You ever seen a home grown, good old southern boy? You know, the kind of guys who have lived in the same place all their life, can’t afford to move anywhere else and have them ripe, fun accents that Hollywood likes to make fun of? Very often these guys are a little unkeptly in appearance and need some physical and dental work. Well, as of last night, I’m back to my east Texas roots.
This weekend was totally unplanned, but in a matter of minutes I made the decision to go to San Diego for a night! It’s amazing how quickly these impulse decisions can be some of the most amazing ones you make and this was no exception.
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to get out of town to do something totally random and crazy like this, but this weekend was long past due. I’ve recently been aching to get out of town, go on a roadtrip or something, but this whole full-time employment and real life business keeps my extracurricular activities to a depressing minimal. So I decided this timing was perfect and we drove down Saturday evening.
So what made this trip so fun? The fact that Saturday afternoon I expected a relaxing, boring weekend and it ended up completely opposite in downtown San Diego; it turned out perfect. We started the night at a club on 5th Avenue and ended the night sitting by the bay just talking and enjoying the night lights.
On Sunday, we had a great time walking around the bay and toured a destroyer and aircraft carrier. This was the first time I’ve been on an aircraft carrier since I went to the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi. And from what I remembered, this one was very similar. We didn’t have time to go around to each exhibit and listen to every little detail, but it was neat just being there and seeing all of the historical planes and learning about the history of the vessel. Little did we realize it but this week was Fleet Week in San Diego so tourism was up a little. So our timing was impeccable!
I don’t think I’ll write about how many drinks I had or how late we stayed out because it doesn’t matter. What matters is having a great time with great company in a great place. San Diego is definitely going to get more of my business in the future, I’m just not sure how soon yet.
Now hopefully I can plan another trip like this, but in another country… oh, let’s say… Great Britain? ;-)
I’ve been working this new job for three months already. It has passed by so quickly too and I expect another three months to pass as quickly. In this short span of time, my job has gone through an immense amount of transition.
This morning, Yahoo! has announced it is purchasing upcoming.org, a project which my boss Andy Baio started a couple of years ago. When I interviewed for this job in May, I quickly realized how much of an asset Andy could be for a job in the web design world with his amazing high profile connections, but I didn’t realize how much he was potentially worth until it was too late. Now my time learning from him is cut short as he departs this job and moves to Sunnyvale working for Yahoo!. A very talented and brilliant former coworker of mine, Gorden Luk, who eventually assisted Andy on upcoming, left his job a month ago and is also on his way up.
So as you can see, my job has been through some unusual and sudden transitions as I’ve been getting to know coworkers and now having to prepare for two new coworkers and a new boss. But watching these stories as they unfold has been fascinating. Andy spent most of his freetime on upcoming for the past couple of years, and even just as a side project, his potential was realized by Yahoo! and he’s taking full advantage of this opportunity presented to him to work on some more great projects that Yahoo! has coming down the road.
There are days I wish I had been more serious in school, learning everything under the sun about programming or music or this or that. I’ve always had very ecletic tastes and, to a varying degree, talents. Thus, I would never have been able to pull something as upcoming.org off by myself or really at all! Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to realize my potential and make it big. Until that day, I continue searching for the answers.
I had no idea until a few weeks ago that I have text messaging. I can’t send, but I can receive. So, if you have text messaging ability, send me a message at here:
*myphonenumber*@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Obviously, I’m not going to announce my phone number on here but if you know it, send me a message! If you want it, e-mail me and I’ll give it to you.
If you know of other people who might want to e-mail others via the Internet, here’s what you need to know.
T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com
Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
phonenumber = 10 digit number
Send me some love!
Betamax vs. VHS
Remember those days? I sure as heck don’t. I was 5 years old when the surpreme court declared that VCRs were legal by way of fair use. But, the struggles of more than twenty years ago seem to resonate very loudly today in a the new war.
HD DVD vs. Blu-ray
In case you don’t know or haven’t heard, Sony and Universal (amongst others), AGAIN, are competing for the surpreme next generation media, specifically the DVD, one that will hold many times more data than regular DVDs. Just today, Intel and Microsoft backed the HD DVD format, joining Toshiba and many major Hollywood studio. Blu-ray has the support of Sony, Apple, Disney, HP, and Dell.
So what’s the big deal? HD DVD is more affordable. Blu-ray can hold more data. I think this boils down to money. Whoever wins gets more money, simple as that.
Funny as it might be, I could almost care less what happens. Why? Because my money is on the Internet. As broadband bandwidth increases and more people subscribe to high speed Internet, you’re going to get most of it online in 5 years anyway. By the time this issue has been settled, it’ll pretty much be history in my opinion.
Hey clinic friends, gather everyone around and comment me a tale. Tell me the adventures of your experiences of sitting in so much traffic, of rushing around on Wednesday, of all the people rushing to get their meds. I’m curious to know what happened!
Hurricane Rita – the most hyped about, covered and watched hurricane ever. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita quickly turned into an arena of bad expectations and intense speculations.
Before we realized it, she became the 3rd most powerful Category 5 hurricane on record. We anticipated all the worst fears; Galveston was about to repeat the storm of 1900, Houston was going to become a swamp of destruction, and gas prices would hit close to $4 a gallon. 80% of Southeast Texas made a very quick, last minute run for the hills in light of this speculation. Early on, all the forecast models predicted doom.
Then she turned. And kept turning until she made landfall hitting the Louisiana state line, Sabine Pass and the poor, unkemptly city of Port Arthur.
It was fun watching the forecasts because they would change so rapidly and showed the unpredictable nature of weather as it happened. But it also showed the human nature of trying to determine what to expect.
Houston dodged a New Orleans sized bullet. It still, however was hit with a financially disruptive BB pellet. Houston will survive and move on, and months passing will leave this potential nightmare behind.
Information for anyone who wants it.
Houston Chronicle Hurricane Rita coverage
Wikipedia’s Hurricane Rita info
ABC13 KTRK’s live continuous coverage
KHOU’s live feed
Donate money to relief efforts now
High Resolution photos
Weather Underground Expert Dr. Jeff Masters’ Blog
wunderground.org’s Steve Gregory’s blog
Rita’s tracking path since its formation (via Google maps)
9/23 7:45am – Having talked to a lot of friends from the Houston/Beaumont areas, this whole ordeal seems to have caught the Golden Triangle area off guard. It seems that most of the residents of the Beaumont, Port Arthur decided to leave yesterday morning/afternoon. And what’s more amazing is how fast traffic built up in a matter of hours.
In Beaumont, almost no one was leaving on Wednesday. They weren’t all that worried about going because all the forecasts were stating that it was heading more towards the south Texas coast. Then, as time passed and shifts in the path towards the north northwest, the panic began. A friend of mine who lives in the small town of Groves, Texas, which is in Jefferson county, left his house at 6am on Thursday morning. He made it to Arkansas in about 7-8 hours. His parents, who had to wait for his dad to finish work, left at 9am. In the next 8 hours, they had only made it to Lamar University, or about 15 miles. That’s right, 15 miles in eight hours! Absolutely amazing and only in a difference of 3 hours!
Because this hurricane’s projected track is headed really close to Groves and Beaumont, there’s a really good chance that my childhood home will be completely flooded and covered in water. I keep in touch with approximately 3-5 people in the Golden Triangle area, and they might not even have a home to return to in a couple of days.
9/23 1:50pm – If you are from the Houston area or have lived in the area, you might be interested in a blog called Stormwatchers supported by the Houston Chronicle. It is area residents who are blogging from around the city, taking photos and posting updates about their respective home areas. If the hurricane hits closer to the Beaumont area and there is a blogger out there like there was in New Orleans, I think that blog would be more interesting and I’ll most certainly link to one if it’s remotely interesting.
9/23 11:25pm – One of the most amazing things about being away from Texas is that I can still feel like I’m home almost 1500 miles away because of the Internet. I have the choice of watching any of the three major new stations in Houston, two of which I linked to above. I have watched those newcasters since I moved to Houston many years ago, so seeing their familiar faces is somewhat comforting.
As I write this, the north part of the eye of the hurricane has made it to land now and will probably hit Port Arthur and Groves in the next hour. It’s so weird to think that this could completely tear up those cities. In 1986, I slept through my one and only hurricane, Hurricane Bonnie. It was a category 1 but I was so young and probably so tired that none of the noise was loud enough to wake me up. When we woke up, I can remember going outside and seeing branches all over the place. One of the first things we did was get in the car to go look around the town and see what we could because I think this was the first hurricane that all of us went through.
I don’t really keep up with many hurricanes since most of them aren’t as personal as this one, but this might well be the most covered and anticipated hurricane that’s ever struck the US. With the dump and ravage that Hurricane Katrina put New Orleans through, Hurricane Rita’s potential to be one of the worst hurricanes ever kept all of the media obsessed with tracking every little step, every little change. I’ve seen more and more blogs dedicated to this hurricane from different experts and people who have stayed behind.
For those who left, many of which went north to north Texas, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Texarkana, Lufkin, Oklahoma and Arkansas, there’s a really good chance that it’ll be at least Tuesday or Wednesday before they are able to make it back. Not only will there be an enormous amount of rain between now and Tuesday, but the traffic is going to be absolutely attrocious. When you are in rush hour in your own city, you’re probably sitting with thousands of other people with thousands of cars. Imaging waiting with not thousands but 10s of thousands and millions of people trying to go to the same place. Makes me appreciate not being in Houston
. . . Wait a minute, I’m in LA . . . d’oh!
Once I get them, I will definitely post some photos. I know the fire chief of Port Neches and he’s currently stationed at Lumberton High School so as soon as I hear from his son and hopefully they take photos, I’ll post whatever they have if any at all.
I see that I’ve gotten more and more traffic from google and other search engines because of Groves and Hurricane Rita. If I get any photos or know of a good place to go see some, I’ll link ’em. Sorry if you came here looking for extensive coverage of the city of Groves!
Here are a few things comments to make about this hurricane.
This thing is likely to hit my home. Where I came from. It has officially become personal.
Southwest Airlines cancelled my flight. They decided not to allow any flight to or from Hobby past 12 noon on Friday. So, the little glimpse of hope that was there is now gone. In fact, it looks like this hurricane is about to take Houston and crap all over it. Go to the Houston Chronicle for all your local Hurricane Rita information.
