meme, Meme, MEME, MEMEMEMEMEME!

I guess there's a reason Meme has two me's in it. She Says actually sent me an email meme. Email! That's spam, young lady. It should land you in the same bucket on my computer as wang enlargement, cheap viagara, Nigerian money scams, and Me So Horny 4U, if it weren't that I'd added you to the exception list long ago. Fine...I'm moving your meme online. I don't do chain letters. Kyle, I tag you in Facebook. Andrew, you too. And LissyJo and Pooteewheet and Larry. As Roma Downey would say, you've been touched by a meme.

1. What is your occupation right now? Technology Manager (specifically, Technology Manager, Migration
2. What color are your socks right now? Tan with some dark brown diamonds
3. What are you listening to right now? Pooteewheet listening to raunchy comedy on our free Showtime

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale. Once again, beer is food.
5. Can you drive a stick shift? That's all we own. Better gas mileage, eh.
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? I'm going to assume this includes Skype because Skype is kewl - Erik the Swede.
7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? I traveled across the country to meet her, so yah.
8. How old are you today? As old as She Says...almost.
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Bicycling.

10. What is your favorite drink? I drink more coffee than anything else, but my favorite drink is beer, followed closely by Scotch, followed closely by Bourbon (I'm a George Thorogood song).
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Hell no. I saw what my brother looked like when he dyed/bleached his blonde. That's a bad look for the men in my family. I'm peppered with gray except where it's completely disappearing.
12. Favorite food? I may have answered something else recently, but at the moment sushi comes to mind.
13. What is the last movie you watched ? Man on Wire

14. Favorite day of the year? Eryn's Birthday

15. How do you vent anger? Ooo...tough one. Could be mopey, but I did that more in the past (though not exclusively). Exercise (on the bicycle, in case someone was wondering if I was talking about sex), perhaps. At least that's always how I want to diffuse it.
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? ATV 6 wheeled vehicle? Maybe my scooter? The one thing I still have is my kangaroo skin covered koala bear.
17. What is your favorite season? Fall, before it gets too cold to ride bicycle.
18. Cherries or Blueberries? Absolutely blueberries.
19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? No. That's why I put this on the blog. But they may put this on their Facebook account and change the question to "Do you want your friends to tag you back".
20. Who is the most likely to respond? Pooteewheet, if she ever reads my blog.
21. Who is least likely to respond? My brother. He never reads my blog.
22. Living arrangements? Second tier suburb, two cats, several fish, family of three with almost 1000' square feet each (too much!).
23. When was the last time you cried? When my project developed a third major problem? No...I don't cry over spilt projects. Man on Wire made me sad because he has so much more passion than I have for anything.
24. What is on the floor of your closet? Poker chips. Shoes. Some book on positions we don't use that needs to go away before Eryn finds it. Wrapping paper. Writing helper we use to set the laptop on to watch videos so it doesn't sit on the comforter which blocks the air intake.
25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to? Kyle - we've been friends a long time.26. What did you do last night? Read documentation on ADABAS systems.
27. What are you most afraid of? Not being able to bike. I once, shortly after my first eye was zapped for lasik, very afraid of blindness. I have a slightly irrational (up for debate) fear of sharks.
28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburger? I prefer spicy, but it's usually not an option.
29. Favorite dog breed? Corgi, although I've never owned one.
30. Favorite day of the week? The busiest day of my work work that's not busy because of meetings, but which leaves me time for lots of fun with Eryn and Jen.
31. How many states have you lived in? OR, NY, CA, MT, ND, MN...I think. So 6.32. Diamonds or pearls? She Says is wrong. This is equally geared toward men. Men prefer pearls on their women.
33. What is your favorite flower? I like roses.

34. If you could change one major decision in your life, what would you change? This is a tough one. I would like to see what it would have been like to go to Wales and become a PhD in British History. That would have precluded my wife and daughter. So I guess I wouldn't take it back - I'm just interested in what it would have been like. It hink I would have decided to spend more time with my grandparents - the ones who have passed on. I knew them, but not as well as I wish I had.

I'm About Done With the Memes - Three Things

Ming tagged me, otherwise I'd have ignored this one...

Three names I go by:
1. Scott
2. Scooter
3. Dexter

Three jobs I've had in my life:
1. Picking weeds out of a lake
2. Boy Scout Camp Counselor
3. Technology Manager

Three places I've lived:
1. Schnectady, New York
2. Klammath Falls, Oregon
3. San Jose, California

Shows I Watch
1. Fringe
2. Dirty Jobs
3. Damages (Thanks Erik)

Three places I've been:
1. C&O Canal Trail, Maryland (and D.C.)
2. Elroy Sparta Trail, Wisconsin
3. Cedar Falls, Iowa during RAGBRAI

People who e-mail me regularly:
1. Ming
2. Mean Mr. Mustard
3. A particular Project Manager

Three of my favorite foods:
1. Rhubarb && (Some Berry || Some Fruit) Pie
2. Beer (beer is food)
3. Chipotle Burrito

Three friends I think will respond
1. Jen
2. Mean Mr. Mustard
3. She Says

Things I'm looking forward to:
1. RAGBRAI 2009
2. Eryn starting first grade
3. Riding with Ming, Adam and Kyle this spring and summer

Scooter Needs

She Says gave me a meme to complete on Facebook. I thought about it, and decided I'd better do both my nickname and my real name. So here we go. Just Google your first name with the word "needs"--e.g. "Scooter needs," and list the first ten (non-redundant) results. This is a bit confusing, because I'm not sure if you're supposed to list only the ones with Scooter Needs in the very first part of the title, or if you're supposed to interpret a bit and pull out the chunk that says basically "Scooter needs xyz". I'm going with the later interpretation as it makes more sense. So here it goes...

Version 1, Scooter Needs:

1. Scooter Needs a Plane Ticket to California
2. Scooter Needs - Portland [ed. conveniently close to California]
3. (Blind) Scooter Needs Your Love
4. Scooter Needs an Amputation - PLEASE HELP
5. Scooter Needs More Power
6. Scooter Needs Your Help
7. Scooter Needs Parts
8. Scooter Needs Power Boost
9. Scooter Needs Attention
10. Scooter Needs BDRM/STE in Caring Home

Version 2, Scott Needs:

1. Scott Needs Nude Models [ed. duh]
2. Scott Needs This
3. Trials and Tribulations: Scott Needs
4. The Fat Triplets >> Scott Needs
5. Scott Needs a New Liver
6. Scott Needs a Real Serious Butt Chewing
7. Scott Needs More Sleep
8. Scott Needs Help...Drinking Vino
9. Scott Needs a Ride at the Insider
10. Scott Needs - London

Geocaching Shenanigans

Yesterday, The Boss (not to be confused with my wife, a different kind of boss, and not to be confused with my real boss) and I went geocaching in Kaposi Park in South St. Paul. We managed to find four caches out of the five. This one was our coup. It's called "Tunnel Vision" and somewhere in this picture (not necessarily visible) there's a cache hidden. We found it, officially making us the Second (and Third) To Find. And not because others hadn't been looking. The web site is littered with Did Not Finds. We spent a lot of time wandering around, pondering the area and the title. At one point, I climbed up over the tunnel arch, paranoid that I was going to slide off the side and fall 20-some feet and break my leg, if lucky. But embracing my inner monkey, I made it, and yelled, "I FOUND IT!" When The Boss came walking out of the tunnel, I pushed about 4 inches of fresh snow on his head.

We left for a while without finding it. Came back. Bumped into a couple of cachers and introduced ourselves as Juggle87 and NodToNothing, and then had an epiphany. I missed the cache the first time, even though I was in the right spot, and some fine second sweeping by The Boss grabbed it. I have a picture of the location, but I'm not going to post it. It was a fine trick. Too fine to give away to the likes of you.


Here's one of the other caches we found for which I will show a picture. I spent a few minutes trying to grab it wondering how in the hell anyone could get it if my arms weren't long enough, when I realized there was a suspicious stick nearby. A general rule of geocaching - when you can't reach it, look for a supicious stick. Here's The Boss with the cache.


And me with the cache. I have snowpants, boots, and four layers of upper clothing on. By the time we were done I was exhausted from clomping around in all that outerwear. I fell down once on a hill, and I can still feel the spot on my knee where I whacked a tree, but it held up after 28 miles on the trainer, so I'm going to assume I didn't chip a bone.


Eryn and I went out last week. We found a Third To Find, which was our best so far. After spending an hour looking for one in an ice skating rink that included the hint "in the winter you'll need an extraction tool" (?) we were happy to find at least one we could add to our list.


It is that small. Here's Eryn modeling the size compared to her head, which is roughly the size of a big cantaloupe. Later we went to play in the park and throw wet tennis balls at each other. The hill behind her in the picture (just past the trees) was so iced over she could sled down it on her butt.


One of the things that confused us while caching was this wall. There's no baseball diamond nearby. It's just sitting there. No marks, like it's a backstop for golf or batting practice. No instructions. No plaque, announcing it as the Something River Hills Memorial Wall and Performance Art Exhibit. It's just a wall. In the park. For no discernible reason. You can't see it in this picture, but just to (your) right is a small child who felt it was a good idea to take a sled down an ice hill much like the one I referred to in the last paragraph. Except his hill ended in a tar-covered trail. So did his ride. And his head. There was considerable bawling and Eryn noted, "That was stupid." Good girl.

Bizzaro Earth?

Eryn and I saw this playground spinner while we were out playing. I'm pretty sure that's Africa. But if it is, and we're looking at Africa basically from the south, where is Antarctica? It's not made entirely of snow and ice - global warming couldn't have completely taken it out. And where is Atlantis, now that Google has revealed it to exist somewhere just to the west? And what the hell are all those dark blue areas compared to the light blue areas? I don't see that on any oceanographic map. What do they know that I don't? And why does the map have to be continent-of-Africa centric when we're living in the United States? I heard all the US/Europe centric map politically correct discussion while I was in college, but shouldn't the map be centralized on where you live? That would seem to be the PC answer that could be appropriately addressed in this day of targeted production, at least if you're not a playground designer/producer getting your undies in a bunch over immigration issues vis a vis the playscape. After all, English gets the priority location at the bottom, so it's not like the designer is avoiding the PC issues inherent in the choice of global positioning. There's not a specifically African language on the whole spinner, unless you include English and French as languages spoken in some African countries.

There's a lot to think about while spinning this piece of the playground. For my part, I would have made the global map top to bottom and completely around the spinner. That would have stopped individuals like me from using up playground space while cogitating what the hell was going on, and would have addressed the PC issue gracefully, as well as the Antarctic issue, if that's indeed Earth. Eryn eventually had to drag me away and insist that I stop speculating because she was getting cold.

Abraham Lincoln is DREAMY

Proof, in case you don't believe me. Pooteewheet said pretending to shoot him with my finger from behind would be entirely inappropriate, which had the subtext of "offensive", so I refrained from being a total tool, despite not really caring what people in Richfield think of me. When we came back out of the coffee shop thirty minutes later, Abe was missing his hat. Fortunately, he has that cap next to him for just such an emergency.

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Tall Brad asks the question on his blog, "How did you spend your President's Day?" I spent part of mine with him and his family, wandering around the overly crowded Minnesota Zoo after an early breakfast at the St. Clair Broiler (which included Ming and Mean Mr. Mustard).

Here are some things I got to see at the zoo that Tall Brad didn't get to appreciate.

Koreans have big nuts and if they want to keep them, they should stay away from bears and boars.


Tiger friendly products are coming soon. Like this gun. Which you can use to hunt furries dressed as tigers, or the cast of The Lion King. Because furries embarrass real tigers.


Brad was even in the vicinity when I took this movie. This is a guy playing Cheeseburger in Paradise on the steel drums. His audience? About 80 children in a giant sandbox. The economy is tough, and you should take the gigs you can get, but I bet this wasn't his original career aspiration.

I Suspect Tall Brad and Kyle

I suspect Tall Brad and Kyle, although it could be Ming, Klund or Mean Mr. Mustard. I certainly don't suspect my wife. She may suspect that I'm starting to develop a low level of disdain for Facebook, or at least for any of my time spent on Facebook.

Skype Concerto in E Minor #1

This is what passes for amusement at our house now that we use Skype. Eryn on guitar. Grandma on harmonica.

Girlfriend

I was on the elevator at work today and there were two men and two women (about half my age, or twice my age if you add them together) having a discussion which culminated in one of the women stating, "No. His current girlfriend died with him."

That's an interesting (un)living arrangement (ha!). I managed not to laugh until I got off the elevator, by which time I realized they were talking about Grizzly Man, although I think she could have phrased it more clearly.

Marines - Potentially a New Slogan

Monday, on the way to breakfast in St. Paul, Eryn and I passed a billboard advertising the Marines. I asked her what she was looking at and she said the big poster for the Marines. Then there was a pause from the back seat after which she added, "I'm really good at kickball. I might have to join the Marines."

Code Freeze 2009

I just noticed this in my drafts. I started writing up some details around Code Freeze, and then just left it sitting there. For some reason, I thought I had posted it. I'm only posting it now so it gets indexed and I don't forget the books/links I was interseted in from the conference...

Last week, on a day so cold we stayed in the sun while walking to lunch to avoid sticking to the sidewalk, a number of us from work attended the University of Minnesota Code Freeze 2009. In the past there have been a few coworkers there, but this year there was a complete contingent, including two coworkers who were coordinating the conference, folks from my department, folks from Findlaw, alumni of Findlaw, a folk from TTA, and others from the content area.

I've been to two other Code Freeze events in the past and the scope of the topic is generally pretty broad "Innovation" in 2008 (with a lot of Agile talk), "Global Systems, Global Development" in 2007 (with a lot of offshoring talk), and "Maximizing Developer Value" this year (a mix of how not to get interrupted, agile, estimating, testing and the odd other topic).

Neal Ford spoke on "On the Lam From the Furniture Police". I thought he was by far the most interesting speaker and his presentation was enjoyable with a good sense of humor and specifics about how to avoid "context-switching" as a developer, that problem we've all had that we just get going on code when someone drops by to talk about something completely unrelated. It's not just a developer problem. It happens to everyone. It even happens to managers, as I can attest in my recent role trying to coordinate two distinct workstreams that kept stepping on each other. When I worked with our large, priorprietary database, I worked with a dozen partners at once and seldom had issues with flipping from project to project (to project to project) even within the same few minutes. However, when I was doing the role of a data analyst and my standard role earlier in that job, when I had much less work overall, switching between the two roles often threw me for ten or fifteen minutes each time I moved from one to the other. It's interesting that context switching can be context specific.

Ford also talked about the value in engaging both sides of your brain, the logical and the holistic (intuitive, call it what you will - the side that says "aha" about problems). He then related this back to context switching by pointing out that it took a lot of work to get your right side engaged while coding, and context switching was death to your aha moments.

So what does Mr. Ford offer as ways to reduce context switching and engage right brain thinking? Toys - provide some little toys and brain teasers so that the left side of the brain is engaged in a repetative activity allowing the right side to override the noise. Get rid of "pin prick" distractions. Turn off your notifications. Use a tool like Tweak UI to turn off balloon tips. Employ a screen dimmer like Jedi Concentrate that ensures the window you're working with garners your attention. Use tools to track relationships like an external brain (he called it an exo-cortex): a notebook, Personal Brain (perhaps useful for writing a novel as well), Larry's Any Text File Plugin (in conjunction with Google Search), and using Rooted Views.

Use automation and continous integration to cut down on unnecessary distractions from your own code. Use virtual desktops to mimic how you would lay out papers on a larger desk. Have walking meetings. Exercise. Take a nap at 3:30 each day. Don't work in a cube. Avoid sitting where the noise is heterogenous instead of homogenous. I see this last one in effect at work almost every day. We have developers who work on a particular type of project and they seem very capable of flipping between those projects and avoiding the context switching associated with many projects, although we have initiatives to try and ensure that any one person is on a minimal number of projects for that reason. However, in the same area are developers who are on completely different types of work, whose day-to-day worries are more along the troubleshooting line, tackling a problem of the day, or a tricky hardware issue. When they meet to discuss the issue of the day, it can suddenly engulf everyone nearby, even developers from other areas who can't avoid the heterogenous noise.



Books mentioned:
Andy Hunt: Refactoring Your Wetware
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
Raston - Human Interface (locus of attention)
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
The Productive Programmer

Nate Schutta - Hacking Your Brain for Fun and Profit
Nate was the second presenter, and the only other one I want to talk about. Susan Standiford, Andy Miller, Tomo Lennox and Luke Francl were interesting, but they weren't on topic with anything that resonnated with me. Nate continued Neal's presentation in some respects, focusing on what there was in the brain of a developer that lent itself toward productivity. He focused on some of the physiological effects of not sleeping enough, not getting enough exercise, email apnea, and continuous partial attention. He offered up solutions such as no-meeting Fridays, f-off flags (in use at TR in a few places), and a zero inbox. All great ideas. While talking about the importance of sleep, he referenced these amusing videos of Peter Tripp staying awake for 8 days.

Part I - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXrANL9aqz8
Part II - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R8jNJFFzS0&feature=related

Books mentioned:
Brain Rules
A Whole New Mind
Mind Hacks
Your Brain: The Missing Manual
Lifehacker (GTD)
Getting Things Done
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
43 Folders (web site)

Dollhouse - A Short Review

TallBrad pointed out a few weeks ago that Whedon's Dollhouse would be premiering soon, and I've had it on my calendar for quite some time. Pooteewheet tried to record it for us, but managed to record wrestling instead. Doh. We'll ship that disk off to Dan'l (I don't have Tivo yet - I don't record enough to make it cheaper than a DVD recorder). Fortunately, there's Hulu, so I watched it today while bicycling despite that it was a little jittery (lot of people watching it? It definitely wasn't my connection).

I think Pooteewheet will like Dollhouse better than I did. She was a big Charlie's Angels fan, and for some reason I was getting a bit of that vibe off the show, although perhaps that's because it was the first episode and the writing for the characters isn't firmed up yet. I do wonder how someone can maintain their eye candy, hot body, physique if they're just lying around getting massages and sleeping in a high-tech coffin. If I were programming personalities as a nerd-zombie-master I'd make sure the default involved a penchant for exercise. To keep her arm muscles in shape we should see Eliza working out, not taking a relaxing nap. And those high tech sunken beds make me twitchy as someone who spends a lot of his waking time in a cube. It's hard enough trying to keep your personality while inhabiting a cube, but Dollhouse implies if you fail and lose your personality, you'll spend the rest of your time there as well.

Whedon must not believe in Hemline Economics either. If he did, there's simply no excuse for Eliza Dushku's short white dress in the early dancing scene. It screams economic prosperity, not global downturn. She's wearing a pre-mortgage crisis dress. Maybe it's implying that the rich who can afford a doll, those who didn't have money with Madoff, are still rich and optimistic, unlike the rest of us.

In the end, I'm having a problem getting past the idea of dolls as anything other than morally reprehensible, and I didn't think the writing was as good as other Whedon projects, which meant it wasn't able to overcome my moral issues with a clever hook. I'll watch a few more to see if takes a turn for the better, but I worry that a character without an overarching personality (I realize that's the point. By the way, kudos on the vacant stare, Eliza) - and the personalities of Whedon's characters, like Nathan Fillion as Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly -will be difficult to connect with.

25 Random Things Meme from Shannon

ARGH. Sucky Facebook Memeites. I curse you. I'm going to make a meme with 1000 things and make all of you answer it. Well, 1000 of you, and you'll have to pick 1000 friends and tag them and make them answer it. And I'll be a huge asshole and make the last instruction "add one extra item". I'll call it "Memefucktacular" and it shall rule you all.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

I refuse to tag 25 people...that's invasive. I'm tagging 12.5.

1. I used to play in the cupboard.
2. I used to be a gleaner for potatoes and tomatoes.
3. I watched my mother fall down on the ice while skating and crack her head. She bled all over the ice.
4. I watched my mother pour a full pot of scalding coffee on herself.
5. I ate my father's half of his canteloupe and ran away.
6. Most of the houses in our neighborhood in Klammath Falls burned down in a big fire.
7. I heard a duck say "Hello".
8. My friend dropped a large rock on my finger. I lost a fingernail.
9. A great dane bit me in the ass.
10. A guy stole all our stereo equipment. The great dane didn't stop him.
11. My parents gave away all my wheat pennies to the owner of the great dane.
12. My father, uncle, grandfather and I got our truck stuck up to the runners in mud and had to walk back to the farm.
13. Am I done yet? Skip forward a bit. I pulled aluminum cans out of YMCA campground trash bins, covered in coffee grounds and baby diapers, to make enough money to fund a bike trip to Wisconsin.
14. I biked to Wisconsin with my friends. The next year I biked to Duluth. During those events there were baby powder fights and streaking.
15. I hit my girlfriend in the butt with a snowball from several hundred feet away.
16. I squeezed a girl's elbow at a party, not realizing it was her breast.
17. I went to RPI on a ROTC scholarship. Neither worked out.
18. I bounced across a field in a station wagon toward a cop who was ordering my friend to "Put down the gun."
19. I met my wife. She stopped me from going to graduate school in Wales. But it worked out.
20. I had Eryn. She's great.
21. I went to London. Took a picture of The Eye from the inside. Told my coworkers I'd pushed out my other coworker who was along. And was told by one of them that that wasn't a funny joke at all.
22. I was given a knowing look by people who assumed three guys in a tent in Wisconsin were gay.
23. I left programming to pursue non-programming things that were generally stressful to people who continue to be programmers.
24. I went on RAGBRAI, the ride across Iowa.
25. I failed to eat a 30" pizza with four friends.

16 Things Meme

I'm cross-posting all the annoying memes people (that means you, She Says) are subjecting me to on Facebook. Here's the 16 Things Meme.

Write 16 things about yourself and tag anyone who is part of the 16 anecdotes.

1. I have ridden RAGBRAI, the ride across Iowa, and I'll be riding it again this year.
2. I'm an Eagle Scout.
3. One of my goals in life is to be able to sing a Spanish song while playing the guitar.
4. I once made a toast as a best man that referenced streaking.
5. I once went streaking and was caught by my (female) science teacher.
6. I was in two musicals in high school: Annie Get Your Gun and The Sound of Music.
7. My part in The Sound of Music required no singing.
8. I was my class valedictorian.
9. I was on the girl's tennis team in high school.
10. I hate to work with computer hardware.
11. I have more bicycle art than anyone else I know.
12. I like Scotch.
13. I am, with my family, in the top 5000, almost the top 4000, bands for Wii Rock Band II. That's more embarassing than it might seem on first read.
14. I have several dozen complete short stories I've written, almost all of them unpublished.
15. My favorite vacations are bicycling vacations.
16. I need to finish up my taxes.

Facebook Meme - Your Name Here

Rules: It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag ten people. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up and no googling! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name : Scott. Or Scooter if you prefer the nickname.
2. A four Letter Word : suck
3. A boy's Name : Sasha
4. A girl's Name : Sasha
5. An occupation : Is skank an occupation? Probably not. So...Streetwalker.
6. A color : Scarlet
7. Something you'll wear : Skivvies
9. A food : Stew
10. Something found in the bathroom : Soft towels.
11. A place : Scot(t)land
12. A reason for being late: socially illiterate
13. Something you'd shout : SUCK IT!
14. A movie title: Sabrina (with Audrey Hepburn)
15. Something you drink : Summit (what else?)
16. A musical group : Social Distortion
17. An animal : skink (not to be confused with the aforementioned skank)
18. A street name: Sunset
19. A type of car: Smart Car
20. A celebrity: Scarlett Johansson

Don't Kick the Baby

Our Rockband II rock band has a face. I'm easy to identify. Can you tell which one is Pooteewheet and which one is Eryn?

MinneDemo

On Friday night I went to MinneDemo with Erik and Ming at the Intermedia Arts theater. I'd never been to a MinneDemo before, and if you haven't either the rules are that the presenters have to present on working software, have approximately seven minutes to complete their presentation, and cannot use a PowerPoint slide deck.

In addition, there's tons of networking with developers from around the Twin Cities. We bumped into Alan from work there, a friend of Erik's who used to work at Thomson, a guy from SAS who said I looked familiar (e.g. I look like my brother), Ed Kohler of The Deets (a real pleasure to talk to), Peter who used to work at Findlaw and was at CodeFreeze, and some guy who was sort of dressed as a poor man's ninja with a straw hat. For some reason that last guy focused on Ming, so the rest of us didn't have to deal with him. I'm not sure if he's the reason Ming snuck out later without telling us goodbye.

There was also free Surly. A lot of free Surly. I had the coffee and the Furious. The beer alone makes it the best developer event I've been to in a long time.

The presentations were good, at least the first four I saw. There were so many people at MinneDemo that only about 3/4 of them fit into the little auditorium. Even for the first four I was sitting on the stairs. There was a big screen in the entry way, where Erik and I stayed for the second half so that someone else could get a shot at the seats, but it was a bit fuzzy and impossible to hear. Fortunately, you can see them all at Minnov8. Re-searchr looked particularly interesting, albeit a bit slow. But they were streaming the presentations to the entry area, so it might have been a bit congested.

After the beer and the presentations, Erik and I went out for a late dinner at Fuji Ya Sushi on Lake. When we bellied up to the sushi bar, the place was packed. Two hours later we were completely alone. I hadn't been to Fuji Ya before and I strongly recommend the tuna flight (six pieces) and the tobiko wasabi roll that left little fish eggs all over the place. We were there long enough that the sushi chef prepared us a pineapple/strawberry/chocolate-raspberry sauce dessert as a free treat. Just a great evening.

Preparing for RAGBRAI

I made it just over 85 miles this week, fifty of it in the last two days. The good news is my December surgery doesn't seem to be impacting my ability to ride any more. According to my notes, last time I was training for RAGBRAI, back in 2007, and it was the second week of February, I was doing 115-135 miles a week. So I'm a little off target, likely due to bicycling about every other day rather than every day. But that's ok, because I tend to get bored of my trainer after 2.5 months, so this time it should carry me into the real season. If I start psyching myself up now, maybe I'll be mentally prepared to do those pre-6:00 a.m. rides when it gets above 35 degrees.

He's not a Princi-pal...

I'm glad we're looking at Thomas Lake, because it looks like Rahn elementary (AP via the StarTrib) could pose problems for someone Eryn going into first grade.

"EAGAN, Minn. – An elementary school principal could be disciplined for allegedly forcing a 6-year-old boy to unclog a toilet with his bare hands. The principal of Rahn Elementary has been on paid leave since mid-December..."

I remember how excited Dan'l used to get about the women at the doll factory plugging up the toilets all the time, and he'd have to snake them. But they were adults. If you're forcing a 6 year old to dig around in feces, no matter how angry you are about clogged toilets, you need to reevalute your job, the bleed over of personal issues at work, or how long it's been since you had a vacation.

Hanover

I was browsing the Lowe's advertisement today looking for a replacement kitchen faucet. I got as far as the bathroom faucets and started laughing. Here's the Hanover faucet. By PricePfister. It's a Hanover Pfister. Seriously? I wonder if they've ever seen Heavy Metal?

Eryn - Bicycle, Gymnastics, Drums

A couple of recent pictures of Eryn. She's getting tall enough to ride my bike trainer. Just a few more inches.


We've got her back in gymnastics in Rosemount. Here she is on the bars. In the spring she couldn't hold herself up at all. She seems to have a bit more muscle to weight now.


And we got our warranty covered drum heads in the mail, so the band is capable again. Eryn likes to drum, sing and strum. Sometimes she drums when the Wii isn't even on.

Klund Teaches Me To Skype

Primarily for Tall Brad and Mean Mr. Mustard. The proof.

Daddy Daughter Sweetheart Dance

Pooteewheet threw a picture of Eryn and I at the Eagan Daddy Daughter Sweetheart dance up on Facebook, but I thought I'd post something here as well so I could add a few videos of the dancing. The dance was on Superbowl Sunday, and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. central time. It was layered over the entire game. Fortunately, I came home for the last five minutes which were the most interesting.

I note the game, because the woman running the dance apologized to the audience several times for the date and assured everyone it would never be on that date again. On the positive side, Eryn got a teddy bear, a cloth rose, and a second teddy bear centerpiece because there were so many bears and centerpieces left over from no-shows that it was less of a lottery and more of a handout. I presume I'm a good Dad for going to a dance instead of watching the game.

We did have a great time. We got dressed up. Drank lemonade. Made Valentine's cookies. Colored heart magnets. And danced. I felt bad because some of the fathers lifted their daughters up for a slow dance, and Eryn's just too big for that (or I'm too weak...take your pick). She looked like it made her feel a bit sad, but she seems to understand. She stated after the first hour, her hair a bit sweaty, "Dad. Dancing is like exercise."

So here we are, dressed up for the dance. My suit hasn't been out of the closet in so long the shoulders were dusty. I'm not sure I've had it on since Eryn was born.


Here's Eryn dancing for the camera. Hamming it up a bit.


And here's me doing a white guy dance with her, although I can't quite get her to stop dancing for the camera. We didn't really capture her favorite move in this video. The spin. She likes to spin, until it looks like she should puke. One hand spin clockwise. One hand spin counterclockwise. Two hands,spin around and spin back. Spin around me with other spins, like a planet orbiting the sun. Sometimes it involved using the rose or the teddy bear as a pivot point. Made me dizzy just standing there.


The two bears have been named. The larger bear is Teddy Bear. The smaller bear is Teddy. I shouldn't complain. I once named two of the stuffed wiener dogs Pooteewheet owns Dick and Dick Dick.

Thanks

I owe Mean Mr. Mustard a thanks for the sushi set he gave me for my birthday today. Sure my birthday was two months ago, and he seems to have eaten the frozen lobster that came with the set, but I can find a use for the various Asian oils and lotions in the box.

And I owe Klund a thanks for hooking my family on Wii. Then Rockband. And now Skype. The other night we tried to use all three at once, and Rockband II failed us, allowing us to connect with complete strangers, but not the Klunds. I've messed around with my router, watched the traffic come through on the Wii IP, opened up appropriate ports, and I think we're still screwed. According to many posts online, often the friend-to-friend portion of Rockband II just does not work.