mjm wired ;)  

Yesterday night my youngest brother landed in California ready to start a new job and new life. Just last month he was sitting in an arena listening to speeches from a clueless kinesiology student, random honorary graduates and the university president which he really didn't like too much. However the final talk by David Bing, a former Pistons basketball player, was very sincere and in many ways enlightening. Mr. Bing said that one of his coaches once mentioned the "5 P's" to him: "Proper [...]

Just days before the new year, I came down with some bad sinus headaches. As much as I looked for a cause (lack of sleep, computer, alcohol, etc.), I could find nothing. So I tried my best to avoid any unnecessary medicine but only a day into the new year, most of that pain had shifted to my right ear. I took some aspirin, hoping to be okay for work the next day, and slept. On the morning of the 2nd, ready to go [...]

I have been a little uninspired lately. I could blame plenty of external reasons, but the truth is no one does anything for you, you have to make your own way. I can't even list all the happenings of the year, most of them I didn't even blog about. There was some "50 Rules to Life" that says visit some place new every year. Well I visited 3 major spots, outside of Germany, the local trips pushed me far outside of my comfort zone [...]

I'm not sure from where I caught it, but about 2 weeks ago I fell ill and lost my voice. After 5 days of not being able to talk clearly I went to see the doctor and he informed me that I had laryngitis caused by a bacterial throat infection. The odd thing was that he told me to wait another 2 days before starting the anti-biotics. Unfortunately the next day it got worse, so I started that day itself. It took 2 more [...]

Someone I know once worked at a hardware store and during the summer a few years ago, like any other summer, there were gas grills on sale. So he convinced his father to buy one. His father apparently thought they were a bit too pricey but after some negotiation and discounting, a sale was finally made. The grill was rather large so I helped him out to transport it and assemble it. Overall it appeared to be a fine product without any serious problems. [...]

I think it was 1996 and someone whose opinion I valued, asked me what my greatest fear was. I answered that outside of closest monsters, laughing hyenas or having to shave my legs, that I feared being forgotten. Granted it was a very common response, so I would guess its a common fear. Whether or not it is genuine for others is beyond me. So for Memorial Day weekend I went (with my family) to one of the usual places I "vacation" (shop rather). [...]

Even though I do have various degrees of experience across different software, I still consider myself somewhat of a junior engineer. Someone somewhere thought differently. So a "roster" of people was drafted for some workshops in Germany. One person's personal trip was already preplaned, hence he was out (you know who you are). Many people had passport or visa issues and in the end, given the last minute nature, only a subset was able to go. So here I am at 4:45am writing a [...]

I was having lunch a few weeks ago like normal and the subject of taxes arose. Someone, who was a little new to my lunch crowd, asked if anyone knew of any tax preparation classes that one can take to better learn how to process tax forms. (So this guy needs help with taxes.) I told him my general advice to look online or and obtain information himself. If he's not confident to look to some some software like TurboTax or Taxcut etc. And [...]