jrmehle.com

Why doesn’t apple.tv link to the Apple TV page?

Friday, I went to bed and there was only a couple inches of snow on the ground. By the time this weekend blizzard passed, eight or ten inches of new snow covered everything. It’s the most snow I can remember getting in recent years.

Then today, I get to work and open my email to find our lead developer is leaving for another job in a little more than 2 weeks. I think everyone in the company was a little surprised. Granted, he wasn’t a true employee (only on a long term contract basis), but we still thought he enjoyed things enough to stick around. I kind of thought that we would be bringing him on as a full time employee as the company matured. Maybe he just got sick of waiting around.

Frankly, I’m scared. The only other dev (also on a contract) was brought to us by the guy who is leaving. It’s not that James and I don’t get along or work well together because I think we do. The problem is, I think I saw him coming to us as sort of a “favor” to Jeff. I know there was some dispute over wages prior to James’ contract signing, and I have a feeling Jeff sort of talked him into the job. Now that Jeff is abandoning ship, I don’t see James sticking around for long. His only reason for being loyal is now on it’s way out the door.

That leaves me; alone. Now, I’m sure Scott will be gearing up to hire a new developer soon and hopefully that person can be as good of a programmer and mentor as Jeff is. I just have this feeling that it’s not going to be an easy road the next couple of months. It’s kind of like that feeling you get when someone breaks up with you and you never knew there was a relationship problem (it’s happened to me twice).

And on a small side note, I’ve bought a domain name and hosting from GoDaddy. My hope is to get everything on Rails. I’ve yet to choose between Typo and Mephisto for a blogging engine, but if last night is any indicator, I’ll be going with Mephisto. I spent a good 3 hours trying to get Typo installed on my new host, and it didn’t go very smooth. In time, I also hope to rewrite the other portions of my site in Rails. And lastly, because I now own my own domain, the address will be changing. What I plan to do is point this domain at my new host or set up a redirect until my time runs out with my former host. Regardless, jrmehle.homelinux.net will become jrmehle.com.

Thanks to Amber and Leo from net@nite for the heads up on Jonathan Coulton’s “Code Monkey.” This song is hilarious and pretty catchy as well.

Just check out the first verse:

Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very dilligent
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud

And then there are the remixes. My favorite is the Speedmonkey remix. So funny!

Apparently, I don’t write enough because my own mother was starting to question my health. Without further adieu, I present to you a blog post.

In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, I’ll say I’m moving. This was not a surprise to me in the least. No, it was more of a relief. The dwelling that Rick, Karl, and I currently inhabit has made it’s shortcomings well known. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d be moving come this April (the month our lease expires), it was more a question of specifics. Thankfully, I didn’t really have to think about a lot of those specifics because Rick decided he was going to buy himself a house and invited me to move in.

Over the last month or so, Rick (including me, Karl, Kristi, and his family) have been checking out the housing market. House shopping, I found, is a fun experience. The fun, I think, comes from seeing how others live. There’s something intriguing about it; like being a fly on a wall you’re not supposed to be on, but I digress. In all, I think Rick probably went in close to 50 houses. I haven’t asked him this directly, but he probably only considered making a bid on 5-6 of them.

So, walking into the kitchen to see about dinner on Monday night, I was presented with the news that Rick’s latest bid had been accepted. If all goes as planned, we will be moved in to the new place by around Easter. That timeline works out great for us because of when our lease expires. It will give us plenty of time to move at our leisure.

The house is about 2000 square feet (an upgrade from the approximately 1600 we have now). It also has a 4 stall garage. 4 stalls! I’d never lived in a place with a garage that big before. There are apparently already plans to convert 1 of those stalls into a 4-season rec room. In other words, Rick’s grandma has a pool table and we have a dart board (real darts, none of that plastic tip business), neither of which is being used at the moment and the rec room will remedy that situation. The bedrooms are certainly bigger than what we have now and there’s 2 full bathrooms, including one with a single person jacuzzi.

It’s an upgrade on all levels. My only problem with it is the location: St. Anthony (in other words, Northeastern Minneapolis. It’s supposedly a nice area (I haven’t been there to see myself yet) and it’s close to all your major needs like grocery stores, gas stations, fast food, etc. The one pain is going to be the longer commute. I know it’s insane to ask for anything less than a 10 minute commute around a major city, but somehow I am lucky enough to currently have that luxury. And you gotta find something to complain about.

Did I mention the screaming deal Rick got on the place? He managed to pay close to $60,000 less than list price. That’s 80% of list! Pretty damn good for a first time home buyer.

In all, I can’t wait to get moved in even if the drive to and from work is going to be a little longer. Congratulations to Rick for making this milestone in his life.

America is paranoid. The recent incident in Boston is proof.

Obscure cartoon creators make movie based on said obscure cartoon.
As a promotional stunt, creators make signs out of LED’s and batteries depicting one character.
Signs are placed around 10 major cities.
Nothing happens for 2 weeks.
Some paranoid bastard in Boston sees a sign.
Freaks out and calls cops.
All of Boson panics for a day and thinks it’s under terrorist attack.
National media and many police on scene.
Bomb squad detonates sign to make sure sign is not a bomb.
Creators are arrested and held on $2500 bail.
Creators post bail and give press conference about “70’s hair styles.”
America doesn’t get the joke.
The end.