For Cycle Oregon: The Weekend, we camped at Sisters Junior High School, showering in the gym locker room. The showers, therefore, were a prison-like communal affair. By the time I finished the ride on Saturday afternoon, the locker room was full of paunchy middle-aged men (the young, fit men, I assume, having finished much earlier), trying to avoid eye contact. We'd all spent the past 6 or more hours crammed into spandex cycling shorts; on top of that, there was no hot water. As you might imagine (or try desperately not to), none of us looked our best.
I finished my cold shower in record time. As I made my way toward the lockers across the wet, soapy concrete floor, my feet suddenly slipped out from under me, and I lay spread-eagle, naked, in front of a dozen farmer-tanned new friends.
The funny thing, in retrospect (I didn't laugh at the time), was the reaction. As I hit the floor, I could hear several of them groan sympathetically -- "Owwww!" -- but as they inquired as to my well-being, they all maintained a healthy distance: "Are you OK... over there?" Yes, I'm fine, and thank you for not touching me. :-)
In June, a 20-mile training ride took me through North Portland, one of Portland's more ethnically-diverse neighborhoods. At one point, I experienced some groinal discomfort, so I reached down and, uh... put my affairs in order.
As I stopped at the next signal, a young African-American woman rolled down her window, stuck her head out and asked, "What was you diggin' fo'?"
Last day of Summer! For those of you who care (Hi, Mom!), here's what I've been up to:
Work: I was laid off on May 21, so I spent most of June looking for a new job. Received two offers during the third week of June; accepted a position as a support engineer with Corillian Corporation. (We still have an open position, by the way, so if you know C#, VB, SQL Server, ASP/ASP.NET, XML, Javascript, DCOM, systems troubleshooting and Star Trek trivia, send me a résumé.) Didn't start the new job until July 12, however, because I was scheduled to go on...
Vacation: Went to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to visit my wife's family and friends. It was nice to see everyone again; I hadn't been there for over 10 years!
Cycling: Did Cycle Oregon: The Weekend in mid-July: 120 miles over two days. Beautiful scenery and great company, but it was over 100 degrees that Saturday, which made the 75 miles we rode that day feel like a hundred. The Vine Ride, in August, was less arduous: my butt gave out before my legs did.
Music: I can go years without seeing a concert, then I'll see four in as many months. So far this year I've seen Don Henley, Prince and Tears for Fears; I'll see Sting on Oct. 7. I've also been playing bass more regularly: Met some fellow musicians at work and have gotten in touch with my inner Tito (Puente, not Jackson).
I'll be speaking on the above subject at a meeting of the .NET Developers Association in Redmond, WA next Monday, July 12. Here's the blurb:
Even the most beautifully coded application will flop if people hate to use it. And they will, if its user interface is not designed with their goals in mind. What makes a great UI? How can you apply the principles that work so well for the guts of an application to its front end? I'll show you specific techniques (with code!) that you can use immediately to reduce complexity for your users and improve your presentation layer's efficiency and maintainability.
More details here. Next Monday is also my first day at a new job, so it'll be a busy day: work until 3 p.m., drive to Redmond, give my talk, drive home, and go to work Tuesday. Yikes!
Well, frankly, it is a bit of information overload. It's a full-time job just to keep up with blogs.msdn.com, and I have to wade through a lot of BizTalk/C++/Exchange/Windows Mobile stuff that's really not relevant to me. And what's the deal with this guy? ;-)
Occasionally, however, sifting through all that chatter pays off: I discover an unsung blogger who speaks to my soul, one whom I may never have found otherwise. Betsy Aoki is such a blogger; I find her (too infrequent) posts a perfect combination of smart, funny and quirky that never fails to bring a smile to my face. (Don't worry, Betsy: I'm happily married and I live 200 miles away, so you're not likely to find me lurking in the bushes outside your home or office. I'm content to eStalk™ you via RSS.)
I hereby propose the formation of a Betsy Aoki Fan Club; to join, post a comment. Live it vivid! :-)
While in Edmonton, I discussed with my friend David Jurewicz the prospect of creating a customized Internet radio station as a means to share our favorite music with others. I did some research and discovered Live365 and Yahoo's LAUNCHcast.
Live365 costs a minimum of $10/month and requires (or allows, depending on your point of view) you to upload your content. LAUNCHcast is available in free (ad-supported) and premium ($3/month) versions, and provides all content for you. It uses a Netflix-style rating system to allow you to specify the genres, artists, albums and songs you like, then selects music that fits your preferences. This is a quick and easy way to create a custom station -- you don't have to spend time ripping and uploading music, and you get to hear music you may not already own -- but it affords you less control over programming (LAUNCHcast doesn't have several of my favorite artists and albums in its library).
You may sample my LAUNCHcast station here; it leans heavily toward jazz (primarily bop, fusion and Latin), with a touch of trance/atmospheric. Let me know what you think!
Spent the long weekend in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (my wife's hometown) with family and friends. On Tuesday, we visited the Edmonton Art Gallery, where I thoroughly enjoyed the "Thriller" exhibition. My favorite pieces were Christian Marclay's Telephones, Janet Cardiff's Muriel Lake Incident and Allyson Clay's Improper Perspectives. If you have an opportunity to view the work of these artists, I urge you to do so.
Programming with the Cryptography APIs Join Microsoft experts on June 23rd, 2004 to ask questions about techniques and best practices in using the Cryptographic APIs to help secure your applications. Let us know what changes you would like to see in the CryptoAPI and its documentation on MSDN.
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Since the PDC last Fall, Microsoft has produced a series of concept apps to demonstrate how Longhorn's key technologies will enable the creation of groundbreaking new applications. The sample apps certainly look cool, with lots of 3D graphics and animation, but so far none of them have made me want to install Longhorn as soon as possible. Until now.
Check out this video of an app from Microsoft Research called Photo Triage. It (apparently) employs Avalon and WinFS to visually categorize collections of digital images. Some have questioned how Windows will obtain all the cool metadata WinFS needs in order to sort and search our data; this app nicely demonstrates one way it could work. I want it!
I first learned of the release of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1, as well as Express Editions and the MSDN Feedback Center, shortly after midnight this morning. Since then, I've seen it reported by dozens of bloggers, and the day is young. ('We blog more by 8 a.m. than most people do all day.') If you're a .NET blogger and you haven't yet written about today's new releases, please don't!
What is the thought process that leads one to blog about an event of this magnitude? 'If I don't blog this, nobody will hear about it!' Or perhaps, 'Ooh, if I hurry and blog this, I'll be the first, and I'll get lots of links and notoriety!' Please.
Before you post (not just today, every day), I urge you to peruse the home page at weblogs.asp.net or do a search at Technorati. If you don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said several times, do us all a favor and step away from the keyboard. Thank you.
