Cool time waster of the day

Here's a fun little game that's probably cool more from a tech aspect than actually being fun for hours on end: Goggles, flight simulator using Google Maps. It uses Flash and Google maps. I flew over Disneyland.

File this under things to do when you're on the last week of a job.

Deal or No Deal

A show I've taken to watching recently is "Deal or No Deal". It's especially good when you can fast forward through all the clapping and extra closeups.

Well I've felt like I've been playing my own similar game for a while and the time has come to say "Deal".

I've officially accepted the job with PFI and start work on Jan. 29. My last day at 21CSI will be next Thursday and I will take Friday off.

We're very excited and very relieved. It's alway hard to know what God's will is in matters like this, but I can definitely feel his hand guiding us along the way and pointing us in the right direction.

So close

I'm in the process of drafting my final employment notice and on the verge of accepting the offer I have. It's a very good offer but I've been waiting on another possiblity that I just interviewed last week that has a lot of potential. I haven't heard anything from them and am running out of time on the offer.

Anyways, as I considered accepting the offer and started to draft some emails to 21CSI and PFI, a wave of relief started to wash over me. It's a really calming feeling to have all the uncertainty start to slip away.

There's still the house to sell, but the great thing about this job is that we wouldn't have to move until we sold the house. We want that to be ASAP, but we won't be in a situation where I have to move on ahead of the family to start the job. I can work from here until we move.

I feel really good about this decision an unless things change dramaticly in the next 2 hours, it will be a done deal.

Rules for "24" characters

Well the season premiere of my favorite show "24" kicked of with a bang the last 2 nights. You had Jack Bauer going vampire on the terrorists and the typical "Jack doesn't know what he's doing, listen to me instead" from those in power in the government.

Here are my set of rules that all "24" characters should follow in order to safeguard the USA from terrorists:

1. Jack Bauer is always right
2. Never argue with Jack Bauer (see rule 1)
3. If you want to save the country, follow Jack Bauer's instructions immediately (see 1 and 2)
4. Never ever, under any circumstances, arrest Jack Bauer. Never. EVER!
5. If you think Jack Bauer is dead and want to cry, don't. He's alive and is still always right (see 1).

And now one for the terrorists:

• No matter how injured/captured/dead you think Jack Bauer is, never ever tell him your plans or what's really going on. If you do, he will get mad/inspired and kill your men and escape. (see good guy rule 5. This actually goes for any bad guy in any story when they capture the good guy, but it is especially true for Jack Bauer.)
  

And one in the spirit of all the Chuck Norris/Jack Bauer stuff flying around teh interwebz about how powerful they are:

• Jack Bauer has the ability to look directly at a nuclear explosion without going blind. Jack Bauer's eyes burn the nuclear explosion.

Next week is soooo far away and there's only 1 hour of 24. /cry

As we know it

Well it's a big week. On the job front, tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm getting an offer from a company in Austin, and Wednesday I have a phone interview with a company that makes games for mobile devices.

Sunday I get to lead worship again at church (always love doing that) and we have another Open House that afternoon. Top that off with the start of the new 24 season and you have the makings of a great day. It will be even better if lots of people come to see the house. Oh, and that's also Joshua's 4th birthday. He's been waiting for that for a long time.

Funny thing, I rarely watch football but I caught the 4th quarter of the Seahawks crazy win over the Cowboys. That was the most exciting quarter of football I've watched in a long time, maybe ever. I used to be a huge Cowboy fan and may be again shortly after our move to Texas, but for now I'm with the Seahawks. In addition I watched some of the Eagle/Giants game on Sunday (after just watching the same teams in the movie "Invincible"). I also watched a lot of the Florida/Ohio State game tonight. I think Kathryne's getting scared that I'm going to start watching sports all the time.

The boys won the wrestling match tonight. They ganged up on me. Sean finished a version of "Gulliver's Travels" that he got for Christmas. He's really tearing through those books now. We're sending off an application for a Christian school in Austin for next year. There's already a waiting list so we're hoping he can get in.

Enough rambling for tonight.

Another year, another Dilbert Desk Calendar

Happy new year everyone. This year for Christmas I got not one (1) but two (2) comic strip desk calendars. The Dilbert on is for the office. I also got a Far Side calendar which came as a shock to me because I distinctly remember a few years ago when a cow-irker had the "last" calender they were going to make. But Gary Larson decided to give his readers a treat and revive the calendar this year donating all his proceeds to a conservation group. It's kind of funny because the first comic is the one with the dinosaurs smoking cigarettes and the caption "The real reason dinosaurs became extinct" (paraphrased).

In other comic news, Bill Amend the creator of the Foxtrot comic strip has gone to a Sunday only strip. Foxtrot is always one of my favorites as he often runs week long homages to cool movies like those in the Star Wars and Spider-Man series. He also has the Jason character playing my favorite game World of Warcraft from time to time. I'll miss the daily dose especially since the Sunday ones aren't usually as funny and don't have story arcs.

Resolutions for this year:
Same as every year
"I, Matthew Lee, being of sound mind and able body do hereby resolve not to make any new year's resolutions."

As you can see I'm not good at keeping the few resolutions I make having paradoxically broken the only one (1) that I made. Maybe next year I'll do better.

Working from Home

I'm working from home this morning while I'm waiting for a guy to come take a look at our septic line that has separated and been in-grown with roots. At the surface, working from home is great. No commute, free food, no cow-irkers to distract me. And since Kathryne and the boys are out of town, you would think there would be even less distraction. Unfortunately, the cats are not out of town and think I'm staying home to play with them. Then there's always the call of "World of Warcraft" and other not-so-much-work activities.

I post this because one of the new jobs I'm looking at taking would involve working from home for the next few months until they can get an actual office in Austin. Our current house is very ill-equipped for this sort of thing having no area where I can go to be away while the family is home. So in our new house, we're going to make sure there is at least 1 area that is somewhat isolated for office use (and just getting away from the noise of 2 boys running around).

If I do take this job, there's a possibility of using some office space temporarily at a former employer, which would be cool if not somewhat awkward at first.

For now, I just have to ignore K.C. (the cat) and carry on with my work.

Vista Rocks!

The new Windows Vista is the most awesomest thing since Texas-sized sliced bread. It's got this cool clock and can do everything wicked fast.

It's "da Bomb", "da Man", and "da Bears" all wrapped up in one.

Disclaimer:
I'm posting this in the hope of getting a free laptop from Microsoft's PR firm so I can talk about how great Vista is.
See Joel and Scoble for more information.

"I have the Power"

Well, Kathryne may enjoy the 26 hours without electronic interference,
but it was driving me crazy. When the lights came back on at 11:30
this evening, I could feel then energy coursing through my veins.
Actually, we spent the better part of the day out running errands. We
ate breakfast at the McDonalds in Silverdale and it only took 45
minutes to get the food. There are like 5 places in the area that
serve breakfast that had power and all were crowded. Then we got our
electronics fix at Worst Sell and ate lunch at the Black Eagle.
previous sentence has been encrypted with our super secret code which
unfortunately our kids have already broken.>

We went to see "Charlotte's Web" tonight. I cried like 5 times. It
was very well done and really brought the book to life. That's some
pig.

Show me the way

When the right opportunity comes, will I know? Knowing the future is highly overrated. I have a hard enough time knowing what to do in the present (though knowing the future might make that easier, or it might make it harder as I wonder whether there is anything I should do to change the future or I get paralyzed with fear that I will bring the whole space-time continuum to its knees).

When the right job comes along will I know? Times like this I wish God would come down, set up a giant spinner with all the choices available (like in a board game), and spin me around so that where my head lands is the direction I am to go. Barring that, skywriting or other heavenly signs would work too. Having options is nice, but sometimes the decision making process is so stressful that you just want to curl up in the fetal position and wait for the future to pass you by.

From the words of a song I need to listen to some more:
If you say go, we will go
If you say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come
Your ways are higher than our ways
And plans that You have laid
Are good and true
If You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You

Free Hot Java!

Following in the vein of my string of bandwagon tech new release posts, Java 6 has been released. This one actually affects me somewhat though I probably won't get to use it seriously for a few months at least.

Try it now. It's free.

Also my new favorite song is "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al. I've always liked him, but this release hits close to home. Also, "The Saga Begins" from 1999 is a winner. Check out Al's myspace page page to listen to the song or watch the video.

Life as Speck

[reposted from my MySpace blog]

What is a company's most valuable asset? For a software company (and probably just about any company) the most correct answer is "It's employees". At least that's how I think it should be.

Software, intellectual property, capital assets, etc. are stuck in time and only change at the execution of the employees. If there are no employees then what you have now is what you'll have in the future. As markets shift, you need to be able to move along with the flow. Only the employees can make this happen. If suddenly the customer doesn't give a rip about your current software (and they sure don't care that you consider it IP) and they want something new, you can either give it to them or wither on the vine.

The kind of company I want to find to work for is one that values its employees highly and shows it not just through compensation, but also in the general attitudes of the management.

Also, perception and reality are very different things. Different employees may look at the same company differently based on their roles and experiences past and present. So it's really all about feelings and perceptions as are most things when dealing with other members of the human race.

Just some things I've been thinking about. I wanted to write them down to help make a decision about whether to stay where I am or venture into something new.

Gmail Milestone

I'm now using 1% of my gmail space. Woohoo.

You are currently using 21 MB (1%) of your 2785 MB.


I guess there's some rounding involved.

I've been using gmail for all my personal stuff lately and it's very nice to have it all available over the internet. I also just started using Google Reader for all the RSS feeds (news and blogs) that I read every day. I was using Mozilla Thunderbird but now I can access my subscriptions from anywhere and the interface isn't too bad. I'm getting used to it. I used to just read the blogs while at work, but now I can read all the same ones at home or wherever.

And yes, Kara, I truly am a geek.

Testing Google Calendar

Here's a link to the publicly available calendar for the Central Kitsap church of Christ hosted on Google Calendar:



Right now we're still testing things out but so far it looks really useful.

In Sickness and in Health

When do we get to health part? :) Kathryne's managed to be healthy lately, but the rest of us have been fighting coughs and colds for the last couple weeks. We're finally seeming to get over it. I haven't not been congested since Thanksgiving. We really need to switch our carpeting to hard flooring. Also the windows need some work. I’m reminded of George Bailey's line in "It's a Wonderful Life" about the old drafty house. The weather's been fairly warm for a while unlike many parts of the country.

I'm getting ready to leave for Korea again in a few weeks. It's really cold there now.

We got Joshua some new clothes with the b-day gift card. I finally used my B&N gift card from Krista to get "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis. I've also recently read "They Smell Like Sheep" by Lynn Anderson as part of our elders and deacons leadership seminar. It's a very good book that I would recommend reading if you get the chance.

We should have some new pix of the boys soon. Kathryne took to JC Pennys after Joshua's b-day and got some of just Joshua and some of them together. We also have at least a dozen roles of film that we need to get developed.

We're all staying very busy these days and I need to get to sleep.

Have a good week.

2.5 days left

We've got 2.5 days left to work and lots more to do.

I'm feeling mostly better but i'm really ready to come home.

Web Cam

Here's a web camera that another developer put up in our work area. From about 3PM PST on it updates during the day. You can generally see me with my back to the camera on the other side of the room.

Happy Birthday

I can't believe my little (?) bother... i mean brother... is 17 today. Happy birthday Daniel.

I'm feeling a little better but I'm almost out of my Korean cocktail of drugs. What's actually made me feel the best is the Tylenol cold medicine that I brought with me. I have had to replenish my supply of cough drops.

Things are going well here from a work standpoint, but I am really ready to come home.

Here's a link to a clock to see what time it is in four areas in which I have family:
Personal World Clock

Dr. Doctor

I'm going to try to go to a doctor on base tomorrow if possible. I thought my cough was getting better but now I'm starting to feel it more in my chest. Hopefully there will be somewhere I can go. If not, maybe I'll try a local remedy.

I'm getting to watch Survivor on the armed forces network. I think "The Apprentice" was on at 8, but we were out at dinner. I was starting to feel pretty bad (sweating and coughing) but then we started talking politics and my blood got pumping and I'm feeling much better now.

Have a good Friday. Mine is almost over. Tomorrow is Saturday, but there's more work to do.

Native Cuisine

After 2 full days here in Korea, it's starting to feel like a Little America. I'm feeling very comfortable now in the sorrounding even though it is really hard to order food and even harder to know how to eat it. Starting last night, we went on a mostly native diet. With the exception of breakfast, we're trying to eat the local food. We've had good luck so far. They serve lots of little dishes that you mix and match together with some meat to make your meal. Last night we put the meat and toppings on two differnt kinds of lettuce and rolled it up. It's felt like eating Korean fajitas. I'm getting better with the chop sticks but my hand starts to cramp during the middle of the meal and i get sloppy.

The weather has been great here. It gets up to 60 degrees in the afternoon. The mornings are a bit nippy as we walk to the base, but we soon warm up as we crowd 8 developers and 15 computers into a 10x20 room with no ventalation.

Jonathan is actually trying to learn the language and the culture a little bit. I'm just trying not to get lost or eat the wrong thing.

Hopefully we'll get some sight seeing time, but current plans are to work through the weekend.

Time for bed. Have a good rest of the week.