After seeing how wonderful the Community Choice Awards (CCA) are when I visited the SourceForge office recently I’ve become obsessed. These are cute little robots with working LEDs, switches, sensors that make music…errr…noise. I must have one to go next to the 2009 Jolt Award for Best Enterprise App (watch the video) MindTouch won. My precious….These trophies are really really cool and very cute. Please nominate and vote for MindTouch rabidly. This year we’re going to pull out all the stops. We will remind you in the newsletter. On MindTouch.com, the blogs, the dev community. If it encourages voting I’ll even be willing to do something inane if the community wins a CCA for MindTouch. The community can feel free to select whatever inane act they deem appropriate. Please, bring the votes!
The finalists are determined by the number of nominations each project receives. You can vote as many times as you like. To hedge our bets please nominate for each of the following categories:
Best project for the Enterprise
Best commercial open source project
Best project
Most likely to change the way you do everything
PLEASE VOTE like rabid rabbits. Time is limited. Thanks. 🙂
Turns out I have a brain tumor. Don’t worry it’s benign. More specifically it’s a colloid cyst in the anterior aspect of the third ventricle. It was discovered in a cat-scan this week that I had done due to a bicycle accident.
Colloid cysts account for approximately 1% of all intracranial tumors and are the most common type of the neuroepithelial cysts, as well as the most common tumor in the third ventricle. Typically, patients are asymptomatic
So, you know, that’s good. In a sense I hit the brain tumor lottery because this type is only 1% of all tumors and is benign. YAY! However:
although colloid cysts may cause symptoms by obstructing the foramen of Monro, which results in sudden death in rare cases.
Euh…what? That’s less good. But I’ve learned:
Symptomatic cysts vary from 6 mm to 9 cm in diameter, but usually range from 1 to 3 cm.
Well, my particular cyst is only 3-4 mm. So, I’m in good shape. Although, initially I thought I was 3-4 CM (EEEK), which would make me far less comfortable.
You know how engineers like to name things? Well, I’m no different. I’m going to name this cyst. I’ll name it Craig for the most active guy in our developer community. Congratulations CRB!! I leave you with this:
This is, without a doubt, the best headline of any blog post I’ve ever written. On to the story.
I bike to work and generally put in a significant number of miles in a given week. My office is only 2.6 miles from my house, but I make a point of biking 6-10 miles one way for exercise. Yesterday I was 5.34 miles into a 10 mile bike to work. I was between E and F street on 12th ave downtown and at full speed on my bike, which is about 30 mph. I cut into the trolley path behind a train to cross the street and caught the draft from the train, which propelled me even faster down the road. To understand the configuration of the road you have to realize I was on the road, but between the two southbound tracks of the trolley. It’s very smooth pavement. Also for context, I recently put street tires on my bike for more speed and these are much narrower than what I used previously on my bike and are designed with no tread at all. They’re just slicks. It struck me as soon as I caught the draft on the trolley that my tires could fit quite nicely in the groove of the trolley tracks. This would be bad. Upon realizing this hazard I thought to myself: I better be careful crossing those tracks. No sooner than I finished this thought than a track transition appeared from underneath the trolley. This is where the track crosses diagonally for trolleys to change tracks. “Oh shit” is what I thought; alas, I should have thought “bunny hop” instead. Had I, I would have surely been ok. Sure enough my tire caught the groove of the track and I flew face first into the pavement. I think I caught my right hand first, then my forehead, then somewhere along the way I hit my chin hard. The right side of my face is fairly damaged, but I’m confident there is no permanent damage to my boyish good looks 😉 . In addition to my face the rest of my body is nicely bloodied and bruised: knees, legs, arms, hands….
About an hour after the accident, my
face was just beginning to swell.
After smashing my face into the pavement I immediately pulled myself up and drug my bike to the curb. Even through the pain and shock I knew laying in the trolley path was a bad idea and I was motivated to move quickly. A nice French gentleman who was on his way to his first day of class at San Diego City College watched the entire event transpire. He was on the opposite side of the street and asked me: “Are you ok.” I wasn’t sure, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t. I called back: “I’m not sure, can you come take a look at my face.” Having witnessed the severity of the accident he was very surprised to see my face damaged as little as it was. I was fighting to maintain consciousness and tried to dial my co-workers for help. I didn’t want to call Tara, my wife, because I knew she would be very upset, likely bordering on hysteria, and she had the kids, who I did not want to see me for fear I would scare the crap out of them too. As I struggled to keep conscious I had a very difficult time operating my iPhone. I finally managed to dial Mark Fidelman, who happened to be at the top of my recent calls list, but it went straight to his voicemail. Mark is the new VP of Sales and I barely know the guy. I made a couple more unsuccessful attempts to dial co-workers and the office operator before giving up. I could barely see anything, I was literally seeing stars. I handed the French good Samaritan my iPhone, told him I was likely going to lose consciousness and asked him to call anyone on the current screen. He got Rion on the phone.
I did not want the expense of an ambulance ride. Even with my very high quality and very expensive health insurance with Aetna, which I have through work, I knew it was going to cost me hundreds of dollars just for the ambulance. Oh, the joys of health coverage in California. Rion, who was on the phone with the French Samaritan, asked if I needed an ambulance. Realizing I could lose consciousness at any moment and I had sustained a significant head trauma I said yes, but asked that someone from the office also come in their car. I was hoping that I would be well enough to catch a ride to the doctor from the co-worker by the time they got to me and moreover, I wanted to make sure my bike wasn’t left behind. It took me about 10-15 minutes to return to a normal state of consciousness and for the stars in my vision to dissipate. I tentatively stood and within 5 minutes I was able to do so without the aid of a garbage can. A man from an adjacent second floor apartment brought me a glass of water and a bag of ice. He informed me that he had heard the accident from his apartment. His windows were closed. I asked him: “so, you heard my facing hitting the pavement through your second floor apartment walls over the sound of the passing trolley?” He replied with a chuckle and said yes.
The day after my bicycle accident.
The ambulance arrived as well as a police squad car. The paramedics took my vitals. I told them I was declining a ride to the hospital. They reluctantly agreed and had me sign a refusal of service form of some sort on their Palm Treo. I thought it was interesting that they’re patient management application was built on the Palm OS. At this point I was feeling pretty stupid for having such a nasty and yet entirely avoidable bicycle accident. I was bemoaning my stupidity to the police officers when they emphatically informed me accidents of this sort happen all the time. As it turns out, the trolley tracks have claimed countless bicyclists. The officer went on to inform me that every bicycle cop, himself included, had at some point had a similar accident caused by the trolley tracks. I felt a little less clumsy and dumb.
Dominic, a co-worker, picked me up and transported me to my regular doctor in Hillcrest, Dr. Ozy Batista (Dr. Ozzy), who graciously fit me in. His nurse cleaned me up and he confirmed I wasn’t hemorrhaging. Good news. He and I shared skateboarding accident and injury stories and we had a good laugh as we often do when I’m in for a visit. He scheduled a cat-scan for my head for later that day. The cat-scan showed no serious damage from the accident itself, but it did turn up a 5 mm cyst in my brain. I’ll provide more details of this cyst when I get them by fax later today from his office. The short story is: he has no idea what it is and suggested I shouldn’t worry about it. Ok. I’m hoping it will give me super powers. I think I’ll do a little more research though and have the image sent to a neurologist for review.
I’m pretty sure this is the worst I’ve ever been injured. It’s peculiar to have the zenith of personal injury at 33 years old. Well, let’s hope it’s the zenith. It seems to me more likely I would have reached this milestone in my recklessly stupid teens or crazy twenties. Maybe I’m not invulnerable? Naahhh…this clearly is evidence of my invulnerability! 😉 Jokes aside, I’m in surprisingly good shape considering the nature of the accident.
Just North of Laguna Beach before your reach Newport Beach is Crystal Cove State Park. This State Park represents one of the last remaining examples of early 20th century Southern California coastal development.
The park consists of three miles of coastline, canyons, steep bluffs and stunning tidal pools. It’s separated into two sections with a a campground to the north and the Historic District to the south. One source writes the Historic District was originally developed in the 1920s as a South Seas movie set and then goes on to report it was developed as a seaside colony in the 1930s and 1940s. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any movie titles that used Crystal Cove as a backdrop nor any other source that referenced Hollywood’s “attraction” to the location for filming. However, it is certain the Historic District consists of forty six beach cottages from the 1930s and 1940s of which twenty two have been restored and are now rental properties. In addition to the historic cottage rentals is the Beachcomber cafe. This is a bar and restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner on the beach.
Tara and I took the family to Crystal Cove earlier today. It was great! I dropped Tara and Roe off by the entrance and took Ashby to park across Pacific Highway 1 in the designated parking. Parking costs $10 a day, but if you have a receipt from the cafe or bar the parking is free. There is a shuttle that runs the half mile to the Historic District entrance, which Ashby and I took advantage of since I had a lot to carry. The shuttle charges $1 per adult.
The Beachcomber bar has great bloody marys and Tara and I shared a quality kobe beef burger for lunch at the cafe. Be forewarned though the cafe, I’m told, typically has a very long waiting list. For us it was 1:45-2 hours and this is not unusual. We weren’t in a hurry though. The beach is one of the best I’ve been to in Southern California. It’s clean, not at all crowded, has a wide expansive beach, great sand and the tidal pools are nothing short of incredible.
The park is only a short drive from San Diego and Los Angeles. Definitely take an afternoon to check it out.
I was listening to “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me” yesterday, which is eminently humorous and always informative. While listening I learned a movie that shaped my childhood, Red Dawn, bares the distinction of most violent film ever by the 2007 Guinness Book of Records.
Red Dawn is a 1984 American war film directed and co-written by John Milius and also written by Kevin Reynolds and starring Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, and Powers Boothe. Set in an alternate timeline during the mid-1980s, the film is largely an exploration of American fears during the Cold War.
The backdrop of Red Dawn is a fictional invasion of the United States by the Communist Soviet Union and their Central American allies. However the onset of World War III is merely in the background of the plot and not fully elaborated on. The story follows a group of American high school students who resist their foreign occupiers through guerrilla warfare and call themselves the Wolverines, after their local football team, some of whom are members.
Red Dawn sets the record for violence with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute. Wow! One might imagine it would be difficult to fit a plot into a movie with this much violence. One would be correct. It’s interesting to note this was the first movie to receive a PG-13 rating. PG-13? The requirement for viewing the world’s most violent movie is the ripe age of 13? USA USA USA! American’s willingness to subject our children to gobs of gory violence contrasted with our visceral revulsion of allowing them to view an exposed nipple always confounds me. Even more surprising than young children being approved to view this movie during return to family values Reagan era is the fact that the movie still holds this record. Think of all the ridiculously gory movies that have been released in recent years. The Hostel, Saw I through Saw X. Amazing.
I watched Red Dawn as a child many times. It was one of those movies, like Top Gun, that was wildly popular in my peer group and we all prided ourselves on memorizing every line. The first time time I saw the movie was when I was nine or ten years old. I was terribly ill with strep throat and rather than attending services at Robert A. Schuller Jr’s church in San Juan Capistrano where my grandfather was a deacon I had the distinct and singular joy of watching Red Dawn on VHS in a back room. It was glorious. Undoubtedly the best church experience I’ve ever had.
I’ve not been able to run due to a knee injury so I’ve been biking as much as I can fit in between work and family. Biking poses a greater challenge than running because I have to spend 3x the time to achieve a similar workout. Nonetheless, this week I managed to sneak in 66 miles. I realize 66 miles would be far more impressive were it not spread out across 7 days, but it’s hard for me to find time to do 15 miles in a day.
I’d like to post my routes. I use a Garmin Forerunner 405, which means in theory it’s possible. Alas, I’ve tried countless times to get the Forerunner to synch with my computer (Windows Vista 64 and two Windows XP laptops) with no success. It’s terribly frustrating because I’ve sent several emails to Garmin support and have even tried to reach them by phone for help. No response. Bottom line, the Garmin Forefunner 405 is decent hardware. It does a good job of keeping satellite connectivity even in the city. I’ve had some problems with the touch bevel when I’m especially sweaty or it is especially hot, I’m not sure which. Perhaps a combination of both. I’ve confirmed the Forerunner is remarkably accurate by using Google Maps to map my routes. Impressive for such a small device. However, the software is complete trash and the fact that I can’t get it to synch with my computer is a huge disappointment for a ~$275 device. The engineers should be embarrassed. Finally, the fact Garmin has absolutely no desire to help their customers is totally inexcusable.
At any rate, back to my biking. I frequently bring my camera along with me and in San Diego there is no shortage of photo opportunities. A random sampling plucked from my flickr stream:
Yes, that says “wroks“. I have a hard time maintaining my calendar. Thankfully I have a wonderful co-worker named Erin Lee who helps me out. If I don’t have Erin assist me in scheduling appointments they tend not to get scheduled and then I never meet with people I should. My calendar is just too complex and time consuming to juggle especially when it involves getting multiple parties scheduled. Enter Tungle.
Now, before you razz me about my calendar not looking so complex, let me tell you this is only showing one of my calendars and is an intentionally slow week because I have a lot of writing to catch up on. Anyway, back to Tungle. The app syncs with Google Calendar and Google Contacts. Tungle allows you to “paint” acceptable proposed times and send an email to invitees allowing them to selected from the proposed times. It’s simple, integrates with tools I already use and has completely simplified and improved my life. Thanks Tungle. One request, it would be even better if I could sync multiple Google Calendars and keep them in distinct color coding.
work related tools that affect disruptive improvements.
to affect deeply; stun; move or sway powerfully, as with emotion; Wrok!
to positively affect, shake or disturb violently the status quo of a work environment. MindTouch 2009 introduced a messaging bus that enables notification to users via email, microblogging and/or for messaging external systems. It wroks!
to lull in security, instill hope, inspire, etc. GMail and Google Maps are applications that wrocked when they were first introduced, inspiring a new class of rich internet applications.
The lake covers a surface area of approximately 376 sq mi (970 km2), the largest in California. While it varies in dimensions and area with changes in agricultural runoff and rain, it averages 15 mi (24 km) by 35 mi (56 km), with a maximum depth of 52 ft (16 m), giving a total volume of about 7,500,000 acre·ft (9,250,000 dam³), and annual inflows averaging 1,360,000 acre·ft (1,680,000 dam³). The lake’s salinity is increasing by about 1 percent annually, at about 44,000 mg/L, is greater than the waters of the Pacific Ocean (35,000 mg/L), but less than that of the Great Salt Lake.[1]
by slworking2The back story of the Salton Sea is fascinating. The current inland sea formed when canals were built to divert the Colorado River in an attempt to irrigate the Imperial Valley for agricultural. In 1905, one of the canals was breached and water flowed for nearly two years into the Salton Sink. The basin filled and the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding and the location of the Liverpool Salt Works were submerged. The basin being flooded was not a new phenomenon, the Colorado River has been flooding the Salton Basin for, at least, a few centuries.
The colorful story of the Salton Sea gets the more interesting in the 1950s and 1960s when real estate speculators developed the area into a “California Riviera” akin to Palm Springs. In fact, in the 1950s, the Salton Sea had more visitors than Yosemite National Park. Jet-setters and celebrities from Los Angeles and San Diego vacationed in Salton City and investors expected huge returns on their real estate investments.
Ashby dancing in the desert.
The hey day was short lived however. The lake has no outlet and therefore the Salton Sea increased in salinity. In the 1950s the fresh water fish (Tilapia) that were stocked in the 1920s were all but gone and the lake was being restocked with salt water fish. Agricultural irrigation exacerbated the increasing salinity by farm irrigation dissolving salts from the soil, which then flowed downhill back into the lake. In addition, pesticides such as DDT and Agent Orange as well as chemical fertilizers seeped into the lake.
Swaths of beach are littered with fish carcasses.
In 1986 authorities declared fish in the Salton Sea not fit for consumption. To make matters worse, in the 1970s the high saline levels caused algal blooms, which is when a sudden increase in phytoplankton algae creates a dense tide of neurotoxin producing algae. These blooms create a stench some describe as smelling of rotten eggs. In 1970s the resorts had all closed down and the tourists were gone. Ever since the Salton Sea has only been of interest for agricultural irrigation and as a wildlife preserve for birds. Birds are attracted to the lake largely because of the population boom that diminished the wetlands in the Los Angeles area. Also, migrating birds use the Salton Sea as a stop off in their migration route. However, due to the toxicity levels there have been a few mass bird die offs at the lake.
One of the old yacht clubs stood here.
Sounds awesome, right? I thought so too. 🙂 Which is why Tara and I took the family to check it out. From downtown San Diego it is about a two hour and fifteen minute drive to Salton City. The drive is a gorgeous route through the mountains, past Julian and down into Anzo-Borrego. Stop in Julian for lunch and/or dinner or be sure to bring a picnic because you are likely not going to want to eat at one of the few establishments in Salton City. Before you reach the Salton City you pass desert spot that is popular for city folk to take, or rent, all terrain vehicles and tear up the desert.
Near Anzo-Borrego is a popular area for off road enthusiasts.
I expected Salton City to be completely abandoned, but there is a large modern truck stop servicing the nearby border crossing to Mexico. Also, I was surprised by the many inhabited homes. Most of which were in poor condition. It was interesting to note there are many houses that were constructed in the last five to ten years that are being advertised as starting at $99,999 and look like they would sell for 5-6 times this were they not near a fetid stinking lake of death. One of the more eerie aspects of Salton City are the hundreds of outlines of residential lots created by power lines and crumbling roads, but no houses.
The beach we stopped at was where one of the old yacht clubs was located. It was bizarre to travel the 4 lane divided road leading up to the beach and parking lot. The divider had clearly been planted with palm trees and foliage that has long since died off. The parking lot was overgrown and barely distinguishable. The beach was littered with fish bones and decomposing fish corpses. However, it didn’t stink at all; although, it was a very windy day.
The Salton Sink was all I expected, and more. It was a gorgeous drive and we had a wonderful time. I intend to return and spend a few hours shooting photos.
Tara was cleaning the house and she suggested I take Ashby somewhere to stay out of hair so we went to the Art Festival in Little Italy. Hey, I cleaned the kitchen and mopped some floors before I left. 🙂
I didn’t realize the event didn’t start until noon and we were almost two hours early. We still had a good time and stopped by the Farmers Market. The Little Italy Farmers Market must be the best and cheapest place in downtown to get flowers. Ashby picked out a mixed bouquet that had wild flowers and a few roses. Also, I got Tara 5 mini sunflower stems. Grand total: $6! This was even cheaper than the Hillcrest Farmers Market
Aaron Fulkerson 