Worked a little late today due to the IBMs acting up. We did a minor upgrade to TSM and for some reason it caused the Clariion to detach in a really peculiar way. Made it tough to believe it was a software problem. Anyway, after a few hours, it seems it was related to the SANDISCOVERY option being enabled in the new TSM. It was enabled before, but after disabling it with the newer version, seems seemed to work fine. I guess SANDISCOVERY, IBM HBAs and EMC Clariion don’t like each other. I was always suspicious of SANDISCOVERY, but it because usefull on some Windows test servers I was messing with. This unfortunately calmed my suspicions. I wish we could have been a 100% IBM shop, but there is Quantum and EMC in the mix. Oh well. Humby took an “action shot” while we were trying to isolate the problem.
Also, I got a shot of cortisone in my heel the other day! I went to the podiatrist to address some complaints, shin splints, etc. I had something scary sounding, which really just means “sore heel”. I apparently abnormally pronate when I walk, and it was magnified by coming to NYC and walking much more. It’s all treatable and I might actually be able to get on the treadmill after this, instead of just the elliptical machine. He also remarked at how inflexible I was. He tried to bend my foot back to stretch my calf and it wouldn’t budge! That also has something to do with the pronation, so now I have to stretch regularly. Stretching is probably a good idea anyway, and I should probably stretch more than just my calf muscles. Maybe yoga is in my future. Hippies!

Normal day today. Just a photo of my workspace. I had a business idea on the way home. I’m too lazy to do anything about it, or even search the internet to see if someone has done it already. Just in case it is original, I wanted to document what I thought of so I can at least say, “I had that idea back in 2008!”
The idea is to web-ify trade conferences. I was listening to TWIT today, and they started doing a live stream while recording the show. As far as I know, they don’t offer the video for download later (Like Revision3), which is besides the point. While they film the show, he mentioned about 3000+ people were watching the stream. They also have the ability to distribute links to the listeners as they are talking, as well as monitor a chat room to asnwer questions as they come up (and are at least moderatly interesting) The technology to do this seems to have fallen enough that this is actually affordable to do even with a large audience. The market for the technical conference is shrinking. Maybe for trade conferences in general, but I’m only familiar with the technical ones. Comdex used to be the largest, but they are discontinued now. These conferences are extremely expensive, and these companies are getting less and less “bang for the buck” so they just stopped going. Apple recently said they are trying to reduce the amount of conferences they attend because they are getting their message out other ways.
The idea is to have a scheduled online event. Each “booth” section would have a streaming camera, product specialists, chat room, rss feeds, twitter feeds, all the other social buzz words. The idea is to have the same level of interactivity that you get from actually going to a trade conference in person. The audience can pre-subscribe to the different feeds they’d be interested in. They can log in to the chat room to ask about the battery life for whatever.
For each “booth”, you can send out a streaming kit, which involves a camera, laptop, software, and all the stuff to get up and running, or just send specifications and a software CD, and the presenter can have their own setup. You’d have your keynote’s and all the other stuff, but would be so cheap compared to the old way, they wouldn’t even need an approval on their expense report!
Anyway, I thought it was a good idea. We’ll see if we see it someday soon!

Finally got around to upgrading the camera. I got the Fuji f100fd. I just wanted a small camera that I could carry around anywhere, and still have a hope of getting a decent picture indoors in a low-light situation. I went to B&H, which had a good price, was close-by, and I got the instant gratification of buying in person. (Not having to wait for mail-order) The instant gratification was ruined a little bit by having to charge the battery for a couple hours before I could use it B&H was a bit of an experience. I’ve been there before, but never purchased anything. They have this pretty efficient system. There were a lot of people there, and a lot of people in line. But everything flowed very well. They have a neat little conveyor system that shuttles the stock to all different parts of the store. Probabably minimizes shoplifting, but also probably helps the flow of the purchasing process.
Anyway, I still haven’t gone through the manual yet. Just took a few photos on Auto, and the low-light sensitivity is definitely better than my old Canon elph. Here is a picture on the corner. Like I said, everything is still auto, and I’m not sure if the Auto mode is the best for normal outdoor-sunny shooting.

I came out of a foosball dry spell this past weekend. Scott B had a housewarming cookout (I will not call it a barbecue!) at his new place in Brooklyn. I had a good time, played lots of foosball. It’s a pretty large place with a backyard and 2 floors. 2 couples are living there and it was the first time I met the other couple. Quite a few people went. Most I’ve met before, but I met a few more. Finally played Rock Band. Drums are too hard, bass is too easy. That’s about all there is to that, video games get boring pretty quick.
Other than that, I did amazingly little this weekend. I did a couple things on my todo list, but that only involved picking up paper-shredder oil. I didn’t even get around to using it yet. I’m still backed up on shredding stuff. I got my jiffy steamer in finally, but I haven’t gotten around to using it. Once I do, I’ll hopefully be on my “wear a suit once a week” routine.
I hope this is doing a good job of communicating how bored and pathetic I’ve been lately! I must be in some kind of funk. Other than the party this weekend, I’ve spent most of my time sleeping and just laying on my bed listening to audiobooks! I’m giving myself one week to get out of it. By next sunday, I’m committing to be back on my exercise routine. Hopefully that will be enough to get me outta the funk. Oh well, at least I got a funny picture out of it.
My birthday is coming up and maybe this funk is related to that. I doubt it, because I don’t really think about it unless someone else says something about their birthday, and I remember “Hey, mine is coming up!” I’m not really into presents or anything, and it’s in the middle of the week, so eh. Whatever….
So the photo is a bit big, and I need to write more stuff to take up space, so the photo doesn’t wrap into the next post!
Ace just got back from the Philippines and he started work in Brownsville already! I thought he was going to come back here first, but I guess not.
Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog! I’ve been going back and watching some Arrested Development episodes. It was such a good show. GOB is my favorite character by far, but Jason Bateman is getting better this time around. He’s more subtle compared to GOB, so I guess I didn’t really get the character the first time I watched the 3 seasons. This time around, the characters are already built up in my head, so the mannerisms are more noticeable. I call it the Napoleon-Dynamite-effect. Arrested Development and Firefly are the 2 shows that I would actually pay to bring back! The Firefly movie helped a little, but I think they could have made the Preacher a much richer character, so I was a little disappointed. Ok, enough rambling…

I had to pull from stock photographs because I’ve been very lazy taking pictures lately. I should have taken some at the BBQ festival. The “Big Apple BBQ Block Party” was awesome, but I was unprepared. At least, now I have some knowledge, and it’ll be the dog’s bollox next year. The festival was at Madison Square park this past Sat-Sun, 12-6 on both days. Several booths offering different barbecue variations. If you approach the booths from the street, which is what every one did, you end up in Disneyland-style roped-off lines that barely move. It was also the first weekend this year that got over 95 degrees. I didn’t end up going until Sunday at around 2pm. I ended up going to the lines serving food that no one really wanted, since they were shorter! I did get to try Brunswick Stew, which I’ve never heard of before. The knowledge for next year: They have something called a “Fast Pass” which costs $100 and are limited in quantity (It was sold out before Sunday) This is basically a backstage pass and a debit card for barbecue! You just have to eat $100 worth of BBQ over the 2 days. You also get into the fenced off area behind the booths, so you don’t have to wait in line with the “riff raff” Next year, I’m getting their early on Saturday and buying a pass, straight off!
Last weekend, I also finished cleaning out my room. I brought several shipments of clothes to Salvation Army, and moved a few shipments of stuff to my storage facility. I ended up buying a full size hand cart with big wheels and nylon straps. Totally worth it. It made moving everything much easier.
Last, but not least, I finished upgrading my website. Upgraded Wordpress and moved to smugmug. I also tightened up the security on everything. Now I have no excuses for not writing and taking some photos.
By the way, the photo is from Lansdowne Road, maybe the best mini-burgers, and they have a cool sheet of ice that goes the length of the bar to keep your drink cold. Neato!

Ace graduated towards the end of May, and we celebrated by taking him to Bouley.  We went to Bouley, got the tasting menu and had the matching wines.  It’s one of my favorite things in the world!  Note to self, “don’t drink 2 Guinness before a multi-course meal!”  Grace couldn’t make it, so KC filled in.  Great time, food, wine.  A friend introduced me to the term “smarmy”, which is my latest source of amusement.  I think I have a few expressions which epitomize the feeling.  What do you think?  This is me in Bouley with one of the “smarmy” expressions.  I think I will pose smarmy for a while….
My Mr Ned suit is complete. (Wore it to Bouley)  I need to take a few more pictures of it to get a critique in the clothing forums, but I like it.  The only thing is that the armholes aren’t as high/tight as I would have liked it, so it feels a little restrictive if I actually move around in the thing.  Other than that, it was a good first custom suit experience, and I will come back to get it “just right”.  Great value too, since it’s about the same you would pay for a decent “beginner’s” suit at BrooksBrothers.  I got a very light 8oz wool, so hopefully I can wear this through the summer.
It has been a while since I updated this site, and I think it’s because I’ve been planning a few changes.  I’ve been wanting to update wordpress, but my photo gallery plugin wouldn’t have worked.  I’m not really a fan of managing my own gallery anymore, so I’m migrating to Smugmug. If you click on the photos link, you’ll see that smugmug lets you customize it pretty heavily.  I customized it enough to make it seem like its the same site as everything else.  The CSS isn’t perfect, and I’ll be working on it.  I also got the random picture on the front look to smugmug. The next thing is to upgrade Wordpress, which I’m looking to do this weekend maybe.