Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Fair Game

I'm freshly returned from the Spring Career Fair at University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was a somewhat disappointing fair - usually we have a lot of good candidates coming up to us, but this time the crowd seemed lighter in general. The hiring market has picked up and I'm guessing that by March, there aren't as many jobless seniors floating around as there were in 2003.

Of course, we printed a description of our positions in the pamphlet that's given to each student who comes to the fair. It clearly stated we are hiring FULL-TIME employees who must be US citizens or permanent residents. So it goes without saying that the evening was an endless parade of underclassmen and foreign students, all inquiring about internships and H1/J1B visa sponsorships. Sorry, kids.

So what redeemed the night? An evening at Madison's Doubletree Hotel, where everyone gets a warm cookie upon check-in and the beds have about twelve layers of bedding. Here's hoping the accommodations at Chez Liric this weekend are similar.

Friday, March 24, 2006

The Much Anticipated

pictures of the pup.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Uniformed man brings good things

Today, two things came to the house from a uniformed man. First, I just got my new Canon PowerShot SD450. It's been some time coming, since the PowerShot A70 that I bought for our wedding has been on it's last legs for a while. I was really excited the get the new camera and will play with the setting over the coming weeks, including the DAK II event the weekend of March 30th.

The single most noticeable change is that the SD450 takes pictures fast, while the A70 took it's sweet time to decide if it wanted to take your picture at all. One thing about the new camera is that it makes a high-pitched noise when the lens moves in and out. It doesn't do it all the time, and I think that it is the focus-something-mechanism. The A70 does the same thing, but much louder. I can't decide if this is a defect, or just the way it is (motor whine is common in cars). Anyone know a worthwhile thing to do with old digital cameras?

The other thing that a uniformed man brought to me today was the March issue of Men's Health (a little late, if you ask me). I haven't really gotten into it, but as I tore out all of the advertising inserts, my eye was caught by a brief "article". It's titled, "Things that Just Don't Matter". It's a quick, humorous piece about things you shouldn't spend time on. Unfortunately, there is no way to find it on the Men's Health website.

This brings me to my first point: As much online reading as I do, I still wish that magazine and newspaper websites made it easier to navigate and find things online. Why can't they give you a page that has all the articles in the latest issue, one by one, page by page? It would make it much easier for people (like me) who read something in the paper magazine and then want to go online to email the article to people or just get more information.

My second point is that I agree with many of the points, if you can call them that, made by the author (Duane Swierczynski). Although I couldn't find the article online, I did find the author's blog and his mention of the MH article. Among the list of things you shouldn't worry about, my favorites are "Warping your kids", "Slaving to fashion trends" and "Going to work early".

I would add to the list "Winning Trivia Games", "Anything Involving a Celebrity" and "What Someone Else Thinks About You". What other things should be on the list?

Monday, March 20, 2006

False advertising

So, it turns out that there is a big difference between Silicon Valley and Silicone Valley. That little "e" changes everything.

Anyway, last week was spent in the wonder world of start-ups, tech giants, VCs and communal delusion. We visited about 20 companies in 4.5 days. Some of the most interesting ones were Prosper, MobiTV, Akimbo, SugarCRM, 4info, TravelPost and vmWare. I wouldn't have thought it, but it's surprisingly tiring to wake up, shower, eat, drive around, sit in a board room, drive around, another meeting, more driving, eat again, more sitting, driving, meeting, shaking and driving.

Overall, the trip was not terribly exiting. Which is why I carried my camera in my backpack all week and never took it out. I have to mention that, almost without exception, the small companies were much more interesting than the big companies. Special mention should be given to Google, where we had a terrible snoozer of a meeting with one of their marketing guys. He didn't show us anything and generally avoided most of our questions.

Other than research for our paper on wireless technology, I got one important thing: I like shufflepuck. This is the game that is usually sitting in the corner of a bar, with little metal disks
that drunk guys usually fling around the play field, which is covered with sand-like particles. I played this game for the first time on Friday, and it turns out I'm pretty good at it. As evidence, here is a camera phone shot of one of my many four point scores:


If I could just get rid of the inclination to hit my own pucks off the play board, I could be a real force at this game.

On the home front, I installed a bird feeder on the rail on the deck in front of our living room window. This was mostly for Ally and Bo to enjoy the birds it should attract. Well, it turns out that the squirrels are just as keen on the seeds as the birds are.


This is a phone picture of Ally looking out the window at a squirrel taking seeds from the bird feeder. I think I'm going to have to come up with something different.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Bueller?

So I guess I'm the only person who wants to post here anymore. A few quick notes:

- I assume everyone has already seen these new Volkswagen commercials, which feature a hilarious "German" version of "Pimp My Ride." Check them out. If you like them, let me hear you say... vot?

- The estimate for repairs to my car is $1000.41. It's just the fascia that's damaged, but the trunk floor got dented too, and the muffler fell off its hanger and may need to be replaced altogether. Ugh.

- In the next four weeks I am visiting everyone from Outside Context in a fun and exciting place.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Big Bang

It was only a matter of time. First Jen, now me.

That's right, I got into a car accident on Sunday night. I was coming back from dinner with Michelle, driving on Golf Road, when I was rear-ended by (surprise!) an uninsured driver. Fortunately it was a low-speed accident, so nobody was hurt. I was only going about 15 mph and he couldn't have been going much faster than that. Even more fortunately, there was a cop going the other way who witnessed the entire thing and wrote up a nice accident report for me. When I left she was still yelling at the uninsured guy for speeding without insurance in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I've already filed a claim with the very helpful and non-judgemental folks at my new insurance company, and I'm taking the car in for the initial estimate on Saturday. There's some deep scratching on the bumper - not the kind you can buff out, but not giant dents either - and the muffler is riding a bit lower than it used to. I'm guessing I'll need an entirely bumper, which I've been told can run anywhere from $200 to $900. Your guess, Andrik?

Naturally, I have every conceivable kind of coverage in my policy EXCEPT property damage caused by uninsured drivers. I have bodily injury from uninsured driver coverage, but nothing that will cover this. So hello $500 deductible, goodbye part of my annual bonus.

In other news, from March 31-April 3 I'll be kicking it with Beanieliz in the Bay Area. I'm psyched, although Eric wants to know what I want to, you know, um, do.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Viva Italia!

A few weeks back I went to Italy for a long weekend, and I'm just now getting around to downloading and posting pictures.

I went to Milan, which is in the northern part of the country and is the financial and business center of the country. I always think of Italians as a fairly laid-back, laissez-faire kind of people, but northern Italy is very industrious and hard-working (it must be the proximity to Germany that does it.) The Milanese love to complain that their hard work props up the rest of the country economically; consequently, Milan doesn't feel quite as "Italian" as you'd expect an Italian city to feel. Nobody was lounging around in cafes or tossing pizzas in the air; the people mostly rushed around, wearing suits and talking very seriously into mobile phones.

Still, it was interesting to see that Italy has a serious side, especially after visiting Rome in high school and getting frustrated because trains don't run on time and waiters in restaurants are slow and nobody will do anything unless you give the tip first. So without any further adieu (or the Italian equivalent thereof), the photos:

Milan is internationally renowned for its fashion industry, which as far as I could tell consisted of a few trendy boutiques, coupled with hundreds of North African street vendors selling knockoffs of the merchandise inside said trendy boutiques. However, Messrs. Dolce and Gabbana did kick off their partnership here.

Italy has a big election coming up, and from by all accounts Italians are very passionate about politics. There were a whole bunch of campaign signs covering the sides of buildings, including this one for Silvio Berlusconi and his "Forza Italia" coalition. "Italian Force" would be a good name for a pizza parlor, by the way.

Here's a nice example of a traditional Italian piazza. Very pretty, despite the weather.

This woman (in the green jacket) actually paid these men money for the privilege of having their pigeons land on her. Needless to say, she was American. Right after I took the picture, she discovered that Italian pigeons poop just like American ones do.

Making Out In Public is one of the four pillars of Italian society (the others are Smoking A Whole Lot, Riding Around On Scooters, and Sending Text Messages While Smoking A Lot Or Riding Around On A Scooter.) Actually, I thought this was kind of a neat and romantic picture.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele was the world's first covered shopping mall. It opened in the mid-1800s and is currently anchored by Sears, Kohl's and JC Penney. Wait, that's Golf Mill.

Inside the Galleria. Eat your heart out, Old Orchard.

Where is everybody? Italy has the lowest birthrate of any industrialized nation, but this seemed a little ridiculous.

I took a day trip up to Lake Como, which is in the foothills of the Italian Alps. It was a really neat little town wedged up against some pretty spectacular scenery. I had a delicious Italian lunch there and rode a funicular railway up to the top of one of the mountains, which afforded me a great view of fog and mist, since the mountains were all covered in clouds.

They have Carnavale in Italy too - it's not as raucous as the one in Brazil, but the Italians seemed to be getting into the spirit. I think this float may be caricaturing politicians or something, but I was afraid to ask. A lot of people in the crowd were dancing - I learned that Italians may be a fashion-conscious and passionate people, but they still dance like the whiteys they really are.

Of course it wouldn't be complete without a shot of an airplane, right? This is the weirdest-looking plane I've ever seen. I flew it from Milan to Zurich, which was a short 45 minute hop. The flight attendants were in the aisle the whole flight, passing out little Swiss chocolates to everyone. I ate at least ten of them. Best inflight catering ever.




The flight from Milan to Zurich took us right over the Alps, and the scenery was incredible. Now I really want to go to Switzerland too.









So that's a brief photo tour of Milan and environs. I don't have any travel scheduled yet aside from a thrilling in week in Knoxville in early April. I'll also (hopefully) be going to San Francisco to visit the House of Dudkowski and Bridges around the same time, and if prices go my way I might join Jendrik in Hamsterdam for a few days too. I'm going to be eating beans for months to finance all this, but you guys are worth it.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

The great equalizer

This past Saturday was Jamie day. To start off, we picked her up from O'Hare at about 1:30 AM (don't you love delayed flights?). We immediately went to the first edible fast food joint with an open drive-thru. Whoppers for everyone - we were all really hungry.

Saturday night, we went to Gracie's on Webster and met up with an eclectic group of people. The best part of Gracie's was being amused by all the people "dancing" in front of the dj to the likes of "Living on a Prayer", "Love Shack", "Pour some sugar on me", "Barbie Girl" and "Whip it!". Some people are just bad dancers. It's a simple fact of nature. There's nothing to be ashamed of by it. I'm not trying to put anyone down, it's just true. Accept it and move on, is what I say. I don't claim to be a very good dancer myself, but I know the good from the bad when I see them.

Most of the people dancing at Gracie's were late 20's - early 30's folks wearing glittery tops, button-down stripped shirts, TBPs, and khakis. Hellen's boyfriend, the ex-AI High Alpha commented that the likelihood of being a bad dancer seems to go up if you are wearing a button-down shirt (buttoned all the way to the top) tucked into your pants. I agreed with him.

The dancing theme continued after Gracie's at a place called Nacional 27, a salsa club. This kind of salsa, NOT this kind. It's been a long time since I've been to a real club like this. We walked around the place looking for Hellen's med school friends. I was impressed by the diversity. I'm not usually the type of person that makes a big deal out of diversity, but I was struck by it this time. The people there were all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. All of these things just don't matter when dancing is concerned.

Dancing is the great equalizer.

The heart of these clubs isn't with the drinking or the socializing, it's very simply with the dancing. The people go there because they love to dance. Then, it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, young or old, you get the picture. All that matters is how well you can dance. You can't buy dance moves, and you certainly can't fake them. If you genuinely enjoy them, nothing else matters. That's why the young, handsome guy will dance with the middle aged mother of five. That's why the "prom queen" will dance with the short, unfortunate-looking guy. All that mattes are the moves.

There are some guys that arrive early, close the place down and never sit down in between. They are dancing all the time. They change partners every couple of songs and it doesn't matter who the partner is, as long as they want to dance. And this is honestly true. A guy will go up to a table with 9 girls and just say, "who wants to dance?". It doesn't matter which one accepts, as long as one of them does.

Of course looks plays a little into it, but in the end, the real test in on the crowded, hot, sweaty,
rhythmic dance floor. If you've got the goods there, nothing else matters. I say this from an observers perspective because I've never been a good rhythm dancer. I happen to have my goods somewhere else.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Best. Invention. Ever.

I want one.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Technical assistance, please

Andrik and Beanie know I'm not very technically minded (the dent on the side of my computer in college can attest to that as well) but I'm hoping the larger community here can help me with a techie question.

Does anyone know of a good (free) application I can use to convert .MOV files to something a little friendlier (.avi, .wmv, .mpg)? My new digital camera only saves movies as .MOV, and they're big chunky files that can only be played by my arch-nemesis, QuickTime Viewer.

I had a really great conversion program (Stoik Video Converter) that I used on my old camera, but it won't do .mov-to-.mpg conversions. Freeware recommendations are appreciated.

Sorry for the tech-speak and I promise I'll be back with witty insight again soon. I have Italy pictures I need to post for everyone.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Big News

Did you guys know that terrorist recruitment is far outpacing army recruitment? Here all about it here. I particularly enjoy the story's ending.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Ignorant comment of the week

So I'm waiting for the elevator just now after picking up my lunch. There's another guy waiting with me, a normal looking forty-something white guy in a Super Bowl sweatshirt. 2 elevators arrive, more or less at the same time. I get on one, Super Bowl gets on the other. I see a couple of other people get on the other elevator as well; one was a white woman, the other was a man in a turban (looked like a Sikh to me, but who knows).

I'm standing in my elevator, waiting for the doors to close, when who should appear before me but Super Bowl. He gets in, the doors close, and he angrily punches the button for the floor below mine. "I don't ride elevators with fuckin' ragheads anymore."

I didn't have time to recover from my stunned silence before he got off again.

What the fuck? Even the most racist people I know wouldn't do that, or would at least keep their comments to themselves. And this was in San Francisco!

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