An unexpectedly good surprise. I’ve recently started a new project and got a good start to it today. Debbie and I got what amounted to a private car show. So, despite my project not really being ready for prime time, I thought I’d give you a peak at it anyway.

The short of it is that we stopped to take some pictures of an old car we spotted for sale, and got a chance to see some true works of art thanks to a great guy who was willing to show us his garage. And boy what a garage it was!

So go check out RustingAway.com to see what I’ve been up to. (outside work that is)

A sudden burst of black smoke mushroomed up into the air just as I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot. I picked up the phone and called 911 and headed in the direction of the smoke. It was only about four blocks from where I lived. The emergency operator let me know it had already been called in just as the police passed me by.

By the time I arrived, the police had already taped off the area. Fire engines were followed shortly behind. A duplex was burning quite rapidly and people from the neighborhood were gathering. I find it rather odd that the police were protecting the scene armed with shotguns, but regardless, I grabbed my camera, found a spot around the corner and started taking pictures.

I managed to talk to the occupant of the end of the duplex that was not burning. A mentally ill woman lived in the part that was burned up. As I stood there taking more pictures, I noticed the fireman getting a backboard from the paramedics on the scene. They weren’t in a hurry. That’s when I realized they weren’t rescuing someone but retrieving what was left.

I deleted the pictures and walked away.

* thought I would mention that meth labs are not common in around here.

From what I saw of the opening performance, it looked magnificent! Though, I could really have done with out the sports announcers giving constant commentary on it. I could also have done without the commercial interruption. From looking at the pictures of it on-line it looks like there was a good bit missed because even though it was recorded earlier they cut the commercials in just like it was live.

Also I have have issue with some of the crowd booing the Iranian team. These are world class atheletes, not the politicians who are causing all of the problems. I have a great deal of respect not for the leaders but the atheletes who have put all of their life into what amounts to a single performance in front of the whole world.

Amidst war, terror, fundalmentalism, and political pressure.

How many people can say they have risked so much for a single chance on a single day to shine?