SteveCook.net

A few weeks ago I was looking around Amazon.com at various books and went into a “classics” list and saw “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau.  After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided I should buy it and read it – for two reasons. First, I’ve never read it, and second, I thought I probably should.

After reading the first chapter it occurred to me that this is one of the first “blogs” (forgetting the fact that the “b” is short for “web”) – it’s written just like today’s blogs – if not longer and descriptive.  It’s basically HDT’s public journal of a couple years spent on a pond outside Concord.

And like a blog, it’s got some really interesting chapters (aka posts) as well as some really uninteresting chapters.  I must confess that I’ve skipped some parts that were long winded and boring (IMHO), but found other sections extremely interesting and so read them a few times repeatedly to get all the nuances.

So, if you’re thinking it might be interesting to read a 150 year old blog, pick up Walden.  I enjoyed (most of) it.

Janet and I just returned from a new few days in Las Vegas. Janet was there (along with her sister, Diane) to see U2 at the Sam Boyd Stadium, while I was there to enjoy Vegas (you know, poker and more stuff from the Ferrari Store in the Wynn).  You may ask why I didn’t go see U2, and the answer is that I’d rather not give $250 to commie socialists (e.g. Hey Bono – shut up and sing, monkey boy!)

Anyway, it turns out that Sam Boyd Stadium is a good 10 miles off the strip, through city streets. The net result of that is that during rush hour it takes a good hour to get there from the strip. It also means taxis do NOT want to go out there – no fare for half the trip!  Because of some rules (laws?) they have to take you where you ask – but that doesn’t mean they’ll come back to pick you up… 

So, as you can imagine, a LOT (as in THOUSANDS) of people took taxis out to the concert. As you can also imagine, after the concert there were very few cabs waiting.  Janet and Diane got out of the concert and said the taxi line was LITERALLY a mile long – and by “literally”, I mean that it actually was at least a mile long.  Janet said taxis were coming up about one every 5 or 10 minutes.  Which leads to a LOT of angry and anxious people really wanting to get back to the strip, and no one to take them.

Since I didn’t go to the concert, they called me and said they started walking toward the strip (which you could see way in the distance) with a few thousand of their closest new concert friends.  They got to a gas station and then said to come pick them up.  The plan was for me to get a taxi on the strip, then drive out and get them and come back.  Not a huge deal (just a $60 cab ride since it was round trip). I found a taxi willing (and happy since it was a round trip) to go out there and was on my way.

Janet mentioned that we should be careful – people in the “U2 Concert Refugee Mob” were attacking cabs trying desperately to get back to the strip.  She said they were like zombies and taxis were brains.  I laughed.  I told the cab driver and he laughed.

As we approached the gas station, we saw more and more refugees/zombies. They yelled as we passed, and when we went by, they cursed at us (seriously!). As we slowed to turn into the parking lot, the crowds around the street started toward us so the cabbie locked the doors, turned on the inside dome light, and I lowered my window a little bit so they could see the cab was occupied.  None of this mattered to the zombies – they rushed the cab like it was brain matter. 

We spotted Janet and Diane near the middle of the parking lot and slowed to let them in.  As they were trying to get in, a zombie asked Janet, “Is this your cab? (i.e. living human brains)”.  She said yes as they jumped in as quickly as possible.  At the same time, a woman on my side of the taxi was screaming into the window “Are you going to the strip!? Are you going to the strip!?!? ARE YOU GOING TO THE SRTIP!!!”  (* note, there is no question mark on her last sentence, because I’m pretty sure she didn’t want an answer – she just wanted me to unlock the door so she could eat my brains.)  We unlocked the doors and Janet and Diane were able to jump in and lock the doors behind them. Immediately after we locked the doors, on Janet’s side, another guy/zombie was trying to open Janet’s door, and then the driver’s door.  The driver was yelling “Sorry! This cab is full!”.

We locked the doors when the girls were in, and we headed for the exit. As we stopped to merge with traffic, even more zombies approached the cab yelling “Send More Brains!”  (or maybe it was “Taxis”, but it could have been either).  We took off and headed for the strip – feeling a little sorry for all those hungry zombies stumbling through the night looking for brains the strip.

The lesson I take away from this adventure is two-fold. First, never see U2. Second, when there are hundreds of people wanting your cab, you should be well armed and ready - because they come at you fast and non-stop!  They’re willing to kill for your brains cab.

Who:  Steve Jenkins, Harlyn Jenkins, Me
When: summer 2001
Where: Seattle, Washington. SteveJ’s home office. Locked in.
What:  CheatCodes.com re-opening development and redesign HACK session for 5 days straight.

You know, your garden variety pre-release testing and final touches for your major website; entailing 10-15 hours at a time of working to make the site live.

When we all arrived, we set up our computers and made a “supply run” to the local supermarket. All of us being 20-something’s, our cart was filled with a LOT of the following:

• Energy drinks
• Mountain Dew (a LOT of it)
• Chips (sweet maui onion, Cheetos, Tostitos, sea salt & vinegar, etc.)
• Beef Jerky
• More Mountain Dew
• Cookies (sugar coated animal crackers, nutter butter, oreos, etc.)
• More Mountain Dew
• More chips (esp. Sweet Maui Onion.. Mmmmm)
• More Mountain Dew
• Chocolate candy bars (many assorted)
• More Cookies
• Misc. stuff I don’t remember, but we filled a full grocery cart with sugar and trans-fat.
• Oh, and did I say Mountain Dew?

And over the course of the week, we went through all of it – just the three of us. And if I remember right, we went back to get more Dew and sugar-coated-animal-crackers (man, those things are good).  We finished the site, opened, and the rest is history.  We had no problems working until 5 in the morning, getting up at 9 and continuing right where we left off.  I fell asleep a couple times on the floor of the office and got up and continued working. We all did.

Day 2 - CheatCodes 2001 Redesign.

Fast forward 8 years.  October 2009.

SteveJ and I plan 4 days of solid work (I bought Harlyn out of his shares last year). We set everything up in his office and head to the grocery store.  Our cart consisted of:

• 2 cans of sugar free Red Bull. (yeah, two).
• 1 can of Whoop Ass (energy drink)
• A variety of low calorie drinks and flavored water (SJ proclaimed that the Smart Water “Fuji Apple” was “AWESOME”)
• A small bag (single serving) of Sweet Maui Onion chips
• Medium bag of baked organic crackers (low fat)

We looked down at the cart and realized how sad things have become…. we were content with our purchase… yikes…

We did work a lot. And we even stayed up until 4am one evening, but the next day we were really tired and had to take a mid-day break (we watched “Old School” in SJ’s theater room).  We decided that, for productivity’s sake, we stop working at midnight or 1 next time.

What a couple of wimps we’ve become.

Although, Janet said I should title this post, “What happens when geeks get old, and their loving/caring wives don’t want them to blimp-out or get high-cholesterol.”

In the magazines/school-supplies/cleaning-supplies aisle of Albertson’s down the block, they have a rack of paper-back books.  Over the past couple years, they consistently have a David Sedaris book.  I know this because I remember seeing “Me Talk Pretty One Day” for months – and laughing every time I saw it.  But I never bought it.  I also saw “Naked” and “When Engulfed in Flames” – and I never bought those either.

When Uncle Alan would visit us here in Albuquerque, he’d occasionally ask (okay I think twice in 5 visits, but  he did ask) if I read any David Sedaris.  My response was the same both times he asked: “Oh yeah – I’ve seen those books – but no, I haven’t read any.”

A few weeks ago I was at a Barnes and Noble and they had a sale (buy 1 get on at half price) and I picked up a book that I wanted, and searched for one that I’d get for half price.  BOOM – When Engulfed In Flames.  I started reading it the next day, and laughed my (large) butt off.  He’s really funny – in a sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt way.  He uses words to give a very funny picture of situations and events.

I finally picked up “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and read it quickly as well – and I laughed more than I did reading WEIF.

The next time I see a David Sedaris book at the grocery store – I’ll pick it up

Over the past couple weeks I was recommended a couple of shows, and I finally decided to check them out.  I had actually never heard of either one (or more likely, I’d seen their ads multiple times, but was reading or working or just not paying attention), so I never even thought of watching/tivo-ing them.  Thanks to NetFlix (and a couple other online “methods”), I was able to see the first couple seasons of each, and they were very entertaining.

The first show, Leverage, with Timothy Hutton, is a “Con-Artists go Good” show (ala A-Team), that is a LOT like the U.K. show “Hustle”. I enjoyed Hustle, but I think the back story for the characters in Leverage is better, and the shows stick together a bit more.  I enjoyed both seasons.

The second show is Sons of Anarchy.  How in the WORLD did I miss the first season of this show?!  It’s like a Sopranos meets Hell’s Angels.  It’s an amazing show – very well written and very well acted – on par with Breakin’ Bad – I don’t know why they don’t have any Emmy nominations.    If you liked The Sopranos, you’ll really enjoy Sons of Anarchy as well.  The second season started a few weeks ago, and it’s getting very intense.

On a side note, my half-day on the set of Breaking Bad went swimmingly. As an “Extra w/ car”, my job was pretty simple – walk down the street a bunch of times – sometimes talking (without making any noise), and sometimes alone.  And definitely not taking notice of the two DEA agents discussing something in a Jeep.  So, on episode 3 of season 3, keep an eye out for a dude in khakis and a light blue shirt walking with a back-pack and talking (but not).  You may even be able to see the back of the 355 in the distance.

The crew of Breaking Bad – totally awesome.  The set I was on only had a couple of the famous actors (Just Hank and Gomez pretty much) and the rest of the crew, but it was very well organized.  The AD (that’s movie speak for an assistant director) in charge of “herding the extras” was really nice and helped us a lot. She mentioned that I’d be surprised at how many people can’t walk and NOT look at the camera and actors. She also answered a lot of questions and was really nice throughout the morning.  If the casting company calls for more extras – I’m there.  Janet was a bit sad that she didn’t get called, but they’ve got more episodes to shoot, so hopefully she’ll get the chance.   Oh, and I made a whopping $89 bucks!  BOOYAH! PURE PROFIT!

This came up on my iTunes shuffle this morning while working, and brought a nice little tear to my eye – so many memories   Buckaroo Banzai fans will recognize it as the song Buckaroo played on the piano during his concert.  The original is by the Skyliners, but I have suprisingly come to like the Motley Crue version better…

There’s a version on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ84O6FhepI  It has some Final Fantasy video attached to it – I’m not a FF player, so it made no sense to me, but it is visually interesting none-the-less…

The Buckaroo Version (Who knew Peter Weller could sing!?)

The Skyliner Version

Last year, during one of my trips taking my grandfather to one of his appointments, the topic of music came up. (I know – I ended a sentence with a preposition, sue me…). He always appreciated classical music, while I like it, but only in spurts, depending on my general auditory-mood. I mostly just like Mozart, Chopin, and a few others, while his favorite was Chopin.

He mentioned that he clearly remembered the first album he ever bought, when he was 10 or 12 (This must have been mid-1930’s then I suppose). It was a performance of Poet and Peasant. His brother let him play it on his record player. He remembered playing it over and over, but having been so long since he listened to it, he couldn’t remember much of the score.

Later that evening I found a copy on iTunes and made him a CD that included Poet and Peasant, as well as several of his favorite Chopin pieces.  I listened to it several times and really enjoyed it – I even put it on my phone and nano for when I worked out.

So, a couple days later, on my next trip over, I suprised him with the CD and said it had Poet and Peasant on it. I put it in his CD player and pressed play. We both sat and listened to it.  I was quite proud of myself for bringing him this reminder of his early days, as well as enjoying it myself. After a few minutes he said “AH! I remember this song clearly now!  But, I don’t remember why I liked it so much…”

He enjoyed the Chopin more than the Poet and Peasant.  There’s a very nice version of P&P on YouTube here.

Over the past year, I’ve spent a LOT of time in waiting rooms.  Doctor offices, dentists, dermatologists, eye-doctors, and even a couple hours every week at the hair-dresser’s.  Of course, none of these appointments were for me – they were/are for my grandparents (and now just “Grandma”).  Since my grandfather first started getting sick last summer, my mother and I have acted as chauffeurs.  Not surprisingly, old people have a lot of appointments.
In fact, I’m writing this entry from the waiting room at my grandmother’s hair dresser’s building. My grandmother has been seeing the same stylist for 24 years – Every friday, rain or shine. She claims that she MUST go, not only to keep up appearances, but also for “morale” and sanity.  So I spend each Friday morning sitting in a waiting room for about 2.5 hours.

I really like my work and I’ll often subconsciously  feel “guilty” and/or “anxious” when I could be working, but I’m not. It’s not a concious thought of “oh man, I need to be working”, it’s that behind-the-scenes, not-quite-right feeling that I should be doing something productive.

I used to bring a pen and notebook and try to update todo lists, organize projects, and jot down thoughts. (Maybe that’s where my fascination with notebooks took it’s foothold… but I digress…) After a while, that got to be “old” and I still had the “unproductive” feeling. I usually had to copy the todo lists and notes to my online storage places (rememberthemilk.com, wiki, etc.), so I felt like I was duplicating my efforts.

Then, at the beginning of the year I borrowed a friends Dell 8″ netbook for some international travel. I knew I wasn’t going to be working much, but still wanted to check email. And I KNEW I didn’t want to lug around a 10 pound 17″ laptop around Scotland just to check email.  The 8″ netbook was okay for reading email, but the keyboard was just too tiny for my hands – I had to hunt-n-peck because the keys were too small.  Not to mention when I tried to do a little programming on the flight home, a lot of the programming characters ({,[,],},|,etc.) were all “function” keys or otherwise oddly placed.

After that, I figured I wouldn’t bother getting a netbook, since I couldn’t use it to program, and that’s one of the things I like to do on planes and hotel-room-down-time. But a few weeks later I was at Costco and saw the new Acer Aspire One 10″ model. I tried the keyborad and it was small, but big enough for touch typing. Plus, a quick search for linux “support” showed that it worked great with ubuntu, right out of the box.

I was originally going to dual-boot the netbook with XP and ubuntu, but after I messed up the disk partitioning during ubuntu install, I hosed XP. Now it’s a linux/ubuntu laptop only – and I’m glad. It’s great. I don’t miss XP at all, and ubuntu’s netbook remix has been rock solid.  The singular complaint/nuisance is that the volume just isn’t there like it was with XP. I’ve installed all kinds of tweaks for adjusting volume, but it just won’t go loud. O-well.

So now, while sitting in waiting rooms, I can work on my netbook. It’s small enough that I don’t have any issues carrying it. And with 3G, the internet is fast enough to be not annoying.  If you travel a lot, or even a little, and don’t want/need to carry a huge laptop around, I highly recommend getting one.

In your old kit-bag… and smile smile smile.

or listen here

(this is the song at the beginning of the season 1 finale of Castle).

Could someone explain to me why I’m obsessed with paper notebooks and pens?

I’ve moved just about everything I work on and play on to an online equivalent. For my personal todo list I use rememberthemilk.com and for my work related tasks I use such things as mantis, various wikis, Outlook folders/Calendar, and  my iPhone notepad and voice recorder, just to name a few..

I used paper notebooks for years. Starting with the cool brown Physics laboratory/Engineering computation notebooks, and then on to smaller hardcover blueline notebooks and weatherproof mini-notebooks (which I still use at the gym by taping my ID card to the front cover so I don’t forget it).  I also bought a variety of 3×5 cards for notes, with monogram from Levenger. But I go for weeks and months without ever using any of them.  I’ve had the same notebook for all my CheatCodes work since we opened in 2001 – and It’s not even close to half filled. I put reference items in my wikis, since they’re availble from “anywhere.”  RememberTheMilk keeps my todos organized and available at all times (with a great iphone app).

So, why on Earth do I keep buying various paper methods?  I can’t go through a store without checking the “notebook” aisle.

My latest is buying Moleskine notebooks of various sizes.  I have several right here in front of me, and I rarely write in them – and the reason – they’re too nice and I don’t want to “spoil” them.  Seriously.  The paper is such great quality I really don’t want to mess them up! Plus, I keep all my notes online ANYWAY.

What kind of idiot pays $19.95 for 192 pages of ruled 7.5×10″ paper and then refuses to write in it?  Me, that’s who…

I created VirtualVow.com several years ago, and it’s passing over 20k virtual marriages this month.

It occured to me, as more and more virtual newlyweds sign up, that it would make a great free addition to any of the standard Valetine’s Day presents. So, if you’re thinking a dozen roses or a box of candy might not cut it for your special someone, how about getting married online!

I have never been a big fan of golfing… In fact, I was 20 the first time I went golfing with my dad at the old Rio Rancho Country Club. I had fun, but I wasn’t very good. Since then I’ve played a couple times a year at most.

On the other hand, my father, grandfather, and son LOVE to play golf. Jonah even started playing in the junior PGA this summer. My grandfather, being from Scotland, started playing as a kid too. I never played much because it’s so time consuming, and I’m one of those crazy people that truly enjoys his work.

My grandfather played golf twice a week for the past couple decades and because I wanted to spend some time with him I mentioned that if he ever needed a fourth, to let me know. So a few times this past spring and summer we were able to play a round. In fact, one time I was able to bring Jonah to play too.

I’m really glad we got to play.

Our “Kody Bear” died on the 23rd.

He hadn’t been eating much for a couple days, then on the 23rd, he puked up blood in the middle of the night, and then puked again (just water/bile) in the morning.  He looked very bloated (he’d been getting larger over the past month or so, but we just thought he was getting chubby from not running around) so we took him to the vet.

They did some x-rays, and it turned out he had a large tumor on his spleen (apparently it’s a common aggressive thing for shepard breeds – and he was part shepard). He had so much fluid build up, the vet said it was hard to see many of his organs, but that it had likely spread (they couldn’t be 100% sure without invasive surgery).  It was also likely that even if they did sugery, he wouldn’t ever fully recover and he’d have no quality of life (and be in a lot of pain).

We asked if we could bring him home to die, but the vet said it would get very “bad” – he would be in more and more pain, and he’d be vommiting more and more until his body gave out. He wasn’t in much (apparent) pain, but he was visibly uncomfortable (couldn’t find a way to lay down). We took the vet’s suggestion to put him to sleep.  We took Jonah in to say goodbye, and Janet’s mom came in too. After Jonah left with his Grandma, we petted him for about 20 minutes until he was just about to fall asleep. The vet gave him the injection and he went peacefully to sleep.

My grandmother told Jonah on Christmas eve that Kody and Great-Grandpa wanted to play, and Kody would keep him company.

I’d like to start out the “Grandpa Stories” with a little history of both of my grandparents. My grandfather was born in Scotland and grew up in Rosewell Scotland (just South of Edinburgh). His father was Thomas Murray, and was the manager for the company that ran the local mine (and basically the whole town).  On an interesting contemporary note, the Roslin chapel in the Da Vinci Codes book is very close to where he lived.

He went to school at George Watson’s College and was vice-captain of the rugby team (picture coming soon – Uncle Alan is going to bring it over so I can scan it in).  He actually got injured a lot playing rugby, and I think that’s where some of his knee issues came from – although most probably came from the plane crash (more on that in a later post). After completing school, at the age of 19, he decided to join the Royal Navy and become a pilot.

For training, he was to choose between Australia, Canada, or the U.S. My grandmother always used to tell him it was the luckiest decision he ever made (and she said yesterday that she was the luckiest from that decision . So, he came to Grosse Ile for training in the Grumman TBF Avenger Torpedo Bomber. While training there, he was invited to a local dance (like the USO, but not) for service men. My grandmother was there and noticed him. After him not making any moves toward her, she approached him and asked if he’d like to dance.  His response was completely predictable (if you knew him). He said:

“I don’t dance, and I don’t like girls.”  (with heavy Scottish accent).

But, they did talk for a long time, and were able to exchange contact information, and they had a date shortly thereafter. They went on a few more dates (always double-dating, since that would have been improper for any “alone time”).

I’m going to skip ahead because the dating and marriage is a whole other story.  To sum up, they got married just before my grandfather was shipped back to the UK. It was a long time before my grandmother could return to grandpa’s arms in Scotland. When she finally arrived, it had been many months (about a year I think) since they’d seen each other.  By then, my grandfather was stationed at an air base and was boarding with a local farmer.

The morning after their reunion, they stayed in their bedroom until late in the morning (at this point in the story my grandmother blushes quite a bit). They came out to the kitchen/dining room together and sat at the table for lunch, while the Farmer was already seated. The farmer looked at his watch and looked up at them.  My grandmother, trying to make the best of it said “Just think, we didn’t have to eat any of the breakfast, so we didn’t cut into the rations!”

To which the farmer replied, in his thick accent: “Aye lass! But think of the wearrr and tearrr on the sheets!”