Hello everyone. We've been pretty busy here.
Just a quick note for people looking for our wedding info. You can find our wedding site here:
[ link ]
Weblog |
Kevin Dougherty's Weblog
Wedding info
Tuesday, Sep 2, 2008 12:40 pm PDT
Kendra and the Rock 'n Roll Marathon
Monday, Jun 2, 2008 10:53 am PDT
Kendra conquered the San Diego Rock 'n Roll Marathon yesterday. She did really well, too! Placing 10th overall in her division (out of 1,502). I was able to see her scream by at miles 12 and 26 (just before the finish line). I had a lot of fun watching and cheering.
The best part is that she qualified for next year's Boston Marathon. :) Here are her Rock 'n Roll Marathon 2008 Results.
[ link ]
Easter
Monday, Mar 24, 2008 9:11 am PDT
Had a nice Easter brunch + potluck with friends yesterday. Kendra made some cool bug cupcakes, too. Yum! :)
[ link ]
Monday, Mar 17, 2008 6:51 pm PDT
Just got home from a fun, relaxing, week with Kendra, Dan and Justin. We road-tripped from Boston out to Dan's place in Howard, PA. If only we could do this more often... :)
[ link ]
It's official -- a date is set!
Friday, Mar 7, 2008 5:29 pm PST
We now have an official date! We just finalized the paperwork for the facilities today. Woo!
Mark your calendars: October 10, 2008 [ link ]
Manzanillo, 2008
Monday, Feb 25, 2008 1:27 pm PST
We're back in Manzanillo, Colima and having a great time as always. Thought I'd post a few pics during our first full day here. I'll continue to post more as I take 'em.
[ link ]
SD Fires 2007
Monday, Oct 22, 2007 8:59 am PDT
SD is on fire. We've been told to evacuate. The car is packed up and we're watching the news. Hoping things don't get any worse.
I'm posting pics of the SD fires here and also pics posted here.
[ link ]
First iPhone bill
Thursday, Aug 2, 2007 11:33 am PDT
I just got my first iPhone bill from AT&T. All I have to say is -- wtf?? It's 48 pages long and lists *every* EDGE data transfer, regardless of how small it is.
Earlier this week, I read reports of people having similarly-sized iphone bills. I figured those were anomalies. Apparently not. Let's kill some trees y'all!
[ link ]
OMG OMG
Friday, Jun 15, 2007 12:13 am PDT
Words cannot express how awesome this new car is. I picked up my shiny new BMW 328xi earlier today. *drool* I snapped a few (poor quality) pics while picking it up from the dealership. Drove it home and then to Pizza Port. A fine day indeed. I'll get some higher quality photos up soon. I was too excited to take many decent ones. :)
My buddy, Griffin, is also in town for the weekend -- as are Kendra's brothers, Clint and Michael. A fun weekend ahead.
[ link ]
Fun in Sonoma and Napa
Wednesday, Mar 28, 2007 7:04 pm PDT
Oh, man. That was fun.
Doug, Megan, Kendra and I just got back from a trip to Napa Valley and Sonoma, CA. I had an amazing weekend full of tasting great wines and hanging out with some awesome friends.
We met up with Megan and Doug, who were getting some travel time in before starting life in Seattle. The four of us spent two days in Napa, two in Healdsburg (Sonoma) and nearly two in San Francisco. Thanks to our friend, Josh, we had GPS to guide our way from winery to winery.
Such a great time all around. Can't wait to do it again. :) Check out the photos from the trip by clicking on the picture below.
[ link ]
Congrats to Doug!
Monday, Jan 29, 2007 10:25 am PST
Congratulations to Doug, who successfully defended his thesis last week. Not that any of us had any doubt, of course. :) We had an awesome time over the past few days as Ben, Alice, Seth and Joe came down from LA to join in on the celebration. It was also great to see (and, sometimes, meet) Doug and Megan's family who all made the trip out. Lots of fun hanging out, Gears of War and Call of Duty 2 and 3. Pretty cool.
[ link ]
Being beaten by the heat
Thursday, Aug 3, 2006 9:33 pm PDT
I'm back in Boston after a nice, albeit short, trip to see family at the lake in Minnesota. We had a nice, relaxing time and it was great to see everyone again. My younger cousins, Holland, Mariah and Liam are growing up fast. It's too bad we only get to see them maybe once a year.
Since coming home to SD from the trip last Wednesday, I've been (along with the kind help of others) battling a seemingly neverending series of server and site problems. It has been, to say the least, a very, very rough week so far. It's Thursday and I've almost been here a week and I feel I'm finally coming up for air. Unfortunately, that air is uncomfortably hot, sticky and wet. As with most of the country (esp. the East Coast), we've had some pretty high temps here in Boston this week. Things (both the weather and the server problems) are starting to cool down, though, and I am feeling a bit more normal. The neighborhood lost power tonight for a good hour or two. It's a good thing that didn't happen yesterday, or I would have been sleeping outside. Probably in a kiddie pool of some sort.
Here are some pics from the Minnesota trip. I know people have been waiting for these and I apologize. It's been tough.
[ link ]
Cool surfboard artwork
Tuesday, Jul 11, 2006 7:21 pm PDT
Is this not the coolest way to show off your inner geek? We saw this at Pillbox last Sunday and I snapped a few pics.
[ link ]
Another great weekend
Tuesday, Jul 11, 2006 7:18 pm PDT
Had another great weekend. Seth, Lisa and her boyfriend, Peter, came down to visit us from LA. It's been a while since I've seen Seth and Lisa, and it was very cool to see them again. We did some surfing at Seascape, dined at En Fuego (mmmm) and Naked Cafe, and four-squared it up again (this time, for almost 3 hours). Time flies when you're having fun. :(
 
[ link ]
Holiday fun
Tuesday, Jul 11, 2006 7:08 pm PDT
Over the Fourth, Doug's brother, Pete, was in town. The awesome weekend consisted of surfing, bbq'ing, smores, wine, and about six (!!) hours of four-square (with wine drinking intermixed). Great time all around. It was sweet to see Pete again. It's too bad he can't visit more often. Some pics from the holiday follow:
 
[ link ]
Crazy Japanese
Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 11:05 am PDT
Radiohead
Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 10:41 am PDT
A few months ago, I lucked out and was able to snag tickets to see Radiohead. Last night (June 26, 2006) was the show and it was awesome. They played lots of new stuff I hadn't heard before. No new album (yet), just new songs. Several of them were really quite good and mellow. I'll have to see if they're available.
The Embarcadero Marina Park South is a pretty neat venue. It is nearly surrounded by water with a great view of downtown. The only bummer part was that both Kendra and Doug were unable to come along. Megan and I ended up going together and we enjoyed a nice (read: long) walk through Seaport Village down to the park. There were several boats that had pulled up alongside the venue for a free show (bastards!). Thom even broke between songs to ask them if they had paid. Pretty funny.
One of the cooler moments was "You and whose army?" If you've seen one of their shows before, you know that Thom has a camera focused right in on his face when he plays that song. He likes to do crazy-guy-like antics that get projected onto oddly-shaped screens up behind the band. What was neat was that, as he was doing this, dusk had fallen and you could see the city skyline behind him. It felt strangely like a well-produced music video. Great song. One of my faves.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Here's the setlist. If you can, see them in concert (even again). You won't be disappointed.
[ link ]
Photos from last weekend
Saturday, Jun 24, 2006 4:25 pm PDT
Hello again. Just a quick post to share photos from my parents' trip out here for a visit and a friend's wedding. We had a great time at the wedding, went surfing and took a nice trip to the Getty Center up in LA. Click on the photos below for more.
[ link ]
Kaboom
Thursday, Jun 22, 2006 3:17 pm PDT
Ever wonder what would happen when both of the air conditioning units in your hosting facility stop working? Well, you no longer have to.
[ link ]
Fun session
Friday, May 19, 2006 9:47 am PDT
While out surfing a sunset session yesterday at our usual spot, Megan spotted Joel Tudor doing some pretty sweet stand-up paddle surfing on a 9-foot longboard. Apparently it's pretty tough to do on anything smaller than a 12-foot. That guy has some skills.
[ link ]
More to ya, Stephen
Friday, May 5, 2006 2:43 pm PDT
If you haven't already, I highly recommend watching Stephen Colbert's performance at the WH Correspondents' Dinner last weekend. You won't regret it. He is one brave guy. I stumbled across the following graphic earlier. Unfortunately, I can't remember where it's from.
[ link ]
The government needs to get its act together
Friday, May 5, 2006 11:21 am PDT
I just crunched some numbers and came to the conclusion that 15% of my net income each month goes towards healthcare costs...and I'm in good health!
I can't imagine what other, lesser fortunate, people must have to deal with. Something is seriously wrong here. I pay my taxes, so WTF?
[ link ]
The irony is delicious
Tuesday, May 2, 2006 12:35 pm PDT
So I was watching the rest of the new "Get a Mac" ads that Apple has recently started running when something completely unexpected happened. Shortly after starting to play the spot titled "Restarting", my quad G5 completely locked up like nothing else I'd seen before. I got the spinning beach ball of death and then the video went all crazy-like just before the "you need to restart your computer" screen (the Mac equivalent of the BSOD). Heh. Check out the photos I snapped of the event. Sorry they're a bit blurry -- the CPUs were ramping up and the fans were spinning full-throttle, so I had to act fast.
[ link ]
Lousy Smarch
Thursday, Mar 23, 2006 7:57 am PST
This rain needs to stop and stop soon. It seems to happen every couple of days -- just enough to keep most sane people out of the ocean. I haven't been out in nearly six weeks! Weak. Though, I think tomorrow may be a window of opportunity. Here's hoping.
On the bright side, I'm getting a new desktop machine (no more working off my PowerBook!). It should be arriving early next week. The goodness:
[ link ]
mmm warm
Wednesday, Feb 8, 2006 3:20 pm PST
Composite Strangelove
Tuesday, Feb 7, 2006 3:15 pm PST
No like-a da juice
Friday, Feb 3, 2006 9:49 am PST
It's been a rough week. Endless server problems. Growing pains, they are. Too much work to sleep. Too much stress to sleep when I can. Let's hope that the $20k worth of hardware we just bought will cool things off for a while. Here's to hoping she holds until it arrives. Current box count is somewhere around 37 and we're adding 6 or 7 more. That's one spicy-a meatball. [ link ]
A no go on the house
Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006 3:06 pm PST
I thought that I would follow up on my previous post about the 30's-era Spanish house that we were considering leasing. After laying all our cards out on the table, Doug, Megan, Kendra and I decided that life might be a little too hectic with the four of us sharing the 3 bedroom place. Though, oh, man, what a place. If it were a few years ago, I think we all may have gone for it. Unfortunately, I think growing accustomed to having our own space did us in. My buddy, Joe, said what we need is a duplex. Now that would rock. [ link ]
Yahoo conquered
Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006 2:52 pm PST
Dan and I just put the smack down on an elusive problem with sending large quantities of user-initiated e-mail to our @yahoo.com members. The issue had been dogging us for weeks. But, now, no longer! Man it feels good. :) [ link ]
Temptation
Monday, Jan 16, 2006 12:15 pm PST
So Doug, Megan, Kendra and I spent the latter half of the weekend toying around with the idea of renting a house close to the beach. Yesterday, we found one and boy is it sweet. We went to a showing this morning and I snapped some (ok, a lot of) photos. The 3BR 2BA place is a short walk to the beach, hardwood floors, 1800+ square feet, offers incredible views and has a huge, terraced, back yard. Nuts. We're going to talk about it tonight and make a decision. Soo tempting...
[ link ]
México
Friday, Jan 6, 2006 11:35 am PST
Unreal
Tuesday, Dec 27, 2005 12:28 am PST
For the past week or so, we've been on the receiving end of a number of ginormous western swells. The waves are pretty spectacular, so I figured I'd put something up about them. I found the following video of a break we get to surf occasionally (though not right now!) via surfline.com. More photos can be found on the Union-Tribune's site. Click on the thumbnail for a glimpse into what's been going on. In the video, note how close the two set waves are to one another (and how big they are :)).
[ link ]
Small world
Wednesday, Dec 21, 2005 12:34 pm PST
Before I follow up on my last post, I want to show off something very cool that I recently got my hands on. Last year, my mom was doing some house cleaning and came across the following two-page ad for a vacation villa rental in Mexico. Innocent enough, right? Click on both of the images below and take a look at the name. "Casa Hailey." Huh. That's strange. "Kendra's last name is Hailey," my mom thought. Her grandparents also live part-year at a place they have in Mexico (which Kendra and I visited a couple of years ago). Hmm. Manzanillo, 'eh? Yeah, the same.
Now take a look at the dates listed on the second page. 1987?! That's something like 11 years before Kendra and I ever met. What a small world.
  Incidentally, this is where Kendra and I (and family) are going next week. [ link ]
What a weekend
Monday, Nov 21, 2005 3:39 pm PST
Last weekend was one of those weekends where you look back and say to yourself, "wow, that was awesome." I am so lucky to have such great friends and to live where I do.
Saturday stated off fun with a two-hour+ surf session with Kendra and Megan at 15th Street in Del Mar on an absolutely gorgeous day. A nice swell was making its way in and we decided to get up early (as per usual) and take good advantage. Afterwards, we checked out the latest "waffle of the week" offering at the cafe near our surf spot. Mmm. With homemade strawberry sauce. Several cups of coffee later, we wandered down to watch the waves/surfers from high atop 13th Street. I think we lost ourselves watching the sets roll in for about an hour and ended up wishing we had the strength and time to paddle back out.
Upon realizing how late it was, we hurried back for a shower and then Kendra and I hit the 5 North to visit good friends up in LA. Last week, Joe turned 27 and we both wanted to help him celebrate. Nearly three hours and several lost milk duds later, we arrived at Joe and Seth's place. Unfortnately, those same milk duds were later found melted and plastered to both the seat of my jeans and of my car. Joe came to the rescue with a backup pair and I was able to enjoy some fine Indian food in style. Ben, Alice, Seth, Joe, Kendra and I had a great meal before retiring to Seth and Joe's. Kevin Schmidt, a good friend going all the way back to elementary school, had just flown in for a clinical skills medical licensing exam and we were able to hang out a bit before calling it a night.
More to come...
[ link ]
Why help didn't arrive
Monday, Sep 26, 2005 10:44 am PDT
[ link ]
Trisula
Saturday, Sep 10, 2005 12:53 pm PDT
Mike Occhicone, a friend of mine, has his own band, Trisula, and just recently released a very impressive debut album entitled Peckin Party. Mike, amazingly, pulled it all off -- writing, recording and producing. I put together the website for the band and invite everyone to have a look around and download the sample mp3s. Congratulations, Mike!
[ link ]
This just keeps getting better
Friday, Sep 9, 2005 9:21 am PDT
David Gregory calls out Scott McLellan (WH Press Secretary). [ link ]
Teehee
Wednesday, Sep 7, 2005 2:53 pm PDT
So much work, so little time...
Wednesday, Sep 7, 2005 11:17 am PDT
This clip from The Daily Show made me laugh. I can't believe more people aren't up in arms over the Bush Administration's handling of this whole tragedy. It just makes me sad. [ link ]
Be afraid...
Tuesday, Aug 23, 2005 9:01 am PDT
[ link ]
Ever have one of those weeks...?
Friday, Jul 15, 2005 10:47 am PDT
Have you ever had one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right? This week smells and tastes like just one of those. For my buddy, Dan, it's been even worse. He's been dealing with server problems all week long.
Starting Sunday, our main images server went down. Then database replication failed, forcing us to dump and re-import to the slave. What a lovely way to start the day at 6am. Early monday morning, the same images server went down. This time, a different error. Are we dealing with hardware issues here? Maybe? Lovely.
Tuesday, same time, different error on an entirely unrelated part of the system. WTF. Bad memory? I rushed an overnighted order of 1gig of memory to be safe. Was a cron job causing all this? Dan and I try to narrow our search. It appears that updatedb may have been causing the system to freak the hell out with the sheer number of files (images). We exclude that path from the list of directories it indexes and turn off logrotate (which runs daily and ensures logs don't get too big).
I spent most of the day re-implementing a part of our current (unrelated) project because it was too cryptic and difficult to debug. What a waste.
Wednesday, nothing. No problems. I can safely focus on our main project. All around, a good, productive day even though I spent it debugging someone else's code that was obviously rushed. Maybe I'll get to work on my code finally? No, no. Of course not, silly. I continued to debug this other component of our system that I didn't write. One of the bugs ended up being memory-management related, of which, bugs which are usually quite difficult to track down.
Thursday, again -- nothing. Yay. I am relieved. Things seem stable. More debugging and development. Once the evening rolls around, we get to endure more server problems. Dan ended up with corrupt database tables after a power cycle to install power switches onto our kvm so we can reboot servers remotely. Never fun. Once things seem to be up and running, we notice bandwidth to the servers is slow and chunky at best. After a lot of head-scratching and craziness, we determine that our firewall didn't come back up with a full-duplex connection on our network drop to our cage/rack. After forcing the connection to 10baseT full-duplex (previously was 10baseT half-duplex), the site starts hauling and things speed up to their usual zippiness.
The surfing Thursday night was awesome. A huge SW swell has been building over the course of the week and Thursday was the big ramp-up. Megan and I surfed Seaside until the sun went down. The place was hoppin. I counted 34 people when we first got out there and I'm certain more showed up over the course of the session. Tons of fun.
Early this morning, we had to go out again even though my upper body was entirely spent from the past few days. It was the first time I had done a dawn-patrol session in a long, long time. It's so incredibly nice to get out there when the ocean surface is smooth and glassy. Especially with this nice SW swell holding strong and Torrey Pines is breaking just right. There were an insane number of dolphins out, too. They were surfing waves and just hanging out all around us the whole morning. They seemed to be in a very jump-up-in-the-air-happy mood and were launching in and out of waves all around us. The guy next to me had one jump up, do a flip and land not 5 feet from his board. Crazy. The baby dolphins were cute to watch, too.
Today is looking good. Everything always seems great during and after a nice surf session. Tonight is the season 2 premiere of Battlestar Galactica -- something we've all been anxiously awaiting. We're getting together at Kiyomi's place for dinner before the show. Can't wait!
[ link ]
My iTunes Playlist
Friday, Jul 8, 2005 9:17 am PDT
I recently ported my "music report" page over to iTunes. I set up my PowerBook to automatically upload my iTunes library file to this server whenever iTunes is playing. So now you can see what I'm listening to as the music is playing. Kinda cool. At least I think so anyway. :)
I put together a quick page describing how I dynamically upload my iTunes Library File. Check it out if you're at all interested.
[ link ]
PSA
Monday, Jun 27, 2005 2:56 pm PDT
Microsoft Wheels
Friday, Jun 17, 2005 12:42 pm PDT
Earth must be angry
Friday, Jun 17, 2005 11:53 am PDT
We seem to be getting a decent number of quakes as of late. A quick count shows four with magnitude 4.9 or greater in the last week for the state/coast of California. 5.3 and 4.9 just northeast of here and 7.2 and 6.7 just last night in norcal. Native Californians are, of course, brushing them off as, "is that all you got?" Let's hope something worse isn't brewing. :) [ link ]
Repeat offender
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005 11:07 pm PDT
 I got to experience one of the coolest things tonight. That is, surfing a red tide. As for the recidivism bit, I'll get to that in a moment... Doug and I went out late this afternoon and surfed until the sun went down. As it was getting darker and darker, I kept splashing the water in hopes of seeing some of the cool blue bioluminescence we checked out last night. I saw nothing. Then, while paddling back out after a wave, I noticed the water turning blue right around my hands as they broke the surface. "Whoa -- this is awesome," I yelled as I kicked my feet around in the water. It was that magic moment when it was dark enough for the dinoflagellates to start doing their thing. I was able to catch a nice wave and ride it in as the water lit up blue all around me. Spectacular.This went on until we came to the realization that it was probably pretty late. It was, in fact, too late. We were walking back to our cars in the parking lot as the ranger was issuing tickets for the 5 or so cars parked there after "sunset." This is, of course, their new policy that went into effect at the beginning of this year. Our cars already had matching $89 tickets under the wipers. This is my second one in just a few months. Arggh. How annoying. Especially after I spent an unexpected $800 to replace the server that hosts this site. We spoke with the ranger, who was actually quite friendly, and he gave us some pointers on how to contest the tickets. He said he disagreed with the enforcement and the hefty fine attached to the citations. The reason given for doing so was to prevent vandalism. Hmm. Okay then. I guess I think they should be ticketing the vandals, not the potential victims. Maybe that would be too logical? Oh, well. Doug and I plan to heed his advice and we'll see how it goes.
After getting home, I found out that a 7.0 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Norcal while we were surfing (7:50pm). They even briefly issued a tsunami warning for our area. Boy, I'm glad they alerted us surfers out in the water.
Also, if you're looking for something to watch: Last Wednesday's Daily Show featured Colin Powell as a guest. Great interview.
[ link ]
New server on its way
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005 5:31 pm PDT
I just found out that Bob, the server that hosts kdough.net and all my friends' sites along with other business sites will be going away this weekend. Eeek! I put together an order for a simple replacement box to put into our colo in Cambridge. I'm overnighting it so Dan can get it into the colo before this weekend.
[ link ]
Home again
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005 5:20 pm PDT
Kendra and I are back home again after a fun (but busy) weekend with friends and relatives. Doug and Megan were kind enough to pick us up from the airport last night. They had both heard about the recent red tide along our beaches, so we decided to drive by our local surf spot to check it out. The blue glow from the crashing waves was awesome. Doug managed to take a pretty amazing picture of the display. Being a land-locked Coloradan, I hadn't ever seen such a thing before. Neat stuff.
We also managed to bring back two cases of Fat Tire beer on the plane since it is next to impossible to find in San Diego. We certainly got a lot of attention from TSA and just about everyone else at the airport. Mmmm. I have some chilling in the fridge right now. We were unable to find any Left Hand Sawtooth Ale (my favorite) at the store. I can't complain, though, as Fat Tire is just about as good as it gets. [ link ]
2 weddings in 2 states 18 hours apart
Wednesday, Jun 8, 2005 1:08 pm PDT
It just dawned on me how close together the weddings we're going to this weekend actually are. My cousin's, in Milwaukee, is Friday night at 5:30 and my buddy Dave's, in Golden, CO, is Saturday morning at 10:30. With the time zone difference, that's eighteen hours! We're going straight from the airport to the wedding. Crazy. It'll be awesome seeing all my old college friends and relatives over the next few days. I can't wait.
[ link ]
Nine Inch Nails
Wednesday, Jun 1, 2005 12:18 pm PDT
Nine Inch Nails concert last night at SOMA (approx 2,000 people). I never thought I'd get to be so close for a show like that. Hot. Sweaty. Physical. Powerful. Amazing. Now, if only SOMA had better acoustics... :\ What surprised me is that 90% of their set was older material. Only 3 songs were from With Teeth, which is fine by me. The set list (in no particular order) is incomplete and only from what I can remember:
Between work, travel and surfing, I haven't had time for much else. Doug has a new site up. I'm not sure if he's ready for a plug, but I'll do it anyway: Doug Fowler. Be sure to check out his awesome photos. Please be kind as the dust settles. I updated Ben's site with some amazing pictures he took of his MFA show. I'm planning on linking in the full-size photos as soon as I can afford a new server with some disk space.
[ link ]
Board 2, My head 0
Sunday, May 1, 2005 1:13 pm PDT
 On just its second day out of the repair shop, my board managed to crash down on my head and take a hunk out of my fancy new haircut. Head is okay, board not so good. I'm going to see if I can sun cure it before going out later today. Doug and I estimate the MTBBF (mean time between [kdough] board failures) to be under a week now. I better get cracking on the Ding King website.
[ link ]
More big news
Monday, Apr 25, 2005 3:34 pm PDT
Another surprising event happened earlier this month: One of my best friends, Ben, got engaged to his girlfriend, Alice. Congratulations! Their MFA show together was simply awesome. I hope to have some photos soon to put up. [ link ]
New phone, new provider
Monday, Apr 25, 2005 3:11 pm PDT
Just recently got a new phone (finally!) and, coincidentally, nearly broke the bank. Regardless, I'm digging the new Sony Ericsson S710a. I have it happily syncing contacts, events, etc. over bluetooth with my PowerBook.I've taken a few more photos. [ link ]
Shiny new Powerbook
Tuesday, Mar 29, 2005 3:18 pm PST
My shiny new Powerbook just arrived. What a beautiful machine. 15-inch G4 1.67GHz, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 w/ 128MB, 1GB, 100GB, SuperDrive. This will be nice to have on my next trip to Boston, which is coming up in about a week and a half. [ link ]
Enterpray bertlham
Thursday, Feb 3, 2005 9:28 am PST
So, Enterprise is no more. I got the news yesterday afternoon while reading fark -- which, if it isn't in your daily reading routine, I highly recommend it. The cancellation doesn't really come as a shock to me, as I'm sure it's that way for most Trekkies. It's just a shame that we probably won't see any new Star Trek series for a long, long time. Perhaps that will be a good thing. The time off may give people a chance to "miss" the show and hopefully draw in more viewers when they produce another.
Maybe they could steal some of the writers from Battlestar Galactica. They sure know how to put together an exciting series. Until then, I will certainly be happy watching DS9 on DVD.
I had a nice dawn patrol session this morning with Megan, Ben (Kendra's lab-mate friend) and Kendra. The waves weren't spectacular, but I did manage to pull off a few nice rides. The last one of the morning I had was a perfect way to start the day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow -- Doug! [ link ]
benjackel.com
Thursday, Feb 3, 2005 1:36 am PST
I've been meaning to mention the site I put together for my good friend, Ben Jackel. Ben is hard at work on his last show before graduation, so be sure to check back as it gets closer to showtime: benjackel.com.Also, I found out recently that an old friend of mine, Seth, will be moving to Southern California soon. That's great news! I'm looking forward to seeing him again.
Here's a slashdot comment thread I thought was pretty funny. Follow the link at the top for the full story if you don't know what Amazon Prime is. The story itself is simply a PR thing, but I couldn't resist.
I've been working late yet again tonight and I think it's about time to call it a night. [ link ]
Home again
Sunday, Jan 23, 2005 1:28 pm PST
I'm back home in San Diego finally after two months in MA and CO. I almost didn't make it due to the massive storm that was accosting Boston and the entire Northeast. Jeremie, who had delt with canceled and delayed flights just getting to Boston, enjoyed the same on his return trip. I got a text message from him this morning saying he had just gotten home -- apparently flying through St. Louis instead of Chicago. I'm glad to hear he made it.
Surfing was good this morning although my arms felt a little weak after the time off. [ link ]
Skiing in Vermont
Wednesday, Jan 19, 2005 7:10 pm PST
Quinn, Gus, Dan and I spent last weekend skiing at Killington in Vermont. We had a good time and Dan even got a little in himself. I realized, however, that over this trip I had been spoiled growing up in Colorado. Skiing on ice just isn't as nice. :(
My new snowboard turned out to be a really sweet ride. Easy to handle and the boots were surprisingly comfortable for their size. (I had recently gotten the advice that slightly smaller boots results in more control and a better overall experience -- so right on.) The board, unfortunately, didn't fare very well against the icy Vermont hills and I have some scrapes and scratches that need repair before I go out again. Mammoth anyone?
Aside from being away from home, all is going well and life is good. The business continues to amaze me with the business it brings in. Dan has been working some magic with his one-to-one and blast mailings. We're actually looking to hire another developer. If you, or anyone you know, is a PHP geek with tons of GNU/Linux (Debian) + MySQL + PostgreSQL experience, send them to our job posting on monster.com. I've been going through the stacks of resumes on my desk today and have found at least one potential candidate already. We'll see what the next few days bring in.
Tomorrow should be fun. We're bringing out Jeremie Miller for a few days to meet with him and squeeze his brain on a project he's working on for us. I'm very much looking forward to it.
My good friend, Lisa, is in Guatemala now doing some cool stuff for sure. I've set up some web space for her to upload her photos. If you're interested, check out her gallery: http://lisa.kdough.net/gallery/guatemala. Some cool pictures are up already and I'm looking forward to hearing her stories when she returns. Here's to hoping she gets her Internship at UCLA this summer! The old Colorado crew could always use an addition to the surfing team. :)
As for heading back to SD, I'm set to fly on Saturday and be surfing by Sunday morning. It's been 8 weeks since I've been home and I'm definitely feeling it. Let's hope the waves are good this weekend so I can get in some much needed time in the water with Kendra, Doug and Megan. [ link ]
SD -> Boston -> Colorado -> Boston
Thursday, Jan 6, 2005 2:42 pm PST
I'm back in Boston again after a brief trip back home to Colorado for the holiday. I managed to catch a pretty ugly case of the flu while I was there, too. I'm still recovering but, with the help of a round of Tamaflu, am feeling much better than I did a week ago.
Unfortunately, my sickness came just as my parents, Kendra and I were heading up to the mountains to visit my sister in Telluride and to do a little skiing/snowboarding. We were also set to ring in the new year up there, too. While Kendra and my parents were able to partake, I was unable to. I ended up spending the weekend in bed.
The rest of my trip, however, was a delight. I was able to see a few friends (wish I could have seen more though) and enjoyed a good day of snow boarding up at Breckenridge with Kendra's brothers. The day was so good, in fact, that I decided to ante up and buy a board. Yeah, I know it sounds strange, seeing as I live in SD, but it was a lot of fun.
Back to work...more later... [ link ]
Leaving for Boston
Friday, Sep 24, 2004 1:01 pm PDT
Tomorrow I leave for Boston. I'll be spending a long, long time there -- a month to be exact. At the same time, I'll be leaving Kendra behind and also my surfboard, which has been used and abused nearly every day for the past 3-4 months or so.
I can't say I'm thoroughly excited about the idea, but it's something that has to be done to get business and The Company up to the next level. It will be nice, however, to see Dan, Quinn, Gus and Gitika again. That I am looking forward to. It's just rough being away from the person you love so much for so long. And hooray for sleeping amongst cat dander and urine. I'm bringing an extra inhaler for my asthma so I don't suffocate while I sleep. [ link ]
Pixies!
Wednesday, Sep 22, 2004 9:36 am PDT
Last night, Kendra and I saw one of the bands live it seems we've always wanted to see. Simply amazing. One awesome song lead into the next -- for what felt like thirty of my favorite songs. We were in awe. I feel privileged to have been able to see them on their reunion tour.
I'm still looking for a complete setlist, but here's a sampling (in no particular order) off the top of my head:
[ link ]
Fun Weekend
Monday, Sep 20, 2004 4:59 pm PDT
  Had a tremendous weekend with my parents and relatives that were in town for the Weis-Foltz wedding. Spent the day Friday surfing with my parents at La Jolla Shores and meeting up with relatives at the wedding rehearsal dinner that evening.
Saturday morning saw breakfast at La Jolla Cove and me shopping for something nice to wear to the wedding. We managed to get everyone back home and to the hotel for a quick shower and to get dressed for the big night. With some skillful California driving, we made it to the stunning USD campus for the ceremony on time. The wedding and the reception that followed at the Westgate were awesome.
Sunday saw an impressive brunch back at the Westgate and then a stroll down to the Seaport Village. Later on in the day we drove down to Coronado and watched some kite surfing at Silver Strand State Beach -- cool stuff. Afterwards, we said our goodbyes and dropped my parents off at the airport, came home and succumbed to exhaustion. :)
[ link ]
New box
Thursday, Sep 16, 2004 11:27 am PDT
Quinn was nice enough to get me a new desktop machine today. I'm ecstatic!
Here's the breakdown:
I can't wait to get this badboy up and running. [ link ]
Ding King Surfboard Repair
Saturday, Sep 11, 2004 3:39 pm PDT
Just a quick plug for Ding King Surfboard Repair. They're located in Encinitas, California -- just north of me. I've started putting together a website for them in exchange for all the awesome repair work they've been so kind to do for me. And, yes, typing in the domain name will likely cause RSI -- be warned. ;)
[ link ]
Engage!
Friday, Sep 10, 2004 3:27 pm PDT
Found out the other day that my cousin, Jason, and his girlfriend, Becky recently got engaged. Congrats! [ link ]
Netflix queue
Wednesday, Sep 8, 2004 12:37 pm PDT
I put together a script to pull down my Netflix queue, store it and plop it onto my Netflix queue page. It's still a work-in-progress-sorta-thing and I've written my script to support multiple users thus allowing people to publish their own Netflix queues for the world to see. I came up with the idea last weekend while discussing cool movies (like Solaris -- the original Russian Sci-Fi flick) with Doug and Ben. I thought it might be cool if we could share our queues with each other. [ link ]
Cool like a fool in a swimming ppppool
Tuesday, Sep 7, 2004 9:11 am PDT
Had an absolutely incredible holiday weekend up in LA. On Saturday, Ben, Joe, Sarah, Kendra and I went to Alice's opening at a gallery that is located in what used to be a huge brewery complex. Doug and Megan showed up a little later on in the evening but unfortunately had to return to San Diego a few hours later due to lab work needing some attention. It was nice to get a glimpse into what is happening in the LA art community.
Sunday morning saw us getting up early, downing coffee and donuts and heading to the beach. El Porto is a place Ben recently discovered and is located just in front of a massive coal-burning power plant. It felt a bit strange to be getting in the water near such a place, but we soon found out just why Ben liked it so much. The waves were unbelievable. The first hour of surfing was simply amazing -- beautiful rolling waves with awesome lines. Then it continued like that for another 5 hours. After nearly 6 hours of sweet righteousness, we could paddle out no more. We were all thoroughly cooked as well, so we decided it would be best to head back and shower up. We all felt very sad that Doug and Megan weren't able to be there to enjoy such a rare day like that with us.
Exhausted, we cleaned up and headed to the California Science Center to see the Body Worlds exhibit and Human Body IMAX movie. If you're near the LA-area, you must see this show. Over 200 human specimens that have gone through a process called plastination are displayed in every conceivable form. It's a very surreal experience looking at the body of a man, standing upright, holding his own skin in one large piece. What you see is his entire body -- sans-skin -- musculature and all. What I really liked about the exhibit was the fact that many of the items were displayed right out on the floor without any glass or ropes between you and them. Go see it. Enough said. :) [ link ]
Quickie Repairwork
Saturday, Sep 4, 2004 11:21 am PDT
New Site Map and Music Report
Friday, Sep 3, 2004 2:04 am PDT
I went a little nuts with XSLT and threw together a few items I thought were cool. First, a site map so navigation can be done quickly. The site map is generated directly from site_map.xml. Second, a listing of the last 100 songs that I've listened to. I thought it might be cool to write a perl script that used FAM to monitor my Rhythmbox database and scp it to my server where it could be XSLT'ed away.
Surfing was pretty crummy today. Waves were too steep and breaking too close to shore (and it was low-tide to boot). I managed to get myself beat down into the sand below by a surprisingly big wave. Cracked the nose of my board enough to warrant some repair work. I'm hoping it didn't take on too much water during our session. I'm going to see can fix it myself with a kit I'll get from Megan. I have a fan set to blow on it all night long so I can fix it before our trip up to LA this weekend to see Ben and Joe.
That's enough for now. I should probably get to bed. :) [ link ]
I want my bleeping money back
Wednesday, Sep 1, 2004 9:39 am PDT
Don't waste your time seeing this movie. There are too many things that bothered me about it to list them here... [ link ]
Björk's new album: Medúlla
Wednesday, Aug 25, 2004 10:26 am PDT
As many of my friends know, I am a huge Björk fan. I've been listening to her new album, Medúlla (to be released next Tuesday). It's quite different as each of her albums have been, and I'm seriously digging it.Sonnets / Unrealities XI stands out as a particularly wonderful track. I know Björk doesn't tour much (Kendra and I last flew to Chicago to see her), but let's hope she will do a few dates in the U.S. -- specifically on the west coast. [ link ]
Oh, no -- Not again
Tuesday, Aug 24, 2004 10:29 am PDT
I blame this one on my knee -- an innocent little tap as I was getting washing-machined by a big wave. This is pretty sad since I just got my board back on Saturday. The resulting cracks (on the right rail) are taking in water -- necessitating a trip back to the Ding King. I took my board back to Megan's shop this morning and she showed me how to properly slice it open for repair. I brought a short board home for a test-drive. If I like it, I'll just buy it so I'll have a backup. I did manage to step on a sting ray last night as Doug and I were wading out for our first waves of the day. Luckily, however, I was dragging my feet as I walked and was able to react in time before getting stung. Maybe that was a sign? The 4 foot+ shark we saw swimming underneath us on Saturday wasn't around, so that was good. :) [ link ]
Cursed?
Friday, Aug 20, 2004 11:12 am PDT
Yesterday was Kendra's turn to wreck shop on another of Megan's boards. She was using it as a backup -- like I was doing -- when bad luck struck yet again. What are the odds? I think we're both wholly indebted to Megan now. Doug, Kendra and I decided last night that we should pool our resources and buy a few used boards to have around "just in case." This weekend should be fun. Gitika is coming down from LA for a visit. We're planning on heading to the beach and meeting Doug for a quick session and then, possibly, off to the Catalina Lounge -- my favorite bar in town.[ link ]
Board 1, My head 0
Thursday, Aug 19, 2004 1:17 am PDT
My head didn't fare very well against the board Megan was nice enough to lend me (while mine was in for repairs) and a nice SW swell. Slight concussion, cut open scalp and a soon-to-be wicked bruise. I feel pretty bad about wrecking the "White whale." Let's hope for better luck tomorrow. [ link ]
Surf report
Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 11:09 am PDT
I figured I'd put a link up to my ongoing project to put together a single page with the surf conditions of my favorite beaches. It can be a nice quick-reference for me.
[ link ]
Mom's graduation
Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 12:31 am PDT
Had a nice -- albeit short -- trip back home for my Mom's graduation last weekend. It was great to see relatives and old friends again. [ link ]
Back home again
Monday, Jul 26, 2004 6:36 pm PDT
Just got back from our annual trip to the lake in Minnesota and, on the way home, a nice hike through Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.
[ link ]
4th of July
Tuesday, Jul 6, 2004 9:16 am PDT
Ben and Joe came down for the 4th. Ben recently got a nice new camera and snapped off some pics.
[ link ]
My surfboard rack
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004 8:26 am PDT
Check out my surfboard rack.
[ link ]
USS Midway
Tuesday, Jun 8, 2004 9:16 am PDT
We visited the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier a few weeks ago.
[ link ] |
