Bunnies

We have a bunny living under one of our backyard chairs, and we left some food for it today - this is as close as I could get without scaring it away.

Last week was relatively quiet, which was a nice break from the previous couple of weeks. The weather is finally getting nicer which has been a nice opportunity to go out and take some walks without freezing (Friday afternoon was really nice!)

The theme for this weekend has been getting some spring chores done. Erin is continuing his project of building shelves to grow seedlings for a garden this summer which is making good progress. I spent some time cleaning up the garage, replacing for a second time a broom handle, and finally figuring out what was wrong with the lithium batteries that go with my cordless drill (I now know all about lithium batteries and, sadly, that the two batteries I have cannot be saved). The NCAA tournament continues on, with both one seeds UCLA and North Carolina moving on last night - the other two play tonight. I also took advantage of a windier day yesterday to do some inside stuff, including finishing a bunch of video editing and organizing projects - still some to go.

In other news, the trumpet lesson progress kind of stalled last week after I was off for 2 weeks because of the work trip, but it is going better this week. Next week is Rochester spring break so no bell practices. The salsa band is also getting short on people right now, as the guitar player doesn't have time to play - so we're down to 4 people (5 when the piano player comes back this summer).

Continuing to read "Death Star", one of the books in the Star Wars universe series, this one is pretty good. I also have to mentioned a podcast I listened to the other day - I frequently listen to Democracy Now which is a news show reporting on issues from around the country. This episode had speeches from soldiers now organized under a group called Iraq Veterans Against The War. Listening to these speeches of these soldiers was just heart-wrenching. I am afraid that the world's opinion of the U.S. is going to be bad for some time to come, and deservedly so. I wish there was an easy way out of all of this but I know there isn't...I hope something changes soon.

Programmer or Serial Killer?

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Some of you might have seen this before but it is kind of funny - I only missed 2.

This ain't your grandma's sci-fi...

The fourth and final season of BSG is starting April 4th...FINALLY after a long wait! For those of you who have been watching, the show is incredible - the "new" sci-fi, complete with drama, hot men and women, and a continuing storyline. I think the sci-fi writers are finally "getting it" that they can appeal to a wider audience and get the non-geeks to watch (and still make it great for the geeks too!) This is loosely a remake of the original 1980 Battlestar Galactica, although the only resemblence is that the characters are more/less named the same (although half of them are women now) and there are Cylons.

For those of you who haven't been watching the past 3 seasons (plus the 3-hour premiere mini-series, plus the webisodes, plus "Razor" which was awesome) there is an 8-minute recap of seasons 1-3 on the sci-fi channel website - accurate, humorous, and short!

http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=224004

Now, if only they'd bring back "Commander In Chief"....

Happy Easter!

I am at home, "recovering" (ok so that's really the wrong word, "relaxing" is probably more accurate). My church, Zumbro Lutheran, always has a wonderful Easter celebration, consisting of 3 morning services. Since I am involved with the Handbell choir, it's always a busy day for me. This morning I was at the 9:00 and 11:00 services. Busy, but very happy and joyous. Since my family is usually busy with their own church activities on Easter, we usually can't go to each other's services, so today my "urban" family (as Shelley always refers it) was there - Erin and Shelley this time. Friend Matt has also adopted my church as the church they go to when his family is visiting for Easter.

I will be taking over directing the bell choir next year as our current director, June, is "retiring" from directing. I have mixed feelings about this, I think it will be fun to direct but I will also miss out on playing. I guess after a year I can change my mind :)

Other Goings-on

I'm home watching basketball now with my white chocolate mocha from Caribou, and decided I'd finally sign up for FaceBook. Interesting site - I like the interface a lot better than Myspace, and the photo capabilities are neat. I was surprised there weren't more people on there, until I started to read a little more about it, and see that it started out being restricted to high school and college students. So it makes sense that that's the majority of the users on there. I only found 2 people on there from my high school graduating class (at least that put that down in their profile) and of course searching for college classmates is impossible since my class alone had about 5000.

Speaking of basketball, my bracket is not doing so good - I haven't really lost anything major (or at least none that no one else has) but I didn't do so well in the first round, pretty much eliminating me from contention. Seems like I either finish way up at the top or way at the bottom - I can't just be mediocre. But then I suppose that's better than always finishing in the middle, as you never win anything :) I am pleased that there have been some GREAT games and great finishes in the first 2 rounds this year - last year didn't seem to have many.

One Hit Wonders

Listening to my music collection yesterday at work, I came up on "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba, one of my favorite feel-good songs. This got me to thinking about one of my favorite music topics, "One-Hit Wonders". I had many a philosophical discussion on this topic in college - besides trying to come up with a list of the best ones, we also debated what the "rules" are for qualifying - how big a hit you had to have vs. how small the rest of your releases (if any) were.

There was even a whole movie made about the "life" of a one-hit wonder band - "That Thing You Do" with Tom Hanks, was about the fictional band "The Wonders" and how one-hit wonders can happen - a great movie and soundtrack.

The best one-hit wonders, in my opinion, are those where some group comes along, releases a song that hits some part of the music spectrum that hasn't been hit before, has a huge hit, and then you never hear from them again. Somehow that adds to the mystique and greatness of the song. So my challenge for the day is for you to post your favorite(s). Some from my list are:

• "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba
• "Do You Love Me?" by The Countours, who, amazingly were one-hit wonders twice with the same song (it was re-released on Dirty Dancing)
• "Life in a Northern Town" by Dream Academy and , "Sunchyme" - Dario G (which is a dance mix of "Life in a Northern Town" :)
• "Let's Hear It For The Boy" by Denice Williams (from "Footloose" - Denice Williams was a very successful gospel singer but only did this one pop song)
• "Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant
• "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco
• "Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit" by Gina G
• "Shake You Down" by Gregory Abbott (his "regular" job was a stock broker)
• "What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)" by Information Society
• "Tic Tac Toe" by Kyper
• "Macarena" by Los Del Rio
• "Mambo #5" by Lou Bega
• "Pump Up the Volume" by M/A/R/R/S
• "In the House of Stone and Light" by Martin Page
• "Can't Live Without Your Love and Affection" by Nelson (remember Matthew and Gunner with their hair??)
  
• "Kiss Him Goodbye" by The Nylons
• "She Hates Me" by Puddle of Mudd
• "I Wanna Be Your Man" by Roger
• "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes
• "Mickey" by Toni Basil (and the video!)
• "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice (talk about crash-and-burn)
• "Whoomp! There It Is" by Tag Team
• "Bust a Move" by Young MC
  

The FDA

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/04/news/companies/airborne_settlement/index.htm?cnn=yes

These kinds of articles always make me wonder...if a product is bad and/or not effective, it would seem that people would just choose not to buy it, or buy something else. There are plenty of choices in the cold-prevention/cold treatment market, so it would seem to me that people would only continue buying a product if it worked. So it makes me wonder if, because this is a small independent company who was successful in selling their product, maybe the big guys are trying to push them out, one way or another. I have no article or evidence to support that, it just seems odd to see something like this. I use Airborne when going on planes, and whether it actually worked or not, it made me feel better, and having extra vitamins certainly wouldn't hurt when being in an environment like an airplane where it's easy to catch colds.

Madness

...March Madness that is! Yes, it is that time of year again, where you get to watch 32 NCAA tournament games in two days (Thursday and Friday) and another 16 the following two days. I don't think any sport has anything that compares to this - single elimination, 3 or 4 games going on at a time. And with the magic of DirecTV, I've been able to watch them all the past 3 years (this year they're all being broadcast in HD).

In previous years I set up 4 TVs in the living room, but this year I revised my setup to 3 TVs, because there is hardly ever a case where there's actually 4 active games going on (plus I gave one of my big TVs to my mom last year, and Erin would probably kill me if I took over all 4 TVs in the house :)

So here's what it looks like....the TVs and the remote controls needed to run the show.

New York, New York

I promised a full report on my trip and here it is. I divided into 3 sections because it's very long - so if you want to read the best part (the part about New York City) skip to "The City" section.

The Trip Out

Last Thursday (03/06) late in the afternoon, the manager of the project I am working on asked if I'd attend the technical conference they were having next week at the IBM site in Hawthorne, NY. I have wanted to go to the research site since I started on the project almost 2 years ago, so of course I said yes. After some quick travel planning (and getting hotel recommendations from the people that had been there before) I was all set to get on a plane out of Rochester on Monday, at noon.

My friend Wayne graciously drove me to the airport at around 10:45 on Monday. Even though they tell you to be there an hour before the flight, in Rochester it never takes that long to do anything, and so I was sitting at the gate at 11. Fortunately, one of the other guys going to the conference was taking the same outgoing flights as me and so we discussed some work issues (since technically we were doing all this during work time on Monday). Finally we took off, to Chicago for about a 45-minute flight. We arrived, found the next gate, and had plenty of time to eat lunch and hang out until the next flight (the gate was two down from where we landed), to Westchester County airport. Both Rochester and Westchester are small airports, meaning small planes, but after flying out of Rochester so many times I was used to it (and it was incredibly convenient for this kind of trip). In Chicago, I had a nice bagel sandwich for lunch, and found a Starbucks (how can you NOT find one in an airport) and read my book until the next flight.

The next flight took off on time and landed early, so by 6:00pm Eastern DST, I had my luggage, my rental car (a Ford Mustang, which was actually way less cool than it sounds), and was off to find my hotel. The hotel I chose was the Courtyard Mariott in Tarrytown, NY - a suburb in Westchester county. As I was driving on the freeway from the airport, I was thinking this looked a lot like Rochester, or Bloomington, or Roseville, or any of the other Twin Cities suburbs (I guess I was expecting skyscrapers right away!). I checked in at the hotel, and then went to find dinner and explore the area. I found the Westchester Fashion Mall, and ate dinner there and wandered around. By 9:00, most everything was closed (again, like Rochester!) so I headed back, drove by the IBM site to make sure I knew how to get there, and went to bed.

Tuesday, I got up, had breakfast at the hotel (the breakfasts were wonderful - there was a buffet and also many specialty omlettes and sandwiches), tried to get some coffee in the lobby - disappointedly found it was empty, and headed to the IBM Hawthorne Site (Watson Research Center). It is about 5 miles away, and only one major left turn that you have to make, so it took about 10 minutes to get there total. I got in, and fortunately met someone in the lobby that I knew (at least from talking on the phone before) and followed him to the conference room. The presentations the first day were very good, and I learned a lot - as well as getting to meet and talk with so many of the people that I had worked with for 2 years on the phone and over e-mail. It was really great to see these people in person and talk about things - I don't know that there will ever be a true replacement for face-to-face contact. The Hawthorne site cafeteria was great too - far better than our Rochester one - I had 3 different fantastic salads for lunch the 3 days I was there, and they served Starbucks coffee all day long. At the end of the day, they provided the conference room with refreshments and gave us all time to just walk around and talk with each other. I left about 6:00pm, but that's kind of normal work hours out there.

The City
(see the map below this section for all the places I went)

Tuesday night though, was the best part of the trip. Philippe, one of the guys I have worked with since the very beginning of my time on the project offered to go into the city with me - he lived in Manhattan for a long time himself - and show me around. Of course I jumped at the chance to have someone who knew what they were doing go with me - I was planning to just take the train in myself and wander around in the "easy" areas, but this was much better. With him along, we decided to drive in north Manhattan and then park and take the subway to the rest of the places (I would never have attempted driving on my own). I drove down I-87 and crossed the 3rd Avenue bridge, onto 2nd Ave in Manhattan, to about 86th Street, where we found a parking garage (I, Paul Bye, DROVE A CAR in Manhattan!!!!). Hopped on the subway at 86th Street (a 24-hour pass is $7.50, which seemed like the easiest choice).

The New York subway system, contrary to older movies and things you might see growing up, is very nice, very clean, and very efficient. We were to Grand Central in no time, and from there, a short walk along 42nd to Times Square. Times Square is as bright and overpowering as it looks on TV and in movies - they have street lights, which are totally not necessary. I did make a comment that all the big TVs USED to seem a lot cooler back when they weren't everywhere - now you see them in every sports stadium, billboards, etc. But it was still really neat. Philippe took an obligatory Times Square tourist picture of me with the big screens in the background. We then headed down Broadway, and stopped briefly to look at the Empire State Building (didn't go inside, just took some pictures).

From there, headed down 6th Ave to 23rd Street, then 2 blocks over to 8th Ave, which is basically the beginning of the "Chelsea" district (pronounced "Chelsey" like Chelsey Clinton - thank you Richard for correcting me and making sure I didn't sound like a tourist :). We stopped and ate dinner at a little diner called Vynl, the theme being "vinyl" records, so all the menus were record album covers, and the decor was record/music related (including a set of "Menudo" dolls behind our table - everyone remember the 5 minutes that "Menudo" was popular?).

After dinner and a little more wandering in Chelsea, headed east on 14th St to Union Square, which is the beginning of the Greenwich Village district. One thing I should mention that I noticed in all this walking is that there is literally a Starbucks every 2 blocks - we joke about that here (and in the Mall of America there's a Caribou everywhere you turn) but it is really true in Manhattan - and they're all busy - try doing a google search for Manhattan and then Starbucks, you can barely see the map. By the time we got to Union Square, it was late enough on a "school night" that we decided to get on the subway and head back to 86th Street to the car and drive back. Sometime I hope to get back and see some more (Chinatown, Soho, financial district, ground zero), but it was a great taste of what New York City is like.

During the subway and car rides, I got some education about New York City. For those that don't know, New York City is divided into 5 "boroughs" - The Bronx, Manhattan (which is the "official" New York City at least as far as the post office is concerned), Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Long Island is NOT part of New York City (which I didn't know) and the northern parts (e.g. Yonkers) are suburbs. Each borough is divided into smaller neighborhoods or districts - so in Manhattan, Chelsea and Greenwich Village are districts. I won't claim to understand the whole structure of the city government or anything like that, but it makes you see why being Mayor of New York City (10 milllion or so people) is such a big deal. There are two major airports - LaGuardia and JFK. The subway system that runs through much of the city (mainly north-south) and a train system that goes further out for people coming from the suburbs, Connecticut, and New Jersey. As far as the roads, I learned (and saw) that Manhattan is basically a grid, with the east-west blocks being approximately 3x as long as the north-south blocks. All the roads (with a few exceptions of the main roads) are one-way. There are expressways and freeways that run all the way around the edge of Manhattan Island. This makes it VERY easy to find your way around - either walking, driving (not PARKING), or using the subway system.

I also learned what the cost of living is like. The prices of things in the city (food, clothes, etc.) are probably slightly higher than the midwest, but the main difference in cost is where you live, and if you have a car, where you park. An example is an apartment in Upper East Manhattan - ~350 sq ft, is about $2000/month to rent, and to park in a garage there is about $350/month. As you get closer to the middle, the apartments and condos get into the multi-millions. Of course many people can live without having a car and use public transportation, so if you factor that in, it isn't quite as disparate as it sounds (think of how much you pay in car payments, insurance, gas). Still quite a different world from Rochester MN.


View Larger Map

The Conference and the Trip Home

Wednesday I got to the IBM site a little bit early to set up for a presentation that I was doing with another colleague, which went very well (it was kind of nice being first in the day so that I could enjoy the rest of the presentations without thinking about mine). Lunch at the cafeteria, more Starbucks coffee in the afternoon, and then it was off to a special IBM-paid-for conference dinner in North Salem, NY at John-Michael's restaurant. The restaurant was an old New England-style house, cozy atmosphere with a fireplace, and the service and the food were excellent. The best part, again, was getting to talk face-to-face with so many of the people I had worked with for so long on the phone and over e-mail - even though we all talked a lot about work, it was still great to get to do that.

Thursday was the last day of the conference, and already I had to pack up and get checked out as I had a late afternoon flight. While I was excited to get back home and see Erin, I was certainly glad for the time I got to spend in New York at the Hawthorne site. There were some really interesting presentations Thursday about some "up-and-coming" technologies and projects going on, and some more opportunity to talk with the people there. At 3:00, the conference was over, and I had to hop in the car and get back to the Westchester airport to catch my flight (it was at 4:50pm so really I had plenty of time, but always like to be early in case there are problems). Flight was again on time, 1.5 hours to Chicago, about 2 hours in Chicago to eat dinner and grab a decaf Honey Latte at Starbucks (had to try one!) and then 45 minutes to Rochester arriving at 9:30pm. Erin was there to pick me up and we headed home.

In almost 11 years, I've traveled twice for work, and while I'm not really big on traveling, this was definitely a very worthwhile, productive, and enjoyable trip for me, and I am glad I had the opportunity to do it.

Start Spreadin' the News...

Saturday was a fun day for me. After Erin finished an early morning meeting at work, and we went to Panera for some breakfast, we got ready and headed to Bloomington for some shopping and a chance to see the nieces and family. The shopping goals of the day were to: 1) Look for lamps for our bedroom 2) Buy some new shoes and a new shirt for Paul (more on why later), and 3) Look at trumpet cases (I just bought a trumpet on eBay and while it's in great condition, it needs a new case). We were successful in 1 out of 3 - got the shoes and shirt. IKEA was very disappointing in terms of lamps, and the music stores we went to had very few cases, so it looks like I'll be going online.

Seeing the nieces and family was fun though - we actually all met at the Mall of America on a Saturday - no small feat - and Keagann and dad went on the rides she was tall enough to go on, while (sister) Erin, (boyfriend) Erin, and I entertained Laynie, who seems to be VERY content baby these days. Our original plan was to go to dinner at Tucci Benucci, but by the time we all go there and got through all the rides Keagann wanted to go on, the wait was 1 1/2 hours, so we chose the food court and pick your own food instead. Being daylight savings weekend, we wanted to get home early as Erin had an early shift at work.

The reason for the need for a the new shoes and shirt is that late Thursday afternoon, I found out I was going to New York this week for a joint technical conference, at the IBM Hawthorne site. I've worked with the team in Hawthorne for 2 years now, and have never been there, and the Rochester team manager was still looking for a person to go this week and of course I jumped at the chance. I'll be there Monday afternoon-Thursday night - and I should have at least one night where I'm able to venture into the city. I'll be reporting back on my trip when I get home, but today I'm getting everything washed and packed and ready to go.

Miscellaneous Updates

Four weeks into trumpet lessons, and I'm making fairly good progress - and now I have what I think is a better trumpet so we'll see how that goes. Starting into "Death Star" the book - haven't read a Star Wars book in quite awhile, so hopefully it's good. New Year's resolution progress - well, I'm doing well on 3 out of 10, so not so bad. Erin and I are really hitting the "Go GREEN" one pretty hard - cutting down on all sorts of plastic bags, second recycling bin, hang-drying our clothes, chemical-free detergents, shampoos, soaps, etc.

Creative Kids

This weekend (Friday and Saturday) I had the opportunity to participate in two fun programs related to kids and engineering. The first, "National Engineers Week" is a week dedicated to promoting careers in Engineering, Math, and Science to school-aged kids across the country. IBM is a big supporter of this program, and actually does this for a whole month instead of just a week. IBM has a core team of people to come up with a project and school presentation, and coordinate and organize the employees to volunteer to go to schools and do the presentation and projects, as well as gives the "time off" for employees who choose to go to the schools. They are also very flexible as to letting people choose what schools they go to. The Rochester-area schools are always covered, but many people also choose to go back to their home towns all over the midwest and do presentations.

Every year for the past 7 years, I have driven to Blair-Taylor Elementary School in Blair, WI, and done these presentations to 5th and 6th grade classes there, with my friend Leah, who used to work at IBM and now works for Rockwell-Collins, which also participates in the Engineers Week program. Leah's mom is a teacher at Blair-Taylor and Leah grew up there. This makes it an especially fun event for me every year - getting to hang out with my friend Leah, combining both of our experiences from different companies, and getting to go to the same place every year - the teachers love to have us come, and the kids remember us from year to year (the 6th graders remember us very well from the previous year when we came to their 5th grade class). The last 2 projects have been particularly good and have generated a lot of enthusiasm and creativity - last year's project was to build a roller coaster (which every group loved and was successful doing) and this year's project was to build a Rube Goldberg machine (check out the YouTube video below this paragraph - an amazing never-released Honda commercial depicting one of these machines). This was a little more of a stretch than previous years, because each of the 5 groups had to build a piece of this "machine" that had to work together in the end, so they not only had to work with the kids in their own group, but also with the groups on either side of them. It was a great success - I was so surprised at how well everyone worked together, and how little fighting or arguing there was (and these are 5th and 6th graders - the teachers were VERY amazed as well). Kinda makes you wonder how much less fighting and arguing we'd have in the world if we all just had cool stuff to work on (but I digress....)



After Leah's parents feeding me dinner (they always go out of their way to make my favorites!) I unfortunately had to zip back home and get to bed early, because I had to be at Willow Creek middle school at 7:00am to set up and learn how to be a judge for the Destination ImagiNation SE Minnesota regional tournament. I had never done this before, but my friend Scott asked if I'd like to give it a try. Different age groups of kids (HS, MS, 3rd-5th, and K-2nd) are given a set of project/problem constraints which they get to work on for a couple of months, and then present their "solution" at this contest. The constraints for the one I was judging were to design an obstacle course (obstacles of varying degrees given various point values), a vehicle to traverse the obstacles, and in conjunction, a nonverbal skit which the obstacles were themed from. To give you an example, one of the groups made up a story about a guy "Dude" in San Francisco, who drinks too much root beer, goes crazy, and has to make it home - the obstacles were palm trees, the golden gate bridge, mountains, and some others. The team gets points for (in 8 minutes) how many obstacles their vehicle gets through, as many laps as they can do. They also get points for obstacle difficulty, vehicle design, obstacle relevance to the story, story creativity, and some made up "side trips" they can take. It was fun because each group was totally different - the constraints are intentionally vague and leave lots of room for interpretation.

By the time I got home at 1:00pm on Saturday, I was glad to just be able to lay down on the couch and relax for awhile :) Erin and I have been enjoying a nice relaxing Sunday today (he couldn't resist doing some baking - baguettes, and cheese cake).

Other Updates

I'm in week 3 of trumpet lessons - I can (almost) play 2 scales now reliably, and have gotten up to the 3rd-space "C" in the staff, although sometimes I wonder how in the world I'll go higher than that as it feels like my head will explode (teacher Warren assures me it's just a matter of training the lip to do it). No upcoming salsa band or jazz band gigs, although the salsa band is probably going to be involved in a "Rochester's Latin Idol" contest at the Blue Moon sometime in April or May. Really excited about what we're doing for handbells for Easter, as we decided to have a combined Jubilate-Accelerando group, meaning we'll have enough people to play the really tough stuff :)

I don't do ALL music all the time (although a lot right now) - I've also managed to get in a few card nights, and hope to see the family up north next weekend. And I'm very much into the presidential election (probably too much), listening to podcasts and reading news - hoping it doesn't get too ugly. I'm at least more optimistic about the candidates than I have been in years.