Red shoelace: 99 cents.
White shower curtain liner: $2.99.
Coming-up with a last-minute thermometer costume for a Halloween party: priceless.
That’s me on the left. I wore some red long johns that I’ve had around forever, and used some cardboard to make the thermometer.
That’s Kirk on the right, as Nicole Ritchie. (He let me wear the wig for about a half-hour!)
(Photo by Mike Solano.)
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I like Windows 7, a lot.
As with EVERY new version of Windows, it is neither as great nor as horrible as people have painted it. The one thing I like most about Windows 7 is the new taskbar. The user experience is definitely a little nicer and smoother. Windows 7 also runs a little faster than Vista, and the annoying “User Account Control” prompts are much less annoying. There are some other tweaks and enhancements, but otherwise there arent really any truly remarkable new features. If you have an existing system with Windows installed, you are likely eligible for the upgrade price of $129. I think that’s rather steep, personally. I don’t believe the upgrade is worth $129 for most people. So who should upgrade to Windows 7? – Those who like to keep up with the latest and greatest software.Posted via Posterous.
I like Windows 7, a lot.
As with EVERY new version of Windows, it is neither as great nor as horrible as people have painted it. The one thing I like most about Windows 7 is the new taskbar. The user experience is definitely a little nicer and smoother. Windows 7 also runs a little faster than Vista, and the annoying “User Account Control” prompts are much less annoying. There are some other tweaks and enhancements, but otherwise there arent really any truly remarkable new features. If you have an existing system with Windows installed, you are likely eligible for the upgrade price of $129. I think that’s rather steep, personally. I don’t believe the upgrade is worth $129 for most people. So who should upgrade to Windows 7? – Those who like to keep up with the latest and greatest software.Posted via Posterous.
A lot of people are up in arms about the new Facebook home page layout, but I actually think it was a smart business move. The new default view is intended partly to address the ever-growing problem of information overload. In an age where we’re being bombarded with more e-mail, more tweets and more information 24/7, the abridged view is actually something we should embrace, especially for those of us who have a lot of Facebook friends. (It can be a challenge to keep-up!) So now, Facebook is able to intelligently select the most relevant recent updates and bubble them up to the top for easy consumption. The following articles explain this well:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_facebook_newsfeed_filters.php
As an aside, a Facebook friend of mine posted on his wall today: "Soon there will be another FB release and you’ll all be wanting THIS layout back." So true. A lot of times we resist change, without even understanding why the change is being implemented. I’d like to commend whoever created the group "I AUTOMATICALLY HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK HOME PAGE."
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54155118564
A lot of people are asking: what’s the difference between "News Feed" and "Live Feed?" Here’s the deal: the News Feed is an abridged collection of recent updates… a sampling of the most interesting things that have happened recently. They are NOT in chronological order; Facebook is going to try to make an educated guess and show you the highlights that are most interesting and relevant to you. By contrast, the Live Feed is a complete list of all your friends’ updates, simply displayed in reverse chronological order.
I’m a little disappointed to see that Facebook hasn’t done a better job of explaining the difference. They could’ve added a little question mark icon, or a "What’s the difference" link to their (actually quite useful) help page on the subject, which you can find here:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=408
It’s important to note that the Live Feed defaults to show updates from up to 250 of your Facebook friends. If you are hell-bent on reading every update for all your friends, you may want to change this. To do this, switch to Live Feed, scroll to the bottom and click "Edit Options." Change the value in the "Number of Friends" section to the number you’d like to see; the maximum is 5,000.
I’ve seen a flurry of posts suggesting that people drag the "Status Updates" to the top of their Facebook navigation. I do NOT suggest doing this, because then you will ONLY see status updates. You won’t see your friends’ photos, videos, notes, or application updates.
By the way, I did some basic testing today, and it appears that once you switch to Live Feed, the setting is "sticky;" that is, it will stay that way the next time you logon. (I’d be interested to hear from people who have seen it behave otherwise.)
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Brian, Brian, Mike J and me swung downtown kinda last minute to see Zosia and her band “The Hugs” perform in an underground venue called The Bitter End. They are rockin’ my brain!
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Tonight Magic Mountain had a free concert: an Oingo Boingo tribute band which featured two actual original members of the band: Johnny “Vatos” Hernandez and Sam Phipps. The band was actually really good, even if the sound mix wasn’t great.
It was nice to hear (and sing along with) some of my favorite songs again live. There was a modest-sized but very enthusiastic crowd. And it was fun to be with Dave Cobb, who’s an old Boingo fan… he sang along too! The lead singer of the band actually sings for a Boingo tribute band on a regular basis, and he’s pretty darn good. (He even has the flaming red hair.) When I was a teenager, I had a big crush on Oingo Boingo’s sax player, Sam Phipps, who went by the name “Sluggo.” For a long time. Anyways, between him and the comic-strip character from “Nancy and Sluggo,” I was inspired to create my first online screen name: Sluggo, Jr. And the rest, as they say, is history.Posted via Posterous.
I’d forgotten about one last video left from Mexico that I hadn’t published yet.
Revelers had brought cans of shaving cream to The Zocalo for the big Independence Day celebration, and Chris got the brunt of it…
No, actually, he got all of it. (Dan, Temo and I escaped unscathed!)
The square was absolutely packed, and at times we could barely move!
The video ends with a few shots of the huge display of fireworks and lasers we saw.
(YouTube, 1min 30sec, work-safe)
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Visiting my folks for the weekend, and my (5 younger) sisters are coming, too. Should be a nice time!
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Dear friends and family:
As you know, I’m looking for work. I’m trying to be a little creative in my job hunt, so I am offering friends and family a "reverse referral" reward. If you can get me in the door at your company, and I accept a position there, I will personally pay you $500.
Here’s what I’m looking for:
· Full-time or contract work. (Not part-time.)
· Something in the San Diego area (Business travel and telecommute are also OK.)
· My specialty is advanced support and engineering of Microsoft Windows-based desktop for business. Suitable job descriptions will typically include the words "Desktop Engineer" or "Desktop Support III" (not I or II; I’m an experienced engineer, and I’m not looking for anything entry-level.) I am a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) but not yet a full MCSE. I have some experience managing staff and doing IT project management. Positions are a better match if they say "desktop" or "client." I’m not a strong match if the company is looking for heavy network or server engineering, and I also am not a developer.
How you can help me:
· You can deliver my resume to your manager, a hiring manager, or your HR department.
· You can direct me to a website where I can view open positions for your company.
· You can give me a personal reference if I apply or get an interview.
I’ll admit this is an experiment. It may fall flat on its face, but I thought I’d try.
Oh yeah. It has to be a company that YOU work for. (Not "I heard company X is hiring…")
Here’s a link to my resume and LinkedIn profile for your reference:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/MichaelYada
E-mail me if you have any questions or want to help me with some leads!
–Mike
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I’m finally catching-up on writing about my last few days in Mexico.
On Day 7, we went to Chapultepec Park. It’s huge! (Slightly larger than San Diego’s Balboa Park, according to Wikipedia.) Our mission was to enter "La Feria" amusement park to ride the famous "Montaña Rusa" wooden roller coaster, which was built in 1964.
La Feria is also home to a few other coasters, a walk-through haunted house, a freefall ride, bumper cars and other amusements. There was hardly anyone in the park, so we walked right onto everything.
First stop: we rode "Cascabel," a steel shuttle loop just like the old "Tidal Wave" coaster at Great America in Santa Clara, California. Way fun! We also took a ride on "Ratón Loco," which literally translates to "Crazy Mouse." It was definitely the "spinniest" spinny coaster I’ve been on, ever. WOAH, it was out of control!
Throughout the day, we kept looking at Montaña Rusa; we never saw it running. We figured it might just be opening late, so we kept moving. The freefall ride was rather tame, but afforded a nice view of the city. The haunted house was kick-ass. (Chris remembered it from when he visited Mexico as a kid, though they’ve most certainly updated some of the scenes and effects since then.)
By the time we’d seen the entire park, Montaña Rusa still wasn’t running, and I began to worry. We’d seen mechanics near the tracks, and the loading platform was absolutely empty. We wandered into the queue to see what would happen; an employee stopped us and said "we don’t run the ride unless we have at least 20 riders in the train." WOAH! It seemed as if there weren’t even 20 people in the entire park! But this was an important ride for me, so we decided to wait and see if any more riders showed-up.
Nothing.
So we got creative.
I walked-out to the midway and approached absolutely anyone that walked-by, even if they didn’t look like the roller-coaster-riding type. In god-awful Spanish I tried to explain that we needed at least 20 riders, and would they be willing to help us out? (Dan commented that the scenario felt very "Amazing Race-like…") Within a few minutes, we’d managed to scrounge-up 12 riders. (I can’t take all the credit… some of them seemed interested in riding anyhow.) But we still needed more. I kept at it… and I even bought a ride ticket for an otherwise-not-so-sure bystander! Within about 10 minutes we managed to reach 20 riders… so we filled the train and got our ride! Woot!
By the way… over the summer I rode 13 roller coasters, giving me a total of 228 in my lifetime repertoire, yay!
So after a few other afternoon side-trips we began to head home. We shuffled into the subway so we could get back to the apartment. It was very hot and humid in the train. I think each of us found a stray empty seat, so we sat.
And sat…
And sat.
After perhaps 20 minutes, we decided to get out of the subway and take a taxi home. Once we were in a taxi, we learned why the subway hadn’t moved: there had been a shooting in another station.
If you’ve been following my travel journal, you already know about the shooting. Here’s a more recent news story about the incident:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112987536
There’s also a wrenching video of the episode, caught on security camera:
(If we’d arrived just 20 minutes earlier, we would’ve been on a train that entered into the same station where the shooting took place.)
Apparently this guy acted alone, responding to a policewoman who caught him making graffiti.
We headed home to relax, change, shower, then get ready for a concert: we were to see jazz trumpeter Erik Truffaz perform live with Murcof, a talented (and woofy) electronica artist from Tijuana. It was quite the pairing, and we really enjoyed the show:
For our last full day in Mexico, we ventured out to Teotihuacan, about 25 miles from Mexico City. What a treat! Tlaloc (the Aztec god of rain) must’ve been in a generous mood that day, because we had absolutely gorgeous weather for the trip. There we saw a number of archeological sites, including the mighty Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon. They were gigantic… bigger than I expected! And yep, we climbed them:
So, that was my trip. The return flight home was super easy and comfortable; we hit no traffic between LAX and San Diego, and I have many memories and photos (and stories!) that will last a lifetime.
I’d like to send a special shout-out to my travel buddies for the Mexico leg of my "world tour:" Chris, Dan and Temo… I really enjoyed the adventures with them!
I’ll probably add one more wrap-up post here, just to catch-up on some loose-ends and share some tips I learned from my summer travels… (sometimes you learn the hard way!)
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