December 31, 2004
Into 2005 [updated]
Dawnise and I offer our best wishes for the coming year - may it find you, and leave you, healthy, happy, and safe.
Slainte.
While you revel, remember.
Posted by dberger at 7:51 AM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2004
House update - small steps
The other day we got an envelope from the escrow company handling the sale of the Sprig house. It contained a check for the most money I've ever seen in one place in my life. Thing was, it just looked like a check. In talking to a friend at lunch today, we decided that checks for that much money should be physically large - the sort that Ed McMahon delivers to the one lucky bastard out of the millions who get suckered into buying magazines from Publishers Clearinghouse.
Anyway, so we got the check, and I did a bit of math - we got a 220% return on our investment in that house over seven years - and that doesn't even take into account the tax break it gave us. We got lucky - we got in before the run up, and sold high. Guess that's how you're supposed to play the game...
Also on the housing front, we reached mutual acceptance with the builder/seller of "our" house today (now that we have a signed contract, I guess it's OK to call it ours). So now we get all the documentation, give it to a real estate attorney, and see if we should run screaming for the hills. (Fingers crossed.)
Continue reading "House update - small steps"
Posted by dberger at 10:31 PM | Comments (3)
December 29, 2004
Hackers and Painters
Hrm, something about the title of the book and the name of this entry's category doesn't quite fit...
Oh well.
I finished Hackers and Painters today - Paul Graham's book of collected essays on software and life in general. It has some gems in it, but overall I wasn't terribly impressed.
In spots it reeked of someone drawing conclusions from a sample size of one (all projects/products/web applications are just like Viaweb). Oh, and I don't know how he could have plugged lisp as the end-all-be-all programming language one more time... In the interest of full disclosure - I've tried picking up lisp a few times, but I've never really "gotten it" - so clearly this sentiment is all sour grapes.
Don't get me wrong - some of the essays (mostly the ones that don't wax naively about how "in the future web software will eliminate the need for a well-defined software life-cycle) were really good, but overall, the book left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
Bookpool is selling the hardcover for $13 - which I'd say it's worth.
Posted by dberger at 9:52 PM | Comments (0)
Saved
Got Saved from NetFlix today - it was cute. Not nearly as bitingly satiric as I'd hoped (the Christfest episode of South Park wins hands down) but it had some cute lines. Oh, and Macaulay Culkin didn't suck - which was a pleasant surprise.
Posted by dberger at 9:48 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2004
Twenty three thousand people... [updated, again]
For anyone living under a rock, a whole lot of people aren't coming home in various parts of Asia hit by a Tsunami caused by a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.
The US has pledged $15 million, with an "M", dollars in immediate aid - which is about what we spend every hour and fifteen minutes fighting the war in Iraq.
Aren't we humanitarian.
I've been thinking all day about what I do, for a living. It's not terribly relevant in the face of human catastrophies like this. Makes me pretty introspective about life in general - how we spend it, and what we spend it in pursut of.
I guess the best I can do is, as my lovely better half puts it, "strive to be the person your dog thinks you are."
As of this morning's news, the death toll is estimated at 44,000. The US has been chastized by Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian aid chief, for being "stingy" and has said it expects to follow up the initial aid with "billions more dollars."
Fourty-four thousand people. I have trouble getting a handle on numbers that size - sometimes comparisons help. Fourty-four thousand people is the entire population of Palm Springs, or San Louis Obispo, CA
The death toll, as of the 29th, is at 80,000 - that's the entire population of the city of Newport Beach, or Buena Park, CA. It's more than the entire population of Chino Hills, CA - where Dawnise and I lived until recently. It's every second person in the cities of Orange, or Corona, CA.
I'm having a very hard time wrapping my head around the scale of the human loss...
Lots of organizations are collecting donations on behalf of The Red Cross and other disaster relief groups. Do the right thing.
Posted by dberger at 9:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2004
Christmas in Seattle
Christmas is a big deal for Dawnise - we usually spend it with her family, eating too much, giving each other things we don't need, and generally having a good time.
Being that I've recently started a new job, and don't have much of any vacation accrued, we realized that if we went down to CA I'd only be able to stay the weekend, and tickets for the two of us were going to cost around $800. I left the decision to Dawnise - and she decided we'd stay in Seattle and do Christmas "on our own." It was a tough decision for her - and until this morning neither of us were really sure what that meant.
We spent yesterday morning doing house related stuff - drove around the peninsula (over the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge) and met the builder of the house we're trying to buy. He was kind enough to offer us the chance to have input on finishing touches - granite, tile, carpet, paint and the like - even though we don't yet have a signed contract. After meeting with him we wandered over to Home Depot to review the budgeted lighting items - choosing upgrades pretty much everywhere. It's amazing how much difference a few dollars a light makes. We have to make a pretty fundamental decision - if we're putting the pool table in the dining room, we need to choose a pool-table sort of lamp for that room, not a dining room chandileer. Decisions, decisions... The rest of the suppliers, for things like appliances and carpet were closed for Christmas Eve, so we'll have to deal with them later.
We came home and cooked a traditional Christmas dinner for two - turkey, stuffing, etc. etc. Dinner was around 7 - everything came out really well, had a very non-traditional desert; a dark chocolate mouse cake and sorbet.
We woke up this morning around 7, unwrapped stuff, and as I type Dawnise is talking to Geoff, Kathye and the kids - teary, but very happy to hear from some good friends. (We miss you guys.)
Shortly we'll be leaving for Scott & Amanda's in Vancouver for the remainder of the weekend - looking forward to seeing them (and Zoe, of course).
So Christmas on our own turned out ok. Given the chance, we'll probably spend it with family and friends next year.
Hope everyone had a good Christmas - and best wishes for a happy, safe, and prosperous new year.
Posted by dberger at 9:37 AM | Comments (3)
December 23, 2004
Done and done...
Just got a call from our Realtor in CA - escrow closed today, the house is sold. So as of today, we no longer own a house; anywhere. Feels kinda strange. I'm on the phone with the utilities turning off service as I type.
That sound from the north was me taking a deep breath...
Posted by dberger at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)
Quote of the Day; Thursday December 23, 2004
'I'm always trying to look for bullshit in what I believe. But you can only do so much yourself. You need other people that are going to beat you up on your beliefs. We may do a show on libertarianism. We'd say that this is something that we really believe, and what does it look like when we attack one of our most cherished beliefs? It's hard to get a real science take on it - something that you could test.
I get that feeling that maybe I endorse some stuff that doesn't make sense, and I'd like someone to beat me up about that a little more. I have a certain kind of peacenik default in all my interactions. If you ask me, "Should we have been in World War II?," I instantly say no. World War I, certainly no. Vietnam, certainly no. Iraq, no. I really seem to think that the answer to everything is peace, and I'm not sure I can support that. I have this weird kind of feeling that if I knew enough, maybe peace isn't always the answer.'
-- Penn Jillette
ReasonOnline, "Love and Memory and Humanity"
Posted by dberger at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2004
When is Close Enough Good Enough?
Just got off the phone with our Realtor in CA. He called to say that escrow called to say that the buyers lender called to say that they (the lender) funded the loan.
So as long as the funds transfer reaches the title company today, escrow on the house in CA will close tomorrow, and it will officially be someone elses house.
Can I stop holding my breath now?
Posted by dberger at 3:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2004
Eight Years, But Who's Counting?
Today Dawnise and I celebrate our eighth anniversary. Hard to believe that eight years ago today we were standing, sheltered from the rain in a tree hollowed out by a lighting strike, in Muir Woods exchanging vows. After getting well and thoroughly drenched, we got changed out of our garb (did I mention we were in garb?) and went to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant in the city - great food, great company, and a belly dancer. Hard to go wrong there.
Tonight we went to il Bistro - a nice Italian place in Pikes Place Market. The atmosphere was intimate and relaxed, and the food was very good. I didn't have much of anything to give as a gift, as any time I haven't spent at work we've spent together (makes it hard to shop for someone), which made me feel even worse when Dawnise gave me the latest fountain pen to join my collection this morning.
It's a one of a kind, made by hand by a local pen maker here in Seattle - it's a wooden body, made of Tulipwood from Brazil. Apparently they can't harvest this particular wood from a live tree - it has to fall on it's own. A beautiful addition to the growing pen collection.
Thanks, beautiful -- for everything.
Posted by dberger at 10:26 PM | Comments (1)
Quote of the Day; Tuesday December 21, 2004
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work."
- James Randi
Posted by dberger at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
Think Different, As Long as it's Like Us...
There's no shortage of articles attacking OS X (even Tog has weighed in), and I debated bothering to post this, but I've had this conversation too many times, with too many different people, so in the hopes that it prevents me from having to rehash it yet again, here goes...
I'm not a Mac person, in general. I've used previous versions of System on occasion, and always came away thinking "build a system any idiot can use, and only idiots will use it..."
When I joined Real I did an exhaustive search for a notebook that could compete with the 15" Powerbook in terms of power/form factor. It wasn't really surprising that I came up short - oh, and the "we only buy Dell" restriction sorta clinched it. (As an aside - I've got nothing against Dell in general, but their notebook designs are bimodal - either light and useless executive models, or big stompy machines that give you a permanent lean from carrying them on your shoulder.)
Anyway - OS X was getting generally positive reviews, and being built in large part on NeXTStep (which I really liked) I figured I couldn't go terribly wrong. So I took the plunge - and convinced Real to buy a 15" powerbook. After using it for a couple months, I've concluded that I wouldn't do it again.
Continue reading "Think Different, As Long as it's Like Us..."
Posted by dberger at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2004
The Plot Thickens..
The ink had barely dried on the previous entry when I got the email from our Relator with the comps for the two top contenders from today's viewings.
One of the comp reports listed another house, that for some reason didn't come up in our search - very close to one of the ones we liked from today but new construction, more square footage, less expensive, and on more land. The only wrinkle is it's not finished yet.
The MLS has pictures of the plans, but they're not really big enough to make heads or tails out of.
Jonathan's going to try to track down some additional info - like when it's scheduled for completion, legible versions of the blueprints, etc. etc. etc.
I feel like my head's going to explode...
Posted by dberger at 7:02 PM | Comments (0)
House Hunting, the Revenge...
Well, we went back to Bainbridge Island with our Realtor this afternoon - caught the 12:20 ferry over with a plan to see 7 properties. The idea was that unless we saw something "amazing" we'd probably go after one of the two we found yesterday on the mainland...
The first house was nothing special - older, a bit smaller, needed some TLC - but fairly inexpensive, so we'd have the money left over to pour some into it.
The next house was, well, amazing. It's great - it's in our price range, and we saw no fewer than three other Realtors doing showings (no, not all at the same time). I suspect it's going to go for at least asking price. We'll likely put in an offer, but I'm not interested in a bidding war. It's relatively close (2.5 miles) to the ferry, on a small lot but backed up to a wooded area, nice layout, great kitchen, and only 2 years old (new is nice).
I didn't think we could top that one - but it was close. All in all, of the 7 properties we saw today, 5 of them were serious contenders. All of them were nicer than we'd seen on the mainland.
Which means we're back to pulling our hair out (and speaking in the royal we) over the idea of living on the island...
Posted by dberger at 6:10 PM | Comments (0)
Canada Goes to Hell...
A friend who recently moved to Vancouver to work for EA (yes, he's slightly crazy, but he's also in management and you may have noticed there've been no articles ranting about how management works insane hours...) sent this SFGate article out - and I had to share.
Posted by dberger at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
Books that make you go "hrm."
I picked up a copy of the O'Reilly Eclipse book. I've been toying with Eclipse for about a year and a half, and I've always felt like there was power hiding just under the surface of the functionality I've used. Watching Stu (a co-worker) use Eclipse reminds me how little code I get to write these days.
Anyway, back to the book, I have to give it a 3 out of 5 stars. It tried to cover a lot of ground, and was a useful overview of using Eclipse with various technologies (Ant, Struts, Tomcat, etc.). Unfortunately it could have covered more useful ground if it had been consistent in it's assumptions that the reader was versed in the non-Eclipse technologies and hadn't spent pages showing how to construct a JSP, or tweak a servlet deployment descriptor.
As an introductory overview it's pretty good, but if you've been using Eclipse for any length of time, I don't know that you'll find to much terribly new and interesting.
Posted by dberger at 9:58 AM | Comments (0)
House hunting update (it still sucks)...
We spent yesterday afternoon with our Realtor, a buyers agent named Jonathan with Homebility, very nice guy, very professional, and very patient, highly recommended. Saw a half dozen properties - most on the north side of Seattle, one in Newcastle that Dawnise had seen and liked enough to warrant a return with me.
Out of those, there are two candidates. The one in Newcastle is over-priced by about $30k based on the neighborhood comps, so if we put in an offer, I don't hold out much hope it'll be accepted. Their agent provided a house or two that she used as comps in setting pricing - and they're not in the same league (or even in the same area, which is odd). It's a nice house - very similar to the house we tried to buy twice on Bainbridge Island. While the lot is large, it's all slope in the back, so it's not really usable space, which is probably the only strike against it.
The one in the north end was a bit smaller, with a smaller lot, but we liked it. The more we think about it, though, the smaller it feels. It might just be our memories playing tricks on us, but while there we were commenting on the fact that none of the common rooms looked big enough for the pool table. It would need some renovation to the kitchen, and some minor repairs to the hardwood floors in the entry way. I'd probably want to re-work the back yard a bit as well - they have a lot of decking, and two above ground spas (one that's large enough to be a pool for kids) that really suck up the space.
This afternoon we're heading back over to Bainbridge Island for a last hurrah - looking at all the available houses there so we can ultimately make a decision (island or mainland, ferry or car, visitation or isolation...) and (hopefully) submit an offer on Monday.
I did an informal survey of folks who we'd be likely to invite to social soirees, asking how likely they would be to attend gatherings on the island vs. on the east side. The ferry seems a fairly significant deterrent - only one person responded that they'd be more likely to attend a party on the island ('cause they live there), one person said the chances were even, and the rest said they'd be less, or significantly less, likely to attend on Bainbridge.
Grumble, grumble.
Dawnise just looked out the window and it's started to rain. Rain, in Seattle in December... I'm shocked. Shocked I say.
Posted by dberger at 9:22 AM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
Once More with Hobbits
I've started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently on DVD. Ok, most people know that I'm a hopeless Firefly fanboy, but I'd never really gotten into Buffy much. I saw the musical episode - One More, With Feeling, and loved it. Today, while looking for something totally unrelated to anything, I stumbled on Once More, With Hobbits and just had to share.
Go, read, laugh - try not to snort coffee through your nose.
Posted by dberger at 5:54 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2004
Comments From the Peanut Gallery
Woah - someone's actually reading this. Not only that, they apparently tried to post a comment and couldn't ('cause I had comments turned off).
So I've turned on comments. I dunno that I'll say anything worth commenting about - and if it gets out of hand I'll likely turn it back off, but for the moment - comment away!
Oh, and Movable Type (which is quickly joining a short list of software that "just works") provides a RDF/RSS syndication feed (look on the lower right side of the front page) - so if you use an RSS news reader, or use a service like Live Journal or My Yahoo! that will let you add news feeds, that might be a good way to keep up without having to check back on the site to see updates.
Posted by dberger at 4:53 PM | Comments (2)
December 13, 2004
House Hunting Sucks...
Just before we left CA (the morning we had to catch our flight) our house went into Escrow. We met our CA realtor before heading to the airport and signed escrow docs. We got here, dropped our stuff in our apartment and met with our WA realtor to prep an offer on a house we'd seen during a house-hunting trip.
The sellers hadn't even gotten the offer paperwork when our CA realtor called to say that the buyers got cold feet and used the inspection contingency to get out of the deal. Our offer, contingent on that sale, fell apart.
Talk about rain on the parade.
So we decided to put the WA house hunt on hold 'till the house in CA was solidly in escrow - all major contingencies signed off. Barring any last minute catastrophies, the sale in CA should close late this week or early next. (...fingers crossed...)
Continue reading "House Hunting Sucks..."
Posted by dberger at 9:19 PM | Comments (0)
All Work and No Play Cures Insomnia...
On the advice of a co-worker, I picked up and read Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, by Glass. It was a good book - written by an old software curmudgeon who's seen it all - several times. Makes me want some of my other books out of storage. 's been a long time since I've read Peopleware - and it's time for a refresher.
Also grabbed Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky. I'd read his blog on and off over the years - he was one of the first people I found who agreed with my fundamental dislike of the "let's re-write it" approach. The book (a collection of his columns) was a good read; occasionally Windows/thick client centric, but usually broadly applicable. If you've never read his rants, wander over to his site and sample a column or two.
Posted by dberger at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2004
What's this "6th floor" business?
The short answer is that for just under the past month, Dawnise and I (and the cats) have been living in an one-bedroom apartment on the south east corner of the 6th floor of the south east tower of the Harbor Steps - a relatively upscale apartment building in downtown Seattle. We can just see the waterfront from the bedroom window, and the living room has windows all along the east-facing wall, with a view into the city. We're not really high enough to get a great panorama.
My walk to work is about 15 minutes, along the water, through Pikes Place Market. It's almost surreal - watching the grocers and fish-mongers setting up in the morning - seems like something out of a movie. We have one of the cars with us - and take it out occasionally (mostly for trips to the local Costco, and yesterday for a jaunt to Archie McPhee's), but most everything we need is in walking distance.
I've never been a "city person"; always lived in the suburbs, figured that driving was pretty much built-in to getting anywhere. I've spent enough time in NY to have had a taste of city life, and it never really appealed to me. Which is why it was completely unexpected when I realized that when we ultimately buy a house up here (more on that later) I'll miss living down-town.
Posted by dberger at 9:56 AM | Comments (1)
[tap, tap] 's this thing on?
I had a strange experience the other day - I finally "got" LiveJournal. I had always thought of LiveJournal (and blogging in general) as the most egregious example of sharing your proverbial vacation photos with an uninterested world.
A year or so back, Titus tried to explain the value of LJ to me: how he and his classmates at Mudd had been inseparably close until graduation and then scattered to the wind, and that using LJ was a tool to keep in touch, after a fashion.
Time passes, and in the middle of October, Dawnise and I move to Seattle. The other day, I wanted to feel connected to friends in Southern California. And blogging made sense.
I tried signing up for Live Journal - and their registration insisted that all my proposed passwords were based on reversed dictionary words (which they aren't - not even remotely) and I gave up after three attempts. Instead, I grabbed Movable Type and installed it on the webserver that hosts my domain. I'm not sure how often I'll post here, but for whatever it's worth, I have a blog...
Posted by dberger at 9:06 AM | Comments (0)