Random Brain Dump

Emacs has a little package called SaveSpace that makes Emacs remember the position of the cursor for each file you opened. It’s nice to open a file and the cursor automatically jumps to where it was last. Sweet!

To enable SaveSpace, add the following configurations in your ~/.emacs file

(setq save-place-file “~/.emacs.d/saveplace”)
(setq-default save-place t)
(require ‘saveplace)

A few days ago, my buddy Vince came up for a visit. So we decided to do a day trip to Yosemite to take some pictures. The drive there back wasn’t bad, very doable for a day trip.

The best part about driving to Yosemite is how the first glimpse of the valley takes your breath away when you make through the bend of the road. Yosemite seems to always sneak up on me, every time.

We grabbed lunch at the Ahwahnee hotel and then headed out to do the scenic thing. The water falls were flowing at full force. We abandoned our plan for a hike to Nevada Falls because of the heavy snow on the trails up the mountain. Looking back we should’ve tried a flat trail like Mirror Lake instead. I regretted that we didn’t do any hikes…

One night many months ago, I was re-telling the story of the Tri-county pie-eating contest to Katelyn & Allison. Most people probably remember it from Stephen Kings’s Stand By Me– the barforama scene was both funny and gross to me when I watched it 20+ years ago. I had to rename the character from “Lard Ass” to “Fat Art” to do away with a “bad” word. Anyway, I grossed out the girls but they enjoyed how Fat Art got his revenge and got back at the people who were cruel to him. I told them that the story was from a movie.

So earlier this week, I caught Stand By Me on cable at the train scene which is just right before the barforama scene. So I called the girls from their room to watch the scene with me. I figured it’d be cool to make good on my promise of letting them see that part of the movie. When it was done, they thought it was pretty gross with all the barfing but they also thought it was funny too. As I turned off the TV and asked Allison:

Rex: “Did you like it?”

Allison: “It’s funny Daddy!”

Allison was impressed: “But how do you know these things?”

Rex: “You mean the story? Daddy watched the movie a long time ago. But I remember the story because it’s one of Daddy’s favorite movies!”

Allison: “Oh… I like it too Daddy!”

I think she was impressed that the story was “real” and that her old dad didn’t make up it all up… 🙂

After all these years, I’m finally realizing it… Oscar Night is the female version of Superbowl Sunday.

And it’s the whole gambit. There’s the week’s anticipation and the build up, leading to the big Sunday. The afternoon starts off with the red-carpet rituals (pre-game shows) with all the interviews and the analysis of all sorts of what-ifs and scenarios. Like Superbowl, there’s all sort of speculation of what that key “players” will put on in the show. Of course, then there was the show and its opening fanfare.

This year, Hugh Jackman was the master of ceremonies, pulling out the stops and conducting the show like a head coach running a football game. We each have favorite movies and actors we pulling for for. We get elated or disappointed whenever a favorite movie or actor didn’t come through, just as one would react to a broken play in Superbowl.

The show ends with celebrations and parties, with all the usual after-math happenings. There’s even talk of what to expect next year.

The mirroring between Oscar night and Superbowl is a bit scary if you think about it. I even saw loads of “Oscar Specials” advertising for big screen TVs on Best Buy and Newegg, just like Superbowl. The one difference is quality of the commercials, Superbowl commercials are far more entertaining…

The tube was on from 3PM to 10PM, my wife even planned dinner around the broadcast. 🙂

Anyhow, I’m glad Slumdog wins, as I usually root for the underdog– be it Superbowl or Oscars.

Coming home last night, I was greeted by my my 5 year old:

Allison: “Hi Daddy”
Rex: “Hi Allison, what are you doing?”
A: “Just playing…”
R: “I miss you…”
A: smiles…
R: “Daddy was at work today and Daddy was thinking about you, wondering what you were doing!”
A: looks at me puzzled…
A shrugging her shoulder: “But Daddy, I go to school! Don’t you remember?”

Sometimes I forget 5 year olds can be very literal conversationally… So very cute!

I can’t help but notice the steady stream of high level exodus @ Yahoo! It’s not surprising with a change of command, but the flight seems extra-ordinary to me and I find it disturbing for Yahoo! Below are some of news stream I’ve encountered:

• ChoiceStream scores
• AOL scores
• PR head resigns
• Sales chief is dugged
• Zimbra founder leaves
• Decker leaves

A few cool Mac downloads I’ve come across this week…

This RDC client enables you to remotely connect to a Windows computer and control its desktop, from your Mac. Awesome!

Wallsaver is a widget that enables screensavers as background. I like how quickly you can switch it on/off to go between screensaver and wallpapers. Unbelievably cool to have the Matrix screensaver running on the background. I do feel like I’m Neo… 🙂

Nortel was among the many companies recently announcing dire economic news. In fact, it filed for chapter 11 earlier this month. Well, there goes my tiny pension… 🙂

It’s sad for me as I started my career at Nortel when I moved to the Bay Area in ’92. Fresh out of college, I joined the company to build software for the company’s Meridian line of PBX‘s. Nortel’s Meridian phones seemed ubiquitous at the time but they were getting replaced by IP-based systems during the late 90’s.

There were a batch of new grads coming in to the Mountain View campus that summer. The place had a lot more older folks, very different from the companies I’ve been a part of since (web companies tend to attract young folks). The newly relocated “rookies” began to hang out together– many remained my good friends to this day. The companies may not have been one of the cooler companies, but I sure have the fondest memories of the folks there.

Good luck to the company.

Ran across an iPhone port of Crayon Physics… I was blown away by the simple but ultra-cool 2D physics puzzle game. The simple goal is to guide a ball to hit a target star by drawing 2D objects that interact with it. Worth every penny of its cost of 99 cents (the deluxe version costs $4.99), check it out here…

We spent two nights at my sister in-law’s on a short trip to LA after Christmas. On the last night, Suzanne was out late seeing an old friend. I was putting the girls to bed when they asked for a story as they often do. At home, sometime instead of reading books I would tell them stories– some true accounts and some I make up. So, I was looking around at the new surrounding for things to work into my story (I usually make things up as I go) when I saw a ceiling fan. That gave me an idea.

So I made up this story of a boy who woke up and discovered himself all sweaty on a sweltering summer day. He got ready for school, but grew increasingly uncomfortable in the hot morning. He kept complaining about the heat to his mother and didn’t want to go to school. His endless whining throughout breakfast gave her an idea. She gave him a shoe box and told him that it was magic! This magical thing in the box will instantly make him cool and comfortable. But there’s one condition: he cannot open it until he gets to class. Otherwise, the magic will not work. The boy got excited, grabbed the box and sprinted out the house. Along the way, he bragged about the magic box that will make him cool to every friend he encountered.

By the time he got to school the entire class knew about the magic box. As the boy sat down in class, anticipation built and all eyes were on him. The boy excitedly put the magic box on his desk, took a deep breath, surveyed the entire class and then calmly removed the cover. His eye bugged out, mouth gasped as he reached in the magic box with his hand and grabed its magical content: a paper fan which his mother made and inscribed with crayons “I love you, mom!” The boy raised the fan to show all his friends in pure delight. The collective excitement of the students exploded in a thunderous applause.

The end…

Katelyn and Allison were cracking up as I finished the story– just the feedback I was looking for. Allison then excitedly jumped out of her bed, made a fist with her hand, put it on the middle of her forehead and excitedly said to me: “Daddy, when you were telling the story I see everything in my head!”

Well… with a response like that, I guess that story was magical to me too.