Slashing Weapon

 I finally got around to finishing my first still life.  I'm overall pleased with it.  Roy at Frame It Up is matting and framing it, and I'm hopeful that it will be awesome in my living room.

For those who don't already know, Symantec laid off 90+ people in the Message Security group.   And I was one of them.

Before you get all sympathetic over my plight, I should tell you that in the last 13 years I have survived four acquisitions and a dozen layoffs, and this is only the second time I've been laid off.  And the last time I was unemployed it was for a grand total of about six days.  The economy was better then, but I'm still pretty hopeful about finding a new job in a reasonable period of time.

The kicker here is that another group in Symantec called me and asked me to interview.  They put me through the wringer for two days (including a presentation with only 18 hours notice).  But they didn't offer me the job and I'm still unemployed.

I'm fine with this.  I could use a few weeks off to polish up some technical skills, do some things around the house, and figure out what kind of work I'd really like to do.  I'm taking the opportunity to pick up a Java certification: a lot of the cool jobs require Java now, and since I've never shipped a Java-based product I need to prove that I at least know the language.

But if you know someone who is hiring, let me know.

Google is giving us ANOTHER free Android phone, but the line to pick them up is quite long. By long, I mean roughly 1000 people. The phone is pretty awsome: an HTC EVO 4G. Did you even know there's a 4G network? I didn't think so.

I think I'll get mine later.

TV meets web. Web meets TV.

demo nearly died, but they had a backup box. while we are waiting for them to sort things out, we are watching some morning news show. It is suprisingly inappriate for the venue. Did you know that Nicholas Cage wont eat animals that are undignified about sex? Fish and fowl he'll eat. he does't eat pork because of the way they pork each other. We all know this now.

imagine a google search box on your tv. find me some NCIS to watch. click on the channel you want

search for episodes on the web and on tv at the same time. go from web to tv and back again, all on your giant screen.

some very nice program browsing, with personalized suggestions, coverview-like displays, categories, etc..
PinP web/tv. Watch a talent show and read the twitterstream at the same time on your HD screen.

The google tv is a box that connects to your tv via hdmi, and plays nice with your current cable/sattilite box. (especially so with Dish network? It comes with an ir remote, but you can use your phone, too.

Coolest thing might be that it is an Android device. Web apps and Android apps will all work on Google TV. That makes me want to get one, just so I can "program my TV".

My other new hobby is watercolors.  I started out doing calligraphy, but that somehow morphed into painting instead.  My current (unfinished) project is some plain old veg.


Everyone does a still life.  This one is mine.

On May 1st I rode my first 100k (and my first-ever event) at the Wine Country Century, which is put on every year by the Santa Rosa Cycling Club.  I made the ride in 6:15 including all the breaks.  It was a great ride, with the exception of the infamous Chalk Hill.  Some riders told me later that, when they went up the hill it looked like a killing field: nobody was on bikes at all.  Everyone was either walking or lying in the ditch resting.  The group I was with was apparently determined enough to at least walk what they couldn't ride. 

The food was great, and it was plentiful.  Some of the riders who do this kind of thing a lot were calling the event "a picnic, with some riding in between courses".  Lunch was at Warm Springs Dam, where they made sandwiches to order and had all kinds of munchies.  My favorite was the whole wheat fig bars.



There were over 2000 riders.  The ride is so popular, that it sells out within a few days.  How do you put on a hugely successful event like that?  Have over 300 volunteers, and do the event for 30 years.

If we always see rightly and mean rightly, we shall get on, though the hand may stagger a little; but if we mean wrongly, or mean nothing, it does not matter how firm the hand is.

-- John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing, 1857

Saturday's 40-mile ride was beautiful, but I bit off more than I could chew.  Right at the beginning there was a three mile climb from Sebastopol to Occidental, much of it over 6%.  It did me in, and made the rest of the ride way harder.  I rode down to Freestone (where I visited the famous WildFlour bakery), then Valley Ford, meandered around cow country in Marin county  (home of many a happy California cow), then back to Sebastopol via Bloomfield road.  For the last 9 miles or so I was walking up most of the hills, even the easy ones.  I now fondly call my feet "my lowest hill climbing gear".

I had serious doubts that I would be able to finish the ride, but in the end I managed to slump into my car and sink gratefully into the driver's seat.  It was an ignominious end, but at least I scored a giant sticky bun (with apricots and pecans!) from WildFlour.  I lugged that thing for 20 miles like some kind of trophy, and my wife and I had some for desert that night.  If a man ever earned a delicious sticky bun, I earned that one.

Chalk Hill was everything I expected it to be: I had to walk part of the touch grade near the top. But I did the whole 26+ miles in just over 2 hours, which is a great time for me.

When I tell my wife that I'm going to do the 100k, she gives me one of her Looks.  It isn't Disapproval, exactly.  More like Skepticism, or perhaps Doubt.  It definitely isn't Approval or Encouragement.  I've been trying to ignore that look for years, but it just keeps getting stronger.

She's much more encouraging about my taking up watercolor painting.  I attribute that to the comparative rarity of heart attacks and traffic accidents in painting.