sean's place

Back Home…

It’s wet, windy, and alltogether not so unpleasant. I like rain in moderate amounts, and it’s nice to see the ground wet a bit. Makes for rather, ahem, interesting driving – to say the least.

I got back on Monday night after dropping Goat off in Folsom, and rather prompty started laundry then feel asleep. I left from SLO around 13:40 during a non-rain period (it had been raining earlier that morning). With my sights set on Prunedale. After dropping Lisa off and spending a rather pleasant few hours with her family, Goat and I set off for Sacramento. We took a route suggested by Lisa’s mom; 101N to 156E toward San Juan Bautista then to 152E to Los Banos to rendez-vous avec 5N toward Sacramento. This route avoided the toll-bridge in the Bay Area and San Jose (infamous!) traffic. Even though it had been raining all over the state that day, it was more miss than hit as far as rain was concerned on the drive back. I fully approve of rainlessness while driving, despite my earlier comments.

I got Myles’ christmas gift a bit unexpectedly when I arrived. I had no idea what was in a mysterious box addressed to me so I figured I’d open it. Sure enough, it was a RoadTools Podium CoolPad. Oops! Sorry Myles, if I had known, I’d have put it under the tree. However, despite the early-opening, it didn’t quite dimish the surprise. The Pad is cooler than I imagined and I can’t imagine living without one now. It props up my laptop so the screen is at a natural height for my eyes and the keyboard arced (a bit interesting to get used to) so as to great a “more natural” typing environment. Not to mention, the laptop stays cool and that’s just cool.

I saw Nemesis and The Two Towers recently (last Saturday and yesterday respectively). Nemesis didn’t quite do it for me. I thought it overused action and really didn’t take the time for the quiet thought-scenes which are a hallmark of Star Trek production. In the action-sense, it did a fine job. The movie entertained me but in the end, I came out disappointed. I give it a 6 out of 10. As for Two Towers, it rocked. The visuals were stunning and the story captivating. I think some of the transitions between stories (lots of parallel things going on) could have been better and more balanced and I think an intermission after an hour and 45 minutes would have been quite welcome. I give it an 8/10.

I apologize for the length of this particular blog. The reasoning for such a lengthy blog is 3-fold: 1) it lets me test out some of the mods I made to the site, 2) gets me off the hook to blog in the soon-after if I choose to, and 3) may elicit more comments. With that out of the way, here come more blog thoughts.

I just finished The Rivan Codex by David Eddings. If you have read The Belgariad, The Mallorean, Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Polgara the Sorceress; you need to read this book. The Rivan Codex is the book-form of Eddings’ (how do I plural-possessive a name ending in ‘s’? I mean to imply David and Leigh Eddings) preliminaries for the Belgariad and the Mallorean. It offers new insights into the series’ and some missing tidbits… I highly recommend it! I think I’m gonna reread the series’…

How about them Kings? Despite injuries up the wazoo (Bibby, Stojakovic, etc.) and newbies (Clark, Jones, Jackson) they’ve managed a 6 game lead in the Pacific Division and are only second to the Mavericks in the league. The Lakers on the other hand are doing horribly. Good riddance to a poor team. The Kings take on the Spurs tonight and it may be Mike Bibby’s return game. Here’s hoping.

Went to Intel Folsom today. Saw Mike and Scott… I think I’d like to go back there. I think it would in fact be quite awesome to get myself and someone else into 3-6 month internships/co-ops and produce some kickass Java (or C++, or …). I think any group would be amazed to see what two interns working off each other could produce in a short timespan.

With those thoughts, I think I’ll leave you with a single closing thought: snuggly braces are the only way to go. Good night and thanks for reading.