No words

What do you say to a friend who has lost his 32 year-old son to a motorcycle accident? I didn't know and still don't know. All I could do was give him a hug.

Commensurate With Ability

I posted a few job listings last week. For salary, I entered "commensurate with ability" instead of the usual "commensurate with experience." I would rather pay more for the less experienced candidate who can produce quality work over the industry veteran who has been wasting away for decades. There must be a study out there that seeks to identify the experience inflection point for software developers. My bet is that it's somewhere between 5 and 8 years. Sadly, I'm way past that number.

What happened to my hair?

On a fateful July Sunday morning, I engaged in a one-on-one basketball game with a colleague. The loser was to depart with all his hair. After a painful hour or so, I was that loser. Above was the result.

When I posted the picture on Facebook, it garnered more attention than the recent change in my relationship status. If my friends are to be believed, I'm the love child of Jet Li and the Dalai Lama.

My List

Since all personal blogs are thinly veiled expressions of self importance, I thought I would start a list of unusual facts about me:

• Never had a cup of coffee
  
• Once tried to run a marathon without training - bad idea
• Owner of more bicycles than pairs of jeans
• Currently addicted to Scrabulous
• Don't own a TV
• Boyhood heroes include Weird Al Yankovic and Al Bundy
• Once mistaken for Jet Li, but a facial analyzer thought Richard Stallman was more appropriate.
  

Blast From the Past

Insomnia and nostalgia led me to my high school year book where I came across these precious words:

It was fun sleeping behind your desk in calculus. Love, Lillian.

I don't remember much about Lillian except that she was a Russian immigrant who only picked her head off the desk to take the exams.

Duels Defense

Check out this time waster:

Come Suited for Battle at Duels.com

Stereo Bluetooth Devices Are Not Ready for Primetime

My initial enthusiasm over stereo bluetooth has waned. Both my MacBook Pro and Blackjack II support A2DP. Over the past month, I have been using a bluetooth headphone from Best Buy and this Bluetooth transceiver connected to C's Apple Hi-Fi.

Despite not being an audiophile, I can unequivocally state that the sound quality sucks. From the MBP to the headphones, I can hear static. Plus, the music just sounds muffled. Sound degradation can also be heard from the Apple Hi-Fi. In both cases, the bluetooth devices are no more than 10 feet away from one another.

My research into A2DP reveals that the signal is transmitted digitally. It must be poor implementation then. Perhaps in a year I'll try the new A2DP devices on the market.

Traveling Light

Over the long weekend, I experimented with traveling even lighter than usual. I wanted to be more portable than the MacBook Pro + backpack combination. In their place was the Asus eee pc with my trusty small sized Timbuk2 Messenger Bag. I'm happy to report that it was a success. The bag, laptop, accessories, and 2 changes of clothes totaled less than 8 pounds. The eee pc made for a more than adequate LAMP development environment. It also helped that I installed a 2 GB DIMM and an 8 GB SDHC card.

Sweet Ariana

I flew to Durham, NC to meet my new niece Ariana. For the hour a day that she's not cranky, she's the world's most beautiful baby.



I left my brother's house with a strong sense of birth control.

Fixed Gear

I've decided to venture into the fixed gear world. Last Friday, this beauty arrived:



A fixed gear bicycle lacks a freewheel -- when the rear tire spins, so does the crankshaft. There's never any coasting. Whether you're starting, stopping, leaving the saddle, or turning, the pedals are moving. This was startling to me as I acclimated to the new bike.

People have repeatedly questioned why I would opt for a fixed gear. The best answer I can provide is that it appeals to my sense of simplicity and presents a new set of challenges. No rear brake, no chainrings, no cassettes, and no derailers -- just the joy of riding.