30 April 2005
Hitchhiker's Guide
Damn, forgot this was coming out. I feel a long lunch break coming up on Monday. ;)
Zonkey!!!
I just like that word. Zonkey!! A cross between a zebra and a donkey.
Which makes me wonder why a cross between a horse and a donkey isn't called a 'Honkey'.
I slay me.
Which makes me wonder why a cross between a horse and a donkey isn't called a 'Honkey'.
I slay me.
Dads Around The World, Rejoice!
This is pretty slick. Might have saved me some nasty scrapes as a kid. Its a tricycle that changes into a bicycle at higher speeds.
Engineering is teh cool.
Engineering is teh cool.
New Career?
Kinda stinks. *cough*
100+ clients paying $10 each once a week. That's over $50,000 annually to shovel shit.
Maybe.....nah, fuck that.
100+ clients paying $10 each once a week. That's over $50,000 annually to shovel shit.
Maybe.....nah, fuck that.
The Girlfriend Is A Graduate!
Congrats J! Now...start making heaps of money so I can retire while you support me ;)
26 April 2005
Feh
They wouldn't budge on the benefits, and I wasn't going to take a big paycut AND lose 401k for a year AND lose a lot of vacation time.
Oh well.
Oh well.
13 April 2005
Amusing Videos From Some NY Students
The best ones are Lecture Musical, Library Musical and Tai Chi.
12 April 2005
The Greatest Example Of Ice Cream Technology
These ice cream spades are without a doubt the best ice cream scooping device ever invented. Tired of trying to spoon out hard ice cream and having it bend your spoon? Tired of using one of those wussy regular ice cream scoops that only scrape out a tiny glob of ice cream with each try? No problem, get an ice cream spade. You'll be dishing out the food of the gods in record time. In fact, if you buy ice cream in the cylindrical containers, you can insert the spade in about a half in or so into the ice cream and then just hold it and spin the container. You'll end up with a perfect bowl sized ice cream disk. Just awesome.
11 April 2005
Job Interview #1
I had a phone interview today with Candidate Company #1. It went OK, but not great. I hate talking on the phone, so I doubt I came across well. We'll see. They told me they'd decide by Wednesday of next week which applicant they want to bring in for an in-person interview. I usually do better with those.
If I get the call great, if not, no big deal. They aren't doing anything particularly 'new technology', so I wouldn't be missing out in that regard, but I'd sure like to be working somewhere other than where I am right now.
If I get the call great, if not, no big deal. They aren't doing anything particularly 'new technology', so I wouldn't be missing out in that regard, but I'd sure like to be working somewhere other than where I am right now.
Publix Hires Quirky Movie Characters
I dont know what it is, but my current Publix (yes, they belong to me...in the same manner as I belong to my cat) and my previous Publix both have baggers that are clones of movie characters. Specifically, Milton from Office Space and Ray from Rain Man. The old Publix, out on Capital Circle South and Crawfordville Highway is the home of Milton. I kid you not, he looks just like Milton, thick glasses, dim wit and all:
You have NO idea how many times I wanted to give the guy a red stapler...just to see what he'd do.
Ray resides at the new Publix. This kid is probably in his late teens or early twenties and full-on special. He likes to describe to you in detail how he carefully arranges the groceries and bags into the cart. Unfortunately, he bags at an incredibly slow pace. I had over $100 worth of groceries today and the cashier had scanned everything by the time Ray had painstakingly filled the first bag and put it into the cart.
Painstakingly filled the bag wrong.
OK, see, I'm an engineer so I am naturally anal retentive. I put the groceries onto the conveyer belt in the order they should be bagged. Frozen crap goes first - together in a bunch - followed by regular refridgerated stuff, which I don't mind being in the same bag as the frozen stuff. Then come boxed stuff and other small dry goods, then cans, then big non-refridgerated fluids like soda and apple juice then big bulk stuff like paper towels. The frozen stuff should be put in the back of the cart and end with the cans towards the front. The big bulk crap can go underneath. This is so that stuff gets loaded first into the back of the car and the frozen crap gets put in last so it'll be first to be unloaded!
OK, er anyway, so Rain Man's 1st carefully plotted bag has ice cream and canned vegetables in it. Ugh. Neatly arranged and maximizing usage of the bag's volume, don't get me wrong, but still not right.
As I mentioned, the cashier - who happens to be one of this store's better cashiers; always quick, polite and efficient - finishes ringing everything up by the time RayRay has his one prodigal bag put into the cart. This guy clearly loathes Ray and starts bagging up the rest of the groceries filling four bags in less time than it takes Ray to fill his second masterpiece (also wrong).
The best part: the bagger's name really is Ray. I can't make this shit up. I usually check to see who is bagging before I go into a line because of this guy, but my mind was elsewhere and by the time I noticed him there I had already unloaded the cart. Oh well.
You have NO idea how many times I wanted to give the guy a red stapler...just to see what he'd do.
Ray resides at the new Publix. This kid is probably in his late teens or early twenties and full-on special. He likes to describe to you in detail how he carefully arranges the groceries and bags into the cart. Unfortunately, he bags at an incredibly slow pace. I had over $100 worth of groceries today and the cashier had scanned everything by the time Ray had painstakingly filled the first bag and put it into the cart.
Painstakingly filled the bag wrong.
OK, see, I'm an engineer so I am naturally anal retentive. I put the groceries onto the conveyer belt in the order they should be bagged. Frozen crap goes first - together in a bunch - followed by regular refridgerated stuff, which I don't mind being in the same bag as the frozen stuff. Then come boxed stuff and other small dry goods, then cans, then big non-refridgerated fluids like soda and apple juice then big bulk stuff like paper towels. The frozen stuff should be put in the back of the cart and end with the cans towards the front. The big bulk crap can go underneath. This is so that stuff gets loaded first into the back of the car and the frozen crap gets put in last so it'll be first to be unloaded!
OK, er anyway, so Rain Man's 1st carefully plotted bag has ice cream and canned vegetables in it. Ugh. Neatly arranged and maximizing usage of the bag's volume, don't get me wrong, but still not right.
As I mentioned, the cashier - who happens to be one of this store's better cashiers; always quick, polite and efficient - finishes ringing everything up by the time RayRay has his one prodigal bag put into the cart. This guy clearly loathes Ray and starts bagging up the rest of the groceries filling four bags in less time than it takes Ray to fill his second masterpiece (also wrong).
The best part: the bagger's name really is Ray. I can't make this shit up. I usually check to see who is bagging before I go into a line because of this guy, but my mind was elsewhere and by the time I noticed him there I had already unloaded the cart. Oh well.
10 April 2005
Reason #30573 To Hate Pro Baseball
Unbelievable how much money they want people to pay to watch a bunch of roided up prima donna's who don't give a rats ass about the game, let alone the fans.
I'd take one game at FSU's park over a lifetime of games at any pro park.
Fuck those assholes.
I'd take one game at FSU's park over a lifetime of games at any pro park.
Fuck those assholes.
09 April 2005
Everything Is Bigger In Texas
Especially the assholes.
This Texas state rep, Larry Phillips - a Republican - wants to implement a decidedly Big Borther-ish plan to install transponders on everyone's cars as part of the already existing state vehicle inspection stickers that would carry information on the owner's insurance standing. Now, first of all state vehicle inspections are already a tax which is bad enough, but now they want to keep tabs on you too? That's right, if your insurance is expired they will mail you a $250 ticket (read: tax). Of course, all this information will be verified on a state maintained database, which cannot be guaranteed to accurately reflect your insurance status. And, lets not forget that this government run database will be paid for by your tax dollars. Because, you know, you wouldn't want to spend those tax dollars on something useful to you...like maybe insurance.
Remember the days when Republicans were against these kinds of big, intrusive government programs?
I miss those days. Ronald Reagan has got to be spinning in his grave.
This Texas state rep, Larry Phillips - a Republican - wants to implement a decidedly Big Borther-ish plan to install transponders on everyone's cars as part of the already existing state vehicle inspection stickers that would carry information on the owner's insurance standing. Now, first of all state vehicle inspections are already a tax which is bad enough, but now they want to keep tabs on you too? That's right, if your insurance is expired they will mail you a $250 ticket (read: tax). Of course, all this information will be verified on a state maintained database, which cannot be guaranteed to accurately reflect your insurance status. And, lets not forget that this government run database will be paid for by your tax dollars. Because, you know, you wouldn't want to spend those tax dollars on something useful to you...like maybe insurance.
Remember the days when Republicans were against these kinds of big, intrusive government programs?
I miss those days. Ronald Reagan has got to be spinning in his grave.
The REAL Number Of The Beast
It isn't 666, oh no, its 5015.2. That's the US Department of Defense standard for Electronic Records Management software certification. The company I work for has just finished the grueling 2 week certification process and, fortunately, passed. For a large number of US and foreign governments, you must have 5015.2 certification in order to sell your records management software to them.
This is the third time we've certified since I have been with the company. The first time was hectic, but it was with the previous revision of the standard and not too stringent. The second time was against the new standard and was a nightmare. As has become the standard mode of operation, the management of the company didn't have us working on updating the software to conform to the standard until about 6 months before we were scheduled to be tested. Nevermind that they had had the newer, more stringent stanard in their hands for nearly two years.
The dev and QA teams were worked to the bone to pass that one, with lots of people pulling 36 hour shifts. We lost quite a few good people after that because of the company's treatment of the employees and the fact that for all of that effort, the company barely managed a pat on the back for those involved. Nevermind that the company would have been effectively barred from making millions of dollars worth of revenue from all of the US and foreign governments that require software to have 5015.2 certification before they will buy it.
So, this time was supposed to be a walk in the park. The software was supposed to be roughly the same as we certified with the second time, and the standard hadn't been revised (you have to renew cert every two years and/or every time you go up a major version number in your software). I was assigned to work on this back in December as pretty much the only developer on the project. We had only one QA person as well for the most part. That was a serious management mistake.
The QA guy is responsible for writing up the testing script, which is what we provide to the JITC testers as a road map of sorts so they can go through the standard as it is covered by our software. The test script has screenshots and whatnot showing how our software does various tasks. Well, in writing this document, the QA engineer didn't really have time to actually, you know, test the software in any meaningful way. So of course, as we get to the week before the certification is to start, they add a few people to the QA group and lo and behold, they start finding issues. Serious issues. Serious issues that should have been found months prior so they could have beenfixed before testing started, not during.
Well, after entirely too many nights of driving sleepily home at 2am the last two weeks...and missing a LOT of FSU baseball games (that I already paid for...which probably pisses me off more than anything) we pulled it out of our asses again.
I have the next week off and I will be using it constructively to find another job with hopefully better management. Or at least management that is proactive rather than reactive. I have a phone interview with one company Monday and leads for two other companies. I doubt they'll wow me with money offers, but honestly, I don't need to be wowed with money.
This is the third time we've certified since I have been with the company. The first time was hectic, but it was with the previous revision of the standard and not too stringent. The second time was against the new standard and was a nightmare. As has become the standard mode of operation, the management of the company didn't have us working on updating the software to conform to the standard until about 6 months before we were scheduled to be tested. Nevermind that they had had the newer, more stringent stanard in their hands for nearly two years.
The dev and QA teams were worked to the bone to pass that one, with lots of people pulling 36 hour shifts. We lost quite a few good people after that because of the company's treatment of the employees and the fact that for all of that effort, the company barely managed a pat on the back for those involved. Nevermind that the company would have been effectively barred from making millions of dollars worth of revenue from all of the US and foreign governments that require software to have 5015.2 certification before they will buy it.
So, this time was supposed to be a walk in the park. The software was supposed to be roughly the same as we certified with the second time, and the standard hadn't been revised (you have to renew cert every two years and/or every time you go up a major version number in your software). I was assigned to work on this back in December as pretty much the only developer on the project. We had only one QA person as well for the most part. That was a serious management mistake.
The QA guy is responsible for writing up the testing script, which is what we provide to the JITC testers as a road map of sorts so they can go through the standard as it is covered by our software. The test script has screenshots and whatnot showing how our software does various tasks. Well, in writing this document, the QA engineer didn't really have time to actually, you know, test the software in any meaningful way. So of course, as we get to the week before the certification is to start, they add a few people to the QA group and lo and behold, they start finding issues. Serious issues. Serious issues that should have been found months prior so they could have beenfixed before testing started, not during.
Well, after entirely too many nights of driving sleepily home at 2am the last two weeks...and missing a LOT of FSU baseball games (that I already paid for...which probably pisses me off more than anything) we pulled it out of our asses again.
I have the next week off and I will be using it constructively to find another job with hopefully better management. Or at least management that is proactive rather than reactive. I have a phone interview with one company Monday and leads for two other companies. I doubt they'll wow me with money offers, but honestly, I don't need to be wowed with money.
05 April 2005
The Brothers Lost On Amazing Race
But man did they go out in style.
I'll try to find a picture and update later.
I'll try to find a picture and update later.
03 April 2005
Streak Ends At 40
Damn shame, but a hell of an accomplishment regardless. I wanted him to get the NCAA record, but I guess that's just asking a bit much. None the less, congratulations to Shane.
Pope Dead
Good thing he didn't have to spend 15 years in a persistent vegetative state and become an unwilling political pawn.
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