2007 wrapup

for all practical purposes, this is the first year I made new year's goals since it's the first time they have been written down. So how did I do?

- Do something awesome:
Not many people know this, but I had a patent filed this year. I wont know for a couple years whether it is accepted but I have a copy of the patent application in my desk at work.

- Do something stupid (in the pursuit of awesome):
Although I never finished the story on my blog, my mustache fits this category quite well. Everybody hated it, and I loved it.

I have to tell this story because stories are what this goal was about. I shaved my mustache off and trimmed my sideburns on Christmas eve after everyone went to bed. I wanted to have Christmas eve pictures proving how long it got, but not ruin Christmas day pictures. Over the 2 months I grew it, it had become fairly thick and everyone noticed my mustache so I didn't have the embarrassing situation of people not noticing right away. I wondered if people noticed it because it was out of place on my normally boyish face, so I didn't tell anyone I had shaved it. Waking up, cooking and eating breakfast, gifts, and getting into the car to a movie were all family affairs and nobody noticed. Kyra was watching a video on her camera from Christmas eve and I said, "aww, remember when I had a mustache? Those were good times." Suddenly the car was in an uproar :) Lots of fun.

- Perform something in public:
I'm going to bring this one back to work, which wasn't the intention of the goal but it still fulfills it. I got to speak in front of over 300 people at WWDC this year. I was so prepared to be nervous speaking in front of lots of people that I didn't even consider that the lights would be too bright to see anyone. It was like practicing to an empty room, and it shocked me so much that my presentation was sub par.

- Keep the plants on my deck alive:
Absolutely failed. No excuses, it just didn't happen.

- Plan and take a vacation:
I went to Panama!

So there you have it. I give myself a 3.5 out of 5, since 3 were total successes and one was sub par. New goals will be made on the new year :)

Update

My moustache is trickling in at a steady rate. It's good enough now that people can notice and laugh. I'm extending my donation's promise to this claim: If you donate to a good cause, you will be assured immunity towards making fun of me :) I think the entire lunch table at work ought to donate now.

In other news, I'm flying back to Colorado... now-ish. So if you live there, call me up and we'll chill.

Horse Racing

Today Apple had a party at the Horse Races. It was actually a lot of fun. We were given a voucher for some money to play with, and some drink tickets and food. They reserved the entire top section for us and had extra staff around to help teach us how to bet.

One thing I find interesting, not only in this situation but also in life life is how we throw around percentages, and which ones matter. If you can drive across town to save 10 cents per gallon of gas, you save one dollar per tank. I fill up every two weeks so that's 26$ for the year, .03% of my salary. If you just paid off your credit cards earlier, you could be talking about whole percentages saved, quite a bit more than stressing about frugal gas purchases.

Or how about savings? If you move your your extra savings into the stock market, you take on a small risk and (hopefully) your money grows much faster. The goal of any investor is to "beat the market", to get above that magic 20% return that you receive by simply investing in an index fund. But when you go gambling, you don't really feel happy unless you double, or triple your money.

If you played horses like you play the stock market, you would be extremely happy to get 20 cents per dollar. And I don't think that would be very hard. I guess there's some draw to "Winning Big" such as lottery and gambling, that supersedes the plain old "winning".

Movember

The idea is simple. Bring awareness to prostate cancer by growing out your mustache. How hard can that be? If you're a skinny blond kid like me, it may be a little hard. But I'm going for it anyway. There's a website where you can support my peach fuzz.
https://www.movember.com/us/donate/donate-details.php?action=showrego®o=142643&country=us

I'll even make a deal. I will keep the mustache for 1 month AFTER November for every 5$ you donate. If you want to laugh at my stubble until next year, all you need to do is donate 60$ to prostate cancer (tax deductible). Maybe by then I can grow enough to wax it and curl up like the oldtimey studs. (I'm going to honor the max contribution, so if one person donates 5$ will keep it until the new year, 15$ will keep it through Valentines day)

I'll keep this blog updated with pictures. Be sure to check out Ryan Bruels for a real stud who will probably outgrow me by a meter.
https://www.movember.com/us/donate/donate-details.php?action=showrego®o=141291&country=us

Yosemite

How to have an adventure:

Go to Yosemite and walk around. It's a very beautiful place full of trees and tall rock formations.

Take a hike on one of the many trails. We went to Glacier point, and it was a crime how many people drove to the top rather than hiking. The path is so sheer you can get a sense of accomplishment as you look over the valley.

Walk home in the dark. It's scary, and probably more than a little stupid but the stars were perfect and the extra effort really bonded the four of us together.

Fly there. Driving is for wimps. Get some of your Google buddies to hop in their private plane and take you to Yosemite. Did I forget to mention that before?

And that's my weekend folks!

Happy Leopard day

I'm going to ignore the pink elephant in the room and just talk about anything but. If you know me, ask about the pink elephant and I'll let you in but the web is no place for pink elephants.

But in other news, Leopard shipped! Work wrapped up a little bit ago for us because they need to put all the shiny disks in the plastic boxes but it's extremely nice to be able to talk about it finally. You should definitely check out iChat, which uses QuartzComposer to make you look even funnier while video chatting with your friends. There are also some pretty sweet iTunes visualizers and new image filters that are really nice. Of the three new QC screensavers, one started out as a little test I did to make sure the Noise patch was working.

Of course if you're into art or programming or any combination thereof, be sure to install the Quartz Composer editor application by installing the Developer tools. Real live features I put into Leopard are available for you to play with.

Hope you enjoy!

Wrapup

Why is it so hard to write the last journal entry after a vacation? Is there some fear that the trip is over when that is done? Obviously you can't write a first entry since being back until you write the last entry of the trip so here it is, two weeks out and I'm finally writing.

We're home! Our sketchy Central American airlines got us home; and if you would like to avoid the risk of being stranded somewhere, never fly COPA airlines. If you recall they are the same airlines that abandoned us in Guatamala, and we later learned that our flight was NOT canceled, they just decided that everyone coming from our United flight would get bumped so they could handle the overbooking. That was then. The new sexy is triple booking our seats. You would think that an airline could remember how many people fit on one of their airplanes but apparently that's too much to ask. After I got settled in my seat someone came with an identical, printed, dated ticket as mine. When Tanya got to hers, someone was already sitting in it and someone ELSE had a ticket for it as well. Apparently this happens all the time because the locals took it in stride and somehow everything worked out.

Another fun experience to add to my list was getting selected for a random bag check in customs. They pulled all my stuff out of my bags and cut open some sealed coffee to look for drugs. All part of the experience!

Panama City again

Well, it´s our last night in Panama. In the last couple days we left David taking an overnight bus to Panama City which was so cold from the AC we didn´t sleep very well. We got in at 6AM and got to the car rental place.

If you like thrillers, drive in Panama City. It´s bad enough inside a Taxi, but then you only have to worry about how nutz your driver is, not the thousands of other taxi drivers around you. We weren´t renting a car to get around the City, it´s easy enough to get a taxi and only costs 2$ anywhere. We wanted to explore some of the inland areas and so we were taking a car trip.

Two nights ago we drove to Pedasi, a sleepy little town with some nice beaches and very nice people. On the way we stopped by the most over developed beach in Panama (Coronado) and it was too developed to even find access to the beach! We also stopped in some little towns with lots of history, found some pretty churches and visited a museum that was so eager to have our business that two of the staff rattled on to us in spanish for 3 hours (2.5 more than we had hoped to spend there)

After Pedasi we drove up to El Valle which was a really nice place. Like Boquete it was up in the mountains so cooler and very green with extreme hills rising vertically all around. We visited a zoo there where you can get right up close to the animals and the only thing stopping you from putting your hand in the cages was a sign "Cuidado".

This morning we drove back to the City, and we´re going to see a folk show and have dinner soon. Tomorrow we get on a plane and with any luck we´ll be back in the USA by tomorrow night at 11:30.

Boquete

I´m in Boquete now, and it´s raining. Seems like it does that a lot lately, and while my rain jacket was great at lower altitudes it´s actually a bit chilly here.

Today we got up and had some breakfast we bought yesterday in our hostel and then got a Taxi with a nice lady from San Mateo to the bus station. We found the bus to Boquete and had a nice trip through beautiful country to here, where it´s undescribably beautiful. Gigantic hills with shear cliffs covered in green life and clouds floating in and out between them. There isn´t a ton to do here though, so mostly we walk around the hills and look at stuff. We got a fabulous house for 15$ a night with two rooms, living room and kitchen. It looks down into he river, I think it´s the chiquiri river. Tomorrow we´re going to see an indian artisan villiage and tour a coffee roasting company.

I´m loosing track of the days, it feels like I´ve been here forever. I´m starting to miss some things about America like hot showers but I could certainly enjoy this a bit longer.

City of David

We left Bocas today and in a whorl wind of activity we made it to the city of David. We got on a water taxi which took us to a dock in Almirante, a man carried our bags to a taxi waiting outside who took us to the bus station, the bus left right as we sat down and drove 4 hours to David and a taxi waiting outside took us to the Purple Hostel, a nice little place not far from the center of town.

This city isnt much fun, but it could be the rain. We are trying to figure out where to go next, but it looks like we might cancel our plans to do a hike and just go see Boquete. It is hard switching back into choose your own adventure mode, the days in Bocas have been nice and relaxing and now we need to go back to figuring out who to trust and where to sleep.

Last day in Bocas

Hey all, We´ve been having a great time in Bocas del Toro, but tomorrow we´re catching a bus out of here. It´s hard to believe we´ve been here more than a week! Yesterday we went exploring an island called Bastimentos and found a really cool surfing beach and today we went on a tour to see dolphins, snorkel and a really secluded beach with beautiful sand.

Miss you all, but not enough to come home yet!

More Bocas

Hey Everyone! I´m still hanging out in Bocas, getting some sun and having fun. Today I went scuba diving and saw some really great coral, parrot fish, and marvelous undescribable sights. There was a jelly fish that was about 8 inches diameter. After the dive instructor led by example, I petted the jelly. It´s a good thing Pixar taught us that jelly fish only sting on the bottom.

Yesterday we caught a water taxi back to red frog beach with our island friends, Alice, May and Mark. It was so beautiful, with blue sky, white sand and green water. There were little thatched roof umbrellas along the beach to hide from the sun, but I didn´t hide well enough and got a bit burned. It was fun to body surf and play in the sand. I made a horse head sculpture in the sand.

We just moved hotels, our last one was nice but it´s good to have some different experiences. We will probably stay here 2 or 3 more nights and then head towards Boquete and David. I could really get used to this island life.

Bocas del Toro

Hey everyone, it´s been a while. Computer access here in the islands is limited, and there are half a dozen people in line after me to pay 2$ an hour to use the computers.

Panama City was great, and now I´m in Bocas del Toro. It´s a set of islands in the North part of Panama really close to Costa Rica. We flew in on a small prop plane and had reservations at a nice little bed and breakfast. The town is a lot different than we were used to in Panama City. Everything in the town is walking distance away, and most of the town includes tour shops and hotels, but each hotel contains a restaurant and a bar.

We´ve been using the tour shops a lot, it´s the best way to get around the islands with gaurenteed return. The first day here we went on a trip and saw Dolphins playing in the water. Our captain said some were only hours old, and you could tell they were not going underwater very much and still learning to swim.

Next while others snorkeled, we went to a small indian villiage and hired a guide for 5$ to take us through the jungle. There were many mosquitos but we did manage to see a Sloth, a couple Cayman (alligators) and the beautiful Red Dart Frog. They are tiny, about the size of your thumbnail but the guide told us they had enough poison to kill 20 spanish soldiers when they were invading the area. We got to hold them, because the poison is only dangerous if ingested or injected into the bloodstream with an arrow or dart.

That night we met up with some new friends for dinner and drinks, and it rained so hard that our street was completely flooded and we had to wade home.

This morning we went on a snorkling trip and saw many fish and corel. One beach had Star Fish which were gigantic, up to 16 inches tip to tip. We also got to see Isla Parajaro which was a reall cool pirate looking island.

Pictures will be great, but unfortunately this Windows machine freezes whenever I plug in my camera and I don´t want to try again and retype this again!

Hasta Luego

First day in Panama

I'm sure you're all wondering if I'm safe after yesterday's message, and I am. We are now in Panama and I love this place.

After I wrote yesterday, we decided to make the most of our delay and see la ciudad de Guatamala. It was really fun, there was a festival going on and all the school children from around were performing in marching bands for the parade. We also went to a beautiful Cathedral and a market. The market was huge, a converted building with 5x5 stalls filling it end to end, 2.5 stories high (two floors on top of eachother, and one was half a story down.) Inside you had the regular tourist stuff, along with sacks of grain, cooked foods, ribbon shops, wedding supplies and live chickens for sale in a basket. Everything the residents of Guatamala could possibly need.

Our taxi driver was really sweet. He offered to come back when we needed to leave and in fact refused payment until he collected us. He was trusted by Marriot so we could trust him. When he returned he couldn't make it to the agreed location because of the festival traffic so he parked 3 blocks away and ran to meet us.

We took our flight and arrived in Panama without further delay. Flying in was beautiful. Fog surrounded the plane all the way there until we were almost there and it broke just in time to throw light on the highrises of Panama City. We shared a cab with some frindly Americans we met on the plane who shared our cancled flight plight. Tanya and I ate dinner and roamed the streets last night, trying to get lost. Interestingly, on closer inspection it appears that although there are more sky scrapers than San Francisco and this looks like a richer city from the outside, inside you can tell that 1/3 of the buildings are under construction and some are empty. There is a lot of investment going on right now and this city could very well boom, but right now it's not quite as metropoliton as it appears.

This morning we got up and went to Casco Viejo, the new, old center of town. It was raining and I was interested to see that the residents seem to stop their lives to stand under an awning and wait for the rain to stop. We waited with them for a while, but decided just to brave the rain, and I'm glad we did because it was still warm and the wet city streets were pretty in their own way.

At one point we saw the ocean so started walking towards it. About 2 blocks from the edge of the peninsula an old woman stopped us, insisting we don't go down that way. She said it was too dangerous. It's really cool that she did, despite the fact that it proved we stuck out as tourists. Everyone has been likewise friendly and helpful. I should point out that Guatamala did not feel safe, and nobody seemed interested in looking at us or helping us except our Taxi driver.

After lunch at a high scale restaurant called Buzios (30$ for both of us) we took a taxi to the Old old part of Panama, Panama Viejo. It was hard to find a taxi driver, and when we finally found one he already had a fair. Didn't matter, he told us to get in and we started driving the opposite direction we wanted to go. All taxi rides had been life and death experiences so far, with the weaving and horn honking and speeding but this guy was 10x worse. Then we entered a complete slum, and I was sure we were being scammed and the other woman in the car was a decoy. She eventually got out and we were off, so I felt a little better but I didn't feel safe until we were out of the car. Later we had a taxi charge us 1/4th the price and drive at a more reasonable speed. We tipped him well.

Old Panama was kinda fun, ruins of the old city before Captain Morgan attacked it and burned it to the ground (the guy you know from the Rum). I was pretty interested in hearing about Morgan, because I knew he got pardoned (and knighted) so I thought he was forgiven. But it was clear the residents don't like him much. The Pirate section of the museum was tucked in the last corner and talked about what a terrible guy he was. Basically, he raised the city because he could, they offered very litte resistance and he took 3000 prisoners ransom and torchured them until they paid. So now I'm more sensitive to their culture, but I can't help marvel at this early entreprenuer.

That's the everything up until now. I really love this city, so many colors and sights. Tonight we plan to go to the new, new center of town and maybe see what the clubs are like here. Tomorrow we see the canal and get on a plane for Bocas Del Toro where we should have a more relaxed schedule.

Greetings from Guatamala!

... Wait, what?? No, I didn't make it to Panama yet. Our 6am flight from Guatamala to Panama was canceled so they put us up at the Marriot until 2:30pm when we can fly out. They gave us free breakfast and lunch here too, and the food was delicious. We're not sure what to do in Guatamala, I really don't know much about this country. Soon we're going to head out and see if we can find a market or something. Hopefully our plane gets to Panama this evening!

Flying out today

Today is the day I leave for Panama. I catch a flight from San Francisco to LA at 7:40pm to 9:15pm, from LA to Guatemala at 10:55pm to 4:45am and from Guatemala to Panama City at 6:15am and land at 9:15am. Some people might dread so many flights and arriving so early, but I'm looking forward to flying in to paradise as the sun comes up over the horizon!

iPhone!!!!

I'm writing this from my new iPhone! It's pretty cool, I really do feel like it is the real web on my phone. I should be paying attention to the presentation right now but I hope you can understand why I'm not.

In other news, I have something cool planned for tanya on her birthday but it is a secret. Then I go to visit friends in Colorado and then I'm off to panama! Exciting times.

K, press over, back to work ( I hope)

I'm going to Panama!

I just bought tickets to Panama! I'm super excited, and that brings me one step closer to fulfilling my new years goals. I'll be gone for 16 days, which is the longest amount of time of not working since my senior year in high school. Now I need to brush up on spanish, find a digital camera, and dream about beaches. Email me your address if you want a post card!

Russian Party

Last Memorial day I went to Tanya's Mom's birthday. It was really good, there was so much food. Every time I finished something, someone offered (or simply spooned onto my plate) something new I had never seen before. Caviar, soup made with gelatin so it's eaten like pie, stuffed fish, hand picked mushrooms, Russian salad, spiced chicken, duck liver, and so much more I can't even describe the ingredients but it was delicious.

After an hour of eating I was getting pretty full and I told Tanya it was about time I slowed down to save room for cake. She asked me, “What about the '0Hot meal'?” Yes, we had been eating for an hour and there was a whole 'nother meal coming. And then fruit. And then Desert. And then Cake. And all throughout, wine and vodka. There were 30+ people present who ate more than any Thanksgiving meal I've ever seen and yet there was still plate upon plate of leftovers. People sang, gave toasts, performed acrobatics and I understood none of it but enjoyed it none the less.

Russian's know how to party.

Quick update: I'm gearing up for WWDC, where I will be speaking! So if you're coming to the 'dub this year, come to session 415 "Mastering the Quartz Composer editor".

Other than that, life is great and there's not much to report. I'm looking at vacation options so if you have any ideas, let me know.

H-1B Visa Cap Reached in One Day

One of the cool things about living in the silicon valley is meeting all sorts of people. I have friends from foreign countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, China, Iran, France, Poland, Philippines and Fort Collins. Most are citizens, but some rely on work visas to be here. At least two of my friends are affected by this:www.crn.com/it-channel/198800456.

My co-worker from France and one of my salsa friends from Poland have a 1:3 chance that they will not get a visa to stay, even though they have jobs and contribute to the economy of the United States. It's pretty sad what Sept. 11 did to this country, and that we may loose some real talent if they can't work here.

Best of luck to you, Kevin and Ania (and anyone else affected by this)

Standup

I've done a couple things in the last week and I think I'm pretty satisfied with my most difficult goal, perform something in public. I've made two presentations at work, one to a large group (about 50) and one to half a dozen of the most important people in software engineering at Apple. I was nerveous for both but pulled it off nicely. Then last night I went to the Standford comedy club and got to participate in an improv skit with comedian Jimmy Gun. My mind froze up and I couldn't remember how Sleeping Beauty started but I did get up, got some laughs and had a good time.

In other news, I went to a Cake concert last week and it was fun. As a band, they don't have a very good live show. However, if I ever have a chance to see Honeycut again live I will certainly do so. The music was good, but the way those guys dance just makes you want to get up and join (mostly because it's so bad you could never do worse)

Oh and I'm moving this weekend. :)

What's your favorite color?

That's a hard question. I like vibrant colors, like corn fields, good music and spicy food, but I also like muted colors like 5:00 am and half empty bottles of champagne (in this case, half empty _is_ the optimistic view). The one color that I don't like is any shade of boring, with apathy being just behind it. If I must pick a favorite, my favorite color is a sincere smile, it looks great when you wear it, and matches with anything.

New Years goals

When I grow up, I want to be a story teller. The kind of man that gathers a crowd at family gatherings or performs for crowds in parks. Whether that means classic stories, my own life events or maybe spontaneous fictions made up on the spot. Most of my goals this year relate to that dream, and here they are.

- Do something awesome: examples include building an interesting whatsit or finding the meaning of life.
- Do something stupid (in the pursuit of awesome): When I learned to ski in boyscouts, the scout master told me to fall down on the first run of the day, so that it's no longer a fear.
- Perform something in public: I haven't quite figured out how to make this happen, but this is the most frightening goal I have.
- Keep the plants on my deck alive: That means replacing the dead ones currently out there :)
- Plan and take a vacation: I've never been off this content. I've been cool places with my family but I really need to do something I can tell my kids about someday.

Happy new year to all!