In December 1995 I was halfway through boot camp, a time called service week. Service week was when the recruits went to work in the galley. Some served food, other mopped the floor, and still others handed out miniature boxes of cereal. My name was chosen alphabetically for assignment to the GI [...]
In 2007 I spent two months working as a network engineer for a small tech consulting company. The work there was amazing. They had built a long range, city-wide wireless network, and were providing broadband to rural areas. They were also providing a “one stop shop” for everything IT for small businesses in town. The [...]
My phone went through the wash today. Turns out it happened first thing this morning. I really should be more careful about cleaning out my pockets before throwing something in the washing machine, but to be honest, I never liked that phone to begin with. It had a faulty battery, and a faulty USB charger, [...]
¶ Cocoa
Last summer I decided to dive into programming and give it everything I’ve got. For months, I would get up at 5 and pour through the Hillgass book, every page, every challenge. I’d revisit it at night, after the kids were in bed, and code till I couldn’t stay awake any more. [...]
I’ve been unlucky enough to be working with quite a few pieces of so called “enterprise” software, the worst of which I’ve been working with lately is called the Tivoli Workload Scheduler. TWS is, at its core, a glorified cron. It is a scheduler, you can create jobs, or scripts, and have them [...]
The ability to visualize a complex system is key to a real understanding of it. To me, this applies to computers and technology. To Daniel Tammet, this applies to numbers and letters, on a far, far more vast scale. Daniel is a savant, an extraordinary person who pushes the boundaries of what we believe we [...]
I love January 1st. It’s not that this day is really any different from any other day, other than having the day off. Its the mental association that goes along with the start of a new year. The calendar restarts, and it seems like a fresh clean slate to build the rest [...]