After waiting 8 years since their last World Series, I can finally say the SF Giants are champions. Top of the baseball heap, #1. The Best is in the West.
Seven years ago I taught my wife about baseball. This turned her into a baseball monster, vocal & highly opinionated when it comes to the sport. I am not in her league when it comes to the game. Especially after this crazy season.
It is not an understatement to say that she has been dancing all Oct. and this first day of November. A season of torture, but the playoffs were like cheesecake topped with pineapple.
The Giants return to the Bay Area heroes. Amazing year. Stunning strategy that paid off time and again. I have survived a nail biting season next to my baseball monster. Now she will go into hibernation until spring training. And I get the living room back, for as everyone knows, it is really her TV.
Giants!
-Mike M.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Some return to focus
The summer seems to be running by quickly. The last couple of months have seen a lot of change for me, diverting my attention to more pressing matters. I do want to keep writing about the things I come across. That way the handful of people who pay attention will have more bits of what's in my head.
I changed jobs last month. Moved from my contracting gigs to a full time role. Still testing software, now data storage systems instead of routers. It's a good change for me. I did 14 years in networking, this is an opportunity to devote many years learning a different part of the core. Think of where all of your "cloud" information is stored, that is where I am.
Companies are hiring. I know I am. Doesn't mean I will accept just anyone off of the street. The teams are quite strict in their requirements & stick to them through one candidate after another. There are jobs, but you need to be confident in what you know & your skills as an engineer. The jobs are local to Santa Clara County too. We interact with teams from around the world, but this isn't something that will be off-shored just because the bean counters like it. There is more than enough work here and abroad to keep us busy for a long time.
I haven't had this much fun in the work place in many a year. I feel at home & plan to stay a long time. That kind of calm stability is making a difference in my health. I'll write about my more recent improvements soon.
-Mike M.
I changed jobs last month. Moved from my contracting gigs to a full time role. Still testing software, now data storage systems instead of routers. It's a good change for me. I did 14 years in networking, this is an opportunity to devote many years learning a different part of the core. Think of where all of your "cloud" information is stored, that is where I am.
Companies are hiring. I know I am. Doesn't mean I will accept just anyone off of the street. The teams are quite strict in their requirements & stick to them through one candidate after another. There are jobs, but you need to be confident in what you know & your skills as an engineer. The jobs are local to Santa Clara County too. We interact with teams from around the world, but this isn't something that will be off-shored just because the bean counters like it. There is more than enough work here and abroad to keep us busy for a long time.
I haven't had this much fun in the work place in many a year. I feel at home & plan to stay a long time. That kind of calm stability is making a difference in my health. I'll write about my more recent improvements soon.
-Mike M.
When "No Soliciting" means bang on my door...
I have a sign on my front door to let those coming up my driveway to leave me alone. No Soliciting. Pretty straight forward. Big letters. It turns away many, but from time to time someone feels they can out whit me.
Like yesterday. Saturday afternoon, sitting down to start a movie. Bang on the door. I thought it was my neighbor, as I was watching their dog for the day while they have a party. Nope, its some short dude with a vague company name on his shirt. He says he’s there to offer me something for free. eh?
I tell him I don’t need anything. Oh, he’s got a quick response that I must need something. Everyone does. I point to my sign, which has him switch to the next item on his pitch, “Do you know the definition of soliciting?” Amazing, the guy wants to joust with terms so he can justify the interruption to my afternoon. I am of the opinion that if you are on my doorstep & I don’t know you, 99% of the time my money is the object.
To get this guy to leave me alone, I tell him I don’t care what he has to say, he’s on my property & to please leave. He wants to get the last word in, but I get pretty sharp when it comes to this point in any conversation.
Annoying, oh yeah. Maybe I should set up a wireless video camera above the door so I can check who’s there. A friend of mine did this - it pumps the video stream out onto the home network. Extreme, maybe. Extreme would be facial recognition announcing if it someone I know.
After my movie, (the superb Red Cliff parts 1 & 2), my mind wanders to touch on where’s the return on door to door sales. I mean, what is your time worth? How many deals do you need to close per day to make it worthwhile? But as its physical & the dude has to go to the customers, a huge inefficiency. Wouldn’t a weekend be better used to hang with family & use the internet to drive business to you? In this day and age of virtual store fronts & Second Life, why not use it to your advantage?
I just want to be left alone when home. Neighbors knocking to say hi or ask a favor, no big deal. Called being a neighbor. But some sales dude that claims he is offering something for free, read the sign & learn about the Internet.
-Mike M.
Like yesterday. Saturday afternoon, sitting down to start a movie. Bang on the door. I thought it was my neighbor, as I was watching their dog for the day while they have a party. Nope, its some short dude with a vague company name on his shirt. He says he’s there to offer me something for free. eh?
I tell him I don’t need anything. Oh, he’s got a quick response that I must need something. Everyone does. I point to my sign, which has him switch to the next item on his pitch, “Do you know the definition of soliciting?” Amazing, the guy wants to joust with terms so he can justify the interruption to my afternoon. I am of the opinion that if you are on my doorstep & I don’t know you, 99% of the time my money is the object.
To get this guy to leave me alone, I tell him I don’t care what he has to say, he’s on my property & to please leave. He wants to get the last word in, but I get pretty sharp when it comes to this point in any conversation.
Annoying, oh yeah. Maybe I should set up a wireless video camera above the door so I can check who’s there. A friend of mine did this - it pumps the video stream out onto the home network. Extreme, maybe. Extreme would be facial recognition announcing if it someone I know.
After my movie, (the superb Red Cliff parts 1 & 2), my mind wanders to touch on where’s the return on door to door sales. I mean, what is your time worth? How many deals do you need to close per day to make it worthwhile? But as its physical & the dude has to go to the customers, a huge inefficiency. Wouldn’t a weekend be better used to hang with family & use the internet to drive business to you? In this day and age of virtual store fronts & Second Life, why not use it to your advantage?
I just want to be left alone when home. Neighbors knocking to say hi or ask a favor, no big deal. Called being a neighbor. But some sales dude that claims he is offering something for free, read the sign & learn about the Internet.
-Mike M.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
What is your place in the community worth?
Here’s a question for you: What is the value you put on your standing within your immediate community? For me, this was posed by a kid on my doorstep Friday evening.
At 7pm Friday, some fresh faced kid is knocking on my door. This is annoying to me for two reasons. First, I’m waiting for a guest. Second, I have a large sign on my door that says to go away if you are soliciting. For those that do knock, I simply point to the sign and say, “Can’t you read?”
The pitch started with him being a marketing student & is walking the neighborhood. He’s got a shirt with a symbol on it, a clip board with a folder, and says he’s representing GE Capital (though on the third point I may be wrong & I didn’t get a card). He likes my house & wants to use it for advertising. eh? He wants to put a sign on my front yard & pay me for it.
How much is this kid offering? $5000/month. That number isn’t in dispute for he kept repeating it over and over, like a mantra. “$5000/month for a simple sign.” “It won’t be very big.” “Do you realize I’m offering to pay you $5000/month?”
I pointed to my sign & told him to leave. He stammers how can I turn away such an offer. I tell him he doesn’t own a house nor cares about the neighborhood. I live in San Jose, in a small house on a street built over 50 years ago. “Why would I want to deface my property & lower the value of my neighbors’ property by doing so?” No answer, other than I could do a lot with the $5000 monthly income. I tell him to leave my property, he won’t go. So I close the door on him while he is still pushing the dollar amount. Amazing.
I asked a couple neighbors at a garage sale yesterday if they were approached by this same person. Nope, no one else had such an incredible offer made to them.
Darlene came up with the idea that it could be a scam to get my bank account information. As I didn’t get past the “Go away & leave me alone” part, I couldn’t confirm if he was going to ask about where to deposit the checks. I should have gotten something from him so I could post it for all to see.
I took it as what is my community standing worth? I’m not sure what San Jose’s sign ordinance states, but still, anything that reduces the splendor of my neighborhood isn’t worth it. I don’t have a problem with a home owner putting a sign in their window that proclaims they are a Sharks fan (I have one for the SF Giants myself). But commercial advertising on private residential property? What does some corporate marketing nut take me to be? A sellout to my neighborhood?
What raises my blood pressure is that there doesn’t seem to be a limit to how low corporate advertising will go. For me, this is about where rattlesnakes live - as low in the grass as the dirt. I don’t want to walk the streets around my house & run into even more oppressive messaging. I want to be able to smell the roses & meet the people with dogs. Turn off the media. Be a person.
So here I make my stand. I can’t be bought to deface my own property & hope that my message will encourage others to do the same.
-Mike M.
At 7pm Friday, some fresh faced kid is knocking on my door. This is annoying to me for two reasons. First, I’m waiting for a guest. Second, I have a large sign on my door that says to go away if you are soliciting. For those that do knock, I simply point to the sign and say, “Can’t you read?”
The pitch started with him being a marketing student & is walking the neighborhood. He’s got a shirt with a symbol on it, a clip board with a folder, and says he’s representing GE Capital (though on the third point I may be wrong & I didn’t get a card). He likes my house & wants to use it for advertising. eh? He wants to put a sign on my front yard & pay me for it.
How much is this kid offering? $5000/month. That number isn’t in dispute for he kept repeating it over and over, like a mantra. “$5000/month for a simple sign.” “It won’t be very big.” “Do you realize I’m offering to pay you $5000/month?”
I pointed to my sign & told him to leave. He stammers how can I turn away such an offer. I tell him he doesn’t own a house nor cares about the neighborhood. I live in San Jose, in a small house on a street built over 50 years ago. “Why would I want to deface my property & lower the value of my neighbors’ property by doing so?” No answer, other than I could do a lot with the $5000 monthly income. I tell him to leave my property, he won’t go. So I close the door on him while he is still pushing the dollar amount. Amazing.
I asked a couple neighbors at a garage sale yesterday if they were approached by this same person. Nope, no one else had such an incredible offer made to them.
Darlene came up with the idea that it could be a scam to get my bank account information. As I didn’t get past the “Go away & leave me alone” part, I couldn’t confirm if he was going to ask about where to deposit the checks. I should have gotten something from him so I could post it for all to see.
I took it as what is my community standing worth? I’m not sure what San Jose’s sign ordinance states, but still, anything that reduces the splendor of my neighborhood isn’t worth it. I don’t have a problem with a home owner putting a sign in their window that proclaims they are a Sharks fan (I have one for the SF Giants myself). But commercial advertising on private residential property? What does some corporate marketing nut take me to be? A sellout to my neighborhood?
What raises my blood pressure is that there doesn’t seem to be a limit to how low corporate advertising will go. For me, this is about where rattlesnakes live - as low in the grass as the dirt. I don’t want to walk the streets around my house & run into even more oppressive messaging. I want to be able to smell the roses & meet the people with dogs. Turn off the media. Be a person.
So here I make my stand. I can’t be bought to deface my own property & hope that my message will encourage others to do the same.
-Mike M.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Pondering the perception of time
I haven't been feeling too good the last few days. Head in a bucket feeling of allergies turning my brain into mush. Hard to do some serious thinking, so I usually pass the time performing mundane tasks, like making the bed. It also gives me the excuse to put on the big head cans & chill out to some music. Where does my mind drift off towards? Things of time and place. What would the world be like if we walk on Mars? Then the topic of this post, the perception of time changing as we age.
One thing I always hear is how the days are passing by faster and faster. That the past was slower & the present is quick. I look at my own take on the passage of time, how as a 5 year old the day felt long and my birthday was always slow to arrive. But now many more years older, the days pass by at an ever increasing rate. Perception is the day is shorter, but the clock says it is the same as it ever was.
The theory is that each day you live becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the total days of your existence. The brain perceives in ratios, a day for a 5 year old a much larger part than a day of someone 95. This may point to why kids are impatient & elderly much more patient. At least in broad strokes.
My great grand mother lived to around 95 (she wouldn't tell us her exact age). Listening to her discuss her day & what she did (a very active lady), she would say that the days are short, but that means they come back around that much quicker. She would wait for letters in the mail, patient that they would eventually come. Maybe what I'm rambling about is gaining calm through age.
Look at a kid waiting for something in the mail. As my sister would say, like a ferret on crystal meth. Each day drags, each night feels long, even if the monsters under the bed stay quiet. I remember my days playing after school, younger than the age of 10. Watch the clock for 3pm & then off to home. The time from home to dinner seemed long enough to conduct numerous adventures. Mom would limit play time to an hour outside. Such a length of time, though. Sixty minutes didn't seem short at all.
Contrast that to today, an hour doesn't feel all that long. I may move a bit slower than I did at 5, but I'm calmer. Waiting in line doesn't seem as frustrating. Maturity? Nah, the perception of time as I experience it.
The brain is a wondrous device. It filters all of our senses to create a sense of reality. But it isn't a true reality. We see within our mind - the eyes give a lot more information than is used, tossing away details or merging diverse images to make a composite. Being severely near-sighted, I can tell this every day. Even with my contacts out, I can still perceive faces, motion, and the objects in my house pretty well. But it is a construction as the brain adjusts for the fact the eyes now need more correction.
Being that our reality is a complex melding of sensory data to build a perception of the world, it seems that time should fit in there too. Our brains need a reference for time, usually using the position of the sun as a guide. Which gets back to ratios - measurement of absolute time into quanta is a relatively recent technology for humans. The brain "feels" time, giving the child the perception the day is long & the adult the day is short.
At the end of this stumbling prose, what of it then? The point is that each day you wake to sunshine is another great day to create new experiences. To better appreciate the frustration of the child who thinks their parents are slow. To better appreciate the wisdom of the elders for patients. Somewhere in the middle is happiness.
Or so my fuzzy brain perceives. :)
-Mike M.
One thing I always hear is how the days are passing by faster and faster. That the past was slower & the present is quick. I look at my own take on the passage of time, how as a 5 year old the day felt long and my birthday was always slow to arrive. But now many more years older, the days pass by at an ever increasing rate. Perception is the day is shorter, but the clock says it is the same as it ever was.
The theory is that each day you live becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the total days of your existence. The brain perceives in ratios, a day for a 5 year old a much larger part than a day of someone 95. This may point to why kids are impatient & elderly much more patient. At least in broad strokes.
My great grand mother lived to around 95 (she wouldn't tell us her exact age). Listening to her discuss her day & what she did (a very active lady), she would say that the days are short, but that means they come back around that much quicker. She would wait for letters in the mail, patient that they would eventually come. Maybe what I'm rambling about is gaining calm through age.
Look at a kid waiting for something in the mail. As my sister would say, like a ferret on crystal meth. Each day drags, each night feels long, even if the monsters under the bed stay quiet. I remember my days playing after school, younger than the age of 10. Watch the clock for 3pm & then off to home. The time from home to dinner seemed long enough to conduct numerous adventures. Mom would limit play time to an hour outside. Such a length of time, though. Sixty minutes didn't seem short at all.
Contrast that to today, an hour doesn't feel all that long. I may move a bit slower than I did at 5, but I'm calmer. Waiting in line doesn't seem as frustrating. Maturity? Nah, the perception of time as I experience it.
The brain is a wondrous device. It filters all of our senses to create a sense of reality. But it isn't a true reality. We see within our mind - the eyes give a lot more information than is used, tossing away details or merging diverse images to make a composite. Being severely near-sighted, I can tell this every day. Even with my contacts out, I can still perceive faces, motion, and the objects in my house pretty well. But it is a construction as the brain adjusts for the fact the eyes now need more correction.
Being that our reality is a complex melding of sensory data to build a perception of the world, it seems that time should fit in there too. Our brains need a reference for time, usually using the position of the sun as a guide. Which gets back to ratios - measurement of absolute time into quanta is a relatively recent technology for humans. The brain "feels" time, giving the child the perception the day is long & the adult the day is short.
At the end of this stumbling prose, what of it then? The point is that each day you wake to sunshine is another great day to create new experiences. To better appreciate the frustration of the child who thinks their parents are slow. To better appreciate the wisdom of the elders for patients. Somewhere in the middle is happiness.
Or so my fuzzy brain perceives. :)
-Mike M.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Should have asked Uncle Steve for a new Mac
As a reader of the Apple rumor sites, all kinds of things get said, some true, some not. Lots of leaks, supposed leaks, and deception. Apple's secrecy rivals the NSA or the NRO. A "it may or may not exist" approach. So when I read the story about the Apple engineer leaving behind a prototype iPhone & it being found, sold, then lots of legal shells being lobbed, I thought two things.
First, poor engineer. His name is forever tied to beer & the iPhone. Second, the guy who found it? Instead of going through this whole deception of hiding evidence & selling it to Gizmodo, he simply could have called Uncle Steve and asked for a reward. No hassles, just a handshake & a fill in the blank reward.
I would think that Mr. Jobs would have been very accommodating if the finder asked for a whole stack of Apple stuff. $5k in cash or a fully loaded Mac Pro? How about add a couple 24" monitors, a MacBook Pro, a couple iPad's & iPod's? Don't like any of them, they are easy to convert to cash in a legal, honorable way. But no, had to go the more glory hound route. Oh well. Guess he didn't want the Vietnamese to get the first photos of the 4th Gen iPhone out to the world.
Though in Vietnam, Uncle's Steve's reach isn't as great.
-Mike M.
First, poor engineer. His name is forever tied to beer & the iPhone. Second, the guy who found it? Instead of going through this whole deception of hiding evidence & selling it to Gizmodo, he simply could have called Uncle Steve and asked for a reward. No hassles, just a handshake & a fill in the blank reward.
I would think that Mr. Jobs would have been very accommodating if the finder asked for a whole stack of Apple stuff. $5k in cash or a fully loaded Mac Pro? How about add a couple 24" monitors, a MacBook Pro, a couple iPad's & iPod's? Don't like any of them, they are easy to convert to cash in a legal, honorable way. But no, had to go the more glory hound route. Oh well. Guess he didn't want the Vietnamese to get the first photos of the 4th Gen iPhone out to the world.
Though in Vietnam, Uncle's Steve's reach isn't as great.
-Mike M.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
A Tale of Two Phones
I seem to be finding ways to reference classic English novels recently. I'm finding my mojo again to write. To keep pouring it out, good or bad.So tonight is a quick tale of two phones.
Until recently my friends knew that I rarely had my cell phone on. That would be the Nokia on the left. It was free a bit more than five years ago, replacing another Nokia that I had picked up in 1997. So I'm on my third phone in 13 years. The Nokia did its job, mainly as a way to make outgoing calls when I needed. I did not feel a need to be constantly connected or reachable. Still don't. My plan was 45 minutes a month for $20. Not bad, eh? Helps that my wife doesn't need to text or talk to me every minute of every day.
The phone on the right is my Motorola Droid. Bought that back in November. I wasn't interested in an iPhone. I had already suffered on the ATT network with my Nokia's & I had the iOS experience with my iPod Touch. I like what Verizon does with their network & I like what Android is about. With a growing business need to have a better phone & greater connectivity, I succumbed to the smart phone wave.
The Droid is pretty slick. When in Portland for Alex's wedding, it did superb turn-by-turn navigation. I have Google Voice on my line, as I push most calls to voice mail. The transcription helps at times & it gives me visual voice mail without paying for it. I like the keyboard, though it would have been better to have it centered & do away with the little cursor square.
The Droid has become my terminal to the world. It can access anything on the web & push quite a bit of data back up if I want. Neat, but most of you iPhone or Blackberry huggers already know that.
What I want to put a spot light on is the time between the two phones. Five years. That isn't very long. The pace of technology change in anything portable is just phenomenal. To move from a device & network that barely supports sending short text messages to one that surfs the net quickly for a reasonable price hadn't been seen in the century before. Consumer technology moved forward, but not at the pace currently seen.
My two phones point to the trend of anything wireless will continue to advance in great leaps every year. Wireless makes it easy to change out client devices. Makes it easy to upgrade protocols or use different spectrum. The air doesn't need to change, just the devices, especially if we are talking about consumer / enterprise wireless deployments. With the continued drive to LTE on the licensed spectrum & 4x4 MIMO 11n plus 60GHz standards on the unlicensed side, we are only seeing the end of the first book in the series.
Here's to my Droid lasting at least as long as my previous phones.
-Mike M.
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