Recently in Me Category

As the the weather gets cold outside (ok, I'm in SF so it doesn't really get cold, lets call it chilly) I think it's time to look back on the past few months.  August through October is probably the best time of the year here in San Francisco.  The weather is usually wonderful and the weekends are jam packed full of things to do.  Here's a quick recap.

We had a new entrant in outdoor festivities this year with the addition of the Outside Lands festival.  Outside Lands is what they used to call the portion of San Francisco that is now primarily Golden Gate Park.  This was also marked the first time a band was allowed to play in the park after sunset.  I was initially skeptical about the concert since they blocked off a sizable portion of the park with chain link fencing that was up for two weeks or more.  With some minor hassles getting in and getting out and minor sound glitches, the event went off pretty well.  My favorite part was watching Steve Winwod crank out some old traffic tunes.  The man still sounds great.  If they put on the event next year, they should take some notes from the Dave Matthew's Band's sound guys, DMB sounded much better in the polo fields.

Following Outside Lands, I made a last minute trip up to Burning Man and couldn't have been happier that I did.  Thanks to a ticket from my roommate I was able to drive up on Thursday and enjoy a few days of roasting/freezing in the desert with 45,000 of my closest friends.  I'm beyond trying to describe the event since it really defies description. If you have hearty spirit and enjoy a good time, it's something you should put on your calendar.

I only made it out to the Power to the Peaceful concert for a few hours but thoroughly enjoyed the music and seeing old friends.  Next year, hopefully I'll remember to show up prepared with something to drink... anything will do.  I'm actually curious if they'll end up doing it in the same place (Speedway Meadows) considering the size of this year's crowd.

Treasure Island Music Festival popped up again at the end of September with what appeared to be a limited budget.  I think they shot their wad on putting Outside Lands together so they couldn't draw the kind of acts they did last year.  Still, Treasure Island is a great place to see a show and it was an excellent opportunity to connect with friends and watch the sun set over the beautiful San Francisco skyline.

This was the first year I've actually made it to LoveFest and whoa... talk about a party.  Nothing like a few tens of thousands of people partying out in front of City Hall.  We missed most of the parade down market street but stuck around until they shut it down at 8 PM.  The party moved on to multiple locations and I finally got home around 5 AM.  As much as I would have liked to have gone to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in the park the next day, I was content to sleep on my couch.

Are you exhausted yet?

Next we have FleetWeek and Decompression jam packed into a single weekend.  Watching mega-million dollar aircraft zoom around San Francisco is really quite entertaining.  Especially hearing the die hard hippies bitch about it.  I don't know how many Blue Angels shows I've seen now but it just doesn't get old.  The things they do and the speeds at which they do them are just phenomenal. 

For those of you that aren't aware, Decompression is a post-Burning Man local party intended to let you group up with your friends and people you've met on the Playa.  They have them all over the world now but I imagine the San Francisco party is one of the biggest.  The Space Cowboys and Deep End crews were out there playing some great music, there was fantastic art including a few things from the always amazing Flaming Lotus Girls.  This is a party that is really hard to top.

The following weekend, we had a new one for me, the Red Bull Soapbox Derby.  On a beautiful sunny day we saw some insane folks cruise down the streets of San Francisco near Dolores Park.  Absolutely hilarious.  I'm already planning my craft for next year!

And finally, we come to the crowing moment of the San Francisco party season, Halloween!  It tried to rain on our parade but failed!  On Halloween night we went to the Spider Ball at the Bentley Reserve (an old bank) in the Financial District.  An excellent venu with great music all night.  The next night found us back on Treasure Island for what I hope is only the first of many editions of the Ghostship party put on by the Space Cowboys.  They managed to secure a huge hangar for a night of frolicking to great music with great friends.

Phew... so what's next?  Some quality time on the East Coast around Thanksgiving, who knows where for Christmas but I've already bought my ticket for the Sea of Dreams New Year's Eve party featuring Thievery Corporation.  That should be a fantastic party!

Oh and where are all the pictures?  They're around....

Hey folks, I'm alive and doing well.  I haven't posted in forever so I thought I'd get started again with a quick update of what's up with me.  So here we go....

• We had my brother's bachelor party in Montreal in July... and that's about all I can say about that.
• I finished the half marathon without severely injuring myself.  I wasn't terribly psyched about my 2 hour 11 minute time but considering it was the week after the bachelor party, I don't feel too bad about it.
• I snuck off to Burning Man at the last minute and had an absolutely incredible.  I'm not going to kid myself into thinking I won't go next year.
• I whacked my Ulnar Nerve (aka Funny Bone) while I was on the Playa.  I was sitting down on a futon (while mostly sober) and caught my elbow on the arm rest.  Two weeks later, I'm just now starting to get feeling back in my ring and pinky fingers.
• I have no new pictures because I lost my camera on the Playa.  Not to self: hip pockets in the orange jumpsuit aren't pockets at all... I guess they're just there to provide easy access for playing with one's self.
• Brian is getting married in a little over a week so I guess I need to get a new camera.
• I just got a new laptop and have given up on Vista and switched to Linux.  Not a completely painless process (nor a completed process) but I felt it had to be done and I wasn't quite ready to jump on the Apple bandwagon.

That's about all for right now.  If time permits (it usually doesn't) I'm going to post some guides for configurig some of the more annoying pieces of hardware on Linux (Ubuntu 8.04.1 in case you cared).

High gas prices be damned, I want one of these things. It has nothing to do with the models in the cheesey 3D renderings.  I just like the idea of a compact two seater that you can land on a runway or in the water.  Runs on Auto or Av Gas too.  The useful load is pretty light so my passengers better be small...  one of these days...

Today is an election day in California and it looks like turnout will be low.  With three elections in a single calendar year, that is to be expected. 

Several years ago I signed up to be a permanent absentee voter (called Vote-By-Mail here in San Francisco).  At the time it was because I was frequently traveling and unsure if I would be in town on election day.  Since then I've discovered another benefit from voting by mail. 

By voting early I put myself above the influence of all of the campaign material that is distributed in the run-up to election day.  For the past two weeks there hasn't been a day (other than Sundays) when I haven't received at least one piece of campaign material in the mail.   All of it is wasted because I voted almost a month ago.  Sure, I have to spend a few hours pouring through the voter information booklet to find out who and what I really want to vote for but isn't that what it's all about? 

If you have the opportunity to vote by mail, I encourage you to do so.  You will find it more convenient but more importantly we the people may be able to reduce the influence of the media and campaigning.

Don't forget to vote!

All coding and no play makes Mike a doughy boy.  After running Bay to Breakers this weekend, I realized I needed to get on the road running some more.  So, I registered for the first half of the SF Marathon in August.  There's no better incentive than forking over $80 in race registration fees (yeah, yeah, healthy living yada yada... funny how money is the bigger incentive).

I'm happy to announce that I've recently changed jobs and I'm now the Director of Platform Development at The Related Content Database Inc.  I'll be working with a great team to develop tools and infrastructure to support network connected Blu-ray players and BDLive enabled Blu-ray discs. 

I apologize in advance if I start to slack a little on my postings here.  I'll try to do my best to keep up.

It's hard to believe but 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of my personal web site.  The Wayback Machine picks it up in 2001 but it began in 1998 as a way to help find a job during the dot-com boom in San Francisco.  It worked and I soon found myself working at a web development company call Vivid Studios (not to be confused with Vivid Video).  Since then the site has undergone roughly four major revisions which have included the addition of photos and blogging.

To kick off its 10th anniversary, I'm starting off fresh.  The photos will be back soon but most all of the old outdated content is gone.  I'm coming to grips with the fact that while I would like to, it doesn't always make sense for me to build every application from scratch.  So, this edition of the site is being built on top of the MovableType publishing system (version 4.1).  I even forked over the $100 for their professional pack because the designs it comes with are pretty slick and it allows me to manage more than just my blog.

As time permits I'm going to be moving my photos off my server and into my Picasa Web Album.  I plan to use their services API to integrate the photos directly into my site but we'll see if time permits.  There are literally thousands of photos so it will take some time before I get them all loaded.  In the meantime, I'll try to get my old album back up and running but if you're dying for an old photo, just let me know.