J5’s Blog

March 10, 2010

Buy concert tickets while floating in the clouds

Filed under: Recreation, travel, usability, wine — J5 @ 10:32 am

Ladies and gentlemen, God Street Wine is getting back together for a couple of shows this summer and their fan club presale tickets go on sale in a half hour. I was bummed because I was getting on a flight to Austin for a friend’s wedding, right before ticketing opened. Well, I am on that flight now and apparently all American Airlines domestic flights have WiFi. Technology can be awesome sometimes (usually when it makes it easier to do every day things). Let’s just hope my battery doesn’t die before I can snag a few tickets.

Note: Fedora connected flawlessly. Bar none, we have the easiest networking setup out there. Dan Williams has done a kick ass job with Network Manager!

Update: Just purchased six tickets for Friday and six for the Saturday shows! The money goes to a good cause and I have plenty of friends who will come back to NY for this.

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August 19, 2009

To Vegas

Filed under: Recreation, Vacation, friends, travel, weekend — J5 @ 10:51 pm

In an effort to recreate “The Hangover” I am heading to Vegas tomorrow morning for one of my closest friend’s bachelor party.

I’ll be back Monday with some pretty cool announcement involving JavaScript and native messaging support. Let’s put it this way – if this works out implementing D-Bus in pure JavaScript might be a fun side project.

Until then I’m going to be incommunicado except for my cell phone. Get in touch with me only if there is an emergency, otherwise I’m pretty much stepping into the alternate dimension that is Vegas.

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January 29, 2009

Selfish moral arguments

One of my biggest pet peeves is this argument:

You’ve done ***************** this much “good” so you are obligated to do more (and to my benefit first). If you don’t do so the world will implode.

I especially hate it when the person making that argument benefits from that good but doesn’t think they should contribute to it.

I do however agree with this argument:

You have done ******************* this much “good” and as a result have benefited from that good on average more than others, you have an obligation to keep putting in as much as you can. I am a beneficiary of your good and will try to add to it but I may lack the ability to contribute in any meaningful way.

On the philosophical side:

Is it more moral to get paid for the above arguments’ “good”, which frees you up to do more of the “good” or to do something else for a living with results being the scope of your “good” contributions are less than they would have been?

Those questions I don’t think there is a real answer to.

And no Spot, I’m not going to suddenly quit, I just sometimes wonder why I chose to be a public free software developer when it means I have to deal with anonymous idiots or break my own moral code on censorship.

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August 2, 2008

Bringing home Ty

Filed under: My Dog Ty, Recreation, family, weekend — J5 @ 9:32 pm

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OMG HSFC!!!  Today I went to Enfield, CT to pick up my adopted dog Ty.  Adopting Ty was sort of a impulsive 3 year decision.  After moving to Porter Square I had always said my next apartment would have to allow dogs.  When Bryan Clark needed a third roommate and asked me to move in I jumped at the chance.  Part of the reason for that was his dog Moose who was and still remains to be awesome.  When Bryan went to Mozilla Messaging in Vancouver, Moose went with him.  With no dog to greet me when I came home from work it started getting pretty lonely at the apartment so I started looking for the perfect dog to fill that void.

While on vacation in Aruba I spotted Ty at Pet Finder and instantly fell in love. After getting back I called up Adopt a Lab and found out that Ty was still available and that they were coming to New England that Saturday. The catch was I had to agree to adopt Ty, sight unseen, for them to go through the process of getting him checked for transport and bring him from the midwest to the east. The way it worked they explained, is that I had to commit to at least two weeks with the dog and if it did not work out they would arrange foster care and refund my money. After a day of deliberating I called them up again and started the process rolling. That is when the adventure began.

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My friend and resident dog expert Sara agreed to venture two hours out of Boston with me to the agreed upon meeting place where 22 other adopters were gathering to pick up their chosen dog at 11am. All was well when we pulled into the parking lot of Enfield’s Town Hall fifteen minutes before the pick up. Whole families had come to get the first glimpse of their future pets. This is when one of the volunteers notified us that the air conditioner on the transport vehicle had broken down and that they were delayed until 1 o’clock because they had to replace it. This was no big deal as Sara and I were hungry and it would have been hard to get lunch once we had a nervous dog on our hands.

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Coming back at 1 brought new troubles as the skies opened up and proceeded to deluge us. On top of that, the transport only made it around 3 o’clock.

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I didn’t mind the rain or the delay.  I was just anxious to finally meet Ty.

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When Ty finaly came out of the truck, he was a bit excited.  I could hear oohs and ahhs from my fellow adopters which was the chant recited whenever a particularly cute dog came out.  I walked him around a bit on his lead away from the crowds to calm him down.

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A quick drink and bathroom break later, we were finally on the road to Ty’s new home.

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To calm Ty down even more Sara gave him the plush mole toy she had bought him as a gift.  The funny thing about that mole is that Ty seems completely indifferent to the Kong with a snack in it and the tennis ball I had gotten him.  He loved that mole though.

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It was pouring outside which made our way home slow going.

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Ty didn’t mind though as he darted his head from window to window taking in all of the new sights he was experiencing.

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After dropping off Sara in JP we made our way back to Cambridge and Ty’s new home where he drank a couple of bowls full of water.  When the rain died down I took him for a run and he finally settled down enough to eat.  Even after the run he was still a bundle of energy and even though he kept nodding off he would quickly wake up and nudge me to play some more.  Finally around 8 he fell asleep for an hour and a half.  Right now he is calmly watching me write this blog and perking up every time I look his way.

Oh ya, J5 and Ty – I think I’m going to keep him!!!

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July 19, 2008

Birthday Bash Done – Houston We Have Liftoff

Filed under: Vacation, travel, weekend — J5 @ 4:01 am

All in all pretty good for a last minute event.  It ended up being a night at the good life bar as it was too much fun to leave.  People ended up rotating in and out all night and we all had a blast.  My dinner was pretty good.  The spinage was amazing but the steak was a little overdone.  The vodka martinis were also good but I would stay away from the mixed drinks as they didn’t seem to be of the same quality.  I still prefer Om for martinis and cocktails but overall Good Life was pretty good.  Dancing was fun on such an intimate dance floor and we even had a show of the local hip hop dance crew showing off their moves. Well it is 4 o’clock here – a bit late for this old man. I need to pack for my trip to Aruba on Sunday and am meeting someone for dinner tomorrow night. I will be mostly absent for the next week as I try to relax and soak in some sun and beach but I will be checking e-main every once in awhile and my phone will still work for emergencies.

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July 17, 2008

Birthday in Boston

Filed under: Recreation, celebration, friends, weekend — J5 @ 8:48 pm

I thought I was going to be on vacation for my birthday this year but it turns out I’m leaving the day after so I decided to do something this Friday to celebrate with people in Boston.  I’m going to have a small dinner with close friends at Good Life Bar around 8:00 and then perhaps some drinks at Jacob Wirth.  In any case I’ll be microblogging my whereabouts on identi.ca so use it as an excuse to come down, drink a few beers and have a good time.

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June 20, 2008

Here’s to BEER

Filed under: Fedora, Recreation, cooking — J5 @ 8:14 pm

Fudcon is great but when I like to unwind I go to the American Craft Beer Fest. Right now I’m getting ready for the beer and food pairing seminar. Like wine, beer is very versatile as an ingredient (if you have ever had a beer can roasted chicken you would understand). In any case we are about to start
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In other related news Gravity of Debian X fame was here. Great minds think alike and Linux hacker’s minds often think of beer.

Update

I tried to sneak off with the cutting board the food for the tasting was served on but to my dismay they let us just take them. Way to take the thrill out of the equation. I was however happy enough to get a high quality cutting board with the phrase “Here’s to BEER” branded on the top, and here is the proof:

Me with my prize

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May 15, 2008

Canada, the final frontier

Filed under: Vacation, friends, travel, weekend — J5 @ 5:47 pm

Well perhaps not but I am taking off this weekend to a place I have been in spitting distance of but have never crossed the border. I find it strange that I have been all around the world and to almost every state in America and still have not bothered to visit our kind neighbours to the north. So with my roommates Bryan and Chris leaving this summer for far off jobs we decided to take a trip with a bunch of friends up to Montreal. I went down to NY last weekend for mothers day and to swap my car for my parents van just for this trip. It should be fun.

Oh and Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain’s home base, is fantastic. If you are down in New York City and in midtown I highly recommend it

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April 4, 2008

Just got this important news from a friend

Filed under: Recreation, movies — J5 @ 10:07 am

Short Ciruit is being remade!!!  Johnny 5 is alive once again on the big screen.

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January 5, 2008

How to treat your customers

Filed under: Recreation, Redhat, Sports — J5 @ 4:47 pm

A couple of weeks ago I made a post on how NOT to treat your customers. Today I had an experience which prompted me to write a counter point to the last post. As my readers may know, I just joined a gym. To kick thing off right (wait for the pun), I went out today looking for sneakers. For most people it is a simple trip to the local sports shop or shoe store but I needed shoes for the gym so they had to fit just right and provide proper support. The issue for me is I wear shoes one half size smaller than most stores carry. That is a bigger difference than it sounds when it comes to shoes I will be running in.

I decided to go down to the specialty running store, Marathon Sports, in order to see if they carried my size. I walked into a busy shop and looked around for a bit, clearly confused by the myriad of choice, mostly of brands I never heard of. This wasn’t your everyday shoe store. Just then a man asked if he could help and then made the strange request that I take off my shoes, roll up my pant legs and walk up and down the store. I complied and from that he deduced my gate, stance and the fact that I had wide feet. He promptly brought up a pair of some of the most comfortable sneakers I have ever worn.

I ended up paying a bit of a premium for the sneakers. Nothing huge but about $10-$20 more than I would anywhere else. The fact is from the service I was given I would have paid much more. These sneakers are going make sure I get an optimal workout without injuring myself and when they wear out, I know where I am going to get a new pair.

To review, expertise, good merchandise plus great customer service makes a happy customer. A happy customer comes back for more and may even bring friends along to start the cycle anew.

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