Jeff Boulter's Weblog

An Exciting Weekend for Baseball

The Yankees clinched their 7th consecutive division title today. Ho hum. The real excitement is coming in the other divisons.

Oakland and Anaheim are TIED for the American League West title. Guess who they're playing this weekend? Each other. Anne is going with a friend to Friday night's game. It's a three game series, so as soon as one of them wins two, it's over. She's convinced herself that if she roots really hard for Oakland, they'll win. I hope so.

What's also interesting is that Minnesota, the predetermined Central Division champion currently has the same 90-69 record as the Angels and A's. With the Red Sox clinching the wild card, this makes things even more exciting. Since the Red Sox will play the team other than the Yankees with the best record, it's undetermined who they'll play even this late in the season. The combination of teams playing each other in the playofofs could determine the winner of the World Series.

We're hoping that Oakland will win all three games, and not because they're the local team. That will give them the best record (assuming Minnesota loses at least one) and will bring Boston to Oakland for the playoffs so we can catch a game. Sounds just like last year. The only problem is that the damn Yankees just swept Minnesota and that would be bad if they were to do the same to them in the playoffs.

As much as I'd like to see the Red Sox play, I must be pragmatic about it. Whomever can knock off the Yankees is fine by me. And the World Series is really what we're after.

The National League is still undetermined as well. Again in the West, the Dodgers and the Giants are both close to claming the title. Guess who they're playing this weekend? Each other again.

My couch is going to get a lot of use in the next few days.

"You had me at 'multiple inheritance in Java'"

Hiring people is an interesting process. You meet lots of people, many smart, some strange. Today something happened on a phone interview that has never happened before.

I had scheduled a phone interview with a candidate for this afternoon. I called him at the time we agreed on and I went into most of my standard questions about building high-performance applications, relational databases, Java, and design principles. He wasn't doing too well on many of them and he just said "I don't know" on a bunch.

At that point, I figured he might be light on experience but could be really smart, so I gave him one of my standard puzzle questions. I asked the question, he asked for clarification and then I waited. About a minute later, I heard a click and the line dropped. He actually hung up on me!

That's a first. It sure made it easy to tell him that he wouldn't work out though!

GPS in FoxTrot

The FoxTrot comic strip has always been full of geeky humor. Last Sunday's was great. I would have missed it if Anne hadn't clipped it for me.

This kinda reminds me of this recurring dream I have where I'm in high school again because there was an error in the courses I took and I didn't get enough to graduate. So even though I have a college degree, I have to go back and take a few classes. Some other friends from high school are there too, so I guess it wasn't just me.

Anyway, I don't have a schedule for my classes and I have no idea where the classrooms are, so I end up following people I know around and hoping they're in the same class as me. Hence, a GPS would be useful. :-)

Destination: Nostalgia

Well, we're back from our New Hampshire via Seattle vacation or "Northeast by Northwest". It was a nostalgic trip to visit places where we once were before and we succeeded in seeing a lot of familiar haunts.

The first stop was Seattle, for our friends Todd and Chris's wedding. It was great to be in Seattle again, nearly the first time since we moved away in 1999. Much has changed, but the character of the city is still there.

I really like Seattle. It's even more likable in the summer when it's not cold and raining through. Once the clouds come out you start to remember why not everyone wants to live there and how downright depressing it can get in the winter.

We had some time to reacquaint ourselves with the city before the wedding. We visited our old apartment on Capitol Hill, the Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle Center, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, Kerry Park, Fremont, the University District, the Microsoft campus, Kirkland and bunch of other random places we used to hang out.

The wedding itself was unique and and full of Todd and Chris's personalilties. It was pretty informal and held on the Skansonia, a retired ferry boat on Lake Union. It started with a group sing-a-long, had a very short ceremony, and then on to drinks, dinner and dancing. Instead of a guestbook, there were crayons and paper on each table for guests to create something original for the bride and groom. It was fun to hang out with friends from LAUNCH and other places, many of whom I haven't seen in a long time. Some of the events may sound a little
weird, but they were actually very cool and a lot of fun.

Our trip to Seattle was a short one as we jetted off to New Hampshire the next day. We had actuallly purchased a round trip ticket a while back from San Jose to Seattle, but when we were deciding when to take a trip east, it made the most sense to do it right after the wedding, so we booked a separate trip from Seattle to Manchester and then back to SFO. It was cheaper than rebooking the whole flight, even when eating the cost of the return trip from Seattle to San Jose.

Leaving home out of one local airport and returning via another presents its own logistical challenges; luckily some friends were more than happy to shuttle us to and from airports.

Staying in New Hampshire is always a lot of fun. After seeing my sister's new house (it's scary that my seven-years-younger sister has purchased her first house before us), we headed up to my parents' cottage on Lake Winnepocket aka "the camp." I have many fond memories there and enjoyed the visit. I wasn't say it was "hot" there, but it was warm enough to take a few dips in the lake and generally enjoy being outside.

We did all the familiar things - had a barbeque with my extended family, hiked up to Mt. Kearsage, visited the Blackwater Dam, ate a lot and did some Geocaching too.

We happened to be there in time for the Hopkinton State Fair as well, so we went over to see what that's like these days. It was mostly the same - rides, livestock compeitions, 4H stuff, cotton candy, fried dough (elephant ears to you weird left-coasters) and yet more food.

I noticed there were a lot of people walking around with these new walking sticks. Soon enough we passed a tent where some Christian Farmers were giving out these sticks if you listened to their spiel. I really didn't want to go put myself in that situation but Anne wouldn't do it for me. As I walked around I remembered my future inevitable encounter with a rattlesnake back West and that having a free walking stick sure would be nice. I went back for the stick.

It actually wasn't that painful. A young guy explained what they do, their missions, their farming and whatever and then he went throught the symbolism of the beads on the leather string of the stick. After that he asked me if I was 100% sure I was going to heaven. I told hiim I was pretty sure. He asked if I wanted to be completely sure. I said nah, just give me the stick and I'll read the literature. With that he gave me a comic book about going to hell and I left with my stick. The stick is actually pretty nice. I'll need to stain it and polish it up a bit.

The only problem with a free walking stick is that you have to walk around with a walking stick the rest of the day. I carried it to the demolition derby - all three hours of it. I've been to a demolition derby before, but not one with 8 different heats. Ahh, rural America.

Three things are always striking when I come home - the presence of humidity, the abundance of green all around, and the volatility of the weather. The remnants of hurricane Frances came through while we were out searching for a cache and we got dumped on.

We went on a short road trip to Rhode Island to visit some friends. On the way we went through Boston to see what has changed there since we left in 1998. We went by our old apartment, drove through Somerville, Harvard Square, Central Square and Kendall Square in Cambridge. I was surprised how many buildings had popped up around Cambridge. There were lots of big biotech firms and new MIT buildings. And the traffic - it was crazy! Did I really used to drive like that?

Once we said that we would move back to Boston once the Big Dig was done. The good news is that a lot of it is done. The bad news is that it hasn't seemed to make things any better. We got a really nice view of the new Zakim bridge as we sat on it for a half hour and awed at the wonder of the central artery tunnel as we sat in that for another half an hour. This cost how many billions of dollars again?

Rhode Island was a good excuse to hang out and do nothing with friends for 24 hours, then it was back up to the camp, after battling stop and go traffic on Route 3 all the way from 95 to almost the NH border. Most frustrating was that they've got a third lane there which looked completely finished, but was inexpicably blocked off.

Back at the camp it was more relaxing and being with family. I even had a surprise early birthday party - the first one I've been home for in 13 years. Some lottery tickets I got as gifts paid off for $90. Not bad. I got a bunch of DVDs off my Amazon wishlist, some cash AND a raincheck for the Treo 650. Kick ass! All I need now is it to be released or even be officially announced!

On Monday, we went with Anne's uncle to play what would be our first 18 holes of golf. We took lessons a few months ago and we had been on the driving range and putting greens a bunch of times, but never actually on the course. For me in my first round of golf, it was a lot like Geocaching - I spent a lot of time searching around in the woods. Every once in a while I got a good shot off, but most often I went right over the ball and it rolled 20 feet or I used the wrong club and launched the ball into traffic. By about the 15th hole I was pretty tired, so just enjoyed the rest of the holes as a nice walk. The next day I was sore in places where I didn't even know I had muscles.

That evening we grabbed some chinese food at The Aloha. I don't know what it is about Chinese food in New England, but it's completely different in every other place we've lived. I just can't get enough of those chicken fingers, brown pork fried rice, teriyaki strips, and chicken chow mein. It's just not the same anywhere else.

We had some second thoughts about our flight back that night; it would suck to get in at 11:30 pm tomorrow night and then have to go to work the next morning. We called the airline to see what our options were and to see if we could do standby. Delta apparently doesn't offer standby anymore. They'll change your flight and confirm you for $25 per ticket. We found a flight leaving at 1 pm instead of 5 pm that got us into SFO at a much more reasonable hour.

The next day I cashed in my lottery tickets and headed to the airport. That walking stick didn't fit in my bag of course, so I had to carry it. As soon as I put it down after going through security, I forgot it. Just before the plane was to board, I remembered it, ran back and found it with the security people. For the rest of the flights we were always asking if we had the stick.

The flights were largely uneventful. Having a GPS on the plane really helps. I like to know exactly where I am and what I'm looking at it. I just wish it worked more than a few inches away from the window.

Annoucement: I have a new addiction: Wetzel's Pretzels. We walked a long way in the Cincinatti airport both going east and west so I could get a cinnamon one with a frozen lemondade. Mmmm.

Now we're back home and catching up on laundry, mail, and other menial chores. It's nice to be back in our own bed again with our own ornery cats and reliable internet access and plentful geocaches in a 50-mile radius. Life is good. Especially when there are half a dozen Wetzel's Pretzel's with an hour's drive from here. Mmmmm.

Even more ways to save money at Amazon

Amazon is offering a 1.57% discount for users of its new A9 search engine. They're not promoting it, but when I went to amazon today, they linked me over to this page explaning the nerdy percentage.

Of course, I'm only suggesting that you use A9 enough to get the discount since there are better ones out there. Throw that on top of referral credit and the Amazon.com visa, and you can save a lot.

That didn't take long at all

I wondered how long it would take to get my first spam after registering winnepocket.com. The answer: two days.

From: [email protected]
Subject: winnepocket.com
Date: September 17, 2004 10:27:05 PM PDT
To: [email protected]

Hi,

I was doing some domain searches and I saw you JUST registered
winnepocket.com?

I thought I would take a chance to ask you - are you interested
in making money online?

If I could show you a really easy way to build a long term monthly
residual income online using winnepocket.com with a revolutionary
company, would you be interested? (it costs nothing to get going)

The company is Inc500 listed and has customers in 200+ countries - they
are very solid and are one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

Anyways, I just saw your domain and thought I might ask you.

Take care,

Nesha

Quote of the Day

"What am I going to do with it? Are you kidding? I'm going to sell it!"

- Steven Williams, a 25-year-old man from Pacifica, California who ended up with Barry Bonds' 700th home-run ball, estimated to be worth $250,000

Welcome to Winnepocket.com

On a whim, I registered a domain name. I'm now the proud owner of winnepocket.com.

Winnepocket is the name of the lake in New Hampshire where my parents have our summer cottage aka "The Camp". I have many fond memories there. Having just returned from vacation there, it was on my mind and I started searching for it on the web. I was surprised to see the .com domain was not taken (nor were .net, .us, or any others). Then again, I'm not sure many people are looking to squat domains for small lakes in New Hampshire.

I've heard good things about GoDaddy, so I popped over there and reserved the domain for 2 years for $16. GoDaddy sure is cheap and the registration was not difficult, though they do try to upsell you quite a bit.

Now I have no idea what I'll do with this domain, but I like the name. Maybe it would be good name for a company someday. Currently the web site forwards to boulter.com and all emails are forwarded to me. Anybody want a @winnepocket.com forwarding address?

I wonder how long it will take before I get my first spam.

pet peeve #386: less than minimal effort in formatting email

its really annoying when people dont even try to format their email in
any sensible way... the shift key is not that hard to find folks... use
it to make it easier for people the visually parse your message... and
learn how to use more punctuation than just elipses... senstences end
with a one period not three of them... go nuts and throw in a few
returns every once in a while... 10 lines of text get really hard to
follow when you have to find the next line... one more tip... every
modern emale progrm has a speling checkar... turn it on... i think this
problem will only get worse though... everyones phone will soon become
an email terminal and the messages i get from blackberry users punched
out on those tiny keyboards are already pretty much unintelligible...

The Baby Virus

There's a new virus going around - and it's producing babies.

That's about the only explanation I have for why just about everyone I know either just had a kid, is pregnant, or wants to be pregnant.

I know I'm "at that age" where people tend to start popping out future farm hands, but it's getting ridiculous. Many of the people I know in baby mode aren't even my age.

Every week, Anne gets off the phone with one of her friends and announces that they're pregnant. Having kids is great and all, but there's something strange going on.

Literally every woman I work with regularly is in some stage of baby production. Half of them look like they're smuggling basketballs under their shirts. Now of course as an engineer, there generally aren't many women around, but still - all 3 in my department have infants or about to have them. Another guy's wife had a kid last week. We have special parking for women in late-term pregnancies close to the building - they're always full. It's just crazy.

Whenever we go out, we see pregnant people everywhere - in restaurants, stores, or walking down the street. There's definitely more than there used to be.

All of this is constant reminder that, hey! - we're currently childless! But we have no immediate plans to change that. Peer pressure is definitely not a good reason to have a child anyway. Plus, children are scary and expensive. I really don't understand how people have the time and money to raise children a single child, nevermind multiple at once.

What could be causing this new baby boom? Post-Iraq war optimism? Low mortgage rates? A growing economy? Imminent alien invasion? Maybe it is some new virus.

Me, I'm still getting over a cold from last week.

Oh, crap.