Today’s my last day in San Francisco. Of course, it’s beautiful outside, for the first time since I’ve been here. Naturally I’m trapped in the office. But I’ve got a nice view.
I went biking on Saturday. I rode from my friend Jeremy’s apartment (near PacBell park) over to the Golden Gate bridge. Riding along the Embarcadero was great, if a bit windy. I got hung up a little bit going though Fisherman’s Wharf (a very crowded tourist mecca). I eventually got to the bridge and made my way across. The winds going across the bridge were powerful, and I often felt like I was going to get blown off my bike.
Making it to the other side was amazing, a night-and-day difference. The San Francisco side of the bay was utterly enshrouded in fog, while the side I was on was clear and sunny. I made my way up to a scenic overlook, took some pictures, and then made my way back home.
I’ll throw up some pictures and more commentary once I get back. Stay tuned!
This post comes to you from the cozy confines of my company’s San Francisco office. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been here since Monday. I’ve had a pretty good time so far. A friend from high school (Jeremy Stoppleman) has been nice enough to let me crash at his place so far. Tonight I’ll be heading over to a co-worker’s (Shappy) place to crash for the rest of my time here.
Let me get this out of the way: the weather sucks! It’s been in the 50’s and 60’s since I got here, and don’t see it warming up dramatically anytime soon. I’m told its in the 90’s back in DC. Very upset. That aside I’m having a good time. It’s cool to be working with Shappy out here. I got to see Craig Dalton, which was cool. I’ve been doing alot of walking and making use of the MUNI public transportation system. More details on my adventures later.
I’ll be back in D.C. on Tuesday, so let’s hope that heat holds until I get back. I need to thaw…
I won’t go into details, but I got beat up by a girl last night. I was out at Millie and Al’s, having a good time, minding my own business. I was talking to these two girls (we’ll call them Fannie and May). Fannie’s a friend of mine, and May is her friend in from out of town.
Anyway, at some point in the conversation, May blurts out that she’s Puerto Rican. If you could see this girl, you’d understand why I started laughing so hard. German/Irish/mix, maybe. But Puerto Rican? No chance. So, while I’m doubled over laughing, May gets upset and puts me in a headlock. I jerk my out and lean back, just as she unleashes a slap across my face. Needless to say, things were pretty awkward after that. I soon excused myself and went in search of a Pizza Mart slice.
In the end it turned out she was 1/4 Puerto Rican. Now, I’m 1/2 Cuban, and I still don’t feel entirely comfortable referring to myself as Cuban. So, I didn’t think this girl had a leg to stand on. But despite not being wrong, boy was my face red.
This past weekend I said goodbye to three friends of mine. My poker buddy Shantanu is heading down to biz-school at the University of Florida and his girlfriend Sarah is going to study in London. My dear friend Melissa is heading west to St. Louis to study at WashU.
This totally sucks. These people are moving on to better and cooler things and I’m stuck in D.C. to fend for myself. Sure, I’ll be going to B-school myself, but probably not for another 2 years. Maybe more if this economy can’t dig itself out of this malaise.
Still, I wish them all the best. I’ll definitely be down in Gainesville at least once this fall/winter. Go Gators!
Side note: Speaking of Gators, did I mention how much I love Steve Spurrier? Pairing him with Marvin Lewis and almost as good as having Randy Johnson AND Sammy Sossa on the same team. Prediction? 9-7 and playoffs!
I have spent the past couple of weeks working in my spare time on a Java SDK for the Muse.net service. I’ll let the Muse.net site explain what it is that they do. The short of it is that they offer a web-service that is open to anyone willing to code against it. My Java SDK makes it easy for Java/JSP coders to develope Muse clients.
So, the guys at Muse have now linked to my Muse.net Java client v0.1 from their main page. I don’t mind the attention (or help if it comes). I just hope my webserver doesn’t crash.
As I have time, I will be posting source code, build scripts, etc. For now I guess people can use it, find bugs, and yell at me.
Here’s a funny story I forgot to post. Last Friday my friend Michael asked me if I wanted to go on a bike ride after work. He says it has something to do with Critical Mass. The reference didn’t mean anything to me, I figured it was in support of some liberal cause of Michael’s.
Anyway, all the bikers met up at Dupont Circle around 6pm. I began to wonder what the ride was for, as this was a pretty motely crew of people. Before we could even embark, a couple of police officers came over and told us that if we stepped out of line or broke any laws, we would be arrested.
At this point I began to understand that Critical Mass was a bike ride organized specifically to disrupt traffic, in an effort to reclaim the steets by bicyclists who feel their rights are being infringed on by the throngs of gas-guzzling monsters that unite twice a day to form gridlock. Cool! I mean, I bike to work twice a day. I was recently hit by a car. Drivers can kiss my ass!
So, we headed out, and for a while it was great. We totally overtook the streets. These motorists must have thought a parade was going on. There were about 50 of us, and we were running red lights, cutting cars off, you name it. We made our north into Mount Pleasant and then cut back south on 16th St. Things started to get hairy as we got into downtown. As we made our way down 19th St towards Constitution, a patrol car started following us. As we approached Constitution, three additonal patrol car roared towards us from three different directions. It was something straight out of NYPD Blue. The cars screeched to a halt all around us, tires squeeling, as officers emerged demanding that we all freeze. Everyone panicked and bolted in different directions. It was total chaos. A helicopter was flying overhead, directing police on where people were going. I bolted in a towards the White House (of all places) hoping to blend in with the tourists. I got to 17th, dismounted and started walking my bike north. A patrol car drove by and pulled over right near where I was walking. I was the only person on a bike in this crowd, and I think the cop was waiting for me to panic and run, thus giving myself away. Instead I swallowed hard, ignored him, and kept walking. Eventually he drove away.
So, that was my exciting brush with the law from last week. Two girls ended up getting arrested. Crazy shit.
I got playback working today! So, at this point in my application you can drill down to music by selecting an artist, selecting an album, and then selecting a track. Selecting a track will spawn your Mp3 player and open up a stream to the computer that is hosting the music. Very cool. It would have been cooler if my Muse.net agent (running on my home computer, where all of my Mp3’s are) hadn’t crapped out on me. Might be time to look for some updated software….
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