Back home... After a protracted struggle between higher ups, I'm finally beginning to transition off the Arizona project. While challenging, stressful, and complex - it was also quite eye-opening and a valuable experience. I like to view it as a crash course in Project Management 101, which I'll detail in a later posting. Names will be withheld so I don't get fired. If anyone of consequence found this blog, I'm pretty sure I'd be reprimanded. There's a reason I haven't been talking about work all these months.

It wasn't all steak and sushi and having fun in the sun...

After my escalation to my manager, the net was that I got to work from home for this week. Which is a well needed break after all that travel. Reminds me of when Homer Simpson gained 80lbs so he could go on disability and work from home.  ¶ 11:04 AM 0 comments

  dang http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/14129562.htm

I hit a jumper against Jeremy at an Egan pickup game once. He led his team to state.

That guy is real good.  ¶ 2:19 AM 0 comments

  Firefox > IE7 After testing IE7 for the past couple days, I've gone back to firefox.

- IE7 search box implementation SUCKS. a) you don't know which search engine you are using, b) when you change the search engine it runs the search automatically.

- the way firefox manages favorites is much simpler. No folder with a billion links, just one bookmark file

- no all-in-one-gestures plus a myriad of other extensions.

- Firefox menu bars are much more customizable.

Microsoft did come up with the better alert system (yellow bar on top) which Firefox immediately copied. And the RSS implementation is better in IE7. But come on, make it more stable already!  ¶ 2:07 AM 0 comments

  Has it been two years? Sopranos are finally back.  ¶ 12:54 AM 0 comments

  Argh Have been feeling rather horrible since the boarding trip. I feel pretty weak, can't really do any exercise. My coworker had to spend twenty minutes persuading me to go out for dinner/drinks. Then afterwards he got bitched out by his wife and threw me under the bus as an excuse. yeah YEAH!

Hopefully this super-chinese-eastern medicine will save me. Or a decent amount of rest. Need to start watching what I eat.  ¶ 10:10 AM 0 comments

  Words of the day edification
facetious (uber popular)
line of demarcation
kludgy
sword of damocles

I'll be going out of my way to work these into any conversation :)  ¶ 9:56 AM 0 comments

  My other car is a G35 ...rental. Thanks to Emerald Club membership, I now get to cruise around in a G35 sedan for a week. While it's not as fast as the 6MT coupe (or look as sweet), it still offers plenty of kick (280 horses). The handling is super smooth even when I rev it. Compared to the IS300 it definitely does things better. The seat adjustment controls are integrated right on the seat. The tiptronic implementation is nicer, better than pressing buttons. I also like the stereo controls right on the steering wheel. Other things like the climate control took me a while to figure out. The interior is very well thought-out for the most part. Definitely makes the travel more enjoyable.

At one point on the highway I was stuck behind a G35 coupe, next to a Nissan 350Z with a killer bodykit, while another Z was cruising behind me. I never noticed them until I drove one but AZ has a ton of G35s. Great cruising weather all year round.

If I'm lucky to get the G35 next week maybe I'll drive it to the Grand Canyon.  ¶ 6:56 AM 0 comments

  more travel So I'm waiting at the gate to board and the entire AZU women's basketball team parades past me. They were all carrying a box containing those bose soundDock boxes. Pretty blatant display of NCAA violation if u ask me. Probably just a perk from playing in the San Jose Tournament. One of the coaches brought their two kids who were screaming all throughout the flight.

Anyways my buddy showed me how you call SW for the confirmation number the night before to get the A group boarding pass. Just obtain the confirmation number, go to the southwest site, and check-in online. No more waiting around for the seats in the back!  ¶ 9:40 AM 0 comments

  Mammoth trip log - LONG Specifically for this trip I purchased:

Mountain Hardwear Windstopper Tech Jacket
Mountain Hardwear Aiguille Shell Jacket
Mountain Hardwear Wicked T base layer

Upgrading my layering was an attempt to keep the wind from knifing through my body as well as to reduce moisture from sweating. Overall I was satisfied by my level of comfort, as I was able to concentrate on boarding techniques without being severely impacted by the elements.

But enough about that- after trip plans were finalized (waiting for all the flakes to flake out), I had to figure out how I was getting down to LA. The easiest way would be to fly directly from Phoenix. This meant that I'd have to ship my snowboard to PHX, LAX, PHX, then SJC. Turns out the $20 snowboard bag would be sufficient protection. The only problem would be having to wash my bag to get rid of the "dog smell" it incurred during the SJC->PHX flight. Lugging my board around was annoying especially since I had to switch hotels midway through the week. The things we do to board.

FRIDAY: Flew down to LAX, waited too long for my board before seeing it off to the side. Ambar picked me up and we waited around for William and his bro to show up. Grabbed some Del Taco which included the smallest taco I've ever seen. You expect a certain amount of false advertising but I don't know how anyone ever buys that taco twice. Will showed up, spent too long trying to jam my board into the back of his BMW before just putting it in the backseat. Drive to Daniel's office. Will's radar detector is pretty cool, would prove to be valuable during the monotonous drive to Mammoth. Daniel showed us around, PS3 and XBOX360 dev kits. PS3 is looking real rough, not impressed, then again D is the only guy working on it. Plus he's probably working with an alpha dev kit. His company is working on a bunch of cool projects though (shhh!). Then we spend more time trying to jam my board into the back of D's car before giving up and sticking it on the right side of the car. Note to self: look into getting a shorter board for tricks AND ease of transportation.

At 11:00p we set out for Mammoth, way behind schedule. D takes the first shift of driving, mostly due to the comfort that the driver's seat affords. Three of us jam in the back and try to sleep. Will stays awake the whole time and messes with an assortment of gadgets. For some reason he is into jazz at this time and plays a bunch of stuff I've never heard before. Taiwanese rap is just ... funny. After we refuel, I take the wheel and drive the rest of the way. The radar detector makes a bunch of beeps and boops, helping me to stay awake. Karl and his buds make it to Mammoth after 9 hours of driving through traffic.

SATURDAY: After we make it to the cabin, stumble around in the dark, try to get to sleep before boarding. In the morning we suit up and hit the slopes. I notice an alarming amount of rust on my edges. It was due to boarding during that rainy day at Squaw Valley. Rusty edges mean that they won't run my board through the roller-wax machine. It's 50+ to completely tune my board, I settle for the $12 iron-waxing. Lift ticket costs $70 for an all-day pass.

Ambar and I head out with Karl's group while D sticks with his cousins. On the very first trip up the mountain, Karl's friend sprains his ankle coming off the lift. He is DONE for the trip. To make matters worse his board gets stolen while he is getting his ankle wrapped up in the first aid center. Sucks. Meanwhile me, A, and another of Karl's friends do as many runs as we can.

That day it was relatively sunny. I could have easily just gone with the fleece, I was getting a bit sweaty under three layers. This is where just having a softshell would have been perfect (although my friend argues that the tech fleece is better than any softshell). Pit zips helped ventilate a bit, but I should have ditched the hard shell in retrospect. We made numerous runs on the backside of the mountain. I focused mostly on staying in a line and generating speed. My technique was better than it was at Tahoe and the board moved faster due to the wax. I also picked up on some nuances by watching other boarders zoom down the mountain.

SUNDAY: The second day we were approached in the parking lot by some dude wanting to sell some lift tickets at a decently discounted price. Everything about it screamed "SCAM" but we bit the bullet and bought them. Afterall, they never scanned our lift tickets yesterday. First lift of the day: "Can I see your ticket?" DOH. I was sure that they were bogus but amazingly the scan went through with no issues.

Healthwise I was at around 80% after the first day. The storm was coming in and gusting winds pelted us with ice particles. I wasn't affected by the wind at all due to my layers but the particles killed me. Breathability wasn't really an issue at all. When I zipped my shell jacket all the way up, the edges of the collar did poke me quite a bit. Tips aren't lined with soft material! After doing the backside a bunch of times with Ambar, we met up with Daniel and did the little rails and jumps. I finally did a couple jumps although the landings were dicey. I do think think that it's better to olley off them since I tend not to land square. The rails were fun and easy to do for the most part. I did bail on the third rail rather badly. Instead of jumping off when I started to slide off, I landed on my back somehow. Compounding that, I practiced some goofy and promptly fell and sprained my wrist. So the rest of the day I was in slight pain but was able to do a bunch of runs with D.

For some reason the drive home took us a long time. Ambar took the first shift and drove like his BAC was over .08. Then we stopped at Denny's for food which was okay. Finally William drove the rest of the way.

I still had to lug my board and all my gear to Arizona for another week before returning home and unpacking. Trip isn't fully over until you dump that gear all over your room. This time I wiped down my board and left the bag a bit open to ventilate. Will need to sharpen edges and re-wax for the next trip.

Overall it was a good trip. Got better at boarding, no major injuries, my gear performed well. I need some time to heal before the next trip.  ¶ 9:51 AM 0 comments

  sporting news is teh sux Even if I do get it for free. Too much stuff that is already available on CNNSI.com, not enough insightful, interesting articles like those featured in ESPN the Magazine. And it comes every week so my stack of magazines build up too quickly.

In fact the biggest joy I get out of it is trying to leave it behind everywhere. Dentist offices, other people's cars, restaurants, I certainly don't want it...  ¶ 8:41 PM 0 comments

  google calendar I love how google HAS to tie each new beta software to something meaningful to mankind. Like "it was hard for me to find the weather report online so we implemented it in search." Or we want to be able to search through X because we do search stuff and finding stuff in search is good.

How about just saying you want to take over of all searching / indexing of everything? I think that emcompasses the appropriate scope. Or "because we want to take over the world, muahahahaa."

No I'm not bitter they finally implemented our Homester/Fernesoft online calendar app that we abandoned years ago.  ¶ 10:14 PM 0 comments