Yosemite: Day Two

I'm pretty exhausted right now. I've spent the past few evenings in San Francisco hanging out with friends, and it's a 40 minute drive home every night. Then an early morning! Fun, but definitely tiring. This weekend I'm heading down to Monterey, which should be a lot of fun. I hear it's really pretty. And they have seals on the beach. They're not penguins, but what are you gonna do, right?

These are pictures from day two of the Yosemite Trip. We hiked about two-thirds the way up Yosemite Falls. Very tiring, but the views were amazing!

Remember: Clicking the pictures makes them more life size.

When you're stopped at red light, get out and look at the river! Everyone's doing it! California!

This is the river you follow into the park. To the left is a gas station. I decided not to take pictures of the gas station.

Another big rock. Otherwise known as a cliff.

This was looking out from halfway up the mountain.

Another shot. A different angle. Look! Snow!

Half Dome. Two-Thirds Sky. Full Excitement.

The river on the floor of the valley. Taken from a position that would have made Dad's hands sweat.

The culmination of a day of hiking. Yosemite Falls!

Okay. Bed!

Yosemite: Day One

Well, Yosemite managed to out live the expectations I had. And I'm quite okay with that. I only wish I had more time to spend there. I'm sure I'll be heading back sometime soon.

What I did get to see was amazing though. The valley is a something that really must be seen to be believed. So how about some pictures from day one of two. Expect day two pictures soon.

I'll probably be posting the text adventure soon. But I'm really tired right now.

I moved cubes again. I'm averaging a move every two months.

Hint: Click the the pictures and they get a little bigger.

Bridalveil Falls: Find The Rainbow

A Big Rock: It Probably Has A Better Name

We Stalked A Deer: The Women Watch

Here's The Deer!: Don't Feed The Animals

There Goes The Deer!: We Didn't Feed The Animals

Playing Games At The Lodge: I Came In Second

The Room At The Hostel: I Had The Top Bunk

New Camera

I got a new camera! I can take pictures with insane depth of field or even completely over-exposed.

Or I can take pictures of tonight's dinner and some books on my shelf. I'm good either way.



Also, I will spending most of Friday and Saturday in Yosemite National Park, so hopefully I'll have plenty of pictures to share.

Justin Gets A New Nickname!

(Yes yes, re-reading about my adventures at Alcatraz is getting boring..)

I've acquired a new nickname around the office. "The Troublemaker." The past few days it seems as though people have forgotten my real name. "Hey, there's The Troublemaker!" they'll say. Or, "Hey, everyone's talking about you Troublemaker!" The funniest part of it all is that I had no idea what they were talking about until just yesterday.

Apparently I caused quite the scene with some of the work I've been doing! Who says software engineering can't be exciting?!?

The hallowed story is as follows. Some of you might be aware of my current work, I believe I've posted on it previously. I've been prototyping our Next-Generation © product in a new technology. So I've been trying a lot of new things out, things that aren't currently in the product, but seemed like fun things to try out. They let my lease get a little too long it seems.

In this prototype I implemented something that I thought would be an interesting idea. Instead of going to a completely new page to get help for something on the screen, why not have a little expandable panel that will show you information about everything on the page. You can think of something like Microsoft Word that has a little page that you can open and give you a little more help. That was my thinking. This would update as you moved around. It was simple enough to build, it only took about a half day, and once it was built I moved on to other things and didn't really think anything more of it.

A few weeks after building it I gave a demo on all the work I had done on the prototype to my group. Much to my surprise, everyone on the group liked this "information pane". They began to sing songs and compose sonnets announcing the birth of a great new age in "information pane"-ology. So we put it on the back-burner as a "hey, wouldn't it be neat if..." idea.

Last week I had a small meeting with our documentation group, where they were demoing their newly purchased technology that was going to hopefully be used by all groups. It was nice, but we got to asking if we could get a little more access or control to the raw documentation so that maybe my idea could come to fruition. They didn't really understand what we were getting at, so I agreed to send them a link to the prototype so they could see what we were going for. So after the meeting I sent them a link with a small blurb about how it might be useful.

I don't hear anything back, so I assume they're just working on other things. No big deal.

Then at the beginning of this week I get the new nickname. At first just in passing, then it becomes my call-sign.

Apparently the documentation people hate this new idea. According to my boss they feel threatened by it. My boss has had a few meetings with them about it.

Luckily, I've been insulated from all this. But I did get a shiny new nickname. "The Troublemaker." I'm think my movie part will best be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or maybe I can play it myself? (A beautiful segue into a future blog about my acting classes. Yes, I'm taking acting classes!)

Alcatraz

And now, a few pictures from my time spent on Alcatraz. Please enjoy!

We make our approach! What horrors live inside those walls!

Well that looks welcoming.

So this is home. All the essentials within rolling over distance.

The headphoned audio tour made everyone feel like they were living the prison life.

The windows could use a little cleaning, but the view was nice! I don't know how someone could have been unhappy at a resort like this one...

She was windy. She was rainy. She gave us all she had.

There were birds ALL OVER! These must be the bad birds that steal bread from the other birds.

Ah, life on the outside must be great.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour! Tip your waitresses!

It's True What They Say

It's true what they say about money. If you have it, people will literally (not literally) throw more at you. With this in mind, my new bank (Bank of America) has decided that I should have a new credit card with a $7,500 limit, 0% interest for the first six month, and 4% thereafter. It apparently also gives you money back, or rebates, or does your laundry and finds you a suitable marriage partner. This, of course, dwarfs my current credit line of $1,000 with some arbitrary interest rate (and it doesn't even do your laundry). Apparently they didn't even check my credit report. They're so sweet. I deposit my bi-monthly check and the teller just says, "Your pre-approved for a good credit card right now if you want it." So I reply, "Okay." And, after a simple John Hancock, it's in the mail.

I really don't see myself using this thing, but who doesn't want to feel $7,500 more powerful. Ah, the sweet smell of power. Now to go buy a small country or something.

Three Realizations

One: I carry coffee better with my left hand than with my right hand. Which is weird because I'm right handed.

Two: The "relaxed" switch has begun. I realized this morning that I have worn nothing but t-shirts to work thus far this week. I'm currently wearing a plain black t-shirt with a pocket (sans pocket protector). That's what they get for sticking me in the remote region of the building I guess. Also, I've worn flip-flops two of the past three days and nobody's said a thing about it.

Three: The people here take me far more seriously as a programmer than I should be taken. All signs point to me being the lead front-end developer for our "next-generation" product. When did this happen and where are the hidden cameras?