Wassup Jose

I planned on having lunch with our friend and former colleague, Kman, but we postponed because he had a couple of afternoon meetings. I am available tomorrow, so postponing it was fine with me.

Now that lunch plans changed, I figured I would take a walk to the cafeteria and check out the sites. Little did I know that an Olympic Gold medalist was walking … ah, limping distance away from me. Yes, Michael Phelps in person was on-site … nice!

I finished lunch and walked to the lot with a co-worker. There he was sitting under a tent just chilling like “it ain’t no big thing.” It turns out the client I am working for is an Olympic sponsor and Phelps was returning the favor of course.

We played some of the games that were setup for the staff and got some kewl autographed cards and baseball caps. I usually have the crappy Razr in hand, but for some reason forgot it on my way to lunch. Dammit, no pictures of me and Phelps.

This was a nice surprise. It is not everyday that one gets to meet and greet a world record holder and winningest Olympic athlete in person. I wish I would have known a bit earlier, so I could have won some of the kewler prizes. Oh well, maybe next time (err, never).

Alright, not quite sure where this post is going to go but what the heck. The project I am working on has a requirement for a workflow component. Hmm, not a big deal because we are going to use Windows Workflow Foundation right?

Screeech! Not so fast Ricky Racer … “Is there an echo in here?” Anyway, it turns out that Windows Workflow Foundation will not work for our project. We need to design (read from scratch) a workflow framework. Gman, where are you when we need you?

In addition to the workflow, we need to implement a message queue framework and a state machine. Nope, M$MQ and IBM MQ are out of the question. We need to do it the hard way and build our own. Lame! Enough said.

Not towel heads, toll heads! You know the ignorant drivers that know they are destined for a toll booth, but wait until they are parked in front of the toll operator to dig for the damn toll fee. Today a dumb toll head took 2:17 minutes to pass the toll booth, arrgh!

The toll booths were clear, so I decided to stay in the lane and follow the car ahead of me through the booth. I usually have to fight for the best position like Nascar. Wait, not so fast Ricky Racer. We need to complicate this process just to piss me off.

The driver rolled down her window (this was a clue I was behind a toll head), then she digs around in the cab for almost 2 minutes, and then finally pays the fee. Needless to say, I was pissed off. It took her what seemed like an eternity to get her ass out of the booth.

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Look! Less than 30 days until the Milkman expires, which reminds me that I have a few posts to publish. I will start posting them this week and end with another milestone post. I wish I could post the Milkman dance … *hint* *hint* … Sum Yum Do!

A couple of months ago, I purchased a new CD receiver for the handsome Focus. The OEM radio and CD unit died out after five plus years of service thus the new receiver. I was not looking for a reference system, so I purchased an entry-level unit.

The make is Kenwood and the model is KDC-MP238. The unit plus hardware and installation was approximately $200, so I went ahead and purchased it. Originally, I wanted a Sony but the salesperson commented (read bullshit) it was not a good unit.

Whatever moron, I just want a CD receiver so I can blow this taco stand. Well, after months of using the Kenwood receiver I can honestly state the unit is a piece of crap. The display is useless during the day and the multi-function volume knob sucks.

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Earlier today, 5:15pm PST to be exact, I reached a milestone in the handsome Focus. Yes, I reached automotive mid-life at 50,000 miles. The handsome Focus will be six years old next Monday, September 8th. I am averaging a kewl 8,500 miles per year.

Actually, I average about 7,700 - 7,800 miles per year but the daily commute is skewing the numbers. I will get back on track as soon as I get the carpool group lined up, hopefully in the next day or two. Happy “almost” 6th Birthday to the Focus!

I downloaded the Microsoft .NET Pet Shop 4.0 application from MSDN to review the source code. I would have preferred a .zip archive, instead it was packaged as a Windows Installer file. Dammit.

I do not want to execute the .msi package just to extract the source code and who knows what else is defined in the installation database. In the old .cab days, I would use the .cab extractor utility to extract the files.

Well, I searched for the equivalent for .msi files and found a couple of candidates. The Less MSIerables utility is a must have tool. I opened the Pet Shop 4.0 .msi file, selected the files I wanted to extract, and clicked the extract button. Nice!

Stop the presses! I found the iPod Nano, nice. A couple of days ago, I posted that I lost my handy dandy iPod Nano. I looked in the car, apartment, and client site. Nothing. I was sure it was lost forever and ever and ever.

Earlier today, I was rummaging through the backpack and found the iPod Nano clipped to a pocket separator at the bottom. I did a double take just to make sure it was the iPod. The iSkin case has a clip, which snagged and caught on the backpack. Doh!

Okay … I have encountered the not-so-common Audi R8, Lamborghini Gallardo, Lamborghini Murcielago, and countless Porsches. Wait one second Ricky Racer, what about the Ferrari 360 Coupe? What about it? I saw one last Friday, check the crappy photo!

No Mercy is NOT misspelled. I meant to write it that way. In the continuing saga of “Which exotic car will I see today?”, checkout the Lamborghini “Murci” Murcielago Roadster. MSRP for the roadster is a kewl $372,200. He is definitely IARB!

I hate this crappy camera phone! Another horrible picture, dammit. Reference below.