Thanks to all the folks who looked after things while I was out.
You Know You're in Minnesota....
1 min read
This fine item was found at the Mantorville Marigold Days flea market.
For the non-scandinavians out there lutefisk is cod soaked in lye and generally smells as bad as it sounds.
Road Trip - To Cheyenne
2 min read
Made it into Cheyenne with pit-stops in Salt Lake City and Rock Springs, WY. Over 800 Miles.
I-80 construction is annoying
Got my first speeding ticket -- ever. NV state trooper nabbed me doing 89 in a 75. He was decent enough to write it up for 80.
The signs in the Salt Lake Desert/Salt Flats about Drowsy Driving were classic.
Salt Lake City was clean and tidy, very green and seemingly devoid of people. Maybe they overbuilt during the Winter Olympics and haven't filled it in yet?
Rock Springs is in the center of mining, and chemical country. Drove through looking for something to eat. Decided against it since no non-meat options were forthcoming. Popped into the Starbucks there, found out it would open in 2 weeks... Walked the dog in the remains of the old downtown, long since killed by WalMart. It's a depressing collection of strip clubs, and cheap storefronts for local services (karate, nails, haircuts, etc.)
Now in Cheyenne at a place at the edge of town. Trains going by now and again. Need to get to sleep so we can make the final 850 mile leg through Nebraska and Iowa....
Road Trip - To Winimucca
1 min read
So, we set out for Minnesota today. I-80 all the way to Iowa and then hang a left on I-35. Easy, right? Nah..
Due to navigational error and rush hour traffic in Sacramento we ended up on highway 50 to Tahoe. Beautiful drive, but well, slow. That and some confusion later and we were headed back towards Nevada by way of Tahoe City and Carson City.
That ate into our time a lot, so we only made it as far as Winimucca, Nevada. Another railroad town along the heavily trucked I-80 and the Southern Pacific Railroad.
[Note - - Writing this blog post one day after -- was too tired before.]
Tommy - Dog Model
1 min read
We had our dog Tommy photographed by Amanda Jones. She's terrific and I'm very happy with the few glimpses I got of the images as they came off the digital camera. Here's a photo of the happy puppy shot by former Six Aparter Matt Peterson:
Turns out Amanda is publishing a new book and wants to use one of the photos. It's coming out in March. How cool is that?
Bay XP Meeting Roundup 8/23/2006
2 min read
BayXP (The Bay Area Extreme Programming Group) had a small meeting at the offices of ThoughtWorks here in San Francisco. The topic was interesting things learned at the Agile 2006 conference.
I found a number of items to add to my reading list, Including Refactoring Databases and Working Effectively with Legacy Code. (See Links below)
Topics of discussion from the meeting included
- Coding Dojo - how to get hang of test-first development and Pair programming.
- A lot of talk about how Rails stacks up against upteen different Java Frameworks.
- The TDD Pair Programming Game is an interesting way of pairing that seems to make sense. It's like a dance. I write a failing test, you implement, then I refactor, then you write a test, etc.
- The best name for a talk that I've seen in a long time was Crushing Fear Under the Iron Heel of Action. It explored how to deal with team dynamics in an Agile environment, mostly by saying "What's the worst thing that can happen".
- Found out about a web site called Developer Testing. Another thing to add to the RSS reader...
- There was a short talk about Code Debt. Some people are surmising that Code Debt should be publicly disclosed in a companies SEC S4 forms via Sarbanes-Oxley. One interesting quote was that code is an asset and you should maintain that asset properly because assets "increase the means of production". If you don't maintain code properly and use correct process your software becomes a liability. (Or course that begs the question of who defines the Generally Acceptable Coding Practices (GACP!)
Ease At Work
1 min read
I was unfortunate enough to miss Kent Beck, one of the founders of the Extreme Programming speak recently here in San Francisco.
He asked "when was the
last time you were comfortable in your skin as a programmer? ...and
when did you last have that feeling at work?. " As usual Kent has hit upon some interesting psychology that really makes sense.
Here's part 1 of 8. If there's interest I'll post the other 7 segments. (Or you can find these at the Agitar website and some of it's also posted on YouTube..)
Julie needs a new pair of Shoes....
1 min read
So Julie found these very snazzy shoes in Japan, however the American counterpart to this company can't seem to order them for us. The web site is at http://www.atmos-tokyo.com/ubiq/iliscvs_ppl_re.html I stumbled throught the Japanese purchase forms, but it appears that this company is only set up to do local deliveries.
I'm looking for a size 24cm purple-esque as pictured below... Contact me at lindner@inuus.com if you can help me out.
A Visit to St. Francis
4 min read
I'm not one to share too much or go off writing long expositions, but sometimes events just do that to you..
My visit to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital was that type of event.
The Situation: After finding a stabbing pain in my chest making it difficult to breath and impossible to drive, Julie and I cabbed over to the closest emergency room: St Francis at Pine and Hyde. Right on the edge of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. Of course if I'd been able to get an appointment within a reasonable amount of time with the clinic I'm at this could have been avoided, but that's another story.......
The Scene: Baby faced doctor in clothes that look two sizes too big. Panes of glass more at home in a check cashing establishment. Scattering of beat up vinyl chairs and a TV tuned to really awful ABC sitcoms. Give my medical infomation, sign away my rights and waiting. No clue how long.
Enter two tourists. Overhear about their cable car incident, Palm frond stabbed in the eye. Next up a crazy confused guy doesn't know why he's there and no one cares. He's followed by a woman who has that prune-like junkie face with sunken eyes. That stuff will artificially age you.
"According to Jim" is playing their Halloween episode. It is truly awful. The volume is way too loud.
Next, get triaged after about 30 minutes. Nurse has no clue about what it is and no idea how long I will need to wait.
In the meantime orderlies are moving beds up and down the hallways containing people living on the lowest rungs of society. It's a mystery why they're there, where they're going and where they came from. Up and down the hallway.
The George Lopez show comes on. It's laughtrack is ineffective. Not funny. A half hour passes.......
Some student types drop by. They're talking excitably about star trek holodecks and a specific episode and what they'd change. And oh wouldn't it be great to have a 24 hour holodeck you could just drop by whenever... And wasn't there an evil Data and a good Data in one of those episodes...
An woman comes by in a wheelchair pushed by her young daugher, her bleached hair contrasting with her ebony skin. Parenting doesn't become her.
An alarm goes off. No one blinks, no one moves. I look at the blinking booping annunciator and notice the little man running from flames and ask if we should evacuate. Blank stares from the people waiting and no movement from the staff. We all wait.... It stops about five minutes later.
A "regular" comes in and says his teeth hurt like hell, and says hiya doing my friend, what brings you down here behind a pair of wide dilated eyes that just signal danger.
ABC's "The One" comes on. Badly dyed facial hair and people who can't sing. We walk out to the door, considering just leaving since I feel a little better.
Then major drama three people drop in. A woman says she's been stabbed. Another prunish faced woman and helps the woman in. She has the suntan that comes from being forced to live outdoors and is weak. The kid behind the glass gives her the papers, which she weakly tries to fill out.
While she's doing that I get called in. The Doc with the accent you can't quite place says that it's all just a muscle pull in my ribcage, and that it sure hurts doesn't it? Gets the nurse to jab my butt full of painkiller, gives me a prescription for more and sends me on my way. Try to ask him about the stabbed woman, but he just goes on about his business. Then we're done.
The stabbed lady is sitting there, still vacant look on her face. Dilated eyes guy with the dirty black hair rushes out saying "I mean nothing to these people" while an orderly tells him to not come back. Bad signing and even worse commercials are still pounding out of the TV.
We leave and get a cab home.