Keith's Expositions

29th Birthday -- Ninja Edition

2008-06-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Gen was so awesome wrapping all the presents that my family sent via amazon. And she got me awesome stuff too. She got me Ninja Gaiden II and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures.

Timing

2008-05-23T19:43:00.001-07:00

Looks like now might be a good time to stock up on supplies to deal with jogger's nipple

GTA + Dexter

2008-05-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

It's a little odd playing GTA IV while watching the first season of Dexter. And not for the obvious psychopath, serial murder connection. No, I've been thinking about how well Liberty City is a reproduction of New York, and all the Miami exterior shots in Dexter are reminding me how well it was replicated in Vice City.

Progress

2008-05-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

Recovering well. I was able to sleep on my side last night. Lots of GTA IV. Ironman was sweet. Sneezing is still upleasant.

I Work With Awesome People

2008-05-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going in for surgery today. I have gall stones and need to have my weak and evil organ removed. Hopefully it will serve as an example to the liver, so that it will continue to service my alcohol processing needs with no complaint. Anyway, I'm going to be stuck at home recovering for a week and I just got a surprise shipment from Amazon of three seasons of TV shows (all of which I've been dying to see) to help keep me from going stir crazy.

You guys are legend- ... wait for it ... -dary.

The Story

2008-04-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday at lunch, I asked Gen if we had any plans for dinner. Our schedules where clear, so I asked her if I could set up some surprise dinner plans. And she did get a bit of a surprise.

I took her across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Marin Headlands. There's a series of mostly untouched hills just across the bridge, and that was where our second date took place. I took her to an outcropping in the hills above an ocean side cliff, and set up a picnic. I got out some of her favorite snacky-bits and we ate dinner with the Golden Gate to our left and the sun setting to our right.

After we had finished dinner, with the sun just above the horizon I got the ring out of my jacked pocket, got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. I had barely spoken the words, when she answered "yes".

She Said "Yes"!

2008-04-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

Napa Twittering

2008-04-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Andrew arranged another limo trip to Napa this weekend. They're always a lot of fun, getting to hang out with friends old and new. And, of course, the ability to drink wine without worrying about losing designated driver rock-paper-scissors.

And this time I discovered how useful a twitter feed could be for such an occasion. I had the forethought to twitter the locations I visited, so I can have some record for the next time I head up. I'm glad I'm catching up with them kids these days.

Debugging Plumbing

2008-04-12T07:42:00.001-07:00

A short while ago I found myself with a standard home-owner dilemma. A clogged drain. But not just any drain. This was the kitchen sink drain with the insinkerator in it. As I was getting my blue-collar on (in a linguistic idiom from The Todd) I was struck by how nicely a career in programming had prepared me for this sort of problem.

I was essentially dealing with a bug here. And it started off as wonderfully well specified and specific as most bug reports do. "The sink doesn't work". After some quick digging with the user (i.e. the part of my brain that just wanted to empty the damn sink) I got a slightly better bug report. "The sink is slowly draining and I may have tossed some bad data into the system". So now I could investigate.

I did the binary search on the U-joint and the removable piece connecting the insinkerator to the wall. Both of these turned up clean. And here I lost me cool for a second. I started blaming select and went to a bad (and very damp) place for a while filled with frustration.

I ended up running some draining tests now (well once I cooled off a bit). And left the U Joint off and poured a cup of water down the sink and timed both entry and exit to the system. It took 5 seconds to put the cup of water in the sink, and 6 seconds for it to collect on the other side. AHA!. Apparently there's some friction in the insinkerator and that's causing my slow leak. Well no, but there were another few hours wasted on that theory. Eventually I realize that every time there's a huge blockage it drains pretty damn fast through where the u joint was when I take it out and move along with the next theory.

OK. Well now there's only one place left. And it's frustrating to think about because it's in the wall. And that means calling a plumber. So I do nothing for a few days and don't use the sink. Well the problem is kinda in select now and so may as well wait for the next version of the software to come out. Right?

And then I get a nice email from the HOA. It informs me that several tenants have had
had similar problems and that the plumber isolated it to the walls and that it's now better. Woot! I'm glad I waited for the patch. And the email brings to light

a) I throw too much crap down the sink
and
2) I'm not the only one in the building that does it

Well I leave the problem alone now and wait for the next guy to come along. Though I'm pretty sure future-Keith is going to be pretty mad at me. Ah well. It's not like he can do anything about it.

Look what I found today

2008-04-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

99 Words for Boobs

And up until I posted this it was only about four hops away from ginyu.com once you turn the directedness off in the web graph.

We Work Hard, We Play Hard

2007-12-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

Given that I haven't done cardio for quite some time, I found my handiest excuse (that being that having my gym near where I work makes it hard to schedule cardio time) and eliminated it. The only way I had to do that was to join a second gym in the city near where I live.

So after some Yelp time I found out that there are two reasonable options inside of a short (1-mile) walk and I picked the one without the reviews of mildew in the locker room. So I'm now a member of Gold's Gym.

The thing is that this gym is in the heart of SoMa. That's bear country. And there are a lot of bears at the gym. Here are the two things I've learned in my last week

Bears need beauty sleep too

I Will Survive is appropriate work out music

Scotch and Apples

2007-11-17T16:45:00.001-08:00

Haven't updated in a while, but here's what I've been up to.

Immigration May Not Cure American Entitlement

2007-10-01T16:37:00.001-07:00

One of my longstanding hopes for fighting the Super-Size me ego-centric American culture that I see around me (and, to be fair, in me) was through immigration. I'm proud of living in a melting pot, and I've always been impressed at the work ethic of people when they've come to the new world. Whether it's the Irish, Italians or Mexicans, it's always seemed like people coming to this country respected and appreciated a hard days work for a fair days wage.

But it seems that these better-land attitudes are lasting fewer and fewer generations. What got me thinking about this was a conversation I overheard while waiting in the midnight line to purchase Halo 3. A working class Mexican who I could tell truly loved his son and wanted to give him the world, was on line with him to give him the video game he wanted (and actually due to its mature rating couldn't purchase on his own).

The thing was as I listened to this conversation I could tell that the father was worried about how his son was turning out. The kid was having a rough time at school (from lack of effort it seemed) and his father was trying to speak to him about the honest-days-work philosophy. Get your life in order first. Then play games when you can afford it. Of course this was totally going over the kid's head as they were speaking across a generational chasm.

I just hope he can make a good burrito for me in 5 years or so. I need the calories for those all night gaming sessions.

Keep Them On Leash

2007-09-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today we have a guest blog post. These are the words of my sister Jaime, though I agree with most of the opinions.

Last night, for the first time in her 1 and 1/2 years of life, I wasn't able to stop Scarlett from getting hurt. She's fine though. But, as I lovingly call her Scar or Scar-Face, she now has the beginnings of her first scars.

As we walked past the park we have gone to everyday of her life since we've been together, she began to sniff the fence. There was a dog on the other side. As we approached the dog started to bark and it's owner informed me "she's not friendly with other dogs." I decided we wouldn't go into the park then; rather we'd stay outside along the fence and walk to a different park. Here's the part where we realize the true stupidity of man-kind.

To this owner, "not friendly with other dogs" meant it was ok to have his dog off-leash in an UN-enclosed park. I'm not kidding folks. He actually had his dog off-leash in an open park.

Scarlett was on-leash when the other dog sprinted out of the park towards us. I tried to block Scarlett from the other dog, but it just threw me out of the way and latched onto Scarlett.

I'm not proud of what I did. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't get the dog off. The other owner wasn't paying attention. I wasn't going to let Scarlett get hurt. I kicked the other dog. Repeatedly. It wouldn't let go of Scarlett.

Finally, the dogs owner realized what was going on (it's a bit late buddy!) and ran over and got his dog off Scarlett. I have never before heard the noises I heard come from Scarlett, and if I ever hear them again it will be too soon. The owner and other dog took off before I could even get their names.

Scarlett turned to run home and I followed, leash in hand during this whole ordeal. Eventually I got her to stop and that's when I saw the blood start to pool through her fur.

Off to the vet we went. She has three pretty large puncture wounds in a line across her shoulders. She's on pain medication and an anti-biotic. Here's a shout-out to Animal Kind Vet Hospital for being there, being open and yelling with me about the audacity of this owner.

She's home now. And I'm at work. I think we both lost at least a year off of our lives last night. At least Scarlett got a shot of some good pain medication!

What the hell people? Off-leash and unfriendly? I've broken many an off-leash rule myself. But that's because I know my dog is friendly. If you're dog isn't friendly, don't let them off leash in an un-enclosed park. Seriously.

And if I ever see this guy again....

Also, on a happier note, click here ( Changing the Political Landscape in the South by Adding Women to the Pipeline ) to see the recent article I wrote in the Atlanta Daybook.

Conversation With Gen

2007-09-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Keith (from loft mezzanine): Hey Babe, I want some credit for how good I just was.
Gen: What did you do?
Keith: I just took a dookie in the shape of a G cleft and didn't make you come look at it.
Gen: ... Damn I kinda wish I saw that ...

Mount Olympus of Pork

2007-08-19T08:21:00.001-07:00

Foodies To Go Into Hock For Costly Spanish Ham

You had me at "Pork"

A Crash of ThunderBolt

2007-08-17T15:29:00.001-07:00

It's not a question of if you go down. It's a question of when.

I've heard that for a while now, and known it on some intellectual level. Now I more fully understand the meaning behind the phrase. Now that my body has spun at 75 mph on the 101.

It began simply enough. I was on my morning commute to work and I noticed a Prius wandering through traffic. Wandering here isn't quite the right word, because the word I want needs a slight connotation of hunting with a hint of pre-shadowing. The words I've got is that the driver was behaving enough like an asshole to trigger my spider sense.

But he wanders his way through traffic and pulls into the lane next to mine (mine being the far left). He then proceeds to wander into my lane. I've seen people like this before. "He probably doesn't see me," I think and start to blare my horn. And I continue to hold it down. And continue some more. After a solid 3 to 5 seconds of him merging at me and me holding the horn down, I realize that perhaps he isn't going to stop before he hits me. This is the point where I veer slightly to the left, and apply the breaks.

This is also the place where my bikes stops being vertical

ThunderBolt goes down on it's left side and slides a while down the freeway. This much I piece together a minute or so later because what I'm doing is way more interesting. I'm spinning along the freeway. My body is perpendicular to the direction of traffic, but spinning in the direction momentum dictates it must continue.

I spin for 50 feet and like 5 rotations before my head bounces off the divider in the middle of the freeway and I do another 5 rotations for another 50 feet. Thankfully this all occurs in the lane I started in.

So I'm lying in the freeway now thinking two things. 1) I just fell off my bike and have a lot of adrenaline running through my system. I might have broken something and not know it yet. And 2) there are cars still working on getting to work themselves. So I try to put a little weight on my legs. They hold. A little more. Still holding. A little more and that's all of my weight. OK. Now let's get to my bike.

As I limb along the divider several drivers ask to make sure I'm alright. I reply that I am (as far as I know) and get up to my bike where a good Samaritan has parked his car just in front of my bike, is lighting a flare, and is on the phone with CHP. This guy is awesome, and tells the police all about the Prius when they arrive.

The CHP officer shows up a minute later and asks if I'm OK and if I can move the bike that's currently in the left lane. When I reply in the positive, he walks out into the traffic, points at cars and goes "You, stop. You, stop ... " and we get off the road.

On the side of the road I get a chance to check myself out. I've got a little road rash on my lefs (I'm so getting the protective pants that go with my jacket now), but no other signs of trauma. Paramedics show up, and help me confirm my initial assessment of my physique, and I let them go on their merry way so I don't have to spend the day in the hospital getting useless tests done.

A tow later, and Mike Markson picks me up and we get to work and go for margaritas for lunch. I've been recovering the last few days (mostly muscle soreness and regrowing skin on my knees) and dealing with shit to get my bike fixed.

Gen's been a real trooper through this. She's even helped me clean the asphalt out of my legs. And of course she reminded me that if I ever let anything happen to myself, she'll kill me.

And I owe Stephen a huge thanks on this one. He helped push me to get the protective jacket, and he kept telling me I should already have the matching pants. Well I'll be getting those when I get my new helmet.

Dijking

2007-08-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

Dijking (sounds like biking but with a 'd') is a game I made up in honor of Dijkstra's shortest distance algorithm. The goal is to use the new-fangled drag-and-drop feature on google maps and try to beat the algorithm in some metric.

Here's my first pass (this is the route from Rich's house to mine).

Google's algo: 25.3 mi – about 36 mins

My Mods: 24.8 mi – about 36 mins

Not a whole lot better, but the "local shortcuts" do seem to be able to beat the default. I also just like saying dijking.

Weird Emails

2007-08-07T21:11:00.001-07:00

I got two odd emails in the last month. The first was from someone who wanted to comment on my picture of the Cherry Darling impersonator telling me that my guess as to the casting call was fairly accurate (and had some appropriate credentials to make be believe his story).

And the other was from the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (the licensed brothel from the HBO America Undercover series) confirming my reservation. As I made no such reservation I investigated and found that it was sent to an email address other than my standard one. Actually, the
address it was sent to was one I didn't even realize delivered to me. So now I have actually sent an email to a prostitute. Though I did it because manners demanded that I inform them of the error.

Wii Enabled

2007-08-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

I finally got myself a Wii this weekend. Fry's actually ran out of Zelda: Twilight Princess before Wiis and so their bundle deal was a little weirded out and I got two random games. Gen and I made little Miis on Saturday and played some Wii sports. She totally kicked my ass at bowling.

Now I"m working my way through Resident Evil, and I'm glad I'm unemployed. Gen has a strict no-zombies-while-she's-home rule that was enacted after some problems sleeping while I played Dead Rising. Well at least it's been overcast in San Francisco to help the mood out even if I can't play at night.

Oh and Monkey Ball both kicks ass and totally sucks with the Wii interface. My wrist is totally sore after a long session of playing labyrinth with the wiimote.

The People's Mario

2007-06-30T21:33:00.003-07:00

This is awesome, if a little bloody.

You should marry that woman.

2007-06-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

That's what Rich said when I told him what Gen did for me for my birthday.

She made me a meat cake. By this I mean that she cooked two meatloaves in cake pan shapes. Layered them together with a ketchup/worcestershire sauce. And topped it all with a mashed potato icing. Then on the icing she added a colored icing "Happy Birthday Keith", and put bacon sprinkles around the whole thing.

I am the luckiest guy ever. Thanks Babe. I love you.

Keep those kids out of the tunnels, Frosh!

2007-06-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

4-Year-Old Boy Rescued From Tunnel On Caltech Campus

In-n-outrage

2007-06-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

I was told on Wednesday that I could not get a 5x5. My initial reaction was to tell the register-monkey how to enter it in (it's complicated and I've had to edumacate people in the past). Apparently I made enough of a stink that a manager was sent over. She informed me that they no longer server anything larger than a 4x4 and claimed that it was new corporate police (well 6 months old). I hadn't been to in-n-out in a while and I wanted to indulge in a little gluttony. I was prepared for the treadmill time that it would cost me. But nope. They wouldn't sell me one.

They offered to sell me 2 separate burgers that I could assemble myself, but that's not the same, now is it? Guess I'm done with in-n-out entirely now.

Bacon of the Month

2007-05-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

My friends Rob and Margret are an interesting pair. Both very smart which always makes them fun to hang out with. But she's a vegetarian. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just means that Rob, who does appreciate good animal flesh, doesn't get to eat it as often as he might like. This is why he told me about the Bacon of the Month club. And gently encouraged my joining.

It's pretty much exactly what you would expect. Every month they send out a new and different type of bacon to a bunch of aficionados for their bacon pleasure. And now I am one of those bacon snobs. But the welcome package just arrived and I had to share the goodies that lay within. Especially the little pig snout that Gen saw and quickly needed to try on. (I'm still happy she didn't try to get it on Ishy).

Of course all of life is about balance. And in order to maintain this balance, I've signed up for the Gorilla Run. This has two balancing actions. First off I feel like I'm trading pigs for gorillas (seems like a good trade in my book). While I'm contributing to pig death, I'm also contributing to gorilla life. Second, while I'm going to be taking Rob away from Margret for some Boys&Bacon™ nights, I'll be helping out Margret with her gorilla run.

Now I don't usually do the whole donation thing, but I'm going to make a plea here. Mostly because gorillas are freakin' awesome. We should make sure that these creatures (that had some awesome bigfoot-esque legends about them in the colonial days) are still around. I'm not prideful here. Any donation will do. So please help donate so I'm not left just a fool running in a monkey suit.

Here's my donation link once more