Hail Eris, Man
San Jose, California, USA
 Tuesday, April 18, 2006


Hi there.

Spring is here, and time once again to try to get the weblog rolling again.

I'm moving the address of this weblog. This one is hosted by weblogs.com, and maintained using "Radio Userland."

My 1 year subscription is expiring (yes I pay for this) and it makes sense now to move things to my own server at PresterJohn.com

So, right now, delete the bookmark or rss subscription feed for this weblog, and start watching PresterJohn.com.

There's not much there yet, but I'm building it out. I'll have an RSS feed going shortly.

Send me an email if you read this.
11:51:37 AM      comment


 Friday, December 9, 2005


"To see with eyes, unclouded by hate" - Ashitaka, in Princess Mononoke
12:00:22 PM      comment

 Friday, November 25, 2005


I'm in Cambria, California. A small town about 6 miles south of Hearst Castle. We arrived here yesterday evening after a drive down the coast on Highway 1. Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, so the whole town was shut down by 6pm, with the exception of the Hotel and a few gas stations. Lucky for us, we brought our own "Sushi Netta". We made rice with our rice cooker, mixed in vinegar and sugar, and then made sushi hand rolls.

This morning, we'll have the hotel breakfast snacks, and then head off for the Experience Tour at Hearst Castle.

update 1

Now we're in Santa Barbara, CA. About 2 hours drive farther south from Cambria. Hearst Castle was pretty cool. Definitely worth it for a short few days trip down the coast. Weather got a bit wet by the end of the tour, mostly drizzle, but cold enough to make you want to be inside. We had lunch at Robin's restaurant which was pretty good with some Asian style dishes to keep the wife happy. I suppose you'd call it a "fusion cuisine" style place.

update 2

Great weather in Santa Barbara! Despite heavy clouds and drizzle on the way down, the next day was sunny and warm for Fall. We ate dinner at Fat Burger on State Street - a 7 mile long street filled with shops reminiscent of Palo Alto or Mountain View, but longer and better! Lots of college kids were enjoying their time at the many bars, restaurants, cafes, movie theaters, and assorted stores.

We had only one day to see Santa Barbara. It is a very nice coastal town. The downtown is clean and well kept, and the whole town is circled by high hills in the background. It has a European feel to it. We drove down to the beach where our 2 daughters collected many good quality sea shells, and then we walked onto the Stearns pier which was just ok. Like Santa Cruz or Monterey, you might think the pier would be a good place to see authentic fishermen bringing in the day's catch, but in reality they are always tourist sites full of gift stores and restaurants. The views are nice looking out on the ocean and back toward the town.

Next we went to the "Santa Barbara Botanical Garden" - situated up in the hills a few miles from the coast. The garden was pleasant, but I was expecting something like San Francisco's botanical garden. Instead this was a large area of trails through the hills, dedicated to native California plant species in their natural habitat (i.e. outdoors.) There were oak trees, cacti, and various other Chapparal type native plant species along the trail, but you can see similar things just walking around the trails in the San Francisco Bay Area. If I lived in Santa Barbara I would go frequently to the "Botanical Gardens" to enjoy a nice quiet nature walk, but I'm not so sure it's worth it for a tourist visit. One interesting part there was the small dam and aqueduct built 200 years ago to supply water to Mission Santa Barbara. At least that appealed to the engineer in me.

After the Botanical Garden we dropped in at Mission Santa Barbara. I've been to many Missions before so while it was worth seeing, not much new was found there. Hopefully it was educational for the kids, and even the wife. It is important to understand the Mission system as part of California history.

By the time we finished looking through the Mission, the sun was low in the sky so we drove around some of the super wealthy districts near the coast to get a final feel for Santa Barbara, and then started our long drive home. Overall, I'd say Santa Barbara is best experienced as a place to drive around and soak up the atmosphere, rather that a place with any specific points of interest.

We drove home via highway 101, which is much faster than the Pacific Coast highway. We got home around 11pm Saturday night.
8:27:08 AM      comment


 Thursday, October 13, 2005


This one is definitely confirmed. According to a highly placed confidential source, whose identity must remain secret, but his initials are Ronnie Kwong, this photo shows direct evidence that the United States did obtain alien technology from a crashed space ship back in 1942.




12:22:27 PM      comment


 Wednesday, September 28, 2005


Confessions of an Engineering Washout

I bailed out of Aerospace Engineering, yet I now work in the fairly technical field of Software Engineering which I mostly learned on my own.

I find some truth in this article.

Given any desired outcome, the environment, and the system need to be taken into consideration, in terms of how they may affect the final product.
2:38:20 PM      comment


 Monday, September 26, 2005


Just a crappy Cell phone photo (Sony Ericsson T767).

My younger daughter Sasha danced the "Chicken Dance" with her classmates at the Cupertino 50 year founding anniversary. It was just another city festival, with art booths, and food vendors etc. The tickets for children's rides (like inflatable jumping house, etc.) were outrageously priced. $1 per ticket, 2 or 3 tickets required per ride. (So 2 kids on the inflatable slide cost $6! for 3 minutes!)

I guess they think people in Cupertino are rich, but as one of my neighbors once said to a contractor who was asking for more money because he was rich: "I got rich because I don't give away my money carelessly to people like you!"

I had more fun on Sunday driving to Big Basin in our new SUV, and except for the gas, it was free...
2:17:41 PM      comment


 Wednesday, September 21, 2005


My wife and I went half and half and bought a 2005 Honda Pilot SUV this last weekend. We bought a "Desert Rock" (metallic gold) colored EX-L with DVD for the kids. We plan to keep it for weekend and holiday trips mostly. I already have an itch to go buy a tent and take the kids camping, but it will have to wait til next Spring.


7:07:53 PM      comment

Yesterday, I pondered the danger of too much virtuality, and not enough reality.

Today, a different point: What's so great about computers, besides the obvious? Obvious: email, instant message, web, games - all great.

Less Obvious: The computer is an extension of you. Your computer can remember things you don't. It does the math you can't or don't want to do (making you equal to precomputer mathematicians.) With a little savvy statistical analysis over time, the computer can tell us things about ourself and the world that were not apparent.

It is nothing new to recognize that computers are doing something like thinking. In Chinese, the word for computer translates as "electric brain."

It is also not my original idea that the computer is an extension of self, or that computers make us smarter. I'm just relaying the meme.

When I say computer, I mean more than computer - I mean your cell phone, your digital camera, in fact almost any tool is an extension of self. These things are not separate from us. Rather they are detachable pieces of something that is made when we combine them and us.

Another Less Obvious: Computers allow us to accumulate resources, and build on previous accomplishments. Every message sent, every note typed in, every weblog entry, every picture saved - these are resources. It is easy to lose these things in a crash, or an upgrade. If you are careful, and you save and manage them, you will be richer for it. (But you have to be a good picker and discarder so you don't get buried in trash.)
6:04:40 PM      comment


 Tuesday, September 20, 2005


It's time to weblog. Easy not to, a shame not to be creative. Don't waste time locked in a personal bubble of obsessions...

The weather turned from days of cool perfection to a sudden sense of forboding. Clouds moved in, drops dribbled from the sky, a thunderous barrage boomed, and a wash of rain fell outside my office window. The weather is world, its change of temper changes me. Fall weather brings strange feelings of comfortable nostalgia. I look forward to them again.

Terry Teague, passed away last week. He was only 50. He looked and played the role of Merlin. He had long white hair and beard, and possessed an infinite resource of knowledge about computers. At times he was arrogant, and not to be bothered, but in casual meeting, he was friendly and talkative. He came from New Zealand and he had that great New Zealand accent, which sounds slightly Scottish, and often is confused for Australian (an observation which offends New Zealanders...)

Terry worked at Apple Computer, Inc. In Cupertino, California, U.S. and lived in the hills on the east side of San Jose, CA.

I didn't know Terry very well. I feel some sadness that he passed alone, with few close friends, having spent a life obsessed with computers. He did much in the software realm, and was well known in his circles on the internet, so I don't mean to suggest he didn't live a full and successful life. Yet, I imagine a lesson to be learned from his early passing: I too love computers, and I take from Terry the lesson: don't let the obsession kill your health.

We are mind, and we are body. Computers appeal to our mind. They trick us into forgetting about body. The needs of the mind are now met effortlessly by computers, games, movies, and improving virtual reality. But we are bodies non virtual. We must go out in the real world and make an effort slightly more costly in time and strength, to keep ourselves in good health, to make and be good friends, and to live in the real here and now.

So arriving at the start of the circle again. It's time to use my computer, to be active and write in my weblog, and to be real and feel the weather, and reaffirm old friendships, and new ones.
3:31:50 PM      comment


 Monday, April 4, 2005


When life gets serious, or boring, its time to check up on the paranormal world.

This is intriguing. It apparently shows some Civil War era soldiers standing around a giant dead winged creature that looks like a pterodactyl.

Found via the Irish Elk
12:51:31 PM      comment


 Thursday, March 17, 2005


Of course, talking is not doing.

However, I once read in a Stephen K. Hayes book on Ninjutsu, that there was a philosophical term in Japanese called Sanmitsu, which I believe is translated as "three secrets."

The three secrets are:

Thought, Word, Deed.
6:05:13 PM      comment


I want to start a new production group. I will call it something like this: "Creative Resources Exploration And Development."

I would recruit people with creative and leadership skills. They would have to be able to commit to producing results. I would seek out people who had the seeds of ideas for projects they wanted to work on, and try to hook them up with other contributors, and with good production managers who could drive progress on a project.

As soon as possible, I would set up a target product. The product would have to be something to distribute to the public, probably for free. A website distribution would be easiest, but printed material or CD/DVD could be another option.

I would like to see the following works produced out of this effort: 1) stories, 2) artwork (illustrations, comics), 3) animations, 4) films, 5) games. This is not an order of priority.

I would seek to develop resources for the studio like: 1) a work place, 2) production facilities (audio/video), 3) distribution network, 4) profit model.

Wouldn't that be cool?
6:01:04 PM      comment


 Wednesday, March 16, 2005


Its kind of hard to build up momentum to regularly update the old weblog. I'm either not confident in what I want to write, or too lazy to write anything.

I need to overcome this problem, so I will give up on being confident and just write, and I will give up on working hard and just write.

I hope this does not bore you.

Actually, I do have a lot of stuff to talk about. I'm very interested in podcasting. If you haven't heard, basically podcasting is the act of creating your own audio recording (usually in mp3 format) and posting it where people can listen to it. There are some tools to make this process smoother than it sounds. Using the RSS format (an xml format used to "subscribe" to web page updates) and attaching the audio file to the RSS, it is possible for podcasting "reader" applications to grab the mp3 files of "shows" you subscribe to, and have them automatically downloaded and installed on your mp3 player (ipod, right?)

If that sounds too complex, you can just listen to the "shows" in your web browser directly.

I'd really like to make my own podcast "show" but like my weblog, I'm not sure what it would be about.

If you want to learn more about podcasting, you should go see the podfather, Adam Curry - yes, the former MTV "VJ" himself.

There's more to this than meets the eye. Podcasting stands to present a serious challenge to mainstream radio, much as weblogging is challenging mainstream journalism.

Furthermore, the infrastructure which is now forming around podcasting could become the basis of internet TV. Much like TIVO, you would subscribe to audio OR video shows you like, and they could be downloaded overnight (so you don't need high bandwidth) and ready for you to watch at your convenience. You should check this out.
11:27:49 AM      comment


 Monday, March 14, 2005


I got a Skype account. Give me a call. My account name is the same as my email at work and mac.com. Skype seems pretty cool!
11:49:14 PM      comment

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Hail Eris, Man weblog.

I re-did my Radio homepage using CSS. This is the first step in doing some redesign.

The Tiger project at my work is winding down, so I can finally take some time for personal projects.

Spring is here! It is time to clean up and renew things.

We bought a new bicycle for Sasha, and I fixed the flats on my bike. I need to rig up a bicycle rack on my car, and take the kids for some serious riding.

I've also been planting vegetable seeds and a few flowers in seed starter boxes, and I bought some lumber to build planter boxes with my brand new compound mitre saw.

It looks like there is some potential for fun coming up.

P.S. do you know what podcasting is?

Post me a comment!
11:18:08 AM      comment


 Tuesday, March 1, 2005


Well, it's been a few months since I had time to do any updates to my weblog. I wonder if I have any readers still...or did I ever have any readers?

I had planned as my new years resolution to really ramp up my weblog, but a crazy work schedule has been in the way of that.

Anyway, for your reading pleasure, I wrote a bit about our recent trip to Tahoe, which I posted on another website spogg.com

I reproduce it here:

We went to the Lake Tahoe area from Feb 21-24. Lake Tahoe is a large lake on the border of California and Nevada. There are many ski resorts there. It is a very nice place, although a bit crowded and commercialized for my taste. We didn't leave the Bay Area until 3pm, so we got to Truckee around 8pm.

We ate dinner at a Mongolian BBQ place where I had taken my daughters before. Like most Mongolian BBQ places, it was a bit of a messy restaurant, but still tastes good. The cook at the bit steel oven thing was a Mexican guy who always gave a big smile as he delivered up your bowl of pan fried goodies.

The next morning, daughter #2 was developing some kind of rash. She had red spots on her legs and arms. I went to a nearby drug store and bought some camphor lotion, and also some calamine type lotion and put in on the rash. We suspected the rash was a reaction to the jello from the BBQ place, as daughter #2 was the only one who ate it.

We went to Soda Springs to do some "tubing" - this is where they have large tire tubes with canvas covers. You grab a tube and a man hooks you up to a cable pull which drags you up the mountain, and then you slide down one of the 2 or 3 lanes they have. The weather was overcast, so it was a bit cold. (Actually, it snowed lightly on the night of our arrival.) We had some fun, but daughter #2 gave up early, and went to sleep on mom's lap in the snack bar / lodge building.

On the 3rd day, the rash on daughter #2 was turning into full blown hives. I returned to the drug store and bought some hive relief medicine, but daughter #2 didn't want to go out, so mom and her stayed in the hotel all day. I took daughter #1 to Northstar, where we managed pick up half day tickets after noon. We took the gondola up to the midway point, and practiced a bit (this was the 2nd time for my daughter to go skiing.) Daughter #1 held my ski pole and I dragged her up the incline and then held her belt as she skiied back down 5 or 6 times. Then we went down the basic slope together. I held some ski poles horizontally and daughter #1 held on to the same poles for stability and skiied along side me. After a lunch at the bottom, we went back up again and I convinced daughter #1 to go on the chair lift. She had proclaimed that she would never ride on the chair lift, ever... but she bought my argument that skiing down the hill was way more dangerous than sitting on a chair lift. So we hopped on the chair lift, and got off with a perfect exit / ski down the ramp. All told we only managed about 4 runs in the half day, but this old man's legs get pretty tired trying to ski and support a 6 year old at my side at the same time, so that was ok. I should also mention that we bought some candy at the mid level lodge, and the cashier there was a young lady with a name tag that had her name and the words "Lima, Peru" below it. I thought of Claudia, and I asked the lady if she was really from Peru. She said yes, and that there were lots of Peruvians and Brazilians and Argentinians working at the Ski lodges through some sort of exchange program. I told her that I had chatted with someone from Peru on the internet.

We returned to the hotel and checked up on mom & daughter #2. They were ok, although a bit bored. They had walked to the nearby Chinese restaurant and picked up some wonton soup for lunch. They still didn't want to leave the hotel, so daughter #1 and I went out for Sushi. We had to wait 20 mins to be seated, and the deal was $24.95 per person for 2 hours all you can eat Sushi. As for the staff of the "Japanese restaurant", there was 1 guy who I figured for Korean or Chinese behind the long sushi bar, and everyone else was Caucasian or Latin American. Yes, I paid $24.95 for my 6 year old daughter, and same for myself. The sushi was not bad at all! One of the waitresses looked like she was Kevin Bacon's sister. I wanted to ask her in a humorous way if she knew she looked like Kevin Bacon, but I didn't. 6 degrees of separation, indeed! We bought some take-out for those 2 people stuck in the hotel, and returned. Daughter #2's hives seemed to be getting a tiny bit better, or less worse, as it were, but she also had a few new red spots on her face, which was worrisome.

On the day of our appointed return, although we had thought daughter #2's hives were getting better, she was beginning to get more spots on her face. Hives can be life threatening if the reaction impairs your ability to breath, so hives on the face was not a good thing.

We decided to stop by a doctor's office. We checked out of the hotel and went to an urgent care facility. The doctor had a giant Golden Retriever (dog - K9?) in his office, which was very gentle and friendly. The Doctor himself, looked ironically like the 3rd Doctor Who - played by John Pertwee. Doctor Who checked daughter #2 for strep throat (he said strep & hives would indicate something serious like rheumatic fever) but no strep was found. He said "yep, it looks like the hives", and wrote a prescription for some medicine, and charged us $150. He also warned us to be on the look out for any symptoms of a virus. He said he had a lot of patients with viral infections lately, and the hives could be a precursor symptom of something. Incidentally, he said that he had never seen a case of hives on the skin that also resulted in the feared "difficulty breathing" problem, and that in the case of respiratory problems, the hives would be affecting the throat and tongue rather than the skin. He didn't say anything about Daleks, but we thought it would be good to keep an eye out for those too.

We went to a nearby Rite Aid and ordered up the prescription. Fortunately it was covered by insurance, so we only had to layout $5. Then we went for ice cream, but the ice cream store was not open yet, so we went to take some pictures just outside of Truckee. Daughter #2 seemed to be feeling much better, and the Doctor had most importantly relieved some of our fears.

We took some pictures and came back and got ice cream, and asked daughter #2 if she was feeling well enough to go tubing. She said yes, so we went to Kingvale, which is not far from Soda Springs, and really its just a gas station on the side of the freeway with a tubing place nearby. We had a good time there and I was happy #2 managed to have a bit more snow fun.

Finally, we set off for home. Although its more direct to go from Truckee to Sacramento on highway 80, we headed toward the big Lake Tahoe, and circled around to the town of South Lake Tahoe, as that is a more scenic drive, and gave us a chance to admire the giant lake. We stopped for burgers in South Lake Tahoe, and then drove down the mountain.

Daughter #1 was getting carsick about the same time I noticed a disturbing vibration in my car. At first I had thought it was just the weird texture of the road (that happens sometimes) but it got so loud it was obviously not that. I pulled over to check my tire. I opened the door and smelled a burning rubber smell, but I thought maybe it was just the brakes from all the downhill driving. On closer inspection, I found I did have a flat tire. We were stopped just outside of Placerville near the bottom of the mountain.

I put mom and daughters on the side of the road, and proceeded to unpack the trunk so I could get the spare tire. I had to fumble with the car jack and figure out which point on the car I should position the jack under to lift it up, but eventually I figured it out. Once I was confident that the car was jackable and tire bolts could be loosened, I announced to the ladies that I'd have them out of there in 10 minutes, and I did.

The spare tire was one of those extra small temporary kinds, with a warning not to exceed 50 mph under any condition. Despite the warning, I still drove around an average of 60mph, and we passed across the California Central Valley, through the capital city of Sacramento, and made it as far as Dublin when I heard a worrisome vibration from the spare tire (again.)

I pulled off at the Stonestown Mall, and found the spare tire was almost flat. I wandered around until I found a gas station and put more air in the spare, but after getting back on the road, the funny sound persisted. I pulled over and checked the spare, and it had a nasty bulge on the side, so I pulled the car into a strip mall.

To make this long story short, we ended up calling for a "tow" truck (really a flatbed) - and a big barrel chested guy with a beard and an earring showed up. He didn't seem to want to haul us to San Jose, which made him quite helpful in suggestions on how to save money by not hiring him to take us there, but in the end we decided it would be best to get the car back to San Jose. I asked him to drop it at a Good Year place within walking distance of my workplace. I had also arranged for a good friend of mine to meet us there and take us home (only about 10 mins away.) The cost for the tow job was $280 AFTER the American Automobile Association discount.

It was a bit after midnight when we finally got home. The next day, my wife gave me a ride to the tire place, and I arranged for a full set of 4 new tires. I turned out the reason for the flat was poor tire alignment, which had caused both my front tires to wear down to the tread. The rear tires were due for replacement anyway. A set of new tires for my sports coup MX6 cost me about $700.

If you've been keeping track of the tragedy expenses, that's almost $1000 in unexpected costs! Overall, we still had fun, and I'm glad I got daughter #1 to go skiing again, AND to ride the chairlift. Along the way, I also manged to read about 3/4 of the novel "The Da Vinci Code".

We had our share of bad luck on this trip, but if nothing else, at least I can say it made for an interesting story!
4:35:52 PM      comment


 Saturday, December 4, 2004


Oddly compelling. A Stranger A Day photo gallery.
11:28:49 PM      comment