I met with Alonzo today. We talked about my future career path and next steps for a promotion. It was a very good talk and I expect to hear more in a couple of weeks.
Monthly Archive for February, 2007
Feb 2nd 2007
As I was about to walk out the door on my way to work this morning, I got a page about a production problem. There was a conference bridge in-progress so I called-in. It turns out that there was a problem with some awful queuing problems with the tuxedo server. Jegan and Kumar had been working on it all night.
I worked with Jegan and Kumar to discuss the problem and we weren’t able to nail down the cause of the issue but we did know the symptoms. Jegan theorized that the problem might be related to a replay TCN file that we dropped into the system last night. I came up with an idea on how to identify the problem. We worked through my idea and were able to successfully catch the poison transaction. It turns out that some of the transactions were being issued in exchange for a dummy ticket (number of all zeros) and we had hundreds of these zero-numbered tickets in the database with about 1,000 coupons each. Normally a ticket had on average around 3.2 coupons per ticket.
So the result was a transaction message that was so large that it was choking the system. We worked on getting these tickets cleaned out of the queues andbrainstormed a few ideas for a permanent fix. I worked from home the rest of the day, babysitting the production environment.
I also ripped an audiobook so that Jen and I can listen to it on our iPods. The canon rebate thing finally worked out. Contacting Canon directly was the solution to the problem. I will be getting the entire rebate that I’m due which is $720! I’ve never had a problem with rebates in the past and am still quite disappointed with Young America trying to scam me and others.
Jen and I had plans to head up to Katie and Chris’s for dinner. However Katie contracted the flu and canceled. So I suggested that Jen and I go out to dinner. We settled on takeout from a Thai place down the street that we haven’t been to yet. We’ve talked about it several times because we drive by it all the time. So I picked up the food and met Jen at home. She had the spicy basil fried rice with tofu and I had Pad Thai. It wasn’t as good as the Pad Thai from the other place. As we ate we watched an episode of the office and then Jen left to go get a pedicure. I worked on my journal notes as I’m very far behind. I also worked on some DST testing stuff tonight, read my wired magazine, and went to bed.
Feb 3rd 2007
After sleeping in, we began laundry and I helped Jen paint the living room. I also worked on improving the hiding of the wires connecting to the plasma television mounted above the fireplace as well as the speakers. We went to Willy’s for lunch - it was very crowded.
After lunch we went to Home Depot and got face-plates for the living-room as well as some spackle and a putty knife. We also looked at plywood for the corkboard project. I found something that may work: We can get a 4′x8′ hardboard and mount it on the wall and then glue some free-form corkboard to that. What I want to do is have a large corkboard mounted on the wall above the desk in the study. With that mounted I can tack all sort of photographs that I’ve printed. It should look cool when completed.
When we got home we finished painting the living-room and I competed the wire-hiding project. It looks great now. We had leftovers for dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and watched two episodes of Heroes. I worked a little in my journal before going to bed.
Feb 4th 2007
As always, it was really wonderful to sleep in today. Shortly after I eventually woke up Jen conscripted me to help paint the stairway between the main floor and the lower floor. This took a very long time and we ran out of paint. I was starving and made a smoothie for lunch.
We made a plan to go work out and go to Home Depot to get an extra gallon of paint. We went to Home Depot first and forgot to bring along the name of the color paint that we want. I tried to use the little Behr paint kiosk computer thing to look up the color but was unable to do so. Jen finally found the color (Oat Straw - 740C-3) and we got a gallon along with a couple of foam brushes.
Once we were done at Home Depot we went over to LA Fitness and worked out for about an hour. I didn’t run that long, opting to hit the weights a little longer today.
After working out we went home, showered, and headed up to Jen’s parent’s house. We were invited to go spend the evening over there to watch the Super Bowl. It Aside from Jen’s parents and four dogs, Katie and Chris were there too. We snacked on some chips, homemade salsa and also had some home-made chili and great pork chops for dinner while we watched the game.
I admit that I’m not a huge fan of Pro football but the beginning ten minutes of the game were exciting. After that, there wasn’t a lot to get excited about. Jen and I left a little past halftime and went home to go to bed early.
Feb 5th 2007
I got a little more caught up on my old journal entries last night which was great. Work today was pretty uneventful and I had a meeting with Carole, Sameer, and Casey to talk about the GUI development for the interline project. I’m looking forward to getting on with some of this GUI development.
After work today I ran home to grab a quick bite to eat and then headed out to Clint’s house for game night.
Feb 9th 2007
This morning I sent an email to Carole asking if I can work from home today. She sent a reply within minutes and said that it wouldn’t be a problem. So I sent out an email to the team explaining what I’ll be working on and how to reach me.
My work was mostly focused around the daylight saving time change initiative. I also participated in three different meetings by dialing into a conference system.
Jen and I made arrangements to meet up at Costco after work. I drove over there and arrived before she did. We met up inside the store and proceeded to do a lot of shopping. We went a little crazy and bought things like a new set of sheets and a new pillow. Jen was also starving so I went over to the concession stand and bought us a frozen yogurt (vanilla) to eat while we shopped. Jen wanted a vanilla chocolate mix and voiced her complaint. While we were shopping Jen and I ran into one of Jen’s Russian coworkers who was also shopping there.
After we checked out and were leaving I saw Greg N. walking in. I went over to him and chatted for a minute or two. I rarely see people from my office on this side of town.
Feb 10th 2007
Jen and I went to the work-out class at LA Fitness this morning and were running late. As a result Jen was a little grumpy. We met Katie there. I lifted weights and ran on the treadmill while they went to their class. After working out I went home but Jen called and invited me to have lunch at a Sushi place with her and Katie, so I went back.
After lunch I went home while the girls went shopping. They got home while I was having problems installing Vista on the old laptop. Katie went home and later Jen and I got ready to go out.
We had plans to go celebrate Erin’s birthday at a place called the ‘Treehouse’.
(Jen before dinner)
It was our first time going there but we found it with little problem and in fact were the first ones to arrive. Others started arriving including Lynne. We all had a nice time and went to Atkins Park afterwards. It cost $7 to park and was a super crowded and smokey bar. That’s just not my thing. I had one drink and we left. We headed over to Clint’s house and played guitar hero for a bit.
Feb 11th 2007
Jen and I went for a run outside on the silver comet trail today.
Afterwards we went to dinner at Jen’s parents house to celebrate my birthday where we had ham, cheesy potatoes, and for desert a wonderful angel food cake with strawberry shebert in the middle. It was really good. After dinner I opened a few presents.
Jen’s parents gave me some money, Scott gave me six bottles of fancy wine from France, Italy, and other places like that. Katie and Chris gave me a fun ‘cookie sutra’ book, hiking book, and gorilla pod (still being shipped).
It was a really nice time and I feel so fortunate to have such a nice extended family.
Feb 14th 2007
I worked form home today and did a lot of work with daylight saving time stuff. Jen was very excited about a package that is supposed to be delivered today. When she got home there was still no delivery. Eventually the UPS guy finally stopped by and dropped off a package for me. It was a present from Jen, it was a new GPS unit - a TomTom 510. It’s really cool.
Sadly i had to stop playing with the new gadget because we had reservations to get a couples massage. That was really nice. We did the same thing last year.
When we got back home we had dinner with a bottle of our very nice 2001 Quintessa Cabernet. The wine was wonderful! After dinner I played with the new GPS unit that Jen got me for my birthday.
Feb 15th 2007
Today was a big milestone for me - I turned thirty. It was a bit hard to accept the fact that I’m no longer in my twenties.
Feb 16th 2007
It was a normal day at work today. Allen M., a guy I worked with while I was at Turner IMed me today to let me know that a UPS package arrived for me at Turner. I asked him to open it since I had no idea what it could be, and it was the Gorilla Pod that Katie got for my birthday. Apparently I forgot to update my amazon.com wish-list address and it was still my old Turner office address. Allen was really nice about it and offered to drop it off at my house this afternoon.
Jen and I were planning on going to St. Maarten this weekend but tomorrow’s flight suddenly got super overbooked. So when I got home, I used Skype to call up the hotel and made alternative arrangements to go out Sunday instead of Saturday in case we don’t make the flight.
I had some leftover lasagna for dinner and then went over to our somewhat-monthly ‘Game Night’ hosted by Clint this month. We played Guitar Hero until everyone arrived. I thought that Tom would really love it but he wasn’t that impressed.
Our game was a Marvell card type of game that Clint ran. Jen played a character modeled after ‘Rogue’ and I played a character modeled after Iron Man. It was fun. We stayed very late - much later than planned. When we got home, we didn’t get to bed until 1:30am because we also packed for the trip tomorrow.
Feb 17th 2007
I woke up very early this morning and checked the flight to St. Maarten. It didn’t look good so I decided that it wasn’t even worth trying and told Jen. Instead we slept in which was nice.
Jen went to the gym to meet Katie for their workout class. I called the hotel in St. Maarten and canceled tonight’s reservation. When Jen got home we had some lunch and later went running with Scott on the Silver Comet Trail. It was really cold outside so I didn’t run a whole lot.
After our run we went home, showered, changed, and went to a place called ‘Bistro VG’ where we had dinner with Mom and Jim. It was a trendy French place and the food was great. Later we got home and went to bed.
Feb 18th 2007
We woke up at 6am and got ready to head out to the airport because we were already packed it wasn’t such a big deal. We drove down to the airport, parked, checked in at the new employee check-in place. Checking in only took seven minutes. We listed ourselves as S2 and were seated apart at the rear of the plane.
During the flight I read my ‘Wired’ magazine, watched the in-flight movie, and listened to my iPod. When we arrived at the SXM airport we used the jetway at the new terminal. I sort of miss the old-school stairs that they had before at the old terminal. It’s starting to get too ‘big’ now.
The immigration line was super long and it took forever to get out. It’s always a crapshoot when going through immigration at SXM. Sometimes it’s a very long line and sometimes no line at all. We finally made it out of the airport, grabbed a taxi, went to the hotel, and checked in. We changed into something more appropriate for the cold weather and dashed to the bar.
It was sort of overcast outside, not the best weather. Jen and I sat at the bar drinking and watching planes land like we always do. A guy siting near us asked how I liked shooting in full frame (noting my Canon 5d). He struck up a conversation and it turns out that his name was ‘Mike’ and he is a photographer from New Jersey. We talked about lenses and such. He has a Canon 1D mk2 and refers to lenses are ‘glass’.
(Mike offered to take our photo with my camera)
(Close to sunset on Maho Beach in St. Maarten)
After watching the sunset Jen and I went to Bamboo Bernies where we had a wonderful sushi dinner. I loved it. We had a super-big boat and ate all of the sushi. It was a great time.
We went back to the room and Jen fell asleep. It was only like 8pm. I was still pretty wired because my drink-of-choice is Red Bull & Vodka. The last few times we’ve gone to SXM Jen did the same thing. I’ve wanted to go out to the casino or the piano bar, but Jen always falls asleep after dinner. I stayed awake for nearly four hours watching television and then finally fell asleep.
Feb 19th 2007
When I woke up this morning it was bright and sunny out. I was excited to get outside and enjoy the day. I rinsed off in the shower, changed, and we went out. It was pretty deserted this early - I guess because today is a Monday. I’ve never been to St. Maarten on a Monday before.
Jen and I were hungry and wanted to eat breakfast at a cool local place run by some friendly Asian people called ‘Dragon’s Gate’. Sadly it was only 8:30am and the place doesn’t open until 9am. So we killed some time by walking around on the beach and watching the waves.
(shadow self-portrait of Jen and I sitting next to the beach)
Finally we had some breakfast which for me consisted of bacon, eggs, toast, and orange juice. After breakfast we went to our hotel room to pack, change, and check out. We left our backpacks with the front desk. Next we went to the bar and had some drinks.
(Me back from the bar bearing two fresh drinks)
(Self-portrait in Jen’s sunglasses)
I tried taking some photos of the incoming planes from different angles as I think all of my existing St. Maarten pictures are starting to look the same. I was really happy with one particular photo of an incoming American Airlines jet.
We left as we saw the Delta plane approaching and got a ride to the airport. Once there we checked in and got to the gate with no problem and plenty of time to spare. Once at the gate we waited a while. We didn’t get to sit up front in first class but we did sit next to each other with an empty seat so it was all good.
(Departing such a fun place - that’s the bar we hung out at on the beach below)
On the flight back to Atlanta we watched the in-flight movie, I listened to my iPod, and read my magazine. Jen was in good spirits.
We arrived into Atlanta with no problem, breezed through immigration and customs, got to our car and went home. It was a great trip.
When we got home I noticed that Lightroom was finally released! I downloaded the trial and began to play with it. It’s a great photo organizing/processing program.
Feb 20th 2007
The TomTom GPS unit that Jen got me was great, but we noticed that it didn’t have voice-read street names and so I did a search for something else that would fit the bill. I found the Garmin Nuvi 350 which looked great. It has a smaller form factor making it more portable for when we travel and also have computer-voice-read street names.
That arrived today so I was up pretty late playing with the new GPS and also exploring the retail version of Adobe Lightroom.
Feb 21st 2007
Today was pretty busy with work I was doing on the PCI encryption effort. Jen had plans to hang out with Katie after work and I got a call from Clint and Erin to go with them to a Georgia Tech basketball game. They drove. It was a lot of fun and I’m happy they invited me along.
Feb 22nd 2007
After a lunch at ‘Which Which’, we stopped over at Casey’s house to demo his new D-Link media center thing. It’s a lot like the XBOX XBMC but commercialized. It seems to work pretty well.
I had my performance review with Carole. Afterwards I talked with Alonzo about promotion possibilities. I also talked with Ningyu about technical stuff and the topic of a promotion came up as well. I think things look good for a promotion.
Today I ended up working late on a problem with reference data and the oracle database changes. On the way home from work I stopped at the store to pick up some things that Jen asked for.
We had our book club meeting tonight. The book was ‘Saving Fish from Drowning‘ and no one liked it. Only Katie finished it. I grilled some salmon for dinner. We had wonderful-tasting salmon salads and brownies. It was a good meeting despite the book being terrible.
Feb 24th 2007
Jen was over in Woodstock all day long shopping with Katie and her Mom.
I moved the old 400GB HD to the linux box and reallocated the /home partition over to that drive since the old one was running out of space. I house all of the mp3s and downloaded stuff on shares in the /home partition.
Next I cut up the new 500GB drive such that there is a 100GB partition for OSX (hackintosh) and then the leftover 400GB for the photo archive. Once that was done I worked in Adobe’s Lightroom. I was pretty disappointed with the speed, but I think that could be related to the slow AMD Athlon 3200+ processor in the machine too. It took twenty hours to generate standard-size previews for all images in the large archive library consisting of approx 27,000 photos. The photos themselves consume about 100GB while the library database file and previews consume about 28GB. That’s pretty hefty.
Feb 25th 2007
Jen made a quiche with spinach, tomato, cheese, and onions for breakfast this morning. It was very good!
Next we went shoe shopping for Jen. I think she needed shoes for a wedding. While she was in the boring shoe store I went next-door and bought some pen ink refills for my favorite cross pens.
Afterwards we stopped by Target to buy some candy and also found some cool seagrass bulletin boards. Previously we’ve been talking about putting up corkboard in the study to tack printed photographs to. Jen didn’t like any of the ideas that I came up with, so when we found these seagrass bulletin boards I was pretty excited. I can’t wait to put them up.
Feb 26th 2007
There were no meetings today which was awesome. As I was leaving work I got a killer headache. So when I got home I took some Tylenol and laid down. Jennifer got home about fifteen minutes after I did and was really nice and gave me a temple massage. I drank lots of water, grabbed a bite to eat, and headed out to Clint’s house.
I gave Clint the very belated birthday present from Jen and I and participated in our weekly ‘game night’ session. For the first time, we moved down into the basement since Clint’s fiance Erin is moving in.
Feb 27th 2007
After getting into work today I walked across the street to the training center for an architecture presentation in the auditorium. The presenters talked about the future technologies that we will be focusing on.
Once that was over I called Casey to arrange to be picked up for lunch since it was around 11:40am at that point. Casey, Jeff C., Alex D, and James E. picked me up and we went over to Orient Express. I like the food there.
After lunch I piddled around the office and got a few things done. I went over to Carole’s office to see how she’s doing and she told me that she had something for me. She gave me a ‘certificate of excellence’ type award for all of the work I had been doing for the 4.1/IR9 release recently. The award also had a cash component which was a $1,500 bonus! I was really excited about this.
Later Ningyu called me up and told me that he wanted to start with the mentoring process that we talked about last week. We set up a time tomorrow for me to go meet with him. This was pretty good news too!
I got home before Jen and called Craig to see how he’s doing but I got his VM. During the day the desktop PC locked up (vista) so I hit the reset button after I got home. About 20 minutes later when I went back into the study I saw that it was locked up again. Every time it locks up like this the screensaver is on and there isn’t anything at all in the event viewer indicating what the problem was (i.e. there are no errors - it just freezes up). I’m running the latest version of the ATI drivers and have all updates from Microsoft. This is really frustrating. The only pattern that I can discern is that this happens whenever the ‘default’ screensaver comes on - before anyone logs in, or when someone was logged in remotely and logs out.
Jen got home just as I was about to put up the last two seagrass bulletin boards on the wall in the study. I put that project on hold to keep her company as we ate the last of the quiche and made some salads and tofu for dinner. As we ate dinner we watched the most recent episode of ‘The Office’. We also opened up the last bottle of Napa wine from our cellar which is a 2000 Silver Oak (Cabernet of course). We decanted it and had some while we ate and watched the show on TV. It was tasty but I could tell that it wasn’t as good as I remember and I suspect the reason for this was the recent wine cooler freezing incident of last year.
Alex called with some computer questions and I answered them the best I could. Jen and I decided that we needed to go over to Mom’s house tonight in order to get some of the ski clothing for Jen. We drover over there, got the stuff, and headed back. When we got home I finished the rest of the wine and gave Jen a foot massage after we got ready for bed.
I didn’t go to bed right away though. I stayed up and transferred some audiobooks for Jennifer and then processed photos from our recent St. Maarten trip using Adobe Lightroom. I was a little disappointed with the speed that this application responds and I was really disappointed with the performance of the ‘auto’ setting considering that Adobe Camera Raw does a much better job with this and they are supposedly based on the same engine. I was also sad to see that the exported jpegs had all of their exif information stripped. I later found out that I had the ‘minimize metadata’ checkbox enabled when I was exporting photos. This was the culprit for the missing exif information.
After processing and exporting photos from the trip, I created a St. Maarten photo album. Looking through the albums, it is quite apparent that there are a lot of albums recently with trips to St. Maarten. Maybe we need to start going to other destinations.
Feb 28th 2007
I slept in today which was pretty stressful because it made me late for work. Work was fairly uneventful except for this afternoon when I met with Ningyu to talk about a mentoring relationship. We tossed around some ideas and then discussed an enterprise-wide problem to be solved. He wants me to do my own research into it and share my findings with him. At that point we’ll compare notes and he can give me pointers on how to improve. I’m looking forward to it.
