Operation Say Yes
It was ten years ago today that I asked Claudia to marry me. The intervening years have far surpassed all expectations of partnership, meaning, growth, adventure and plain old love than even the best Hollywood romance or English novel could inspire.
Here is how I recorded the events of that day:
On Sunday March 25, I was supposed to go with Claudia's family on my favorite hike in Southern California. But wouldn't you know just as we were pulling out of the driveway, my cell phone rang, it was work complaining that my code broke the latest build, and I needed to come in right away. Damn - I told the family to go on the hike without me - maybe I could catch up later. Claudia (my girlfriend) goes on the hike totally upset that I didn't go because I was basically the only reason she was going (she has been unbelievably busy writing and sending off applications for business school in Europe). In the meantime there was a shady looking character a few houses up from Claudia's parents' house sitting on the sidewalk with his hat pulled low, cellphone in his hand. I jumped in my car to head off to work but instead I doubled back and picked up the hoodlum (my brother Darren). We raced to the nearest gas station where the other members of Operation Say Yes were stationed. The game was afoot and we took off towards the hills past Malibu about an hour away. Meanwhile, Claudia's family made a well planned pit stop that puts Operation Say Yes ahead of them by about 45 minutes.
As soon as Team OSY arrived at La Jolla Canyon the group sprung into action packing gourmet food, bouquets of flowers, a table, coolers, chairs, a guitar, a computer, some speakers and more. Knowing that the von der Ohe family was hot on the trail they double timed it up 3 miles or so of steep and narrow terrain. Heroic efforts were par for the day, but my sherpa friends could have brought the mountain to downtown Los Angeles that day. With sweat pouring they came over a ridge and looked onto a green valley sprinkled with wildflowers and oak trees next to a flowing creek. I went on ahead hoping that I would find a nice place to set the stage for the evening's activities. The first overgrown offshoot trail that I took led to a green meadow that fell off into the creek with one beautiful oak tree in the middle. I am not exaggerating when I say that there were golden streams of light filtered by a misty fog coming from the sun that was right on top of the mountain illuminating the spot. The place literally glowed and I knew I had found the spot.
The team arrived and we set up a table, the chairs, tablecloth, candles, and a dozen roses as the centerpiece. Sean, our scout, ran back to find my girlfriend's family and hurried back with the news that we had maybe 5-10 minutes tops until they arrived. I took a bag of rosepetals and lined the trail for about 50 yards with the dark red flowers. I also strategically placed a couple of poems along the trail - one that included a hint of what was to come. I ran back, hid some speakers in the old oak tree and set up my computer to start playing a selection from Claudia's favorite Opera: La Traviata. I changed into a tie and sportjacket as Darren went back on the trail with flowers for Claudia's mom and sisters and to retrieve the true centerpiece of the evening - Claudia. Darren found Claudia - and brought her towards the spot - but first escorted her to a place where a nice dress and sweater were hanging for her to change into. After changing and looking magnificent, Claudia took Darren's arm and he led her to the spot. A gourmet meal ensued with my friend Jeff moonlighting as our server. We had incredible homecooked Italian food and Claudia's favorite Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. It was the most romantic and beautiful dinner ever. I played the guitar and sang a nervous rendition of "It's Your Love". I got down on my knee, took out a basin full of water and rosepetals and washed Claudia's feet promising to be her servant for life. Then I asked The Question. Suffice to say that Operation Say Yes was a success. We then laughed and ran and walked and kissed and hugged our way all the way down the mountain . . .
Here is how I recorded the events of that day:
On Sunday March 25, I was supposed to go with Claudia's family on my favorite hike in Southern California. But wouldn't you know just as we were pulling out of the driveway, my cell phone rang, it was work complaining that my code broke the latest build, and I needed to come in right away. Damn - I told the family to go on the hike without me - maybe I could catch up later. Claudia (my girlfriend) goes on the hike totally upset that I didn't go because I was basically the only reason she was going (she has been unbelievably busy writing and sending off applications for business school in Europe). In the meantime there was a shady looking character a few houses up from Claudia's parents' house sitting on the sidewalk with his hat pulled low, cellphone in his hand. I jumped in my car to head off to work but instead I doubled back and picked up the hoodlum (my brother Darren). We raced to the nearest gas station where the other members of Operation Say Yes were stationed. The game was afoot and we took off towards the hills past Malibu about an hour away. Meanwhile, Claudia's family made a well planned pit stop that puts Operation Say Yes ahead of them by about 45 minutes.
As soon as Team OSY arrived at La Jolla Canyon the group sprung into action packing gourmet food, bouquets of flowers, a table, coolers, chairs, a guitar, a computer, some speakers and more. Knowing that the von der Ohe family was hot on the trail they double timed it up 3 miles or so of steep and narrow terrain. Heroic efforts were par for the day, but my sherpa friends could have brought the mountain to downtown Los Angeles that day. With sweat pouring they came over a ridge and looked onto a green valley sprinkled with wildflowers and oak trees next to a flowing creek. I went on ahead hoping that I would find a nice place to set the stage for the evening's activities. The first overgrown offshoot trail that I took led to a green meadow that fell off into the creek with one beautiful oak tree in the middle. I am not exaggerating when I say that there were golden streams of light filtered by a misty fog coming from the sun that was right on top of the mountain illuminating the spot. The place literally glowed and I knew I had found the spot.
The team arrived and we set up a table, the chairs, tablecloth, candles, and a dozen roses as the centerpiece. Sean, our scout, ran back to find my girlfriend's family and hurried back with the news that we had maybe 5-10 minutes tops until they arrived. I took a bag of rosepetals and lined the trail for about 50 yards with the dark red flowers. I also strategically placed a couple of poems along the trail - one that included a hint of what was to come. I ran back, hid some speakers in the old oak tree and set up my computer to start playing a selection from Claudia's favorite Opera: La Traviata. I changed into a tie and sportjacket as Darren went back on the trail with flowers for Claudia's mom and sisters and to retrieve the true centerpiece of the evening - Claudia. Darren found Claudia - and brought her towards the spot - but first escorted her to a place where a nice dress and sweater were hanging for her to change into. After changing and looking magnificent, Claudia took Darren's arm and he led her to the spot. A gourmet meal ensued with my friend Jeff moonlighting as our server. We had incredible homecooked Italian food and Claudia's favorite Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. It was the most romantic and beautiful dinner ever. I played the guitar and sang a nervous rendition of "It's Your Love". I got down on my knee, took out a basin full of water and rosepetals and washed Claudia's feet promising to be her servant for life. Then I asked The Question. Suffice to say that Operation Say Yes was a success. We then laughed and ran and walked and kissed and hugged our way all the way down the mountain . . .
Shrooms!
A few weeks before Christmas I received a heavy box in the mail. It was labelled "Mushroom Adventures" and a few days later my brother told me it was my Christmas gift.
So we opened it and followed the instructions, which were basically: add water to make mud and spread over the bark/dirt mixture, stick in corner and wait.
It was really easy, and before long we had a few mushrooms peeping through. We chopped them up and put them in pasta and they were full of flavor and totally fresh. The "adventure" part seemed to target tastebuds and greenthumbs, not neurons, but I wasn't disappointed.
Now we have so many mushrooms we can't eat them all - a nice problem to have. Thanks bro for an awesome gift!
Smartphones need web apps not app store apps
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| via @andyi on flickr |
I don't think you need to learn objective C, or the android environment in order to make useful smartphone applications. Html & javascript should be able to cover 90% (99%?) of the sorts of applications that are being written. I think it is actually a step backwards to force people with good ideas to have to write "close to the metal" (C) code, especially if you already know HTML and the concepts behind flash.
Take for instance this link:
http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/html5-iphone-app/
It teaches you how to create a nice version of tetris that runs in your phone's web browser using html and javascript (iphone and android, maybe blackberry's, microsoft and PalmOS too?) . Not only is it touch friendly, but it works offline, and can even save your high scores on your phone (much of this is due to HTML5 stuff like manifest files and local data stores).
Jon Resig, the creator of JQuery (the wonderful and ubiquitous javascript library) has just released an alpha version of jquery mobile, which makes creating smartphone UIs easy. I believe this, and not objective C, is the future:
http://jquerymobile.com/2010/10/jquery-mobile-alpha-1-released/
If you hone your skills in developing browser based solutions that are awesome on smartphones, then you are gaining long term valuable skills, as you can expect that pretty much all phones for the next 5 years will have browsers on them. Learning objective C or the android API is a higher risk investment of your time - who knows what phone will be hot next year?
If you need to access lower level hardware, like the accelerometer or the camera then you probably need some closer to the metal code. Then again, location aware browsers show me that these sorts of interfaces will be exposed more and more through the browser as time goes on. Maybe you are doing graphically intense 3D visualizations, then that needs hard core C, but again 3D optimized graphics libs for browsers are on their way. Finally, smartphone browser apps don't get you into the app store, which might or might not be a good thing (no approval process but no chance to hit the app store lottery and make money).
I Hate Farm Subsidies
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| Via @judybaxter on flickr |
I just listened to an excellent Planet Money Podcast about cotton, cotton subsidies and a trade war between the US and Brazil. It interviewed Dahlin Hancock an American cotton farmer, as well as Brazilians and WTO people. It reminded me how much I hate American farm subsidies. Here's what I sent:
Thanks so much for the podcast on cotton and cotton subsidies. It was fascinating, and I loved how the story twisted and turned through the WTO process and showed how Brazil eventually found leverage despite the WTO having no power of enforcement. Great stuff.
But here is what I was disappointed not to hear:
* Mr Hancock, why do you need subsidies, and isn't that cheating? I mean, he was complaining about Brazil, but as far as I understand it, the American farmer gets paid extra because he can't otherwise compete with Brazil.
* What about African cotton farmers? It was only after Brazil became powerful and savvy enough to hire American lawyers that it had a chance to fight unfair subsidies. This leaves Nigeria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and many other developing countries with no voice. The result of the Brazil v US cotton war (the US now subsidizes Brazilian farmers too) only leaves an increasingly unfair playing field for everyone else. I mean not only do they have to fight already deflated American prices, but now the Brazilian industry has $150 million per year to subsidize itself with.
It seems to me that the result is a loss for the American taxpayer and a loss for developing countries. The only winners are Texan farmers, who should be in other industries (he dropped out of electrician school) but can't handle the extra training required. Is this actually a subsidy of under-education?
What a fascinating but grim story! More like it please!
American farm subsidies seem wrong to me. I love hearing my Grandpa talk about his boyhood days on the farm, but for America, those days are over. America is no longer a country of millions of farmers anymore. America has about as many computer programmers as we do farmers. For Americans, the future is about creativity, strategy, technology. Subsidizing those fields is a long term investment, and it can be done through education.
The only farming that the vast majority of Americans will ever do is in Farmville.
The next chance to kill farm subsidies is in 2012, when the farm bill comes up. How do we do it?
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