Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Or at least I think I do based upon what I remember of last night, there aren't missing blocks of time or anything, just a little hazy.

There was a party hosted last night by Microsoft. It was held down in the hotel bar. It wasn't open bar, but there were plenty of drink tickets.

Now, the reason I rock, is because Jeremy and I played three games of Guitar Hero II, oh yeah, forgot to mention the Microsoft contingent here has had some 360 (Xbox) consoles setup here and there, this time it was Guitar Hero II and in the bar.

Jeremy and I didn't play until later in the night, so there was no line and we had the chance to play three times in a row. I had the high score between the two of us each time.

The party was fun, I managed to meet some new folk, oddly enough another person from Michigan. Notably, from Ann Arbor and a graduate of the University of Michigan. This lady is still in Michigan, so not yet an export, but she did say that she is looking to move away from Michigan.

We ended up on the subject of dogs, she has two, one of which has a form of Lupis. I asked her what she is feeding and to my surprise she feeds a fairly decent brand, Wellness. I told her that she might want to try Nature's Variety, not the kibble mind you, I advised her to feed the raw patties. I apologized to her about preaching about the raw stuff. And oddly enough, she has tried homeopathic medicine for the dog with lupis as well. She was concerned about the fact that the vet was just wanting to put her dog on steroids, which causes the dog to eat more (gaining unhealthy weight), drinks more, has accidents in the house (because of all the water) and it effects their immune system as well.

Those were all the same issues that Gina has with steroids and one of the reasons why she switched Basil to homeopathic medicine.

The team found our way to Eatzi's for dinner (before the party). I say "found our way" because of the fact that I don't know Dallas that well, so I got a little lost along the way and we had to take two cars, which meant that there was the whole coordination issue trying to follow the other guy. But that is why cell phones were invented. They allow you to call the place your trying to find and the folks following you can call you to coordinate directions.

We made friends with one of the developers of Opera, his name is David. I have to apologize I don't remember his last name, like I said things from last night are a little hazy.

He is originally from England and now lives in Norway. He enjoys the states and has spent some time in Texas before, he apparently attended SXSW this past year. I have a feeling that we will probably run into David at other shows as well.

The conference today looks to have some good sessions on the schedule, and of course there is the party tonight hosted by Adobe.

Which reminds me, at 11 pm central, I turn 29. The party starts at 9 pm, so I will likely be turning 29 while at the party.

This notably is the 2nd birthday that I have spent in Dallas, not whole days mind you. If memory serves, my birth certificate is dates like 12:11 am eastern.

Laterz

No not music, the Webmaster Jam Session in Dallas.

The Jaduka dev team have all come up to the conference. I believe that we will learn some good principles from the sessions and I also believe that it will be a good team building experience as well. I also hope to learn a little bit more about the web developer culture.

My experiences at Web 2.0 have was useful in better understanding the type of developers that Jaduka is looking to interact with as Jaduka offers out web services.

The conference is in Dallas today and tomorrow, with a 9pm party on Saturday night hosted by Adobe. Jeremy's flight back to Long Island is on Sunday morning, my B-day, from DFW. So hopefully, the party on Saturday night doesn't go too long, or Jeremy might miss his flight.

I will be snapping pictures periodically during the conference, but I think I left the USB connection cable back at the office, so those might not come off my phone for a few days. Too bad my laptop doesn't have built-in Bluetooth.

Well the conference is about to start.

Laterz

We made it to Austin last night around like 3:10 AM or so.

To be quite honest, I remember that it was after 3:00 AM but not by how much. And I didn't bring in the pad of paper we have been keeping notes on, so I have no idea of what the final mileage was. I will get the pad out and do a spreadsheet later today.

In terms of gas mileage, Jeremy did a little experiment and kept to speed of the car between 60 and 65 for one leg (ie between stops for gas) the gas mileage improved from having been like 25/mpg twice in a row back up to 27/mpg.

The difference was that the times when we were getting 25/mpg, our speed was about 70 mph. So that extra 5 mph, cost us 2/mpg which is like a 7.4% loss in gas mileage. I completely attribute this to the kayak on top of the car. I mean the thing is like a giant sail, it produced quite a bit of drag (in part because you can feel the semi-trucks pass the car more with the kayak, than you do without it).

Anyway, we made it to Austin, if we want to take a look at it in a 24-hour day perspective we made it in two days. We left at about 11:00 AM EST (10:00 AM central) on Friday and arrived in Austin at about 3:00 AM on Sunday morning, so a whole 7 hours to spare.

In calendar day terms, it took us three days, since we left on a Friday and didn't arrive until Sunday.

To keep from going insane on the trip we listened to some audio books. I have been searching for "Dealers of Lightning" the story about the Xerox PARC lab and their quest for the technologies that led to the modern office (personal computers, GUI based operating systems [read Windows and Macs), laser printers, Ethernet and scanners).

That was a good book, it was about 5 hours long. Jeremy also had iWoz on his iPod, that on the other hand was 9 hours long.

All I have to say is, "Your the man Woz, your the man!!!"

I mean, Steve Wozniak was quite obviously an engineer ahead of his time and was able to do some real pioneer engineering work at Apple in the creation of the Apple I and Apple II. He also invented the Universal Remote.

Now, iWoz is an auto-biography, so the book was written by him about him. I am glad that he didn't talk about himself in the 3rd person, though he definitely is very proud of his work, as he should be. But a good chunk of the book definitely sounds like he is patting himself on the back just a little too much. Jeremy and I joked around that Woz should be talking about himself in the 3rd person in certain parts of the book, just because while slightly more modest, it seemed like he was just short of being one of those really stereotypical athletes that talks about themselves, their accomplishments and what they like in the 3rd person.

"Woz likes it when Woz pulls off a great prank."

There were a couple of times when we thought Woz should have had a catchphrase like

"Cuz, I'm Woz mo-fo!"

or

"Because, I'm Woz biatch!"

Again to be fair, the book was good and Woz is an amazing engineer he did some truly breathtaking feats of engineering in his day. And much of his flair for reducing the number of chips and reworking a design to be more efficient is probably a trait that more engineers should have.

The Dealers of Lightning books was great, not sure I said that yet.

Well I am going to be leaving to take Gina to the airport soon. She is going to be in Vegas for a few days at a trade show.

If my schedule was a bit more flexible I would be going with her, but the rest of September is already going to be pretty jam packed. And, well after 28-30 hours in a car, I can't say that I would be looking forward to a 3 hour plane flight to Vegas.

Before I pack it in, let me just say this. Do not, whatever you do, do not drink the "Mt Dew: Game Fuel". I mean I don't think it is poisoned or anything, but it just doesn't taste good in my opinion. A couple of the web comics (CAD || PA) I read was making fun of the stuff, but from a marketing perspective, because of the fact that Halo3 is the main sponsor of this sugary noxious concoction, I mean the taste to me is sort of like orange drink that has a bit of extra carbonation and someone proceeded to blend up some skittles and nerds and then add that to the orange drink.

I mean, we bought it because we were still a good hour from the house at least and I needed a pick me up, but didn't want to drink an energy drink as this would probably prevent me from getting any sleep when I got home. So I figured I would try the Game Fuel and see what all the fuss was about.

Yeah, just don't bother. I mean drink the Code Red or LiveWire if your looking for a sugary Mt Dew alternative soda. Or you know what just drink some water or get a V8. God I sound old.

Oh well.

Laterz

(originally sent from my blackjack, which can't do body text, just titles)