America has no enemies...

except the ones it's making in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the United States of Arrogance wants to have its own way, and it'll kill, torture, rape civilians, women, children and the occasional bad guy) so that it can maintain its imploding standard of living.

Go home, America. And stay there.

Easy composting

That is cool. I'd love to have the Plus edition. It'd be great if it composted diapers too. Timmy generates a lot of those, and we'll have more with the new baby on the way. Unfortunately, I don't see any mention of composting diapers. And even if they could handle diapers, I'm sure they can't take the volume generated by one baby :-).

Timmy singing

Timmy's mother-in-law grandmother, my mother-in-law, sings him "Paper Roses" as a lullaby. She's always sung him just that one song. Now Timmy remembers songs and he prods us what to sing by singing the first part of the song he wants. In his repertoire, "Paper Roses" (actually, la-la-la-la :-), "Row, row, row your boat", "Baa-baa black sheep", and a few others from children's books we've read him.

SkyTV pausing -- maybe fixed

We've had some trouble with video signal pauses with our SkyTV connection. We've had it on three separate days. Strangely, not all channels had the pauses. In particular, free to air NZ channels didn't have the pauses.

So it wasn't the signal transmission from the SkyTV satellite to our rooftop satellite dish. I thought maybe it was some issue with how Sky was pushing the data up to their satellite, from wherever it was coming from (UK and U.S., mostly, I think). That didn't seem right though, since there'd be a major public relations problem if all non-NZ video feeds had pauses.

I still don't know what the problem is. Today though, I applied Windows solution #4: Reboot. It wasn't sufficient to just turn off the decoder settop box. I had to unplug it and plug it back in. That seems to have fixed the pauses though. I guess there's some sort of problem with the decoder starting up sometimes, when we turn it on in the morning, and power-cycling it fixes the sync problem.

I'm very glad about this. My mother-in-law and sol really enjoy the Food channel (we spend the great majority of our TV watching time watching cooking shows there) and sometimes we all get frustrated because a particularly good show with mouth watering food is unwatchable because of 3 second pauses every 3 seconds.

I hope this problem is consistently solved by Windows solution #4 :-).

Carrying Chinese Water, Raping boys

So not only do Americans torture innocent (and a few guilty muslims), they also torture for the Chinese government. Bravo.

Oh, and they sodomized Iraqi boys too, and videotaped the atrocity.

Damn. If the americans ever get their hands on me (given the insane regime there, it could happen, even though I'm completely innocent of all except blogging about American evil), I'm going to die. I'll kill myself before they can torture me.

More:
The FBI knew

There's a lesson there

Don't go to the United States of Atrocity.

An embarrassment of riches

I had a good day today. First I went to the main/central branch of the Wellington City :-).Libraries. I was to have an interview at 2PM, but I went to Wellington with Sol, so I had a few hours to kill at the library.

I hadn't been seated for more than 30 minutes or so when I got a call from yesterday's interview. They couldn't wait til Monday for a decision. I had to make a decision today. I could understand their dilemma. They had another candidate waiting for their decision. If they were to wait til Monday for mine, I might not accept, and the other candidate might no longer be available. I was their preferred candidate, but they couldn't afford to let the second candidate escape unhired if I were not to be available.

I promised to give them my decision before the end of the day.

I then proceeded to read from some java books. I'd done the same the previous day, testing out some new things that were discussed in the books (and which I knew of only theoretically), new to me, anyway, who last worked in java sometime around version 1.1 or very early 1.2. That was good fun. Yesterday I wanted to borrow Java in a Nutshell. Should have grabbed it yesterday. Someone else grabbed it and now I'll have to wait a month for it :-).

The interview at 2PM went very well. It was surprisingly short. And they didn't ask me any technical questions. I think that's a mistake. Employers who are hiring developers should always ask technical questions, and maybe have the developer solve some programming problems. But maybe Catalyst's directors have been around so many developers they can tell who is faking. Likely too, my interviewers were comfortable with the fact that my wife works for Catalyst, is doing very well, and says good things about me.

When the interview ended, I went back to the library to read and play some more. I got a call soon after. Catalyst was offering me a job. The offer was for less money than the first offer, but I accepted anyway. I like how Catalyst does things, my wife enjoys it there, so I'm sure I will too. Sol and I will be able to sample the surrounding restaurants at lunch, and go to work and come home at the same time. It'll be great.

My new job is likely to be mostly Java though. I'm reading up, getting familiar again. I'll also practice some trivial test programs on Tomcat, to see just what that's like. Time to look at Spring too. I don't know what ORM they might be using, but I have a week to learn things ahead of time :-).

Interview

I went to an interview with iPredict at Victoria University yesterday. It was a great interview at a small startup. The offer is good, the work is going to be interesting. I'm definitely interested. I'd accept the position immediately, but then I got a call to schedule an interview with Catalyst IT, where sol works. So I'm delaying a decision on iPredict for a few days. If Catalyst makes me an offer, and it's competitive, and they make the decision very quickly, then I'll accept that. But if the offer is off by 10k a year or they don't make an offer by Monday, then I'll accept the iPredict offer.

I hope iPredict is still interested by Monday :-). I think they will be though. The market for PHP-Java developers is tight, and it's hard to find someone who is willing to work with both languages. As it happens, I think that PHP for the frontend and Java for complex logic is the right way to do things. I'm looking forward to working at either iPredict or Catalyst.

Interview tomorrow

I've got an interview with a recruiter tomorrow. The position is an exact fit for my profile, so I'm pretty sure the interview will go well. I sent an application for a senior developer position. My resume is right for that position. I'm going to look at the intermediate developer positions too though. I'm coming off a series of team leader positions and I think I'd prefer the lower level positions though. At least for a year or two. After some decompression (and getting a feel for kiwi management style) I might be ready for team leader positions again.

So I think I'll be looking more at those intermediate positions rather than the one I'm interviewing for :-). I already expressed some of that to the recruiter in a phone call, so he won't be blindsided by it. I *am* open to a senior position too, but it'll depend on who else is on the team (senior support, is there a business analyst leader, etc). I'm OK with handling business analyst type work for short periods, but I don't enjoy it so I don't do well at it beyond a month or so.

I've also applied for 4 other positions (one in C++, the other three being exact matches again), and I'm waiting for a call from sol's company. I'd really prefer to work with sol's company, Catalyst IT Ldt. That'll be my first priority. But since I'm not certain to find a perfect match there (although the odds are pretty good), I'm applying for other jobs too. Everything I've applied for seems to be very interesting. I'll be applying, in the next few weeks, for the less perfect matches :-). There's a lot of work, but of course, not everything is a match (as to skills, technology preferences, or location, since I'm not open to work outside Wellington, or even in parts of Wellington which are not convenient to travel to (e.g., Upper Hutt).

Sol took two weeks to get an offer, although that was through extremely serendipitous happenstance. If I get an offer in two weeks or so I'll be doing pretty well.

Oh

I'm not often sad. Usually I'm focused on the wonderful present, or looking forward, moving upward.

and then there's this.

TV and cable too!

Sol and I were sure we didn't want a television. We weren't going to buy one, and we certainly weren't going to have cable. Timmy is entertained by playing with common household items, and I'm entertained watching him and reading online.

My mother-in-law arrived last week though, and a few weeks before that we had to buckle down to getting a TV. We won an auction on a 29" TV on (where else) TradeMe. We also bid on and won a TV cabinet for it.

We definitely weren't going to get cable because the website says installation costs NZ$600. That's almost half a month's rent right there :-).

And then two days ago I got a call from skytv. They have a promo, free installation and 3 months of free premium channels. Since my mother-in-law is here, and *she* won't be entertained by the internet when I find a job, well, we grabbed the deal :-).

We're very happy with the TV and cable now, even though it'll cost $45 a month :-). That's about NZ$140 a month for landline, broadband and cable. But I think we've stabilized our costs now (unless we buy a car, but that's going to be either never or after two paychecks, once I've got a job :-).

There are several cooking channels, there's Discovery, National Geographic and News, and the free NZ channels are much clearer now (for a week we were using the antenna on the roof). We won't be watching much in the way of sports, movies or entertainment news, although Sol will want a tivo when the French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open come around (very soon now). I haven't found a tivo on TradeMe yet though, and I don't have the necessary A/V jacks on either of our laptops to record shows using MythTV. She's thinking she'll be absent a lot for the French Open :-). I hope not.

May 8 2005

Happy Anniversary Sol.





We were rather under-organized for the wedding :-). So we organized a trip to white island, with lechon, beer and a spectacular sunset, but we didn't organize a program (the guests made one up, thanks Cecil), and we didn't think of a photographer or videographer. Fortunately, we got donations of pictures (thanks May, Cecil, Francis) from people who were there :-).

I think I won't send a mass email :-). Those who know about RSS and have subscribed to my feed will see this soon, the rest will see when I post another timmy video I guess :-).

stupidity and society

I have a pretty large sig quote file. But I add to it once in a while.

I recently added:

Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
-- Friedrich von Schiller

and

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick
society.
-- Krishnamurti


I have a few favorites, but this one just doesn't appear enough in my sigs. I should really add it in there a few hundred times so it'll appear in every other email :-)

Pobrecito mexico tan lejos de Dios y a la vez
tan cerca de los Estados Unidos
Gen. Porfirio Diaz

along with, of course,

GW Bush: Impeach, Prosecute, Convict, Execute

the perfect scrambled eggs

I have got to practice this and get it right, since scrambled eggs is pretty much the only thing I can cook. It might as well be perfect :-).

Well, hello there

Sol went to Pacific Radiology for her first ultrasound. The baby is 10 weeks old and beautiful.

Talking

Timmy talks a lot in this video.


A partial list:

Happy Birthday
Aaaaapple
Butt Then
Happy
Haaa (i.e., Hi)
Dud (i.e, Dude)
Nononono
nonyonyonyo
Theeeey (i.e, There)
pinakbet butter
Momo (i.e., No more)

verbose

Timmy has been learning words lately. He's had quite a few words for a long time now, of course, Daddy, Dada, Mommy, Mama, Hug. But his learning is accelerating. We've got a video where he points at a car going by and says "Kah". Some sounds he still has trouble with, e.g., the R in car. And the TH in bath (which comes out "Bah"). He learned flower and tree a few weeks ago, and he's now using "Down" as a command. When he wants to get off his high chair. He's got hello, hi, and goobah already. And "yummy" from a story book we read him. There are a lot more words, but they're not very clear yet. He can even say, e.g., "butterfly" when we say it to him. But he doesn't seem to remember long words between sessions yet. Unless they're nonsense words, in which case he gets stuck on them for a week or more.

He's learning words very fast and, unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to chronicle his verbal progress very much here. I'll try though. And succeed once in a while :-).

Oh yeah. "wow!". he's got that down very well, including the tone of being amazed. Also, copying from me, when i tell him he shouldn't do something "nyonyonyonyo", complete with wagging finger. and "mo mow", complete with wagging hand (that's "no more").

Progress

When we arrived, we stayed with friends of friends. They are lovely people and it's a great home, a good place to stop and take a breath. But it's never very comfortable staying with people I've never met before so we were in a rush to get a job and move into our own home.

Sol got a job at Catalyst IT two weeks after we arrived. This was a blessing descended from a long chain of blessings that started with an email post about postgresql. With the help of sol's best friend and her husband, we searched for a house to rent, drove around for three weekend-days looking at homes (thanks Julius!) and finally found the perfect little home from a web advertisement (thanks Arlene!). Our debt to Arlene and Julius are no longer within reach of our ability to repay, and as Jun Yamog says, the best we'll be able to do is pay it forward.

Our home-to-be wasn't going to be ready for another two weeks (it was being renovated) so we stayed on for two more weeks at our homestay, and we spent a heck of a lot of money buying our bedroom suite (Queen Anne bed, base and headboard, along with two bedside tables and a great dresser).



We were able to get the bed into the house two days before we moved in. When we moved in, all we had in the house was the bedroom suite, Timmy's crib, and the oven and dishwasher (which came with the house, although they're a bit old). We'd previously ordered a refrigerator, washing machine and dryer though (brand-new since we intend to stay here for a few years, and bring the whiteware with us when we move). Those arrived the afternoon after we moved in.

Timmy	Had to eat on the kitchen countertop

I continued to model my CamiguinAction t-shirts in the empty living room	while timmy modeled cuteness
Sol modeled the kitchen's walk-in cupboard

Quite a few snacks later...

Our second purchase from Trade Me (our first was the bedroom suite) was the dining set

On the same trip that another friend, Barry, helped me pick up the dining set, we also picked up a pair of lounging chairs. One is a lazyboy/rocker. The other just rocks, it doesn't recline. We use the second (rocker only) in Timmy's room because it squeaks less than the recliner. Both are in good condition, but less squeaking is important since we rock Timmy to sleep in it.

A week or so after that, we also bought a living room set, one 3 seater, two single seats, and a single rocker (not shown).

We still need a double bed (or two single beds) for the other double room and then I think our furniture buying Trade Me days will be over. Although Sol is still on the lookout for better looking curtains and I'm currently on the lookout for a Linksys NSLU2 :-).

Yeah, that's positive, alright.

Trademe and carlessness

We've been on Trademe a lot lately. That's New Zealand's dominant auction site (like ebay, but limited only to New Zealand). We've bought a few things, dining table and chairs, coffee table, living room suite, a lazyboy/recliner and its partner rocker (looks the same, but doesn't recline), a bedroom suite (bed, dresser with mirror and two bedside tables). We've been pretty limited in what we've bought though. There are incredible savings to be made by buying on Trademe, but we can't really participate in a lot of those savings since we don't have a car.

For the large items, we're lucky to have made the acquaintance of a kiwi (who is married to a filipina) who has a van he uses for trucking large items. For a fee, we transported the bedroom suite, the dining table and chairs, and the lazyboy pair. He's very nice, but we can only contact him for large pickups since the pickup/delivery fee is substantial (but still much less than the fees for commercial services). The coffee table and living room suite were delivered.

For small things though, we can't really make any savings since generally we'd like to purchase locally, so we could just go over and pick up the items, but since we have no car yet, we can't pick up.

In 6 months or so we might have bought a car already. But by then, likely, we'll have the opposite problem. We'll have too much stuff and will be posting them on trademe and insisting on pickup only :-).

Thanks to Trademe and Barry though (the kiwi with the van), we've got a house that's pretty much complete. We have two single beds to buy yet, for the extra room, for when my mother-in-law visits. We'll ask for Barry's help for those.

A car would be helpful too, for some things that are large but cheap. For instance, we've been here for two months and haven't ironed any clothes yet. We bought an iron, but we haven't got an ironing board yet. It's too large to walk up the mountain with, but too cheap to ask for Barry's help with :-). We've got some very good friends who could help with transporting it, but they've been so nice and helpful we're now reluctant to ask for more help. Sol has a workaround in mind though and if all goes well, we may have an ironing board by next Tuesday or so. And then the house would be complete :-).

There's no TV, no bookshelves, no books. But we don't really need any of those. WE'VE GOT BROADBAND! :-)