What be your pirate name matey?

In honor of international talk like a pirate day, you can learn to talk like a pirate here, and learn your pirate name by filling out a short questionnaire.

My pirate name is:

Captain Roger Rackham

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Week in Review

Well, not a bad week after all.


Ainsley had her 4 week doctor's appointment. She's doing great, and now weighs 7 pounds, 14 ounces. Which means she put on 1 pound, 11 ounces in 2 weeks.

Bob, Rod, Milan (my Sox auditor) and myself got together for beer and appetizers at the Fault Line. Milan had to leave early (something about his wife being hungry) but a good time was had by all. I tried the Cask Conditioned, the Best Bitters, and the Stout and quite enjoyed them all. The tempura Ahi Tuna Rolls are most excellent, and the Calamari (something I don't usually go in for) was actually quite nice.
With all the trash talking, objectification of women, and general bad behaviour, I'm afraid it was a bit like a 3 hour Man Show (Milan excepted.)

My Sox audit went as well as can be expected, and although I have quite a to-do list, Milan was (as always) entirely reasonable, pragmatic, and not one bit pedantic.

Despite no longer working with Bob, I think I had lunch with him 3 times since the layoff. I expect this will drop off once he quits his lollygagging and obtains gainful employment once again.

The Girl with Error Message Eyes

Saw this on Boing Boing

Intriguing example of accidental art / social commentary.
Apparently due to systems problems on Second Life, the textures for this models eyes are missing, and have been substituted with error messages.

It does seem that Second Life (and to a lesser extent the entire MMORG trend) are really beginning to resemble the virtual worlds written about by authors such as William Gibson.

I'm going to have to check out second life. Seems like a virtual Burning Man meets the Sims.

Wake me when it's all over

What a tiring weekend.
I'm writing this from the CalTrain, and struggling to stay awake.

Saturday we had a very nice 4th birthday party for Shealyn, my second child. She asked for a party at the park with her friends and to have a rainbow cake. She had both, although my wife and I were up until midnight frosting a rainbow on her cake. Anyway, a nice time was had by all and the party lasted almost 4 hours.

Sunday we were out and about with the visiting in-laws. They took Shea shopping at Toys R' Us for her birthday presents, and there was 1.5 hours of her exclaiming "Oh! Look at that!" in her sweet little voice. Several barbies and pegasus stuffed animals later and she was completely overwhelmed.

We finished off the evening with a nice dinner (and margaritas) at Left at Albuquerque.

Today is my birthday, and as a birthday present I have a Sox (Sarbanes Oxley for the blissfully unaware) Auditor in this whole week. Our auditor is a really nice guy, but when you are as behind as I am on compliance, it's a bit painful to see it all documented for managements review.

So, I think I'll just go to sleep on the train. Will someone please wake me when the week is over?

Bye Bye Bob.

Well, my close friend Bob (link) was laid off yesterday at our company.
He wasn't alone, as his boss and some European staff went as well.

I'm in the IT department, and had the unpleasant responsibility of shutting down his accounts and network access. I know I'm just doing my job, but it's tough.

Bob and I have been working together for 13 years, and it's certainly going to be strange not having him there to discuss movies, music, social issues, systems design, business process, symantics, and generally fixing all the problems of the world.

Also, without Bob's regular correction, I'm afraid my grammer is going to steadily devolve <g>.

Good luck Bob!