the man behind THE MAN

Scooter

2011-03-26T02:22:00.003-05:00

Picture to come but I will soon by the proud owner of a bright pink 50cc scooter. Will try to capture my father's disgust with it/me in the posted pic. =)

Are you a night owl?

2011-03-26T01:30:00.004-05:00

My internal day clock is all fucked up. I can't fall asleep before 6am and don't wake up until 12/1pm most days. I work 95% of those hours so only have downtime Fri/Sat to hangout with others. The problem is I'm off schedule. By the time I get up, half a normal day is over. Fridays are the worst. Alina, others get home from work at the same time I'm perked up ready to go out and see the world.

Wish somebody else was up during these hours. It would be nice to be able to talk to something that responds with more than just complete, error or warning.

Year and a half?

2008-04-19T22:36:00.015-05:00

My last post was a year and a half ago! Wow, I'm long overdue for a holiday letter like update. Let's see, what's the template again?

Work
I work for the same place as before and love working there. Free food, a golden tee machine, and a kick ass project stocked with talent. Who could ask for anything more?

Travel
The invincible sword goddess talked me into a backpacking trip, and you know what, I throughly enjoyed it. We went to the Grand Canyon and did a three night/four day trip. There was a blizzard the night before (yes, it snows in Arizona!) so we had to get chains for our shoes and ski poles to make it down. Once we made it down though it was 70 and sunny. A thirty degree difference from the top and no snow! My goal was for us to hike 10 miles each day but we wound up closer to 8. You can blame me for that. The sword goddess whooped me on the trails. I am so out of shape.

Unfortunately we ran out of food. We stretched a three day into a four trip and didn't have enough to cover the extra day. I was worthless on the trails without food so the sword goddess kept giving me her portions. Needless to say she was starving by the time we made it back to the top. We decided to hit the first restaurant we saw which was "The Bright Angel Lodge." We're about to order her a feast when the busboy arrives with waters. He had Michigan listed next to his name on his pin so I asked him where he's from. The exchange went like this:

Me: Hey, where in Michigan are you from?
Busboy: Ypsilanti. It's a small town outside of Ann Arbor.
Me: Ann Arbor. Cool. That's where she's from and I used to go to school out there.
Him: Huh. Well I guess that makes us neighbo-- wait a minute, I know you!

I'm a tall, white, jeans and t-shirt guy. It doesn't get any more generic so I figured he's full of shit.

Me: No you don--
Him: No, Mike solo! You were Mike's roommate.
Me: Holy shit! *I Look at his name tag again: Josh* Josh Webster! Wtf!

Talk about out of the blue. Josh was a friend of Mike's. He'd come by ours or we'd go to his house for beers or to watch Mike and him play music. He used to have long hair but it's now short and he's got a goatee which sort of explains why I didn't recognize him. We ended up grabbing sushi later in flagstaff and got to meet his new girlfriend. She's a sweetheart, and Josh told us about how he's been working with another guy rapping. He's all about the look too. Had diamond earrings and a bad ass watch. I've gotta dig up the picture of it. Blingin doesn't even begin to describe it!

Outside work
I got a cat! Her name is Chewy and she's a six month old torti that I rescued from PAWS. She's very people friendly and purrs like a refrigerator if you pet her. One of my favorite things to do is chase her, or have her chase me, around the apartment. I rarely lower the shades so I can only imagine what this looks like to the neighbors. Yes, I'm turning into the crazy cat guy....

Volleyball. I still play every thursday night. Putting together a couple teams to play on the beach this summer.

Softball. I think the same group as last year is going to play again this summer. Hopefully I won't get taken out again by a burly catcher..... =)

Miss my mom. There. I said it.

It's saturday night. Shouldn't you be out?
Most (maybe all?) of my friends have a girl(boy)friend, fiance, wife, husband, or some kind of significant other. Tonight was date night so I'm at home with my date, chewy. Been chasing her around and she's got this new game where she likes to box me with her paws. Ugh! I am so THAT guy....

Geek speak (Trojans)

2006-11-24T23:12:00.000-06:00

I hate trojans just like everyone else but I'm impressed with the creative ways people come up with to hijack a PC. Tonight I zapped one off my PC that took on the name svchost.exe. It used a directory called !submit to send passwords and other information about my system over the internet through a background running program. Nothing too exciting there, but I'm impressed that it protected itself by disabling the Windows Task Manager. This made it extremely hard to tell if I had a trojan running. In fact, I never would have known that I was hit if it wasn't for the !submit directory. Good show you piece of shit hackers.

Other impressive trojans I've caught:

- Mapped google.com to a different web address that looked exactly like google, but prevented any searches about the trojan running.

- Ran two processes and anytime you deleted one, the other would re-start the killed process.

- Renamed itself to a different random process name on startup.

- And the best I've ever seen, VX2. Some how the creator figured out a loop hole in Windows XP that allowed his program to load as a system level process. It used to be, and might still be, a huge pain in the ass to kill a system level process in Windows XP. If I ever meet you, Mr. VX2 creator, I'm applauding you and then punching you in the groin. You fucking costing me an entire weekend.

I hate chaches

2006-11-18T22:35:00.000-06:00

I hate people who use sports as a means for violence. Earlier today I was in a bar fight.

It's a Michigan tradition to play a cowbell to show your support for the team and a guy at our table brought the bell. Every touchdown he played the bell, but as the night wore on the Ohio State fans got more and more agitated by this. It started with menacing chants of "where's the cowbell" after every big OSU play. Later it escalated to snippy comments as they walked past our table. And on a late touchdown by umich all hell broke lose. My friend went to play the bell as he had done previously when a grinning OSU fan darted for him. The fan grabbed his bell, knocked him in the face, and then tried to run off with it. I shoot up after the stolen instrument, grabbed it, and got pulled over the booth and into the center of the OSU fan's screaming posse. I get to my feet and am immediately shoved into a table behind us. Like an old country movie, the table goes flying into the air as I landed on top of it. I tried to prevent the fall, but consequently lost control of the instrument. Inspecting the damage, we noticed that my friends glasses were ripped in half and he's slightly cut up. I'm ok and am now listening to the OSU fans chant "Where's your cowbell? and Where's your glasses?" We eventually find the other half of his glasses and engineer a way to keep them together. The neanderthals continue their tackless mocking for the rest of the game.

It's not just OSU fans either. Michigan fans have their share of suckiness too. I'm leaving the bar with my dad and heading to the car when a huge Michigan fan comes shooting past us screaming "I'm so pissed, I just want to beat the crap out of someone OSU affiliated." He finds three petrified high-school aged OSU fans in a 7-11 parking lot. The four of them begin arguing and pushing each other. I head for the car. My faith in humanity is lost. Fight over something worthwhile, not over a stupid fucking sport.

Brief update

2006-11-16T01:56:00.000-06:00

I understand that it's been a while. A brief update.

Work
Most of my work is out of New York right now. The development takes place in Chicago but the end users are out of NYC. I've had to take a couple of trips out there to discuss projects with them, and these trips have completely opened my eyes. Chicago feels way behind in terms of where it could be as a major city. New York has a better public transportation system, their neighborhoods aren't horribly segregated, and they banned public indoor smoking which is a law I strongly support. Not to mention they have things open all hours of the day for the nighthawk in me. Perhaps a move is needed.

Travel
I toured the south central with Han's brother. We hit up Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans. Got to see Kami, meet some European travelers, and hear some first hand accounts of how Katrina really effected New Orleans.

Despite my protests, I went apple picking in MI with the invincible sword goddess. And you know what? I actually kind of enjoyed it.

Going skiing January 3rd in Vail.

Outside work
I've been on a quest to collect more "1020" like people. People that are hard working, determined, giving, and aren't primarily focused on accumulating as much money as humanly possible. I've been amazed as to what I have found. Had no idea how cool a composer, an opera singer, a recycled dress maker, etc. could be.

Speaking of opera. I saw my first, Il Trovatore, last Tuesday.

My sister now lives in the city. Her friends live in a building two down from mine and she's moved into the same one as them. How's that for random? In a huge city full of places to live, her friends and her pick a spot right down the street from me. Weird.

Random
I've listened to the song "Mad World" by Gary Jules on loop for the last two and half hours (not exaggerating). I know, I'm obsessed. (that commercial featuring the song rocks btw)

My 2nd mother

2006-11-16T00:48:00.000-06:00

She's dying. I know it, you know it, we all know it.

Man Law #-368.14159

2006-07-23T23:49:00.000-05:00

On weekends. Unless it is an emergency, do not call before 10am after a night of heavy drinking.

The more you know....

2006-07-23T21:34:00.000-05:00

I attended three different house parties on Saturday, and did something that I didn't previously think was possible.

My friend Steve and I had downed numerous beers and shots (both in liquid and gelatin forms) and we were winding down the evening with a final shot of Malibu rum. I took the shot, and immediately felt my body pressing the “reset button.” A mad dash to the bathroom ensued. A few moments of wheezing, some spitting, and a few gags, and the moment of truth had finally arrived. Although this time it didn’t come flying out my mouth, it came flying out of my nose! It was a liquid steady stream of Malibu rum, and it tasted just as good going out, as it did going in.

I'm a home owner

2006-06-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

I'm officially a grown up. Last month I bought a condo and now have a mortgage, home owners assessments, and property taxes to pay out.

I ended up buying my dream pad though. It took about 3-4 months of searching but I finally found my two bed/two bath high rise with a killer view. The unit has been completely rehabbed, meaning it has hardwood floors throughout, remodeled kitchen and bathroom, and all new appliances. It also has a rooftop deck and pool, a doorman, an on-site dry cleaners, and unlike my last place, a working kitchen sink with hot water! Best of all though is the view. It overlooks both the skyline and the lake. During the day you can see all the sailboats out on Lake Michigan, and at night you can watch the fireworks over Navy Pier.

I'm pretty excited about this place, even threw a pool party to sort of christen the pad. I'm still in the process of moving but have just about settled in. Everything from my old place has been moved over, but I decided to amplify the bachelor pad theme and have traded my dinning room table in for a foosball table. I also have to fix some minor issues with the place (I swear I'm at Home Depot at least once a weekend these days) but as soon as everything gets sorted out I'll attach some pictures.

Who is your daddy? And what does he do?

2006-04-06T00:42:00.000-05:00

I got another "what are you up" to IM, so I guess it's time for my annual(semi-annual?) review on what I've been up to.

Where do you live?
I still live in Chicago and reside in the Lincoln Park/Lakeview area. I'm currently searching for a condo either around here or the Goldcoast area, but after months of searching all I've found are either complete dumps or places that rival the cost of my parent’s home.

What do you do?
The life of the video game programmer has come and gone. I finished two games before I switched jobs. The first game I worked on was called Zathura (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, PC) which is an action, platform kiddie game. The story is pretty much Jumanji in space but it got decent ratings.

The other game I worked on was 50 cent: Bulletproof (PSP), which is a soon to be released action/role playing game. The game has the player play as 50 and your goal is to take back New York from the gangs and terrorists with the help of Dr. Dre, Eminem, and the G-unit crew. The PS2/Xbox version is currently on the market and has sold over a million copies. This version was released by a different company but we did a lot of work with them, so hopefully the PSP version will be as big of a success.

Video game programming though is in the past now. Last December I switched over to doing Commodities Trading Software. I work for a firm that's located right in the heart of downtown. I no longer have to deal with the three hours of commuting, which is a huge bonus, plus the place has lot of kids my age and cool projects that I enjoy working on.

What do you do outside of work?
Every Wednesday is Yoga at work. My company hired a yoga instructor to get our chi in check and has a free class offered from 4:30 - 5:30.

I'm also taking an options trading course. Every Tuesday I take a two hour course that goes over the different exchange's terminologies, rules, and how to evaluate what contracts traded are good buy/sell(s) based on their market conditions.

I also play basketball every Monday night, ping pong daily, and am either out and about downtown or looking at condos on the weekends.

Do you still travel a lot?
Not as much as before. I've noticed that I don't need to travel as much when I live in a city that offers as much as Chicago does. Food, theater, sports, bars, clubs, pretty much everything I enjoy doing Chicago offers.

I still like getting away every once and while though, so here's where I've been or am planning on going to shortly

Boulder, CO. (Visited Easy-E and skied the rockies with him)

Montreal (The Invincible Sword Goddess has a conference there at the end of April, so I'm going to attend part of it and check out the city)

Ann Arbor (Does this even count? I usually go there around once month)

When are you going to settle down, find a nice girl, and get married?
The typical family reunion question. Usually followed by a wink and a nudge. Does every family do this? What happends once you're married? Do they start badgering you about kids next? Crap, I bet they do. Please Terry Tate me if I ever ask a question like this when I get old.

I thought you wanted to live in New York?
New York City is $1000 a square foot. One thousand dollars! In comparison, Chicago's around $250-350 a square foot. In my opinion, this city has just as much stuff to do, is cleaner, and I don't have to worry about any terrorist problems. In other words, I'm not moving to NYC anytime soon.

Signs of the Apocalypse

2006-04-02T00:00:00.000-06:00

Just had the following conversation with my friend Nicole:

Nicole: It's Saturday night! Why aren't you coming out?
Me: Kingdom Hearts 2 just came out!
Nicole: Kingdom Hearts? A video game?!?! I'm with five gorgeous girls and you're telling me you'd rather stay home and interact with the TV than come out and be social with us?
Me: Yep.
[click]

Damn I'm a dork.

IROC

2006-03-08T00:00:00.000-06:00

As of today, I’ve gone 83 days without a haircut. Chicks dig the mullet.

Today I was THAT guy

2006-01-10T12:52:00.000-06:00

While coming back to the office from lunch I decided that I was too good to walk up the stairs, and instead decided to jump from the ground to the wheel chair platform. (about a 3 ft. high jump) Everything went as planned. I took two giant strides, jumped, but only one of my feet cleared the platform. Down on my knees and then face I go. Slowly I got into a crouching position and inspected the damage: the lunch I just bought was smashed, my jeans were torn, and my right knee and wrist was bleeding profusely. Everyone around me has also now stopped dead in their tracks staring at me in disbelief. Hoping to convince them that I meant to do that, I screamed out a “Yes!” while pumping my fist. Sadly, I fooled no one, so I stood up, bowed my head, and started doing the true walk of shame at an extremely fast pace as I prayed that nobody I know just saw that.

Go Sox!

2005-10-24T22:20:00.000-05:00

I went and "found" all of the White Sox's theme songs tonight. I was listening to them on my iPOD, jamming away to AC/DC's Thunderstruck, when suddenly it dawned on me: I've become my father.

2005 Fantasy Baseball Champion: Me

2005-10-24T22:12:00.000-05:00

Oh snap! I forgot to post this earlier. I won my fantasy baseball league this year! Now if only I had a trophy, some money, or something besides this screenshot to show off for all the work I put into this.

Fire up It's Saturday

2005-09-20T00:26:00.000-05:00

I’ve never met a bigger Michigan football fan than my dad. The minute I moved back to Chicago he insisted that we buy seasons tickets to Michigan football. Meaning every Saturday this fall he wakes me up around 5:30am, goes out and decorates his car with the Michigan magnets and flags, and loads up the tailgate gear for another weekend of traveling to see the Maize and Blue.

With the Michigan fight song on loop he’ll smile with glee rattling off some random stats along the way. Who plays better against the run, what the opposing team’s strengths are, etc. He even knows all the latest gossip about them and their opponents too. Did you know that Jeff Smoker sold crack? How about that Garret Rivas burned down his house over the summer lighting off firecrackers?

Where does he get this stuff? The media. Every night my dad spends hours reading and posting on Michigan football internet boards, and then falls asleep to the sports talk radio blaring. The next morning he'll either wake up and watch College Gameday or last weeks game on TiVo. It doesn’t matter if he’s seen either of these already multiple times. He’s convinced that he’ll find something new every time he sees it.

He also plays the two schools he’s about to see on NCAA football the night before. And by play I mean he has the computer play each other as he watches the game. It’s actually quite amusing watching him do this, because he treats it like a real game. He’ll stomp his feet when Michigan makes a turnover, or curse at the refs when he feels they made a bad call.

The thing that flusters my dad the most though is if I have prior engagements that gets in the way of his football schedule. He was not happy when I told him that I had to miss the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game this year in order to be the best man in a wedding. His response was, “Don’t they realize that’s the weekend of Michigan vs. Notre Dame? How could they schedule a wedding then? If you decline I’m sure they’ll understand.” He analyzed this for days on end too. “Let’s see the wedding is on Friday. Maybe if you high tailed it out of Northern Michigan after the reception you could make on time?”

Sadly he ended up scheduling himself for work that weekend after he finally came to terms that I couldn't go. He did end up finding some use for our tickets though. He ended up trading them to our neighbors in exchange for tickets to next years game at Notre Dame.

Let’s just hope I can go.

As for this year, here’s his current football schedule planned for us. Any away games he plans on scalping tickets the day of.

Sept. 24 Michigan at Wisconsin

Oct. 1^st Michigan at Michigan State *watch at Duffys, MI bar in Chicago
Side Note: He hates going to Lansing. I guess the MSU students razzed him a bit too much last time we were out there

Oct. 8^th Michigan vs. Minnesota

Oct. 15^th Michigan vs. Penn State

Oct. 22^nd Michigan at Iowa

Oct. 29^th Michigan at Northwestern

Nov. 5^th He plans on going to Indiana to watch either Purdue, ND, or Indiana play that weekend

Nov. 12th Michigan vs. Indiana

Nov. 19^th Michigan vs. Ohio State

If you’re in the area for any of these games give me a call. My dad purchased an oversized party tent, collapsible picnic table, and dualing weber grills in preparation for his weekly “tailgate party to end all tailgates.” He’ll have tons of bud light, his favorite beer, and plenty of brats to go around. You’ll even make his year if you can tell him something about Michigan football that he doesn’t already know. Last week somebody mentioned a 4^th string quarterback that he’s never heard of. He’s been talking about him ever since.

Common questions

2005-07-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I get a "what are you up" to IM. Many of you ask me the same questions which means I’m not doing a good job of staying in touch. Maybe this will help.

Where do you live?
I moved back to Chicago. For those of you keeping track at home, this marks the 4^th city I’ve lived in the last two years. This one looks like a keeper though. Chicago is awesome. Tons of stuff to do, plenty of restaurants and bars, and I can watch all my favorite sports teams for free on TV. Only complaint is the girls. It wouldn’t kill them to run a little more, and cut back on the deep dish pizza.

What do you do?
I work as a programmer in the video game industry. In the last few months I’ve worked on two games that will hit stores shortly.

My first game titled Zathura comes out in October. It's a kids platform jumper based on the movie that comes out around the same time.

The second game I'm working on comes out mid-2006. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to talk about it since the game is still in the R&D phase but it looks awesome. I highly recommend giving it a play when it comes out. I’ll add more information about this as soon as they allow me to divulge the details.

What do you do outside of work?
I go to the bars. A lot. You can find me at Duffys for $2.50 imports, the Apartment to see the Lincoln Park trixies, and anywhere else the Chicago crowd wants to take me.

I also play basketball Monday and Thursday nights, and tennis whenever anybody is up for it.

Family stuff also takes up a pretty good chunk of my time now that I live near the majority of my immediate and extended family again.

And then there's fantasy baseball. I finally got serious about it again this year. After failing to do the draft or managing my team for the first 6 weeks, I've gotten the boys up to 3rd place. My goal this year is to take home the championship, and slowly but steadily this starting to happen.

Do you still travel a lot?
Of course! So far this year I've visited the following places:

Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Okayama, Kyoto, Hiroshima… and everywhere else where there were little to no whities)

Florida (Marco Island, more blue hairs then you shake a stick at)

Cedar Point Amusement Park (home of the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world)

Philadelphia, PA (the Liberty Bell is overrated, the cheese steak is not)

Dating anyone?
Usually I just ignore this question because nothing good ever seems to come out of it. I'm feeling candid tonight though so here you go.

Currently I date Alina. Here's a picture of her. She's studying to be my meal ticket.

Are you getting married anytime soon?
No.

When are you going to grad school?
As soon as you are willing to fork over the money to pay for it.

I thought you wanted to live in New York?
Chicago’s cleaner and way more reasonable…. at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Someday I’d like to rock the east coast. When that’ll be? I don’t know.

Gringo: A disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially an American or English person

2005-07-17T11:11:00.000-05:00

In my opinion, everyone has a piece of their day where they encountered something that could be considered comical or out of the ordinary. Yesterday that something was Chi-town’s gringo pizza.

Some background on this. The gringo pizza is a currently non-advertised item at the Chi-town pizza parlor in Chicago, IL. Deemed by locals as one of the spiciest in the world, it features a fiery mix of four different types of habanero peppers. Topping at around a 200-300K scollville heat unit rating, the pizza registers 4-6 times as hot as Tabasco sauce.

All of that meant nothing to me though. I’ve eaten some of the best of the best. Dave’s insanity, Indian curry, the extra-hot at a Mexican burrito joint, all had with little or no problems, so on Friday night I decided to try the Diablo pizza. One bite and that was more than enough. None of these prior experiences could have prepared me for what I was about to incur.

It literally felt like someone had lighted a match under my tongue, kicked me in the balls, and ran. All I could do was pace back and forth withering in pain. The owner, laughing like the jack ass he is for creating this contraption, offered me a tall glass of ice water. It did nothing. Eating the crust helped, but only momentarily suspended the pain. It was pure hell and only seemed to intensify. For about 15-20 minutes the throbbing continued. Rotating back and forth between my mouth and my stomach, my whole body began to feel like this things punching bag.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it either. Round 2 began the next morning. The familiar feeling of my stomach being pummeled erupted every 20-30 minutes, and I had to repeatedly stop whatever I was doing so that I could singe off another ass hair.

After all this the “wifey,” asked “Was it really worth going through all that?” And in my opinion of course it was. Not many people can say that they braved the spiciest pizza in the world. Sure at one point or another it felt like the thing was trying smoke a combination of either my mouth, ass, or stomach, but I finally think I found my spice limit. For some it’s crushed red pepper, others it’s a whole jalapeno, for me it’s the gringo pizza.

Another blog?

2005-07-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

My daily life is important, funny, and worth sharing. You are all going to hear me bitch and leave comments to help soothe my pain. My boyfriend’s an ass and I can’t belie… Sound familiar? Another day, another blogger is born. Cliché if this is but I promise this will be different. No bitching, no gossip, just my life presented in a humorous tone is what this all about.