Good morning everyone. Just a quick photo and story post. Braz and I finally managed to get together last night to grab dinner (along with his two lovely daughters). We were meeting in CW for a walk first at 6; I didn't leave my office until 5:15, so I decided to forgo heading home and just went in early to take advantage of the great evening light to find some pictures. But aside from pictures it seemed to be an evening for meeting friends. As I was walking, I first ran into Dave from my office out on a walk with his wife before a dinner at the Trellis. A little later as I was heading up to meet Braz, I ran into a quite admirably ambitious Tiffany out running. Braz, Emma, Sarah, and I all had a good walk although I think Emma and Sarah got the better deal as they spent most of the walk on our shoulders. Dinner and much discussion ensued. Good evening all around. So that's my story; enjoy the [pictures](http://flickr.com/photos/confusticate/)

It is amazing how the brain can become so thoroughly focused on something that thinking about other topics becomes near impossible. I say that in the abstract, but it is something that has been far from an abstract concept recently. Hopefully things work out well.

(Yes, I realize this is a very random entry. Sorry. I just felt the need to post something even if it is only meaningful to me.)

In an attempt to make up for that odd last entry, here is a link to what I think are an amazing set of photos. My question is how did he take them without his camera showing up in the reflections? Anyone?

Kevin Tiell - Pinball photos

• Coworker: “I’m out sick, can you help answer this question?”
• Me (to myself): “sure!”
• ::wander around office::
• ::investigate:: ::investigate::
• Me: “It does WHAT? F*ck.”
• ::investigate some more::
• Me: “This is very bad.”
• ::converse with higher ups::
• ::scramble: ::scramble:: ::scramble::
• Document problem to higher ups.
• ::scramble to find fix::
• ::come up with estimates::
• Email time estimates to higher ups
• Duck and cover

We won’t talk about saturday other than to say it was a less than positive day.

Sunday however, made up for it very nicely. After a relatively quiet morning actually making progress on a few projects at home (schoolwork and geeky stuff), I finally made it over to the Williamsburg Winery. Given my penchant for good wine and the fact that I have lived in Williamsburg for many years, it is strange that I had never been, but that has since been corrected. Tiffany had two friends from her undergraduate days, Anne and Jason, who were coming to visit for the day. She organized a small outing to do the winery tour and more importantly tasting. Along with Q, the five of us headed over there a bit after lunch.

The tour itself was certainly interesting although I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the actual wine production itself. It may just have been the wrong time of the year for that kind of show and tell however (note cheap excuse to go back again). The tasting comprised of 6 wines some of which I had experienced before, but several new ones. If I remember correctly, we tasted the Governor’s White, the John Adlum Chardonnay, the Acte 12 Chardonnay, the Virginia Trianon Reserve, the Barrel Aged Claret, and finally the Blackberry Merlot desert wine. The Claret, and the Acte 12 were both especially good in my opinion (not counting the Governor’s White which is always good). The desert wine was amazing.

After exiting the tour, we did exactly what the winery hopes you will do; we bought wine. Between Tiffany, Q, and I, we put together a full case to get the 10% discount. Given that I had recently stocked up on everyday drinking wines, I decided to go for quality over quantity. I picked up a bottle of the Gabriel Archer Reserve and the blackberry desert wine I had tasted earlier.

A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine

The quote above was shown during the tour and since the sun had come out, how could we not indulge in a meal? We had a very pleasant lunch sitting on the patio of the tavern next door to the winery complete with a bottle of the Claret. Sadly, after the meal Anne and Jason needed to hit the road. But I think a good time was had by all.

I can’t imagine a better cap to a weekend; good friends (old and new), good food, good wine, and great conversation.

Just a quick photo I took when I came into the office this morning. More zoom would have been better, but I still like it.

Complete flickr gallery

Hey everyone! Here I am again. I have been really busy lately (good busy) and I though I’d relate a little of what I’ve been doing. Tuesday has become bowling night :) Jim, Tiffany, and Robert are part of a local bowling league and I have been going most weeks to cheer them on and watch their games. I have always enjoyed bowling, but it is never something I did very often, nor did I really appreciate the whole “culture” of the event. I know that may sound silly to many of you, but as a social event it is unique in the experiences I have had.

The bowling league brings together a whole different cross-section of people that I would never run into socially in either my school or work life. Especially working in a technical field, I have found that one gets surrounded by a very small group of people who share the same interests as you. Computers have taken such a prominent role in society over the last 20 years that those of us who work with them are looked upon almost like practitioners of magic. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not implying that we are somehow better or special, if anything we are looked upon as odd and a bit scary. Which is what makes this bowling thing so cool; it pulls together people from all walks of life into a common interest that is amazingly supportive.

The game lends itself to one of support. You are in effect competing far more against yourself than you are against any of the other players. As such, everyone is rooting for you all the time. It is just cool.

This past Tuesday however, I got to be a participant. Robert was sick, so the team needed a pinch-bowler. Now I haven’t bowled in many many years so I was a bit nervous. Watching Tiffany and Jim is intimidating; they have finesse and style and use bowling words I don’t understand. When they bowl, the ball does all this funky curvy stuff to hit the pins that I knew was far beyond my skill. So I went for what I thought I could do; the direct application of as much energy I could to the pins. E = 1/2 mv^2!, baby! (That would be the equation for kinetic energy for you non-physics geeks.) And I will say that it worked pretty well. I did not embarrass myself overly much and I’d like to think I contributed.

So I had a great time. I look forward to the next opportunity I get to play.

That’s all I got for now. Have a great day!

I am feeling quite punchy this morning. Could be for any number of reasons. Lead contender is I just wrapped up my algorithm’s homework. There is something fundamentally wrong with a 3 question homework that results in 6 pages of typeset answers. But you, my readers, get the benefit of the links I have found particularly funny this morning as a result. Lucky you!

• Dooce: Where God continues to have a very hearty laugh at our expense - Heather Armstrong is officially a Very Funny Woman. The last line sews it up so nicely.
• Gizmodo: Ultimate Ears Triple.fi 10 Is Like Sex in Your Ear Canal - I didn’t actually read this article, but I think the authors liked the headphones.
• Today’s Dilbert - Just funny

That’s all or now. Have a good day.

So most of you know I am a big fan of KCRW (to the point I send my NPR money to them, not our local station). I am also a huge U2 fan. So I was quite surprised to hear this very odd cover of U2’s Desire (one of my favorites). It was odd.

Pride by Nouvell Vague from their Bande a Part album (iTunes link)

[Updated] I ended up buying the album. Cool stuff.

If someone had told me a few years ago that I would find myself in a situation where I would not be spending more than one evening a week at home, I would have called them crazy. I have always considered myself to be a stay at home and have quiet evenings type of guy. This is such a new experience for me, but I am finding myself almost addicted to it; the friendships I have developed (and those I already had) that make this possible have truly increased my quality of life in many ways. I hope you all know who you are; thanks.

So what have I been up to?

• Work: Hrm. This is a toughy to talk about without sounding completely grumpy. I like technology and the workings of technology; it is what I am good at. Recent events have required a delving into politics that has stretched my patience lately. There are many questions for me in this, none of which I’m ready to share.
• School: I am taking the single required course of the CS Masters program this semester, Advanced Analysis of Algorithms. I realized very quickly why it is required. Normally a class is required because it represents a core set of knowledge for a discipline and while this could be said of Algorithms, I don’t think that is the reason in this case. My feeling is the primary reason is no one would take it otherwise. I don’t like saying that; the professor is wonderful and she does what I think is the best job of making the material interesting but there is only so far one person can go. And the material is quite challenging; it is the type of material that has what I refer to as an “aha moment.” There is rarely a gradual grasping of a solution; at one moment there is no grasp of the situation, then something clicks and you just have to document it. Very bad for partial credit. So this is going to be a tough semester.
• Soccer: Now we get to the fun categories. The Big-Os sports season has started up again with indoor soccer. I played outdoor soccer for many years as a kid, but indoor is a totally different game. Thankfully we have enough people to field a very large team allowing for rapid rotations, but the five minutes I am in has got to be the longest five minutes of my life. I am happy that I have been able to make contact with the ball and I generally seem to be able to advance the position of the team. We won our first game 7-4; hopefully we continue the trend this week.
• Ultimate: Lots of good ultimate and my knee seems to be holding out. A fair number of the new grad students have joined us and they have fit right in to our style of play. Now that weather is far more conducive to play, I hope we get lots of games in.
• Other: Lots of other stuff, just nothing that fits into a nice neat category. So here is some other stuff in no particular order. Still playing Warcraft, not as much as before (see paragraph about not being at home). Reading some to maintain a moderate level of sanity in all the craziness; nothing new lately, I’ve fallen back on some of my old standbys. Being a bowling league groupie for friends. Watching movies; getting back into watching Alias (yeh for seasons 1 & 2), catching up on The 4400, getting roped into a new Aaron Sorkin show (thanks Jim).

So that’s it in a medium sized nutshell. Got anything else you want to add to my list? I’m hooked on doing stuff, so IM, call, or email. :)