Quiet week

Well it's been pretty quiet here the last couple of weeks. This last weekend I spent Saturday in San Francisco with a couple of friends from Madison. I managed to get a nice sunburn on my face since I once again forgot to use sunblock. I also learned that it's a long walk from the piers to Lumbard Street, those hills in San Francisco are a pain to walk up.

I spent Sunday in Livermore wine tasting, and it was a lot of fun. Unlike trendy Nappa/Sonoma Livermore has mostly free tastings and some very good wine for reasonable prices. Only one place was charging $25+ for a bottle and their wine wasn't even that good. I spent more than I should have buying wine. Ahh well I'll just have to drink it sometime. The trick now is to get it back to MN/WI without it going bad.

That's it for now. I'll try and post a few pics of San Francisco and my earlier crater trip when I have time.

It went pop when it stopped

Well it seems my air mattress has decided to die on me. As of 6am this morning my mattress has some mysterious leak and loses air at an incredible rate, only silently and without any breeze. Instead the air dissappears quickly from the confines of the mattress and leaves no trace of its escape route. As I haven't had time to find a replacement I get to sleep on the floor for a night. Tomorrow I need to go air matress shopping to find one that fits my bed.

First Repair

My car is going in for it's first service this morning. Sometime over the last month it developped a slow leak in one of the tires. Since driving around on a flat is a bad idea I get to enjoy an hour or two at a tire place while they diagnose and fix the problem.

Stupid Cars.

(Also I'll try and have an update on my trip later, I still have Gigabytes of photos to go through.)

The Adventure Begins

A long weekend stands before me, for four days I have no work, and no repsonsibilities. Starting early tomorrow morning I set out on a long journey, a great adventure.

I venture forth to the uncharted north of the Republic of California, and into the wilds of Oregon. For during my time off I will visit the silent giants standing along the shores of the pacific, explore a cave, and visit an island of wizards.

I plan to document my adventures through pictures and text but it we shall see how things go. With that I shall head to rest before I begin my journey early on the morrow.

I just want you to know who I am

It's been a while since I made a post. Now where do I start. I've been both busy with work and yet had nothing to do while at work? Strange Huh?

Outside of work I've been busy as well. On the WoW front my guild has managed to make it to the final boss of Black Wing Lair, Nefarian. So far after about 5 tries we have him down to phase 2 so we're doing pretty well.

In the real world I've been to a few LAN parties, woke up at the crack of dawn to watch the world cup, and been to a concert in the last couple of weeks. Of those I have to say last night's concert was probably the most fun I've had in the last week or so. I went to the Goo Goo Dolls/Counting Crows summer tour concert held at the Shoreline Amphitheater. Of the two bands I enjoyed the Goo Goo Dolls the most. I'm just not as into the music of the Counting Crows. This was the first time I've seen either of these groups live and I have to say they have a totally different dynamic. During a live show the music has more more energy and yet many of the songs had a different slower pace.

Now I need to decide if I liked the music well enough to buy their latest CD. I almost did the night of the concert but the "merchant booth" was charing over $15 and I wasn't sure if the extra cost ws going to the band or some third party.

I'd upload a few pictures of the concert except I managed to leave my camera at work and so didn't take any :(. I tried to take some photos on my cellphone but it really doesn't work that well.

Uni-Man

On the way to work today I saw someone with a sweet ride on their way to work. It wasn't a ferrari, lotus, porsche, or maserati (those are a dime a dozen).

What I saw was a guy riding a unicycle.

Photo Time!

Today I have a bunch of pictures to post. First I have a bunch of pictures of the top of Donner Pass which is at about 7,000 feet. This pass is crossed by I-80 as you enter California from Nevada.







I have a few more pictures of the pass but I need to find a good place to host a photo album.

In addition to these last photos of my trip I have a few pictures of my apartment.






Finally I have a closeup of that set of Katana's you can see in the first photo. My Dad purchased these for me in Chinatown when he went in the San Francisco Tuesday. They look kinda cool and the whole set cost $26 after tax! If you pull them out the appear to be steal and a bit greasy. They really remind me of practice blades for Iaido but less practical.

Day One

I've managed to survive day one of my summer internship at a small fabless-semiconducter design house. Even so we've had a few interesting changes from last year. Apparently, due to space constraints interns don't get cubes, we get sit in the hall, with a modular desk thing attached to the outside of the cube we sit by. At least the hall we sit in is by the giant glass windows on the side of the building so at least I get some sunlight out of the deal. The downside is that I don't get a desk, just a sort of hanging table without any storage/drawers. Next year interns will probably end up in the parking lot :P.

Another interesting change is that we no longer get phones, instead we were given some usb headsets and use some software phone. To bad the headsets suck and can't pick up your voice at all, don't ever buy a Logitech Premium 250 USB headset. It is impossible to turn it up enough to pick up a voice without shouting. The IP phone software at least appears to work well except for our crappy headsets. This sort of makes me feel like I'm working in a Dilbert cartoon.

In more interesting news I get to do something completely new to me, and once again I'm forced to learn a ton of new stuff. Basically nothing but my knowledge of internal chip code names is useful from last year. But being thrown into the fire is what internships are all about! I also found out some of the work I did last year is still being actively used, worked on and has been slightly improved. Apparently, my internship last summer has had some long lasting effect on what's going on at my employer!

Busy Day

Well today we (my Dad and I) put another 700 miles on my car. We drove all the way from Evanston, WY to Rocklin, CA, crossing the states of Utah, and Nevada. This last trip was a bit more exciting than the last couple, as we got to see some cool mountains and enjoyed a few rain, sleet, and snowstorms. I got the honor of driving anytime we approached mountainous terrain as my Dad dislikes driving in the mountains. This meant I got to drive from WY to the middle of the Utah salt flats, and from Reno, NV to CA.

First I have a few pictures of Utah just outside Salt Lake city at the first reststop after entering the state:




This is a rather pretty part of Utah and a fun canyon to drive down. At one time pioneers came down this same canyon on their way to California and Oregon. The last picture gives a brief glimpse of the road ahead. About 10-20 minutes further into Utah you drive by where the bobsled, luge, and skiing events of the 2002 Olympics at Salt Lake city were held.

Next we have a picture of part of the area where the olympics where held along with a picture of the Great Salt Lake (from a moving car):




Finally, we have a few pictures from the small set of mountains in between Utah, and Nevada. As you can see in these it's gotten a bit colder and it's now snowing instead of raining on us.




That's currently it for pictures. I have a few pictures from the top of Donner Pass which is between NV, and CA but they are on my other camera (and about 5mb a picture). Can anyone suggest a place I can host a bunch of pictures for free? The mountains between CA, and NV are pretty cool but I don't have any pictures of the trip as I was busy driving. My Dad was to busy cringing on every turn to take pictures (it turns out that a Mazda 3 corners really well :D).

After arriving in Rocklin, my Dad and I went and saw the new X-Men III movie after eating some dinner. I'll post my thoughts on the movie later after I've given others a chance to see it first. (One hint, STAY UNTIL THE END OF THE CREDITS)

Night-time Driving

Here are a couple pictures of my dash at night. When taking the photo's I didn't realize my camera would automagically set the shutter speed really low so they turned out sort of blurry.

First is a picture of the dash when you first enter the car:


This next picture is of the dash before you turn on your headlights:


Next we turn on the lights, and we get the blue back:


Finally a picture of the console with the stereo, clock, and temperature readout. You can't make them out since they are all in black on that giant glowing red bar. A tiny bit of camera movement loses the readout:

Zoom-Zoom

Well nothing really exciting happened today, we managed to make it across Nebraska and Wyoming with no real trouble. Today we drove 400 miles across Wyoming and about another 400 miles across Nebraska. That puts us up to around 1,400 for my 2,200 mile trip. Right now I'm sitting in a hotel Evanston, WY taking full advantage of the wireless internet (yes I logged into WoW but I don't really plan to play). It took me a bit to get logged in as it appears the default name server assigned by the hotel doesn't really exist. In trying to figure out why I couldn't find Google I discovered they use linksys home routers as access points which all happen to use the default admin password. With my newfound power I could h4x0r the router and mess up the 'net but that would be pretty pointless and just screw me over.

Anyways I have a few pictures to post. I have a couple pictures of Wyoming from the car, and a few pictures of my car. For those of you who don't know I recently (two days ago) purchased a 2006 Mazda 3, S model to drive around for the next 10 years. In any case I have a couple pictures of the car for those interested. But first Wyoming!



These are the only pictures which turned out, the rest are just of completely flat land and have reflections from the car window. Now for my car.







Now the interior:



Those of your who may have looked closely might have noticed that yes, this car has a manual not an automatic transmission. I currently have like 4 days experience with it and have it down pretty well now. Another interesting tidbit is that you CANNOT see any of the gauges when the car is off as the red is 100% led lights. As an added bonus the white edges you see turn blue at night, it looks pretty cool. I'll try and snap a photo after it gets dark and post it later. Anyways that's it for now. Tomorrow, it's time to cross Utah, and Nevada as we plan to stop in Sacremento for the night (my Dad doesn't want to drive further than that).

California HO!

Well I'm off to California as of today. Right now I'm sitting in a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska after about half a day of driving like crazy. So far the trip has been pretty uneventful. Nebraska/Iowa are probably the two most boring (and smelliest) states to drive through so I don't think much exciting will happen over the next day or so. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to post tomorrow.

Vael Down

As of last night my WoW guild has finally downed Vaelastrasz the Corrupt! This boss is considered the second hardest guy in BWL after Nefarion. With Vael down we will once again start making serious progress in BWL.


Now back to packing for CA.

Time is Money Friend

Well it's been a very busy week and a half for me. I've spent most of my week taking care of stuff before I head out to California to start my internship at nVidia. WoW time has been restricted to my scheduled raid times once again.

So what have I done this week (in no particular order)?

• Played with my new Olympus Stylus 600 and Olympus E-500 cameras.
• Test drove more cars than I can count.
• Driving my brother and sister to school/work/events.
• Picking out a new pair of glasses.
• Shopped for Car insurance.
• Compared Car loan rates.
  
• Worked on some school stuff
• Spent a couple days sick with a 101° fever.
• Setup shared internet in a relatives house.
• Went to a birthday party.
• Went to a car auction.
• Got pulled over for driving a white Cadillac.
  

As you can see it has been a busy week, especially as I think I left some stuff out. Now I need to get packed up and ready to head out to CA tomorrow.

Orphan Tour

For some reason my brother decided to take a poor Stormwind orphan along to BWL.



I don't think this is really the right place for children.

AARGGGHH Stupid Server

It's been awhile since I've made a post about World of Warcraft. Some of you may know that I play this game upon occasion. Since my last WoW post stuff has changed quite about. I left my old small guild and joined a raiding guild on my server Perenolde. Since I started raiding with them (I actually started while still a member of my old guild), we have managed to master Molten Core and basically have this dungeon on "farm" status. We have also managed to get Onyxia on farm status, and can get Razorgore in Black Wing Lair down in 1-2 attempts regularly.

Last Sunday my guild was disbanded after our officers asked our guild leader to step down due to some personality conflicts between the leader and some of our membership. Rather than step down gracefully a long argument ensued followed by the GM disbanding the guild rather than transferring leadership. While this could be the death of a guild luckily my guild bounces back pretty well. We have already reformed with new name and leadership and we are stronger than ever. Now to the reason for this post.


Right now we are working on getting down boss #2 in BWL Vaelastraz the Corrupt. Today we managed to almost kill this guy 5 times, our last two attempts would have been kills but for one annoying problem. BLIZZARD HATES US. That's right we had some freak disconnects our last tries which basically cost us the fight. While we had a tank disconnect just as we started the fight and about 2 minutes into the fight we lost another 5-10 players. For this particular fight healing and damage dealing are all very important and we cannot lose that many players and still expect to finish the fight. So we ended up the night empty handed with only our normal Onyxia/Razorgore 2 kill combo. Hopefully we have time Saturday or Sunday to take Vael down.

For those of you interested I have a video of the fight encoded with the xvid codec, with full audio. You can here my current background music and the teamspeak chatter. Two interesting things to note. Just as you see ATTACK show up on the screen you can see yellow text in the bottom left corner which one of the tanks disconnecting. Around 2 minutes into the fight you can see the mass disconnect which doomed us. WARNING: 60mb video! Download here.

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4 P330 H5

After talking with people about all the great old games I've inspired myself to go play some of those old classic PC games I have sitting around.

Ultima 1-8, Wing Commander 1-3, Crusader:No Regret/Remorse, Magic Carpet, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, Dark Forces, Warcraft I, Wacraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal(impossible expansion), Syndicate, Theme Hospital, Settlers 2, Dungeon Keeper, Mechwarrior 2(Wolf Clan Campaign), Master of Magic, Master of Orion 2, Fallout and more I can't recall now!

Now I just need to figure out how to run all these things on XP 64, without them running to fast.

The Light - It Burns!!!

So far finals week is off to a racing start. Yesterday I had a cookout out at Vilas park with some friends. The first thing we did was assemble the grill, which took longer than I had expected since we had to many engineers on the project. Once that work was done we got the food on but it took a good 1-2 hours to get it all cooked.

While waiting for food we enjoyed the beautiful weather, and played some Frisbee. After eating we walked over to the Henry Vilas Zoo where we looked at the animals. I hadn't been to the zoo since freshman year, and not to much has changed. For a free zoo they have a nice selection of animals, we saw: Lions, Peacocks, Kangaroos, Bears, Giraffes, Sea Otters, Harbor Seals, and more. Some of the animals didn't appear to be out yet. We were also a bit to late to see some animals as they closed up a few exhibits about 5 minutes before we made it over there :(.

Well while playing Frisbee and looking at all the animals it appears I acquired a nice sunburn on my face, arms, and the back of my neck. Next time I spend more than an hour or so outside I'll remember that I should put on sunblock. You'd think I'd learn I burn at the beginning of the season by now.

(Bonus question: What computer game is my post title from?)

All plants must die

It seems that all the plants have declared war on me. This morning I woke up with my eyes all puffy and watering, and my nose completely stuffed up. Apparently something I am VERY allergic to is spewing its devil pollen into the air in an attempt to kill me. I've tried taking some prescription strength allergy medication, but it has had little effect against to the weapons of the plants. At this point the only option is a mass attack to eliminate the plants before they kill me in my sleep.

At this point there is no hope of a peaceful solution and so it is with great sadness that I declare war upon the cellulose ones.

It's Alive

I can't believe it finally works!! What is it you might ask? It is the Maquina engineering fountain remote server I've been working on the last couple of years. Or original server was written by me in about 10 minutes a year or two back. Since this fall we've been slowly rewriting the server to support several concurrent connections and actually be somewhat feature rich! No longer does it completely crap out if you give it invalid input (actually I lie, it sill dies when you give invalid input only now it's a nice assert!).

You should check out Colins blog (link on the right) for movies and pictures of the server in action. The working version has been the effort of a bunch of people. Tim reworked our ladder network code to deal with disconnects. Colin and Craig have been the primary coders on the new and improved server and have done a good job. I revamped/cleaned up my networking library(it's still not perfect), wrote a logging library, gave some random C++ and system design/architecture help, and have been figuring out how to turn our poor console app into a Windows service (which as of about 10 minutes ago I think I have figure out).

All that's left before we can do an initial deployment is:

• Finish coding the last bits of the server
• Port the server to a Windows Service (my job)

Stuff left for final version:

• Implement User ID Protocol
• Finish Website Design (Mikah where is our Ajax Web 2.0 XML Service Client?)