blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Author: ryan

  • I broked the internets!

    Haven’t written in a few days. I intended to, but I couldn’t. I broked the internets! 🙂

    It all started Saturday, which was truely a day to myself. I didn’t leave the house except for some grocery shopping (translated: I bought beer and some meat to grill). I spent most of the day tinkering around my home office, backing up data, updating software, and researching some new computer equipment to buy. Fun stuff, yeah? Yeah, well it was for me. And, it was nice to spend a day doing practically nothing. Not seeing anybody, not going anywhere, just hanging out by myself. Well, me and the cat I guess.

    The research was for a new WiFi access point. I have been running on a dinosaur, the original Apple Airport (known as the Graphite model) since around the year of our lord 2000 AD. It was old, slow, and though it worked, I’ve recently been using the wireless a lot more (what with the new laptop) and it’s shocking how long it takes to transfer a large file over that old, slow WiFi connection. I also wanted to move to a WiFi router, something new that could take the place of my old WiFi access point and my old ethernet switch. One power plug instead of two, one or two less cables snaking along the wall, etc. This, after loads of research, lead me to the newly released Apple Airport Extreme (1 gigabit ethernet version).

    While out grocery shopping Saturday I tried to visit the nearest Mac store and buy one, but they’d closed. Oh well. I spent the night surfing the net and watching season 3 of Black Books, a very funny / snarky English comedy series.

    Sunday however, I was able to purchase my new toy. So I got home with it in the afternoon and set in getting it all hooked up. One thing I knew was going to happen in all of this was that my current setup was going to break a lot… my old setup was such that my broadband modem fed into my Linux server, which then fed to my ethernet switch, which then fed into my old WiFi access point. Long story short, a LOT of configuration was done on my Linux server to get all this working… and I had to undo it all, and do a lot of new stuff, to get everything back up and running.

    I had however underestimated how much of a pain some of it would be. Getting my network up and running and getting my computers online was really easy. That part only took 10 minutes. What was more troublesome was getting my Linux server happy again, and then discovering some things that meant some larger changes to my setup (new nameservers, routing for my domain name, port forwarding, blah blah blah). What that all means is that Circusgeek was offline for a couple few days until everything got sorted out. Which, as far as I can tell, happened today sometime. Now I’m finally able to post to my blog again. Hence, the long-winded post. 🙂

    Now that it’s all running, things are faster and I’m happier overall. More than anything, I’m just glad to have everything running again. What a pain in the ass!

  • Quite the day

    Interesting day today. Beside some time spent doing typical work tasks early in the day, I had my review (which went really well), and the afternoon was spent doing filming & recording for a video demo of a new feature of SuperSweetCo’s flagship product. I was picked to do this work since I was responsible for designing the feature, but it was a pretty stressful thing to do, and I now fully appreciate professional voice actors. It’s hard work, trying to time a script to a video. I’m pretty sure it was dreadful, but I won’t won’t know for sure until early next week.

    After work, I spent some time hanging out with some coworkers; first in the office break room sipping on beers, and later at another coworker’s place in NW Portland. The coworker was hosting a poker night, and other SuperSweetCo employees were attending so I figured I’d go hang out for a bit. While I didn’t join in on the gaming it was nice to spend some time with coworkers in a setting far removed from work.

    After that, Snooks and I went to Moon & Sixpence for some beers before calling it a night. Had a great time hanging out.

    Oh, and Kelly seems to be having a great time. All day she was taunting me with photos from her camera of her visit to the Met, MOMA, pubs, and photos of New York city at night. She also sent me a text message about how she got her photo taken with David Hyde Pierce. And no, I’m not jealous of her adventures or anything. Heck no.

    Oh, and I’m very annoyed that it’s the last day in August, and watching it get darker earlier and earlier every day. I already miss the days it was light until almost 10pm. Hrmph!

  • Just Hangin’ around

    Last night was kind of funny… funny in that “I’m, like, an old man now” way. My ‘plans’ to stay up irresponsibly late, with the stereo cranking out the heavy metal and dancing in my skivvies (what with having the house to myself and all) were ruined by a combination of a couple beers and general exhaustion. I dozed off sometime around 11pm watching some old Humphrey Bogart film. Awoke at around 1am and lurched my way to bed.

    Not much to report today. Woke up early to the cat biting my leg, got out of the house at a decent time, and got to the office where I spent my day taking care of some of the last bits of the big new feature I spent the last few weeks working on. Another hot day in Portland, and only now (as it’s now dark) has it cooled off to what I call an “acceptable level”. Had a good friend stop by for a beer and a smoke, and now I’m just cooking up my chicken on the grill.

    Tomorrow I’ve got my first annual employee review at SuperSweetCo. Well, a bit more than a year (more like 1.25, shit happens, we’re all busy). I’m a little nervous, only because I’m not sure what to expect. Hell, perhaps I’ll write tomorrow that I’ve been fired for being too much of a dork. Or maybe I’ll have been promoted to Grand Poobah. Time will tell. 🙂

  • How to be the perfect girlfriend

    Saw this video via Digg.com just now. Hilarious (and yet, oddly accurate).

    Yup, still slacking off. 🙂

  • Happy Birthday Travis, & “all byyy myyseeellf”

    Happy birthday Travis! You’re 30 now. Not only a parent, but an old man too!* 🙂

    Last night we drove out to the home town for dinner at my parents house. We arrived just in time to hear my brother shooting old hard drives with his semi-automatic assault rifle thing (I can’t remember what it is, I keep thinking it’s an AR-15, not sure) from 100 yards away. After a delicious, home-made fish and chip dinner, he raced his fancy remote-controlled car up and down the gravel road. Yes, he’s a parent. Yes, it’s a scary, scary thing. 🙂

    After some delicious apple pie and ice cream we came home and I zonked out cold on the bed, fully dressed, at around 10:30 or so. Food coma. Urgh.

    Today I took Kelly to the airport for her visit with our friends ‘back east’. I got up early and worked from home, then drove her to the airport, and then drove to work (something I’ve only done twice before in the 1.25 years I’ve been at SuperSweetCo). Of course, the work day kept me busy with meetings and design tasks, so it was as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Except I got to drive home rather than take the bus. Now I’m home, sipping on beers, and it’s just me. And will be until Monday. *sniff*.

    Oh well, I’ve got work to do anyway (that I’m putting off at the moment), and there’s a lot of little things I hope to get done around the house while she’s gone. She called around 6pm and arrived safely. Hopefully she’ll be posting about her adventures.

  • Spamalot!

    Saw Spamalot tonight, but first, a recap from my busy week: WORK. Yup, that’s pretty much all I did. I spent my time working on a new feature for SuperSweetCo‘s flagship product. It was a lot of fun to create (from creating the mockups to the actual development) but it was really complex and demanded my full attention through the week, both day and night.

    Friday evening Kelly and I brought dinner to my brother, sis-in-law, and “Hank” my new nephew. Kelly had spent the afternoon making delicious pasta dishes that we shared (well, not Hank, obviously) and later Travis made me hold Hank. I’m not comfortable holding babies, I fear dropping ’em (they can be awfully squirmy, hehe). It was a nice evening, though towards the end of the evening I was laying on the couch about to fall asleep, and it was only 10pm! By the time we got home and unloaded the dishes from the car I was done and just went to bed.

    Today was good, since I’d gotten around 8 hours sleep (despite our cat’s earnest attempts at nudging me awake every 20 minutes, starting around 5:30am). I spent the day tinkering around the house, but did manage to take my newly fixed bike out for a spin. It was a fun ride, but I didn’t get very far from home because I soon discovered just how out of shape certain leg muscles were. After getting back I cleaned up and Kelly and I headed into town to meet friends for dinner and a show.

    We met Miranda & Brian, and Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog at the Goose Hollow Inn for dinner and drinks. Had a nice time on the deck, the weather was great, and naturally so was the sandwich (mmmm… reuben). After that though we all piled into Ghost Dog’s car and drove down to the theater. It was Monty Python time!

    Spamlot!Spamalot was very entertaining and while I’m not a big fan of musicals, this show was a lot of fun. The writing, sets, costumes, and cast were fantastic. There were a lot of changes from Holy Grail, such as Dennis (Arthur: Old woman! Dennis: Man. Arthur: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?) becoming Sir Galahad, and Sir Lancelot falling for Herbert (heh), but all the modifications were very funny and I just had to suppress my “but that’s not how it goes” reactions. 🙂

    There were some additions to the plot (such as the Lady of the Lake being present through the story, and including the song Always Look in the Bright Side of Life, originally from Life of Brian) and some scenes from the film that I felt were conspicuously absent, such as the Castle Anthrax (“Oh wicked, bad, naughty Zoot!”) and the Bridge of Death (“Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three”). But in the end, the it was a lot of fun, and those who aren’t as obsessed with Monty Python wouldn’t notice, and just have a good time.

    After the show, we all went over to Moon & Sixpence for a few pints and some snacks before calling it a night. Great time, and thank gang for coming out / hauling us around town.

  • Nerds, Beers & Pubs

    After a long and hectic work week (including some big news for SuperSweetCo), I had a day to myself.

    Actually, it kind of started last night with my friend Miranda coming by to hang out, stopping me from working until the wee hours. She and Brian are in the process of buying a house just a few blocks away (hooray!) and she didn’t want to go home and pack (again) so she came by for a bit. Later last night I tried to watch some of the backlog of shows we’ve recorded on our PVR but I fell asleep around 11pm or so. I was pooped.

    This weekend was Kelly’s ‘school weekend’ (classes on Friday night and all day Saturday) which generally means I sleep in late on Saturdays. Today however I woke up around 8:30am to the sounds of hammering, sawing, pounding, and yelling by the construction workers building a new house across the street. Fortunately I’d gotten a fair amount of sleep and wasn’t too cranky at being so rudely awakened on a Saturday morning. I got out of bed and made coffee before proceeding to do a bunch of little things around the house, like paying bills online, hanging some blinds in the master bath, cleaning the kitchen, etc.

    Macforce Summer Blast 07Around 2:00pm I got out of the house to run some errands before Kelly got home. Prior to leaving town for our little vacation last week, I’d seen a flier for a nerdy computer expo in town held by a local Apple specialist shop MacForce, with a grand prize drawing for an iPhone, so I figured I’d go down there. Wasn’t very exciting, but it was free, and they were serving free BBQ. Since I’d arrived later in the day I had already missed the drawings for some software I’d have liked, but oh well, I had better things to go do…

    Belmont StationAfter leaving the Mac expo thing, I went to one of Portland’s two “Beer Heaven’s”, Belmont Station, to pick up some beers for the weekend. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have a few things I was looking for (like Adnam’s SSB) but still picked up a Black Sheep Ale and some Abbot Ale. Such a great store, and I was glad to see it was pretty busy. Was able to snap one shot w/o a bunch of people in it.

    County Cork, Portland ORI got home around 4pm and finished cleaning the kitchen before Kelly got home from her class. A bit after Kelly got home we decided to go check out an Irish pub that we’d been meaning to go to for a couple years now, the County Cork. Not a bad little spot, though when you first walk in it doesn’t seem too impressive, the bar area is rather plain, but the rest of the main room is nice enough. There’s also a little patio area out back, all enclosed with tables and umbrellas. Kelly got a Lagunitas Censored on cask (which was really really good) and I got a Murphy’s stout (it’d been a long time since I’d had that on tap anywhere). Overall a pretty decent spot, though we opted to move on.

    Kelly and I both had a hankering for the Welsh Rarebit at Moon & Sixpence, so we headed on up there for some food. Had a nice time hanging out there, and the food hit the spot. After that we decided to get home, Kelly was tired from her day at class and wanted to relax in front of the television.

    Oh, also, this post goes out to Aaron. You asked for it. 🙂

  • Lincoln City for a night

    Lincoln CityKelly and I spent last night at Lincoln City. Someone Kelly goes to school with (who’s spouse is part owner of what was described as a beach-front “Condominium Motel”) got us a sweet deal for a night, so we drove down after a filling late breakfast at Cup & Saucer (mmmm… breakfast burrito).

    After a two hour drive we got into town, found the motel, and got checked in. The room was fairly large, with a Murphy bed, a kitchenette, and a balcony overlooking the beach. Once we unpacked we walked (and walked, and walked) trying to find a corner market or grocery store, and discovered that there’s really nothing close. After walking 2+ miles we finally came across an grocery store and got some groceries and walked back to our motel.

    Then we walked down to the beach and laid down blankets. We took turns walking into the ocean… which as always with the Pacific Ocean here in Oregon… was frigid cold, but fun anyway (I got as far as knee-depth before being forced to walk out). We spent about 2 hours laying around in the sun (the weather was fantastic) before going back to our room and getting cleaned up before going out for Dinner. We walked to a nice restaurant nearby called Kyllos and had a nice dinner comprising of appetizers (crabcakes, shrimp cocktail, salads, halibut). After dinner and going back to the room we walked back down to the beach at night while the tide was coming in. The place we stayed at had large flood lights over the beach, which was filled with people around campfires.

    Finally we went to sleep, and I woke up to the sound of the ocean, which is always a relaxing sound to wake up to. The weather today was cloudy but still warm. We sat on the balcony and watched the ocean while sipping on coffee before packing up, checking out, and driving the 2 hours back home. Had a nice time, though I wish I could have stayed another night or two. 🙂

  • Recapiness

    Craziness, business, stressiness (yes, like Stephen Colbert coining truthiness, I hereby lay claim to stressiness)… that describes my week. After meeting my new nephew Hank (who is doing well) last week, Kelly and I have been busy. The work week was a crazed blur, with the first half of the week spent designing some new / enhanced features for SuperSweetCo’s flagship product, and most evenings spent either going out or doing things around the house.

    Last night Kelly and I went out to the pubs, starting off at Rose & Thistle after I left the office. After that we went home to drop off the car and then took the bus to Moon & Sixpence to continue punishing our livers. Had a great time chatting, eating and sipping on beers.

    Tonight I went over to a BBQ / party at my friend Jen’s house for an out-of-town guest/old friend and had a really fun time hanging out and meeting new people.

    Tomorrow Kelly and I are getting up early and going to Lincoln City for the night. I’m looking forward to both getting out of town (even if only for one night) and going to the coast, which is something I don’t think I do often enough considering I live so close to such a major ocean. I hope to write about it on Sunday.

  • Meet Henry

    Henry VanderzandenMeet Henry, a.k.a. “Hank”, a.k.a. Bart. Henry was my grandfather’s name, though his nickname Hank was what virtually everyone in my home town knew him by. Bart (from the previous post) is my nickname for him, and though I’m not sure I’ll stick to it, it’s fun for now. Click on the photo to the left to see Henry/Hank/Bart and his proud dad Travis.

    While I normally look at newborn babies and think “woah, that looks like some kind of strange human-alien hybrid thing” and look forward to escaping the hospital as quickly as I can… I must say that seeing a newborn relative is a very different experience. I dislike hospitals, and I’ve been in them many times to see friends newborn children, and each time I find myself looking for the nearest EXIT sign. However, seeing my sister-in-law in her dazed state and hearing her talk about her experience, while watching my brother hold his son, was very touching. I was glad to have skipped out on work to go visit and see my new nephew within a few hours of his entry into the world.

    A few hours later we had friends over for a casual dinner (fondue) which was a lot of fun. The reason for this event was for another set of friends who are expecting to have their child in about two weeks. Had a great time hanging out, and naturally shared the photos I took while visiting my new nephew.

    Check out the bonus photo I took while visiting the hospital. Travis… beware.