David Frey

Mortality

2007-02-13T17:42:00Z

My dad is going in for another stent or two on Thursday. It's preventative this time and not the result of a heart attack like he had last year. My dad has not been so healthy these days, but he's not on his death bed by any means.

Regardless, I'm facing discussions of mortality with my parents. I suppose it is a good idea to be prepared emotionally and financially, but it doesn't make for a comfortable phone call at 8:00 in the morning. Now I'm investigating options for assisted living.. hopefully to be reserved for a time in the distant future.

Resolutions

2006-12-31T22:10:56Z

Just under a year ago, I posted some resolutions I wanted to achieve. I've knocked off at least two of them:

"Work out and lose weight (190lb target). I just signed up at Club Fit in town and have a tentative goal to spend an hour a day, five days a week there."
Not done, not even close. If anything I gained weight this year. This is going back to the top of my list for 2007.
"Formalize my freelance business and build a veil of financial protection."
Negative. I'd like to blame it on how busy I was this year, but it really comes down to not wanting to do all the paperwork. I still need a business bank account for tax purposes, but I'm not so gun ho about this one anymore.
"Bring freelance business into the black."
I don't know. I think I've done pretty well this year overall, but I haven't actually compared my expenses yet.
"Obtain an 11% raise at Canby Telephone."
Well, it's a lot more than 11% but it is not at Canby Telephone. I'm going to say it counts anyway.
"Graduate from the Art Institute with a BS in Interactive Media Design."
Done! Finally, though the reality of it still hasn't set in yet.

I'm actually pretty happy about what I accomplished. The two resolutions I did achieve are pretty significant, life altering events.

What I hope to achieve in 2007

Spend more time with family and friends.
Get back in shape, lose some weight, and be more active in general.
Manage my free time better.
Build a koi pond and deck in my backyard.

davidfrey @ 2006-12-22T17:14:00

2006-12-23T01:14:52Z

December has been a very busy month for me. I have started a new career, celebrated a five year wedding anniversary with my amazing wife Stacy, and graduated with a bachelor of science from The Art Institute of Portland. Throw in the typical holiday hustle and bustle and you have the recipe for a bewildered and displaced anti-social.

As disoriented as I may be I have nothing to complain about—so many wonderful things have happened to me in these past few weeks. Making the decision to leave Canby Telcom was stressful, but I believe whole-heartedly now that it was the right one.

For a little competitive entertainment Stacy and I decided to compare the ~~companies~~ company names we've worked under in the last decade:

David Frey	Stacy Frey
CTA Communications CTA Service Corp North Willamette Telecom Canby Telephone DirectLink of Oregon Canby Telcom Edge Design	OPB Store Fred Meyer Petite Sophisticate Koala Blue Gymboree Bath and Body Works Franklin Covey Cost Plus World Market Washington Mutual Brighton Collectables Anthro

I have no chance of winning this race, even with my 6-1handicap.

I really love what I'm doing at my new job. So far I have worked on 7 completely different web sites with their own unique challenges to boot. To top it off, the owners decided to close the office for the week of Christmas as an extra week of paid vacation for all of us. Sweet.

I have a hybrid mac/pc workstation I'm trying to get configured and personalized. I now have two 20" wide-screen Dell monitors. Once I get a new graphics card for the PC I'll be able to have the two systems working side-by-side. Synergy is my new favorite app in that regard. I can use one keyboard+mouse between the two systems with ease.

I'm ending the year without any regrets, though I do miss lunch time with the sparrows. Hopefully I'll be able to start working from home once a week pretty soon.

Soooooo Goooood

2006-11-13T16:11:24Z

This morning I'm sitting in my class, patiently waiting for all of the other students to get back from registration.

ehem..

2006-11-11T00:30:43Z

Here's one who's really committed to the role:

[16:27] Weird Science Lab: Human/
[16:28] intuitiveye: oh no
[16:28] intuitiveye: he's back.
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: I have search many databases and I have found one who I feel may be on my level
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: Can you help me to contact your leader?
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: http://eur.news1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/xp/wenn/20060815/13/2923437296-hasselhoff-returns-baywatch-costs-7.jpg
[16:28] intuitiveye: oh yes
[16:28] intuitiveye: he's one of the greatest minds this world has ever seen.
[16:28] intuitiveye: and he's my best friend.
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: He has existing man/machine communication
[16:29] intuitiveye: here's is IP 1111.2222.3333.4444
[16:29] Weird Science Lab: Thank you human

davidfrey @ 2006-11-09T20:11:00

2006-11-10T04:13:30Z

BTW.

First update in.. a long time.

http://intuitiveye.com/

davidfrey @ 2006-10-24T22:47:00

2006-10-25T05:57:39Z

Stacy and I partook in a little pumpkin carving tonight. Here are the results. Let's see if you can guess who carved what.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

I am so smart S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T

2006-10-20T14:44:10Z

So I've decided that I need to learn some C. I'm not exactly sure where I should start. C++ seems to be the way to go since it is inherently object oriented, but I really have no idea where to start with compilers. I'd prefer something free. If any of you have any recommendations, I'm listening.

Henry's on a School Night

2006-10-03T23:38:03Z

For anyone that wants to join, a group of us are getting together for drinks at Henry's Tavern in Portland tomorrow night at around 7:00 p.m. Actually, this is a research trip for NWBrew.org so if you show up, you will likely become an NWBrew volunteer.

The best of the worst

2006-09-19T18:10:59Z

Heh, PC World rated MySpace.com the #1 worst site of all time.

Nice.

Project Impossible

2006-09-18T17:22:31Z

I've been working on a billable WiFi product that is planned to be installed at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds. Despite my previous experience and vehement objections to using the Nomadix AG3000 that gave us so much grief during fair time I have been reassigned to the project to implement automated billing using none other than the Nomadix AG3000. I was given 15 days to make a crippled product work in its production environment. Now in my sixth day, I am no more confident in this piece of junk than I was a month ago after spending an entire day hunched over my laptop in a dingy wiring closet.

Last Friday I finally got billing tied in with Authorize.net. The user experience for billing would confuse Stephen Hawking, but hey, it worked--sort of. It seems that by activating billing for a user on the subscriber side the user's session would never time out. Billing could expire, and days could go by, but access to the Nets live on. Buy one hour, and get a lifetime for free!

I'm sure it's just an undocumented feature.

Frustrated and tired, I went home for the weekend. This morning, I found the infernal thing frozen. Ping worked for about 10 seconds before it caved in too. So, a network subscriber management device that's plugged into UPS has now failed twice in the last week.

So what's the big deal you say? Just call support?

Yeah, about that. We paid $300 for premium support and the good people at Nomadix refuse to let me use it. They claim that the problems I am experiencing are "installation related," which apparently is supported by another department that has a policy of returning calls within 15 minutes to 2 weeks.

The President (currently my direct superior) is expecting me to have billing ready to test by Wednesday. Right. Should make for a fun day at the office.

VMWare Player

2006-09-12T16:35:02Z

I've been a fan of VMWare for a while, but definately not very keen on their prices. About a year ago they released VMWare Player, a free download that would allow people to open Virtual Machines created with the expensive paid version, VMWare Workstation. I didn't think it was very useful back then, but this past weekend I discovered that it's very much my new favorite app when coupled with Qemu. I got Ubuntu and KUbuntu virtual machines up and running within a half hour (plus 2-hour downloads). I feel like I can finally set up my own alternative to BrowserCam and simulate just about any browser environment I want... well maybe not OS X, I'll have to try that some other day if I can get my hands on an ISO.

To be Exempt, or Non-Exempt

2006-09-06T20:49:28Z

In a fishy twist of fate I have been reclassified as a non-exempt employee after two years under exempt status. This means I will finally be paid for over time hours. Maybe now I can enjoy a little extra income for my long hours above and beyond.

davidfrey @ 2006-08-30T08:38:00

2006-08-30T15:39:08Z

I'm thinking about how to put together my online portfolio and thought I might as well ask everyone that reads my journal what they think. So, what do you think?

View Poll: What's in a name?

Barry Wowilow

2006-08-28T04:15:14Z

No one has seen a Barry Manilow fan until they've seen my wife watch him win an Emmy. I'm truey scared for my life.

The answer is 31-

2006-08-25T02:02:48Z

I have less than 31 class sessions to attend before the end (my friend). I say "less" because I'm too lazy to figure out if any of my classes fall on a holiday or not. Regardless, it's been confirmed. The Fall term of 2006 is my last.

w00t!

Happy Birthday Web!

2006-08-07T18:08:43Z

15 years ago today, the WWW was publicly released by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee.

Webvisions 2006

2006-07-24T16:42:07Z

Webvisions 2006 was pretty cool this year, although I somehow couldn't help but imagine last year's content was perhaps a little better overall. I did get to see some amazing people though. DL Byron, Dan Cederholm, Nate Koechley, Derek Powazek and Matt Haughey to name a few. There were several sessions that I really wanted to attend that overlapped with others I really wanted to attend, which is probably why it seems last year's content was better. Next time it would be nice to go with a friend, split up, and compare notes. My biggest complaint about this year, is that I felt rushed through the whole process. I didn't really feel like there was any time after sessions to chat with anyone.

I wonder how many people were there. It seemed like more than last year—especially since many of the sessions were standing room only.

Self Introspection

2006-07-14T00:57:18Z

My latest class (and one of the last - w00t) is essentially the development of my personal identity in the industry's cess pool of job seekers. For those that know me, even a little, how would you describe me as a person and professional.

Be honest, I have thick skin.

Space Milk or Mad Cows?

2006-06-29T16:13:26Z

Cow being abducted from a field (courtesy cowabductions.com)

Farmers all over America, especially California, have become increasingly concerned with a rise in missing cows. Many bellieve their precious dairy cows are being stolen. Some call it cow terroism, some call it abduction. Where have all the dairy cows gone?

www.cowabduction.com

Backyard Fantastico

This is a reminder to anyone I haven't spoken with recently. Our little social gathering will take place this Saturday, 7 p.m., at 424 SE 7th. Ave. in Canby. Stacy and I will take care of the main course grillin' along with a couple of side-dishes. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring the refreshments.

Aliasing

2006-06-27T20:26:46Z

I may have to rethink my e-mail configuration. In the past five days my spam filter has captured 185 illigitimate e-mails. Using a wild-card alias is remotely easier to manage until all the spam bots hit your domain. Now I need to go through and figure out all the different valid aliases I've used over the past few years.

Meeting with the Bobs

2006-06-27T16:27:03Z

I have a really hard time understanding what some of the people in this company do. First of all, if an individual I have to work with needs to contact a few outside vendors/partners to get some feedback, I can understand that process taking a day or two. After a full week has passed and not a single conversation has taken place I have to wonder, "What the bloody hell have you been doing this past week?" When said person is believed to make at least 10-20% more money than I do, and I'm asked to, "keep after them (AKA baby-sit)," I tend to lose my patience. Seriously.

/rant

Yesterday's post illustrated a few applications and extensions I had been playing around with (yes, I'll admit when I goof off as opposed to making up dumb excuses -- no, I'm not bitter -- stop looking at me swan). At any rate after posting with Performancing yesterday I decided to try out Deepest Sender again since it had been at least a year since I had played with it last. I think I like Deepest Sender better overall for what I do, but both have their finer points.

Deepest Sender versus Performancing

Performancing can be attached to the browser chrome for a top/bottom split screen, Deepest Sender can be launched in a sidebar for a left/right split screen. Both can be launched in separate windows that don't take up browser real-estate and is easy to access via application switching shortcuts.
Deepest Sender is launched from the browser with a simple Ctrl+\ shortcut or toolbar icon. Performacning is launched with the F8 shortcut or via a statusbar icon.
Both write decent source code as a WYSIWYG editor.
Deepest Sender has LJ specific tools, that Performancing doesn't have (yet).
The Deepest Sender interface is simple and uncluttered whereas Performancing seems overburdened with tabs and features that may or may not be available to the blogging platform you are using.
Deepest Sender supports LiveJourna/WordPress/Blogger. I believe Performancing supports a lot more, and can handle more than one blogging account.
Performancing has a built-in FTP image upload function which is very cool.

Sandbox Morning

2006-06-26T17:04:16Z

I'm deeply distracted today. I've spent the first two hours of my morning playing around with some new stuff after cleaning up some of my Fire Fox extensions.

NoteFish: After working on my thesis paper, I have a new appreciation for research tools. NoteFish offers an integrated Fire Fox extension to copy and paste snippets of information directly to a NoteFish project. Seems pretty slick so far.
EasyBib: Got a list of sources you need to cite? This thing is amazingly simple and can format MLA or APA at the click of a button. EasyBib takes the guesswork out of creating a bibliography. $7/year gets you an account you can save to making it that much easier to compile a ton of resources over time.
Performancing: This happens to be the blogging tool I'm using to write this post. It's not as full-featured as Semagic, but I love portability and since Fire Fox runs off my Flash drive, this thing will go anywhere I go.
Galculator: I haven't had the time to really work out whether or not this is beneficial to me, but Galculator seems to be a nice little one-line calculator extension for firefox. If I can say good-bye to the days of Windows calculator then this will be a worthwhile extension.
VOX: An intesting new development from SixApart. I just have a Starter Account, so I can't do much of anything yet; although VOX seems like it could be a useful way of merging other Web services easily into your blog.

I suppose it's time to stop playing and get some work done. Gotta love distractions.

Storage Shed

2006-06-22T17:03:58Z

I'm now the proud owner of a new cedar storage shed.. well sort of. The wood and materials are being delivered on a funky pallet that's 12 feet long sometime tomorrow. Then I have to build it. The brochure said it would take 50 hours to finish building the kit. I really hope that's an estimate for the mentally retarded. I should think it might take me 15-20 hours tops, and better if I get help. I guess I will soon find out.

Backyard Fantastico

2006-06-20T22:20:50Z

View Poll: Backyard Fantastico