October 2006 - Posts

• Happy Halloween!

  Well, it's good to be home for the spooky holiday. I was sure i was going to be in SA for it. And my pumkin, who was found growing on my bench outside my flat carved up nicely. (i went to my Bro and Sis-in-law's house last night to do some carvage) More pics to come. You can guess to what i'm dressed as.. (trust me, it's SCARY)    I don't know what's more scary, what i went as, or the fact that i'm wearing a pink shirt.. (i'm a bit behind in the laundry department) -if you really must know what i am for Halloween this year, you'll have to click on the pic-   The office did well this year, quite a few dressed up. Check out the misc pictures of the day here. Have a fun and Safe Halloween everyone!  Posted Oct 31 2006, 10:30 AM by Ryan with 4 comment(s) Filed under: halloween

• Democratic Techie for Utah Senate in Wired Magazine

  Yup. I've blogged quite a bit on the idiots in congress and their ignorance to technology. But this Democratic geek has my vote. In fact i sat next to him at a geek dinner a couple months ago and had a one on one with him on all his issues. A solid contender, and much much better than the tech inept Orrin Hatch: "His name is Pete Ashdown, and if anyone can clue Congress in to technology before it legislates the internet into a bunch of pneumatic tubes, it's Ashdown, who breathes bytes and exhales bits. He founded XMission (the first and largest ISP in Utah), deejayed raves and posted a Wiki version of his campaign platform for anyone to edit. One contribution to that Wiki formed a cornerstone of his platform: that the Iraqi people should vote through a referendum on whether U.S. troops should stay in their country." Go here for the entire article.     Posted Oct 30 2006, 03:19 PM by Ryan with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Politics

• Happy belated Birthday to EMAIL!

  Man, i can't believe i missed it! on the 21st of October 1971, Ray Tomlinson and his blessed/cursed '@' symbol sent the first networked email. (well, to be fair the exact date of the email i can't confirm, but that's what i'm seeing on most other blog posts about the subject) My first email account i got in '97. I still use it every once in a while, it gets on average 350-400+ emails a day, and all of them are spam. .. iHate spam. Anyway, if you think about it, Email is pretty much an essential part of life for most of the world now. Whether you like it, hate it, or just put up with it, Happy b-day Email!   Posted Oct 30 2006, 11:20 AM by Ryan with 4 comment(s) Filed under: General, Random, News

• Going Home

  :sigh: it's been a long month and a half here in South Africa. Many a long day/week. I'm actually surprised a little that I didn't crack some days. But I survived. As I type this I'm sitting in JHB international waiting for the flight to NY. I can't post this because wooties has been down for a while now. My flat prolly burnt down or something for all I know. The last couple days I had here I actually relaxed. I only worked  half days Monday-Weds (today) it was very nice. I had lot of fun the last weekend also. Hanging with friends in the Soweto clubs, the Jo'burg clubs, then getting sprayed in the face with pepper spray by some retarded white racist that had a problem with me hanging out with my black friends. .. Ah..  Good times were had by all. :)   Then, on a more mellow-note, I celebrated Eid with my adopted Muslim family here on Tuesday. I'll miss them a lot. .. And I'll miss the excellent homemade Indian food I had at their place way out in springs all the time.   I'm sure this last 1.5+ months will hit me soon though. Maybe I'll just sleep through the weekend.   ****long, boring, cramped flight to NY****   Now I'm sitting in JFk.. Terminal 3.. More like GHETTO terminal 3. Anyone who's been to JFK knows what I'm talking about. Man, this place is a dump. And they don't even have wi-fi!?!  (yeah. No public internet) that amazes me. So I'll watch some leftover internet video blogs I've had recorded, and a couple prison break episodes I have.   I had planned to go into the city, since I have a 9 hour layover here, but I had ticket problems and ended up having to wait several hours before getting that fixed.. Now there just isn't enough time, so I'll sit, reply to some emails.. And dream of my blessed couch whom I miss soo much.   ****long, boring cramped flight to SLC****   .. yay.. wooties is BACK!  Posted Oct 27 2006, 10:02 AM by Ryan with no comments Filed under: Culture, work, South Africa

• Priorities

  I've been just too plain busy to post anything, let alone read about what's going on in the news. My current project is in the middle of a hard, and somewhat painful, push to make some serious deadlines and it's pretty much beyond stressful. I've been here over a month, and it seems the hits keep on coming. But i guess that's how some things go. Besides, it's GREAT RL XP here, and i truly like what i'm doing.. i could just handle a 50 hour week instead of a 90-100 is all.  Lots of factors have to do with this type of stress at this stage of a major system implementation. Priorities rule. Rule for the good, and for the bad, in RL, VL, business life, and personal life. But i have the best (worse) example of bad priorities:   Wow.. how much more proof of evil, greed, and conceit can you get? I could go off on all sorts of tangents here, Kim Jong, really is a noob like i've stated. ..Iraq comes to mind..as well as too many countries on the continent where i'm at.. ..but i guess i better get back to work. (click on image for the story)  Posted Oct 13 2006, 04:22 PM by Ryan with no comments Filed under: Politics, work

• Monday Morning Linkage.

  Monday Morning Linkage!!  .. this will be posted a bit early methinks. (i'm 8 hours ahead here in South Africa). but still.  Wow, i've been so busy i've missed out on a lot of world news. Even in my own country! I had no idea that it was Desmund Tutu's Birthday today! I would have seriously tried to get to his dinner if i had known. .. i'm still a bit perturbed at myself that i didn't know. It's been a year since the Kashmir earthquake .. there are still a lot of people suffering from the effects of it. a big Camel was discovered in Syria. .. (uhm.. who really cares?) There's a Hawley Road in England! Oil is cheaper than coke!.. uhm. .. duhhh. but coke does not have the demand even close to Oil .. nice try CNN. (weak) The Amish really are a good example to the human race in some things.  Jack Straw is a complete idiot. Oblivious, and ignorant to those with different beliefs and convictions.  Hugo Chaves is an idiot. .. good thing his people agree. Russia is still not free. (think about how it would be if America was as sorry as Russia is atm. ..) Pull your head out Putin!  Kim Jong, is still a n00b. The best link is about Firefox 2 Beta 2. This thing has in-line spell check! It's awesome. So no matter what page you're on, just leaving comments, or doing actual work. The browser will check your spelling!! This is great for me, and my co-workers should get this thing too. We use a web-based workflow program to manage tasks and work for our projects, and with beta 2, i now have a spell check for it... very cool.   "Inline spell checking: A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms (like this one) without having to use a seperate application." Trust me, if you're on the net a lot, leaving comments, or just working over a web app, you'll want to use Firefox, if you aren't already. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- wow, seriously, there's just too much to rant on this week. .. so i'll just leave it at this for now.     Oh, but if you want to try something fun, .. well, maybe anyway. paste this exact text into the address bar of whatever internet browser you're using: (just paste it over whatever is in your address bar) javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);   Now, press enter.   kind of cool eh? use it on any internet page with pictures on it. ..     Posted Oct 08 2006, 04:05 PM by Ryan with no comments Filed under: Politics, Rants, Funny, Linkage, News

• more about Power Naps

  Birds can power nap too!  "...pay special attention to the part where it says birds can nap with one side of their brains. They shut one eye, and one half of their brains shut down, but the other eye is open and alert in case of predators. Can you imagine if we humans could do that? I could keep an eye on my mischevious little dog while sleeping, and none of my shoes would ever get ruined. Brilliant!" uhm, i bet you didn't really notice much of the article at all did you? Too busy staring at that ridiculously distracting Avatar of her. .. creepy if you ask me.   Maybe i should put my wooties face animation back up. ..    Posted Oct 06 2006, 07:10 AM by Ryan with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Funny

• Wooties for South Africa!!

  heheh. i've been extended again.. maybe i'll make it home by November. .. lucky for me, the Client, and my Employer,  i love South Africa!!  (i modified a comic from toothpastefordinner.com.. sorry Drew! .. don't hate me!) i love your shiz! Posted Oct 03 2006, 12:32 PM by Ryan with 2 comment(s) Filed under: General, work

• The blessed Power Nap

  So, it's days like today where i think a nap would be very nice. I don't kid myself thinking that my job is more stressful than anyone else's, but i do know that there is a good level of stress in what i do, especially at this stage of my current project (parallel, and pushing HARD for go-live). There really is little time to sleep. When you're 8 hours ahead of the home office, right as your office hours end with the client, your home office is just getting into work, and you have to get them updated on everything you need for your morning.. fun stuff. I think i may have had an hour's sleep last night, as i was up doing a data conversion to fix some system issues. I'm seriously overcharged on too much caffeine and energy supplements at the moment, but i guess you gotta do whatcha gotta do. (like taking a minute or two aside if to only blog about how busy things are. ..)   So power napping is something i should prolly find time to do here. .. even if it's a short nap late at night, when the guys in the office back home are having lunch. You'd think that napping would be fairly easy to do, but you actually have to learn how to have a successful powernap. I found a good article on it over at Gnorb.net. Pretty good stuff imo.   " How much do you sleep? Is that enough to keep you energized all through the day? If you’re like most people the answer is “probably not,” even if you take a good multivitamin/mineral/phytonutrient supplement. That’s why today I’ll be discussing the much taunted, much mocked, and much made fun of to the point of toomucherry yet ultimately effective technique known as “Power Napping”. (Insert whooshing sound.)" Go here for the article Posted Oct 03 2006, 03:03 AM by Ryan with no comments Filed under: work

• Welcome Yasmin, a crazy guest blogger on Wooties!

  Hey everyone, ryan here, I'm sitting here in SA with my friend Yasmin. We're at a conference that's being held by the company i'm here working with at the moment. I've told Yasi that she needed to blog on wooties.. so here she is! Yasmin and her random thoughts:     I got the power…. Move to the music…. I'm really bored…  I'm  Poops friend, from South Africa… I have to tell u there are lions that walk the streets…. We're at a Swissgarde conference…   People with rhythm, tat move to the music… No where in the world is there as colourful a nation… Ryans say I got all afternoon to blog….   I'm muslim and indian and I live in SA… Its Ramadaan… Not really sure wat to say, only write watever pops into head… I love music…   I'm known as Sleeping Beauty to Ryan, as I don’t sleep… I go by the name of Tweets… Poops is really funny, and really intelligent…   I've learnt a few words like, noobs, dang it, and blog… I live in cave, joke… Hope tis makes u laugh… I have to go on stage, really don’t like tat, we have to dance and sing at conference…   We have Zulu dancers and people that have come from Nigeria, SA, maybe even Kenya… Hope I didn’t bore u… Not a good writer, or a geek…   I'm sittin wit Mr Awesome, hes a real gentlemen… I live in Springs , I call it Sleepy Hollow, ters jus a bunch of Headless people…   Apparently I'm very intimidating, don’t know how tats possible as Poops  is the only one tat tinks so… I'm very scary… I'm machine, part bionic, part human…   Lifes great in SA, we have sunny weather, beautiful people… I like rugby, cricket… Yeah I'm a girl that likes sports… I'm sure some of u watch the soccer world cup, tat was great… Its really sad wat happened wit Zinadine Zadan, not sure about the spelling… Forgive me…   I jus feel like sayin wooooohhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooo…. As u have gathered, I'm really insane and  hav lost my mind… I should place an ad, lost my mind, need a new one…   More on conference, everyone is jiving… Speeches, testimonials, the usual… We currently listening to music from Argentina, as tats wer they wil be going next… Ryans (Poops) bored, I should entertain him…   Gospel choir is singing, tey much better tan us at singing… We had yelllow canary tshirts, tat say "Ive got the power"… We're superhero's… Poop wil be postin pics on website… I'm an ugly duckling, tat feels like Cinderella…   Pleases post ur comments, would like to know wat u tink, even if its insane… People here do the chicken dance… They currently doing draws, if u could see how excited they get… Ryans tink its really kewl…   Wonder wats my mum is cookin, hope its sumting nice… She is the best cook…   You Americas drive on the wrong side of the road :)… I tink perhaps enough of my thoughts… I should say Goodbye, Salaams…   Tweets Yassi Posted Oct 01 2006, 06:48 AM by Ryan with 7 comment(s) Filed under: Culture, Guest Blogging, South Africa