I woke up a bit late this morning.

I skip the shower.

I brush my teeth and wash my face.

I change and head outside.

It’s cold outside. It feels like winter is upon us.

I go to Potbelly’s for my morning bagel. They are out of bagels. I leave and go upstairs to work.

In my cubicle, I work on completing my project.

I chat with some friends in between. I miss them.

I almost miss lunch again. I get Potbelly’s. I eat my sandwich and read my book. I go back to work.

My project is finished. I work on the next one. It involves Ruby. It was a bit of a brain buster. I figure out a vital function. I leave the rest for tomorrow.

I leave and head out to the bus stop on Dearborn and Jackson.

I take the bus north to the Newberry Library. The author of The Time Traveler’s Wife is doing a reading from her new book, Her Fearful Symmetry.

I get in line with my copy of her new book. The lady in front of me has one copy. She wants to get another copy. She asks me to save her spot. I do. She leaves and gets another copy. She comes back.

She soon changes her mind and wants a third copy. She asks me to save her spot. She leaves and gets another copy. She comes back.

I pay for the book. I find a seat in the room. I’m early, so I read The Time Traveler’s Wife some more.

Audrey Niffenegger soon comes. She reads the first chapter. SPOILER: The main character dies in the first chapter.

She does a Q & A. One question is if she follows a writing regiment like Stephen King. Her answer, “Stephen King is a real writer.” LOL. I want to ask her a question, “Was there anything you cut out or rewrote in Time Traveler’s Wife?” I’m not sure if it’s polite to ask such a question, so I don’t ask it.

Another question is what’s her favorite book. She makes a ‘book club recommendation:’ Was by Geoff Ryman. I like anything Oz related, so I wrote it down to add to my list.

Afterwards, I get my copy of Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Tearful Symmetry signed by Ms. Niffenegger. I’m all giddy cuz I get easily starstruck.

I take the bus back home.

I make pizza on naan bread. It is yummy.

Then I write a new blog post. It goes like this…

When people ask me, “What do you do?” I usually respond, “I’m a producer for a website.” It’s basically a site for visitors to search for a home or property to buy. As a producer, I help a lot more with the front end stuff, working with HTML and CSS. Lately, I’ve gotten some extra projects that involve javascript and ruby, which has been a blast to work with. I do some basic coding and not any major programming, but I’ve been really happy working there. This is stuff that I usually did in my spare time during college and my last few jobs. I’m kind of psyched that all that work and learning I put in on my own time has finally paid off. And this job offers me new stuff to learn as well as the opportunity to sharpen my skills.

So yeah, I love coming to work. The people here are awesome. The environment is pretty lax; I love wearing jeans to work. Currently, I have a 10 minute walk to and from work, but that’ll change once I move to my own place. Work may be farther from my new place, but I think I’ll love the area that I’m moving to. And I’ve also grown to love working on an actual ‘product.’ This is a site that millions of users utilize, and it feels great to know that I’m putting something into that. It almost feels like something I’m a part of helping to create. If I could, I would work on websites as my career… Google, I’m looking at you!

It’s a great job. The only downside is that it’s a contract job. They’ve extended it, which was really awesome. But I would really like to be there full time with benefits. However, I’ve been getting more and more projects that are a bit outside of the scope of the original role they intended. So hopefully working on these projects will show them how much value I can add to the team. Keepin’ those fingers crossed.

Ionburn had been dormant for a long time, but I had been working on it for a while. It’s now updated. When you first go, it may look the same, but hang around for a minute and then you should notice something. There were more features than what’s there now, but I’m still working the bugs out. I made that one from scratch so I hope you like it.

JayNCoke got a total makeover as well. I made that one myself; and I’m really proud of it. I really want the site to be a sort of online portfolio more than a blog. I had to incorporate some nifty javascript fade effects as well as some full-on AJAX navigation. Also on the home page I created a sort of “lifestream” to pull my various web activity and put it in one place. There are several sites that do this to varying degrees, but I thought it’d be a cool project to do on my own.

So that’s it for now. Like I said before, I got some posts in the works as well. Hopefully I can keep my promise and update regularly now. If not, someone please remind me with a nice kick-in-the-butt.

I just got finished watching this investigative news report: Peeping Techs?. Basically they purposely unplugged a power cord in their computer and took it into several computer repair stores, including those of big chains Circuit City and Best Buy, and see what they would do. A lot of them overcharged like crazy. One even lied about how they fixed the power cord problem, saying they had to replace a “fuse.” Any computer person would catch that lie right away. But the investigative team also installed some monitoring software which basically captures any and all operations done on the computer, recording whatever actions are done. And I wasn’t really that surprised by what I saw: a lot of them went through their personal photos and documents. What an invasion of privacy… Actually, Best Buy had been the subject of this kind of practice a while ago, so I was glad to see that they had stepped up and actually did their job responsibly.

So what do you do when you actually do have a problem with your computer (which I think is probably inevitable)? First, I would suggest you try and get in contact with someone you trust, friend or family, that actually knows about computers. I say this because it’s easier to deal with someone you know than with a stranger. And if you don’t know a lot about computers, hopefully your friend/family member will do you right and solve the problem for you the right way. (And maybe treat him/her to dinner, huh?

If the problem is beyond their capabilities, then I guess take it to a professional technician. I don’t have any good experience with calling tech support. It’s just too frustrating on both ends: neither of you will probably be able to understand each other. So I say, go in person and judge for yourself if that technician is on the up-and-up. There’s all sorts of problems with different solutions, so I can’t really say how long they should hold your computer and whether they did a proper job. That’s when I would say to have your computer-savvy friend handy when you get your precious PC back. Hopefully the technician can explain the problem and their solution clearly enough so that your friend can say they did it properly or just BSing you.

It’s kind of tough. Computer technicians don’t have to be licensed or bonded. They really aren’t held accountable for their actions by law. I want to say stay away from the mom-and-pop stores, because they don’t have to answer to a corporate office… but I’m sure there are some honest ones out there.

Ah… technology.

Today was UMBC’s Career Fair. It was brutal, but I think my overall experience was positive. And I only say brutal in that there was a lot to see and do—I didn’t think it was gong to be that intense.

Yesterday, I actually went to the Career Center on campus and had them do a critique of my resume. I am REALLY glad I did it. I wasn’t all that confident in my resume to begin with and I had no idea how to build on it; but they really did have some positive stuff to say about it. The biggest help though was their resume writing page on their site, especially the workshop. My old resume looks so dinky compared to the monster that I have now. hehehe. But I think the best thing I really got out of it was creating my objective. When they helped me come up with one, it really stuck with me and I focused on that throughout my day at the fair.

So back to today. With my new and improved resume, wearing my traditional business attire (blue shirt, tie, black slacks), I was psyched and confident to hit the career fair; and that mood stuck with me throughout the whole time. How were the companies? Actually, to my surprise, the big ones that I initially were interested in didn’t give me the impression that they were really actively looking for new employees. It was the smaller, local ones that really won me over. It’s because they had this passion in their voices when they talked about their company… and they showed more intense, sincere interest in me.

An interesting, but positive, reaction that I got a lot was when I answered when my ‘expected date of graduation’ was. Right when I said that I finished last year, they had this surprised look on their faces: a little bit of that “wow I didn’t expect to see someone like you” mixed in with “oooh I’m really glad to see someone like you” look.

Another cool thing about the fair was the free stuff! A lot of the companies had giveaways, I guess to attract people to their booths. Let’s go through the haul: 7 pens, stress ball, foldable frisbee thing, 2 key lanyards, sudoku video game keychain, ruler with built-in calculator, mini desk light, mini binoculars, mousepad, cap, bag, and assorted mints and candies. I later found out that Xerox was actually handing out USB drives… dammit! lol I regret not just hitting every booth, no matter what field they were in, and just grabbed the free stuff. I was just so tired, but I also had ran out of resumes to give out. So, to those reading this and going to job fairs: bring LOTS AND LOTS of resumes! I mean it!

I am REALLY REALLY REALLY hoping to hear from some of the companies that said they were going to contact me this weak. And I hope I can get some interviews lined up by next week. I have been getting more and more excited about taking time to do traveling now that I have the time and money.

Okay, so for future reference (hopefully not for me, but maybe as tips for others):

• Bring a LOT of resumes. You should be able to obtain a list of the companies attending, so make sure to print at least 50-75% the number. You just never know what you will find there! And make sure to have it critiqued by someone.
• Bring a backpack or messenger bag. Something to carry the free stuff!
• Bring a folder to hold all the fliers, papers, and cards you will be collecting.
• Here’s something I didn’t do, but I REALLY wish I did: right after you talk to one of the company reps, whip out a notebook, write down the name of the company and what follow-up actions you need to do. I am confident that most of the people I talked to will be contacting me, but a couple had wanted me to look at their site and apply online rather than them taking the resume I gave them and using that to match me to something they might have. Kind of a pain.
• Bring a friend. I was lucky enough to have one come with me who helped keep me positive throughout the whole thing.
• Don’t be skeptical of a particular company because it might not particularly be in the field that you are interested in… you just never know what they have to offer. My case in point: a bank was represented there that happens to be the bank that bought out the bank I work for (and now the reason I’m looking for a new job). I just felt like stopping by there to see what they had, and surprise, surprise… the rep there remembered me! He actually worked for the Shriver Center and helped me get my internship that eventually landed me my first job. But that wasn’t all! He was actually there to recruit for a software engineering position! In Maryland! Seriously, I thought all technical jobs were going to be housed at their main office in Pennsylvania, but geez, this was a big surprise to me. So give all the companies a chance!

The career fair was a LOT of fun! Who knows, I might actually do it again next year, even if I do have a job then. It’s free and it never hurts to see if there’s something better out there…

At first I thought I could do a clean install, since it said so in the instructions, but I bought the Upgrade version (of Home Basic edition). However, when it came time to put in the key, it wouldn’t go. Therefore, I had to reinstall XP all over again, and THEN I could get Vista working.

Impressions? It looks really nice and pretty. Performance wise? I don’t really see that much of a difference. It takes a little getting used to for the functionality.

One such task that I had difficulty with was trying to find a way to network to my web servers. Before, I could do that in the My Network Places in XP. I had a difficult time figuring out how to do it in Vista. At first, I thought I had to install some program to allow me to direct connect to the servers, but then I found that I could easily do from My Computer, where you can access your drives and storage space. Under there, I could add network locations as easily as before, and I don’t have to use the FTP address! Sweet.

Still fooling around with Vista, so I’ll save my criticisms until after a month of using it…

I had one really interesting evening on Friday night. I was particularly in a really crummy mood when I got out of work (and not because of work, but because of other things). But I was looking forward to hanging out in D.C. We first drive to a nice place, Lounge 201. Nice looking crowd. I had some drink with sprite with something in it, I have already forgotten. It was happy hour, so the place wasn’t really that packed. I get some food and we meet the friend from last time, the masseuse, and her friends. We hang out longer than expected, talking and what-not. Eventually we all head out to party at Play. That place was AWESOME. It’s not that big, but I loved the music they had playing there—more dance remixes than r&b and hip hop. The crowd was also stunning… like WOW. I bought several drinks for my friends and the usual Jack & Cokes for myself. The bartender remembered me everytime I got a new one. She’d always see me and mouth out “Jack?” and I’d nod, smiling my approval. It’s those little things of recognition that I really appreciate. Later on in the night, this smoking hot girl in nothing but her underwear along with fishnet stockings and, I think, boots got up by the stripper pole and danced like crazy. And I was all like…. daaaaamn. lol. It was nuts. I had never seen anything like that before. I had an awesome time. I barely thought about… that thing that bothered me. We finally leave and go out to some diner in Virginia. It was around 5 in the morning when we finally get into bed…

Saturday was pretty much just a relax and catch my breath time. I had lunch with my family at the house, but then afterwards, I had to work on fixing the crappy wireless network that Comcast put in. The wireless gateway they set up was like 500 ft away from the computer, so the signal would always be weak or just simply drop all the time. I went to Best Buy and got a repeater to boost the signal (and also a new CD). When I got back to install it, I got REALLY frustrated in learning that Comcast put in a WEP encryption on the signal and didn’t bother to give my mom the password key. I didn’t feel like fucking around with the router they put in, so I left it alone and advised that they have Comcast come in to fix it—it’s really their job anyway, despite their crappy handling of it. By the afternoon I went home and stayed in, catching up on sleep and recharging.

Sunday was pretty much chill until the late afternoon. I went with some friends to go see The Simpsons Movie in Annapolis. It was… OK. The animation was excellent, but the overall story? It just felt like a really long typical episode. It wasn’t that epic. I’d say it was an average movie. After that, we went to downtown Annapolis and ate at Rams Head Tavern. I had gotten way too much to eat… bleh. I wanted to go hang out at some other bars after, but everyone wanted to go home like pussies. So, I drove them back to their cars at the mall. I was thinking about going back downtown by myself, but then I looked in my wallet—practically empty. I spent like over a hundred bucks the past two days, so I reconsidered and just went home to sleep. Click here for pics taken by Geoff.

That’s it. Some weekend, huh? I’m looking forward to see what fun can be had this next weekend…

EDIT (07/31/07): The website for Play finally put up pics of Friday night. The Girl on the Pole. She Served Me My Jack N Cokes. LOL, my ARM is in this picture on the bottom left. I Somehow Missed This *frown*.

I also wanted it to handle Google video as well, but they haven’t implemented an API yet. So, I had to do some slight hacking and managed this:

If it’s working like it’s supposed to, you should be seeing a thumbnail of the video that you can click and view the Google Video. The thing about this is, I can’t look up video data based on its unique ID. I had to work around that and do a search on the video title and format and parse it to and from XML. Basically, this is done by appending ‘&output=rss’ to the search results URL. So, ta dah! Google Video is now supported here… well, just barely.

I managed to get this far:
[youtube]FGvlNdtNTj4[/youtube]

You should be seeing a thumbnail image that you can click, and the Thickbox pops up with the YouTube video embeded in it. When I wrote this post, I had the YouTube video ID between some [youtube] tags. So the plugin finds that and replaces it with the image. It is REALLY in its crude stages right now. I’m having problems having multiple XML parsers in one page (basically it’s conflicting with my YouTube Videos on the sidebar), so I need more time to figure that one out.

I also managed to spruce up my favorites gallery. That one was a little bit more tricky to use. I made use of the wordpress link management system and made a SQL call to get them. So basically I’m using the link table with the YouTube ID, movie title, and movie thumbnail URL as columns. If you see the code, you’d know it was a hack job. Bleh. To that end, I added a whole bunch more videos to my favorites.

Edit: It looks like the changes I made somehow has Thickbox and Lightbox in conflict as well. Therefore the flickr plugin on my sidebar ain’t workin.