Monday, November 24, 2008

Back to Walking!

I had my post-operation follow up with my orthopedic. They removed my stitches, and said that I can start putting weight on my ankle.

No need for physical therapy this time around. The doctor said I know my exercises, and this time should be much quicker. I got an aircast for my ankle to provide a little extra support when I go outside (since it has been wet, snowy, and icy as of late).

I already started walking with just one crutch tonight. :-)

I hope to have things back to normal in about a week.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Back from Surgery.

I just got my screws and plate removed. The picture below gives you an idea how big they were:


I'll be resting and relaxing for the rest of the week. I'm allowed to use my crutches to put partial weight on my foot, but my doctor doesn't want me to be full weight-bearing until after I see him next Monday.

So, couch: here I come!!!!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Crazy Lego Creations

Neya and I spent some time playing with our Lego bricks this afternoon. We made a very large house a few weeks ago, and Neya did not want to take the house apart. So, we only had a small collection of small bricks yet.

She was disappointed that she didn't have enough bricks to build another house, but I told her that we would just build crazy stuff.

So, here are our creations.

First up -- Neya:

Next up, my creations:

Farewell PSU National Championship Hopes...

As a faithful Penn State alumni, and an avid college football fan, my hopes of another National Championship for my beloved Nittany Lions were dashed on Saturday night at Kinnick Stadium, where the Iowa Hawkeyes kicked a last minute field goal to beat Penn State 24 to 23.

The Nittany Lions have dropped to #7 in the AP polls, and if they win the rest of the their games, they will likely go to the Rose Bowl and play USC.

A part of me is completely disappointed and depressed right now. This was supposed to be the year for Penn State. This was supposed to be JoePa's fairy tale ending. However, I'm not as upset as I thought I'd be. A part of me is relieved. A part of me knows now that I won't be following every Blog, Podcast, and news story on Penn State. A part of me can just let a lot of this go...

Which is probably a good thing. The next two months will be busy -- projects at work, ankle surgery, Thanksgiving, new baby Collin, Christmas stuff. Obsessing over Penn State football is one less thing to worry about. :-)

Don't get me wrong -- There are still two more games in November where I'll be glued to the TV sets for at least 3 hours. :-)

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Then and Now - Part 2

I found some pictures of the school that I used to go to when I was little - Harry L. Bain.

This school was just a few blocks from our apartment, and we would walk their every day. Even though I hadn't been their in 30 years, I could still remember how to walk their using Google Street Maps.

The first picture is just a little amusing. I've told my friends and co-workers that we used to have recess in the middle of the street, and they would block it off so that we could safely play. It looks like this hasn't changed!


The next picture shows my Kindergarten graduation picture taken in 1977, in front of the double doors on the front of the building:



Here's a shot of those same doors today:

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Trip to Manhattan

Jenn and I took our daughter Neya to see Mary Poppins on Broadway, in New York city.

We made it a hassle-free day trip. We took the Amtrak train to New York city. The trip from E-Town to Penn Station was around 3 and a half hours. Not too bad! Mary Poppins was playing on West 42nd street, just nine blocks down from the train station. We just strolled up 7th Avenue, watched the play, and then visited Times Square.

The play was fantastic, and Time Square was neat. Neya liked the flagship Toys 'R Us store in Time Square.

Here are some pictures from the visit:


I got to see my friend Nate. He lives in Manhattan off 37th street, so we were able to catch up with him for a few minutes, on the way to the play:



The play was a lot of fun. Even though we were in the cheap seats, we had a great view of the stage:




Times Square was neat. I liked the Lego displays in the Toy 'R Us store. They had several mammoth Lego displays. My favorite was the one of the Empire State Building and King Kong. It was over 30 feet tall!

More pictures are available here, in our photo gallery.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Then and Now

I had a lot of fun playing with Google Maps Street View. For those who are not familiar, you can actually use Google Maps in some areas to get a first-person view of the street. Google does this by driving cars all over the place and taking pictures as the car drives down the street. The photos are tagged with GPS and electronically stitched together. This allows people like me to virtually walk the streets.

Because this is really expensive and time-consuming to produce, these street views are typically only available in major cities. I was mapping our trip out to New York City and having a fun time "walking the streets" using Google Street view (quite useful actually.. I have a pretty darned good idea on where I am going tomorrow!). After I got familiar with my New York City route, I peeked across the river to New Jersey. To my astonishment, my childhood apartments and streets were now available with Google Street View.

I then began walking the streets on near the two apartments where we lived, and the elementary school where I used to go. And that is when I noticed something eerie. I actually remembered how to walk to my elementary school! Sure, some of the buildings were different, but most of them struck me with bizarre jab of deja vu.

As an interesting project, I decided to do some Then and Now pictures of my childhood with what is currently displayed in Google Street View.

First up Gutenberg, New Jersey. In 1970, we lived in the Panorama, located on 6803 Blvd East in Gutenberg. Blvd East is a major stretch of road that is near the Hudson river with a stunning view of Manhattan. I think we lived their until about 1974 or 1975.

Here is picture from 1970 (two years before I was born!):



















The picture below is from Google Street View:














Across the street, there was a stone wall with a great view of Manhattan. The picture shows my mom with my older brother Rusty when he was a new born baby.



Here is the current day shot from Google Street View: (you can still see the stone wall, and the view of the city behind the trees).

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Crackberry

My cell phone was due for an upgrade at work (just in time too... I was getting a little frustrated with my Palm Treo).

I now have a Blackberry 8830.

I love it. The whole e-mail and messaging experience is just much better and slicker than the Treo. In a few minutes of set up and configuration, I was able to get all of my work e-mails forwarded to my Blackberry. This really makes it convenient to stay up on things when I am away from the office or in the evenings.

The device was pretty easy to figure out. After playing around for about 10 minutes and getting a quick five minute run-down from one of my co-workers, I had pretty decent command of the phone.

It's no iPhone, but it certainly is a much nicer device than my old Treo.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Done with PT!

Today was my last day of physical therapy. My last goal was to get to a normal range of up and down movement in my ankle (dorsiflexion and plantarflexion). My goal was to get over 40 degrees of movement. I blew that out of the water today with movement in the low 50's.

All that said, I am still not 100 percent yet (I would classify myself near 95%). I still have a little bit of problems controlling my foot drop when walking down the stairs, and I still cannot do a one-footed tip-toe on my bad ankle.

However, I have no limp in my walk. And everything is feeling pretty good. The other stuff will come back after lots more practice and exercise.

Next up - hardware removal. I am scheduled to get my hardware removed in about 3-4 weeks.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Balance and Leg Strength Conditioning

I have about 2 more weeks of physical therapy left.

The goals of the next 2 weeks involve the improving following two areas:

  1. Balance (my balance stinks)
  2. Leg strength (my legs feel like jello after walking up a flight of steps)


To that end, we have been tweaking my exercises as follows:

  1. I do a higher level of resistance on the bike (level 8)
  2. I do a 3 second hold on my wall squats.
  3. I now do my BAPS board by standing up on it (this is ridiculously hard for me)
  4. I now do sets of 15 leg presses (three sets with one foot, three sets with both feet)
  5. I have to play catch with a heavy ball by bouncing it on a trampoline-like contraption. I do this while balancing on one foot.
  6. I now do a higher level of resistance bands for my side-step exercises and ankle exercises.

Hardware comes out on November 18th. I'm excited to have it out!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Go State!

Penn State passed their first real test on Saturday, beating Illinois 38-24 (although, I argue that their second week bruising of Oregon State was a good test, too).

This was probably one of the more entertaining Penn State football games in recent memory.

Go State!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

More changes at P.T.

I went to work on Tuesday without crutches. I walked into the office myself (no easy feat!). And yesterday, Jenn put the crutches in the basement for safe-keeping (don't worry Rebuck... I'll give them back to you!).

I can move around the house pretty well. However, when I walk up the steps, I really notice how weak my legs have become.

The folks are Physical Therapy are adjusting my normal routine to deal with it (just in time... I'm sure they saw this coming):


More changes to my exercise regimen at PT:

  • They moved me to a machine that gives me MUCH more resistance for my leg presses
  • I do a calf and leg stretches by leaning against the wall (5 sets with knee bent, 5 sets without knee bent - 30 second stretch for each set).
  • My ankle rotation exercises are now done with someone holding an elastic band (to help build ankle strength)

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Walking!

I think I can say that I am walking. I didn't bring crutches into physical therapy on Friday. On Saturday, I didn't even take out to dinner.

I still use a crutch to get up and down the stairs, but this is for more balance reasons.

My walking is all that smooth yet, but in a couple of weeks, I think I'll be close to 90% normal. It looks like I'll have one more (very small) operation in October to get the metal out. This is a good thing... I think part of my ankle rotation ability is being inhibited by the metal in their (plus, I can feel the metal in their... which is kind of...creepy).

My routine has changed slightly at physical therapy:

  • I now do my weight shifts with my ankle standing on a squishy rubber foam pad. It supposedly helps me balance.
  • I now do side-steps up an down the length of the work out area (again: working on sideways stability and balance)
  • I now walk over little hurdles (about 4 inches high) to help with balance and control
  • two legged shuttle reps are up to 7 bands
  • I now do one legged shuttle reps on 6 bands

Monday, September 8, 2008

Basement Finished.

Our basement is officially finished. The carpet was installed late last week and we had our final walk through with the builders.



Our next big project starts next week: Painting the house!

I think Jenn has finished picking out the colors. Our basement will get painted first. Once it is painted, all of Neya's toys will move down there -- since the basement will be initially a play room.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Farewell IntelliJ...

Warning: Geek Post.

For my day-to-day software development needs, I've been using Eclipse. It's a really competent Java IDE but falls short on the side of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS development.

Some folks have at work have been using IntelliJ IDEA, and many other developers just seem to gush over it. So, I thought I would try it.

I gave it a try for one month, and I have reached my verdict: I cannot believe that IntelliJ is still in business -- there is just no way I can justify spending 200 bucks on it.

My major complaints:

  • Key combinations and short cuts are bizarre. Control-Y to delete a line? (almost every other editor uses Ctrl-E or Ctrl-D). This list goes on and on and on....
  • Three forms of Ctrl-Space completion? Give me a freaking break! Ctrl-Space should match anything in my entire project and prioritize the ones that I use most often at the top of the list of matches (or the ones that match imported entries from my class).
  • No Automated Unit Test Creation? I was surprised that I needed a plug-in to do this. (and even then, the plug-in sucked)
  • Outdated GUI - The GUI is just plane outdated. It looks so 2002. Note to IntelliJ: Swing interfaces can look really nice!
  • No Drag and Drop - Every other IDE I have used allows me to drag files from my desktop into my project. Except IntelliJ.
  • Slow - IntelliJ is just plain slow. Eclipse is much snappier. Even NetBeans (which I used to classify as Bloatware) is snapier. I hate having to wait 30 seconds everytime I open a project so that it can re-index everything. This is just plain silly.
  • No Support for Multiple Open Projects - This is just lame. I can only have one project open in a pane at a time. If I want multiple projects, I need to spawn a new window.

I am glad I tried IntelliJ. I am hoping that next time I go to a conference, and I see poeople gushing so much about IntelliJ, they can show me what they like about it.

Note: I know that IntelliJ does have excellent Spring/Hibernate/Groovy/Rails support. However, I really think it's important to have an IDE that gets the basics done first. All of my rants above are minor things. But when so many minor things just suck, I can't get past it.

On a very pleasant note, I am currently trying the latest Beta of Netbeans (version 6.5). It is fast, snappy, and just plain works. In about 10 minutes, I was able to get my project up and running. Within a day, I am pretty productive in its environment. Nice job, Sun!

I hope IntelliJ will seriously look at their competition and see where they are falling short.

Friday, September 5, 2008

More Progress

I am doing much better with one crutch. It is almost getting easy with one crutch.

On Wednesday, I took my first couple of steps with no crutches - they were baby steps, but at least they were steps!

I also had my progress report at PT. No swelling decrease in last week or so. But I am gaining more ability to move my ankle around (this is measured in degrees using a tool that looks like a protractor from geometry class).

Break through on the steps: I was doing Level 1 steps last Friday. Level 1 steps are about a half inch high. On Wednesday, I was doing Level 4 steps (several inches high -- like normal steps).

This breakthrough is due to the fact that I can now maintain my entire body weight on my ankle. However, we did a balancing test -- and I have no balance whatsoever on this foot. Something new to work on! I didn't think that I would loose my balancing ability so quickly!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Walking down the stairs!

I started to walk down the stairs with the crutches yesterday. Woo hoo!

I never hopped down the stairs with the crutches before because it scared the crap out of me. But now that I can walk one-step-at-a-time, walking down is a breeze.

It's a little victory, but now that I can move up and down with relative ease, my life is getting a bit easier!

Bill's PT Routine

My Physical Therapy is coming along nicely. A couple of people ask what I do at PT, so here's the list... I go through the following items in about an hour and 10 minutes.


Stretching
  • Calf stretches; straight leg - 5 reps, 30 seconds each
  • Calf stretches; bent leg - 5 reps, 30 seconds each



Ankle Non-Weight Bearing Excercies
  • Dorsiflexion/Plantar Flexion - move ankle/foot toward you and away from you (up and down) - 20 reps
  • Inversion / Eversion - move ankle/floot side-to-side - 20 reps
  • Rotation - 20 reps clockwise / 20 reps counter-clock wise
  • The same exercises as above but on the baps board (pic below)
  • Toe lifts - 20 reps
  • Heel pumps - 20 reps

This is the BAPS board... my exercises involve making sure that the ends of the board touch the ground. Each week, they put a bigger ball on the bottom, which requires that my ankle be required to do more work to have the ends touch. Note: I don't stand up on this thing yet. My exercises are sitting down.


Weight Bearing Exercises
  • Weight shifts - 10 reps, 10 seconds each
  • Bike - 10 minutes on level 4 (feels like bicycling on air, though)
  • Wall/Back Thrusts - 10 reps; 2 times
  • Stair stretch - put foot on stair and lean forward - 3 reps; 30 seconds each
  • Shuttle - 10 reps; 3 times



Message and Cooling
  • I get about a 15 minute massage of my foot and ankle to push the blood out (it helps reduce the swelling). Since I started phyiscal therapy, my foot size went down 2.5 centimeters - this is almost half of my swelling!
  • Finally... I spend 10 minutes in the cryo cuff. It's a boot that they pump cold water into. Apparently, I'm only one of two people in the place that actually like it.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Lego Minifig Parade



Neya and I made a Lego Minifugre Parade yesterday.

New Deck!


Just in time for summer to end, we finally have our new deck!

The new deck is twice as long (it extends across the entire back of the house). The floor is composite (for easy care), the railings are metal, and the railing is cedar (which we'll need to seal and stain). The steps will be completed tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Bill can stand!

I had my second day of physical therapy today, and I was able to stand today!

Some folks have been asking me what I do at physical therapy.... the first two sessions included:

  • ankle exercises (rotation, lateral, radial, up/down, calf stretches)
  • weight bearing exercises (stand up, slowly shift weight onto ankle, take weight off, repeat)
  • exercise bike
  • 15-20 minutes of massage (to help get the swelling down)
  • 10 minutes in a cold water boot

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

First day at Physical Therapy.

I had my first appointment with my Physical Therapist today.

Overall, it was very good. I had about a half hour of exercise and a bunch of history, measurements, massage, and some liquid cooling boot for my ankle.

I'll be in physical therapy for 3 days a week for the next month. The goal is to get my walking in three weeks. Woo-Hoo!

Interesting fact of the day: My right foot is 6cm bigger than my left foot (due to the swelling). That's a lot of centimeters!

Monday, August 4, 2008

One small step for Bill


... one giant leap to normalcy.

After two months of splints, casts, and a surgery, I finally had my cast removed today. Tomorrow, I start about a month of physical therapy. In the mean time, I can start putting a little bit of weight on my foot!

Hooray!!!

The picture on the right shows my ankle from three different views. You can see the screws and plate which were put in to provide more support. After physical therapy, I will get the screws and plate removed (one more trip to the hospital).

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Five Weeks and Counting

While I love summer, I must admit that I really love fall more.

Why? Football.

Penn State kicks their schedule off on August 30th against the formidable Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. Every year I get really excited about a powerhouse football squad, and this year is no exception. With seniors like Derrick Williams, A.Q. Shipley, Josh Gains, Deon Butler, Jordan Norwood, Tony Davis, Kevin Kelly, Rich Ohrnberger, etc. -- we have a good shot at being a real power house football team.

Of course there are questions. Star Linebacker Sean Lee will be out this season -- but I'm sure that PSU can pick up the slack here. We always seem to be loaded at the Linebacker position. The more curious question will be Quarterback. We have the Michael-Robinson-like Darryl Clark who seems really good at giving us an option as a mobile quarterback (but I've never seen him throw). We also have the highly decorated Pat Devlin (who set many Pennsylvania State high school quarter back records), who has yet to see any playing time. Will we see a two quarterback system? Will we move to a spread offense this year? With running threats Stephon Green and Evan Royster, will Joe Pa just use the receivers to set up the run?

Ah... someone like myself can just get giddy thinking of all of the possibilities.

We have a tough schedule this year: back-to-back-to-back games with Wisconsin, Michigan, and then Ohio State.

I can't wait to see how this season plays out. In the mean time, here's the obligatory PSU rah-rah video:


Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Worst Wheel of Fortune Move... EVER

I love Wheel of Fortune.

I don't watch it anymore, but I used to watch it all of the time when I was little. In fact, my parents used to tape the episodes on the VCR so that we could watch it together as a family at night (and try to figure out the puzzles before everyone else).

This has to be two of the biggest wheel of fortunes mistakes ever....

Saturday, July 12, 2008

(A little bit of) Freedom

The worst thing about being in a cast right now is the lack of freedom.

I cannot drive. I am dependent upon people (and their schedules) on when I go to work, when I leave work, when I eat, when I go out to do stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I am very thankful for everybody who helps me about. But it still sucks.

Today, a small victory. I was able to get myself dressed and down the stairs... all by myself.

This means that I can get up a little early, and have a little bit of quiet time (typically what I love to do on the weekends). ... and I don't have to wait for anybody or wake anyone up to help me.

One step back to being normal.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Back in a cast!

I got my staples removed today - about 20 of them in total. The picture to the right is after the staples were removed; Jenn wasn't too keen on watching and taking pictures when they were getting removed!

The swelling on my foot is definitely down. My leg is definitely starting to atrophy.

I got a brand new cast. And the guy cleaned my leg before putting the cast on. Getting my leg cleaned felt sooooooooo good. (I never thought I would be excited to have my leg cleaned by another guy).

I'll be in the cast for at least for more weeks. I am hoping to start physical therapy in early August. I'm hoping that I can be somewhat normal by September! *fingers crossed*

Sunday, July 6, 2008

PNC are also Ass Clowns.

Another day... another problem with a bank.

I am a new customer of PNC (not by choice - my old bank is merging with PNC).

I got my access to my online banking account today. I got myself locked out because the PIN that I thought would get me in is really not the PIN that they used.

I called up to get my account unlocked and my PIN reset. Citing "security concerns", they were unable to tell me my new PIN, and would instead mail it to me.

Really? I answered three or four of your security questions, and you can see that I am calling from my home phone number. If I did all of that, the letter you send me in the mail next week ain't gonna help at all.

The thing that really irritates me is that they mail me and print my FULL SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER on the letter that shows me my user id! In other words, they are using my SSN as my user id!

PNC: You guys a bunch of fanny bandits.

How hard is it to give me a random number for my user id? Even if the SSN is my user id, why not just tell me this in the mail ('your userid is your SSN')? As a tax-paying citizen, I should know my SSN. You certainly don't need to print out all 9 digits in the letter!

Please STOP using my SSN for things you shouldn't be using my SSN for. And stop printing it on a letter and mailing it to me!

Go America!

Fourth of July is no exception. There's always one guy in the neighborhood who over-does it.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Bank of America is a bunch of ass clowns

Today it took me about 15 minutes to activate my credit card.

I have a card through Bank of America. It's a card I hardly ever use (because I'm an Amazon.com card guy). But, I keep the card around in case of emergencies.

Unfortunately, they were unable to verify my identity because the phone number from which I was calling was different than the one I had online (I moved five years ago and must have never updated my home phone number).

So, they had to "dive further" to establish my identity. They asked for my last-4 digits of my ssn. Check. They asked for my mother's maiden name. Check. But they were still having difficulties. They had to transfer me to a specialist.

The "specialist" went in for a deep dive. This including giving him my current billing address and then asking for two intersecting streets to my billing address.

So lets look at the pieces of information you used to establish my identity:

+ Last four digits of SSN - just about everyone and their mom knows this number. Everyone asks for this number (and they shouldn't). Only the IRS, my employer, and myself should know this number so that they can report taxes. But because of SSN abuse, this isn't really a safe number any more. My doctor knows this number, PennDot knows this number, my bank knows this number, my credit card companies know this number. Hell, comcast probably knows this number too.

+ Mom's maiden name - 15 minutes of social engineering can easily get this piece of information

+ Billing Address - Hello? If I stole your mail, I probably already know this.

+ Two roads that intersect with my billing address - I can get this information in less than 15 seconds, using Google Maps.

Dear Bank of America:

While I truly appreciate your need to protect your profits and my card from identity theft, I think you guys suck. None of this information really helps to establish my identity and can be easily thwarted by anyone who wasn't an idiot.

Please implement something better in the future.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Stairway to Heaven

Big victory for me today. I was able to use my crutches to get up the stairs. While this might not sound like a big deal to a lot of people, let me tell you: when you first start using crutches, climbing stairs is really scary.

Over the last couple of weeks, I got very good and competent with getting in and out of the house (where I either have one step onto the porch or one step into the garage). Curb hopping is now really easy.

Last night, I just told myself: "it's just a series of 20 really easy curbs". I was right. It was really easy to get up.

I did have Jenn to spot me as I went up the stairs. No, I don't expect her to catch the full weight of a 300 pound guy falling down the stairs, but she is more-than-capable of gently nudging me forward when she sees my balance teetering.

This was a small victory for me. It feels normal to walk up the stairs. At least, much more normal than scooting and crawling.

Monday, June 30, 2008

My Fracture


I finally got to really clearly see my fracture today.

It turns out that I have a fracture in my lateral malleolus. Mine is a type B fracture (the middle picture).

On the road to recovery!


I had my first post-op visit with my orthopedic today, and things are looking good. My screws and plate appear to be keeping my ligaments and bones together, as they would normally be.

I have two sets of surgical staples (one on each side of the ankle). I got to see them for the first time today... I look a little like Frankenstein. :-)

And my nasty fracture blister is gone!

I'm in a splint for another week. I need to rest this week, because I still have a decent amount of swelling in my foot.

If all goes well, I should have my staples remove next week, and moved into a cast. Then, I can start getting my life a little back to normal.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Out of Surgery, Out of Mind

I had my surgery done on Tuesday night. I ended up getting two screws and a plate in my ankle. They are not permanent, and will be removed in a few months. They are just there to provide support in my ankle, and so that the ligaments can heal properly.

The anesthesia really worked well. All I remember is being carted to the Operating Room and scooting over to the operating room table. After scooting over, I woke up with a sore ankle.

I stayed overnight in hospital and was out by 1pm. It is nice to be at home, resting in my own bed.

They gave lots of vicodin for pain management at home. I'm trying not take a lot of them. They make me feel just a little different.

In any event... it feels good to be at home, and hopefully on the road to recovery!!!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Best Twenty Bucks I've Spent

My left ear closed up on me over the weekend. The result is that my hearing was about 50%. I noticed that I had a lot of wax in my left ear, so I scheduled an appointment to get it checked out.

The doctor took a quick look and said "yup, you have a lot of wax in that ear".

With some warm water and a syringe, she was able to quickly flush it out. When the water was in my ear, it sounded like an ocean! Two quick washes, and I saw all of the wax that was removed. It was incredible (and smelly). I wanted to take a picture, but Jenn wouldn't let me. I was really surprised how much junk has been clogging up my ears!

I instantly was able to hear much better. Now my right ear felt like the clogged one! A couple of washes later, both ears were in tip-top shape.

Twenty bucks and five minutes later, I walked out thinking that this was the best doctor's visit I've ever had. No long recovery. No prescriptions or medications. No referrals No x-rays. Just a simple procedure with dramatic results.

Next time, I won't hesitate to get my ears cleaned out. :-)

Bill Falls Down (and doesn't get up)

I finally did it. I broke my ankle.

I was playing roller hockey after work. I needed to move from a forward moving position to one where I could turn sharply and backwards.

This is normally handled with a small hop of the skates. Unfortunately, my right foot gave out and twisted in a bad (and wrong) way when I fell on it.

The good news is that I only have a minor fracture. The bad news is that I have severe ligament damage and will be going to surgery next week to get my ankle cut open, fix the ligaments, and get some screws or plates for added support. This will keep me in crutches for another 6 weeks (I have a solid two weeks under my belt) plus several weeks of physical therapy.

My hockey career is over.

Here are some pictures... the first is a couple of days after the incident:




The second picture is about a week later (after my splint was taken off):



It has no where to go but to look better. :-)







Tuesday, June 3, 2008

I Don't Want to Operate a Data Center any more...

I am a big fan of Amazon.com. They have already transformed themselves from an online book retailer to THE online retailer of just about any product. Just when everyone said that Amazon had nowhere to go, they started commercializing web services. Everything from storage to elastic computing to databases to queuing services are now available.

The services are cheap, reliable, and scalable.-- and you get to take advantage of Amazon.com's expertise at running a data center (they probably know how to do that better than most people).

I think that this is a slam dunk. I look around and see lots of companies running data centers. And it's expensive. It's even more expensive to run it properly.

Perhaps, Don MacAskill @ SmugMug said it best - I don't want to operate data centers any more.

He's right.

SmugMug (fantastic service and company, by the way) is in the business of providing me great online software to manage my photos. They are a software and services company. They should be focusing on that stuff - operating a data center for them is almost like running their own phone service or running their own power grid. Why should they?

For years I've held the belief that computing power and services are best delivered as a utility. I've heard lots of companies talking about. It's great to see Amazon making this a reality, and it's great to hear about the successes of companies like SmugMug using these services.

Power to the cloud!!!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Using sox to resample audio

The following nifty one-liner will resample to 8000Mhz, convert to mono (one channel), and increase the volume level:

for i in *.wav ; do sox $i -v 1.8 -r 8000 -c 1 ../resampled/$i resample; done

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Dear Sun

Dear Sun:

I am a big fan of your company. I love Java (so much that I made a career around it), and I love Sun Hardware and Software.

However, I hate Sun web sites. They are slow. Pathetically slow.

How can one of the best companies with the best technologies penalize their users with one of the slowest online experiences on the 'Net?

I feel like I'm trapped in 1995.

Sun: Please fix this.

Poor Puppy


Yesterday Jenn, Neya, and I went to the Penn State Blue-White game. The Blue-White game is the final practice session of the Penn State Nittany Lions. They basically scrimmage in Beaver Stadium, and 74,000 fans go to watch the game. My best estimate is that around 100,000 fans come up the event -- lots of folks tail gate and have fun at the carnival outside of the stadium.

Bailey became the lucky owner of a "I Bark for PSU" extra-small dog sweater.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Cafe Corner - Finished!


Okay... I originally wasn't going to complete Cafe Corner today, but I just couldn't resist. I was too excited to finish the build, and I don't think I could actually go to work tomorrow knowing that there were bags of Lego bricks that haven't been snapped together yet!

Jenn was nice enough to sort all of the pieces for the second and third floors while I gave Neya a bath. The picture to the right shows all of the pieces for the second and third floors, all sorted (thanks, Jenn!!!).

After another 2 hours of building, we finished the model. The details are absolutely incredible and the building was a blast to build.

The final build and sort time was about 5 hours (and that was with two of us working on it in tandem -- and some interruptions from a little girl who wanted to keep stealing the mini-figs and wanted to snap in a number of blocks!).

Overall, this set was a blast to put together... now its time to figure out what project is next. :-)

A Very Lego Birthday

Today is my birthday. My birthday gift from Jenn and Neya was a Lego Set - Cafe Corner.

It's a monster of Lego set. It weighs in at a little over 2000 pieces and stands over 14 inches tall when completed.

As you can see from the picture, the size of the box dwarfs my daughter!

The recommended age is for those 16 years and older (but my 4-year old daughter was able to put quite a few pieces together - with plenty of supervision!).

Unboxing the set yielded a pleasant surprise. All of the bags are labeled "1", "2", or "3" - this corresponds to the floor of the building. This was really nice because we did not want to build the entire set today!

Today, we only built the first floor. Build time was approximately 2 and a half hours. Not bad, since we had a four year old that wanted to help. :-) Jenn did a great job organizing the pieces.

We actually had four instances where we thought we did not have enough pieces:

  • 1 piece was accidentally thrown in the garbage
  • 1 set of pieces were just hidden from us
  • 2 sets of pieces were mistakes between dark gray blocks and black blocks in the instructions (it's hard to distinguish between these two colors in Lego's instruction sets)

Overall, this set has some remarkable features. If you want to see more, check out my photo gallery.

Come on, Apple!

I thought that these guys are supposed to be the Masters of User Interface and Design?

However, I think they dropped the ball on iTunes. iTunes has no splash screen on start-up. This would not be a problem for Firefox, Thunderbird, or even Microsoft Word (which all start nearly instantly). Unfortunately, iTunes takes about 15 seconds to start up. And my computer is no slouch! I have a Dual Core Intel Processor with 4GB of memory!

To me, this is breaking one of the cardinal sins of user interface design - show something to the user as a feedback mechanism for the action they just performed. Granted, I have a large library - around 8000 songs, but this is no excuse for no giving the user some feedback.

Dear Apple: Stop being lazy, and give me a splash screen!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Video is not always the best medium.

I was surfing Digg this morning and came across a top-ten list that I wanted to read. Eager to start my day off with some procrastinating, I clicked on the article. Only, it wasn't an article, it was a video blog.

Just because you can do video doesn't mean that you have to do video! I do not want to sit and listen to you pontificate about the 10-worst-licensed-video-games-of-all-time, when I can quickly scan through an article and read the snippits I want!

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Turning a Sphere Inside-Out

Very geeky but very cool.

Watch the video.

Inbox Zero

I'm a big believer in Inbox Zero. The approach was something that I had about 50% bought into, and I just needed to be pushed all of the way. It has radically changed the way that I approach my inbox and my job in general.

Unfortunately, it's still very difficult for me. I just "Inbox Zero'd" today, and that was the first time in about a month. However, I usually come very close. My inbox at work, which typically gets 200+ emails a day, is usually sitting at around 10 messages by 10pm.

Not too shabby.

Most of these e-mails were read and acted upon. Those that were not acted upon ended up in our software and project tracking systems (where they should reside) or ended up as the 10-mails in my mail box because I just didn't have the time to follow-up (there's just not enough time in the day!).

So, while I feel like failure for not actually being able to actually get to the Zero in Inbox-Zero, I am quite happy with my e-mail through-put and productivity. And for the days where I do reach Zero - pure bliss!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

197 foot hockey goal.

I feel bad for the goalie - Vesa Toskala

Sunday, March 2, 2008

So Empty....

Well, I managed to piss away four hours of my weekend, playing Protector, yet another desktop tower defense game. I am always addicted to these games. Protector mixes traditional desktop tower defense with a skills tree and role-playing theme. Needless to say, I'm hooked.

It's a stupid game, but I cannot stop playing. And after I am done playing, I feel empty.

Ah... the joy of video games...

In related video gaming news, I stopped by my Costco yesterday, and they had about 40 Wii's for sale! Woo hoo!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Competing with Wal-Mart

It's a national past time to hate Wal-Mart.

Why not? They're the big, evil company that is developing that field across the street with all of the nice trees so that they can lay-down some asphalt, throw up a couple of hundred thousand square feet of sub-par retail space, and put all those good, hardworking local folk out of a job. Fire up the picket lines Bessie, Mr Walton's coming to town! We can't have this big retailer in our back yard because Mr. Bob's Hardware store will go out of business!

Let me tell you the story of shopping for a doll-house for my daughter's birthday. My wife and I met for lunch and went to the local toy store near our office. We had a shopping list of things that we wanted to get for our daughter for her birthday. After being pleasantly greeted by the staff, we went to find the doll house. This was the big gift, and many of the smaller gifts were built around accessories for the doll-house. We were disappointed to see that the doll-house was out of stock. And due to the fact that the big Toy Fair was last week, replenishment orders are slow (as all toy dealers are putting in orders for toys this week). No problem, the manager of the store upgraded our Doll-House Townhouse to the much bigger (and 50% pricier) Doll-House Manor, for the same price as the original, cheaper Townhouse.

Let's take a look at my experience at the toy store:
  • Greeted by friendly staff. Check.
  • Shelves fully stocked (except for the one item I wanted!), and everything neatly presented. Check.
  • An item was not in stock, so the manager gave me a nicer item for the same price. Check.
  • The manager carried the big item to the cash register. Check.
  • Store personnel offered to wrap our merchandise free of charge. Check.
  • Since wrapping the gifts was going to take a few minutes, I went over to Target to get some things. They said "no problem! We'll hold everything for you when you get back". Check.
  • We pulled up in front of store and opened car doors up. The folks are already carrying the gifts and putting them into our car. Check.
Now, let's compare this same experience with the local Wal-Mart:
  • Greeted by a person that I feel really uncomfortable talking to and even making eye contact with. Check.
  • Many items out of stock. Shelves in disarray. Always walking out with some sticky stuff on my shoes that feels creepy (even for me). Check.
  • Item not in stock. I usually cannot find help. If I do find help, the person is an idiot and is clueless. Check.
  • No one has ever asked to help with a large item at Wal-Mart. Check.
  • Store personnel would never wrap my gifts, nor would I trust them. I doubt they could even point me the right direction of the gift wrap. Check.
  • I would never, ever leave my purchased merchandise in the hands of a Wal-Mart employee why I go off and do other things. Check.
  • No one has ever helped me load a large item into my car that was in the employ of Wal-Mart. Check.
  • Bonus points for Wal-Mart - overweight customer wearing slinky clothes two-sizes too small so that I can belly fat with stretch marks popping out of her Spandex. Check.
  • Bonus points for Wal-Mart - over-friendly customer that insists I help her find the CD of "that guy on the Home Shopping network with the guitar that sings those Mexican songs". She assures me that I know of whom she is speaking. Check.

There is a lesson here. If you are a mom-and-pop store, there are plenty of ways of competing with Wal-Mart. However, if your plan involves trying to price-cut Wal-Mart and provide the same shitty service you have been providing over the last 30 years, you deserve to go out of business.

Instead, you must evolve. Don't price-cut Wal-Mart -- you cannot win. However, you can win on providing better products and better service. This toy store has won me over as a customer, and I cannot wait to spend my money there again.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Back to Raquetball.

My wife noticed that LA Fitness was running a promotion where sign-up fees would be waved if you signed up a family member. This was the perfect opportunity to join LA Fitness. I've been holding off for a while because I just cannot stand spending $150 bucks for someone to enter my application into a computer.


With my membership in hand, I was able to start playing Raquetball again. I played with Rebuck and Mary Beth yesterday and had quite a bit of fun. The courts were very nice (very new), but I had a difficult time adjusting to the back walls. The back walls are glass which makes the contrast level completely different than the other three walls - which are bright white! This took a bit to get used to!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Bill's Newest Lego Friends



Meet Victor the Lego Spider and Mr. B.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Lego Stores

On our way back from Long Island, we stopped at the Bridge Water Commons in New Jersey. This mall is a nice half-way point between Long Island and Harrisburg, so it turns out to be a nice place to get out of the car and stretch our legs. We normally just stop in Bridge Water to grab lunch, but I recently found out at there is a real Lego store in Bridge Water!

Needless to say, I twisted everyone's arm to go there today. Overall the store was pretty neat. As you can see they have Huge Lego Bricks at the front of the store that are taller than my daughter. Neya had a fun time in the store looking at all of the neat creations. I got to see the new 2008 Town Plan in person as well as the Eiffel Tower (neat stuff!). They had tons of bins of free bricks that you could buy. We picked up some brick separators, a small ambulance for the town, a Mosaic set, a Lego Santa Snow Globe (hey, it was only 4 bucks!), and a couple of boxes of "just bricks".

Most of the stuff I can get online just as easy, but I'll keep coming back to the store, just because it's cool.

The New Knight Rider

Worst Acting, ever.

The Ass Clowns from Cupertino are at it again

I went to fire up iTunes today, and Apple for some reason thought that I would love to download 4 250 MB episodes of "MTV Facebook Sampler" content.

Thanks, Apple.

Thanks for wasting a 1 GB of my disk space. Thanks for tying up a GB of my bandwidth. Thanks for not e-mailing me and asking I would be even interested in this content.

I'm just glad that I was paying attention to my downloads when iTunes fired up.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Google Apps: Day 2 - The Calendar Strikes Back!

I started to give Jenn a tutorial on Google Apps, and now it's really starting to pay off. I have created a family calendar (that is shared, with full access between our accounts). She has started to add all of the "Kratzer family stuff" that goes on.

From a personal family productivity standpoint, this is great!

Saturday, February 9, 2008

My First Full Day with Google Apps.

I have now been on Google apps for about 24 hours. My overall experience is good, but there is plenty of room for improvement:

  • Google's services have been unavailable a couple of times (I couldn't purchase a premium account and adding a calendar results in a crash, as well).
  • Googles Pages sucks. Let me say that again. Google Pages really sucks.
  • GMail is great. And the Calendar is pretty snazzy. (which is good, because this is why I wanted to migrate to Google Apps in the first place).
  • I have no idea why blogging isn't integrated into the suite of apps. This seems like a natural fit and a giant mis-step for Google. However, from reading the discussion boards, it looks like JotSpot will be replacing Google Pages (good) and JotSpot also supports blogging (that's good too). Google: Hurry up with this! :-)
  • The start page / portal stuff is a complete ghetto of widgets. I'm surprised that Google didn't spend more time to build a large library of quality widgets.
  • No Google Reader integration? *sniff*

All in all, I am quite happy. I will most likely upgrade to a premium account to show my support for this excellent service (and I'll still be saving money by migrating off my ISP!). I hope Google keeps working hard to improve and extend the application functionality and support!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Welcome to a Brave New Online World

I've finally done it.

I've finally moved my domain (thekratzers.com) over to Google Apps.

This means that all of our e-mail is online, our calendar is online, and my blog now runs through Google.

This has been a long time coming. I moved my pictures online to SmugMug several years ago. I moved my backups to Amazon.com (thanks JungleDisk).

I've always had an online presence, but I just got tired of my hosting providing (and for $120 bucks a year, they weren't delivering anything near what Google could offer).

Next step: I need to find a way to use SVN over Amazon.com S3. :-)