What I Did on my Summer Vacation

The last time I posted a blog was 20170619. That’s pretty shameful for a guy who writes for the purpose of keeping stress headaches at bay. But, like you, I’ve found that summer gets in the way and before you know it, seven weeks have gone by.

So, in honor of every third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grader who has to write a “What I Did Over Summer Vacation” report, I thought I’d fill in the gaps over this past seven weeks.

(If you read this blog for the political/religious brain dumps, come back next week. I promise to load your bucket!)

At the end of June my wife and I took an early morning flight out of Cleveland to Salt Lake City. The first part of our trip was a weekend at the Snowbird Resort for the annual (and perhaps final) Nerdtacular event.

View from the Cliff Lodge

Nerdtacular is a sort of miniature Comic Con, though it seems more like a family reunion. It’s made up of podcasters, gamers, cosplayers, artists, musicians, and general craziness. We had attended it back in 2014 and planned to go every other year. With 2016 being the 10th anniversary of Nerdtacular, the folks who run it (the same podcasters, gamers, cosplayers, artists, and musicians) decided to skip a year to make it a really big event. Check out the link for pictures, a much better description, and videos of some of the events (but come back to finish reading!): http://frogpants.com/nerdtacular

(If you check out the Live FilmSack video at around the 18:45 mark, they mention someone bringing the Blu-Ray version of the movie to the event. That person was ME!)

A picture of me and Scott Johnson, the chief nerd

The event ran from Thursday (an informal meet and greet) through the end of Saturday. When we were here in 2014 we stayed for an extra week at the Snowbird Resort and did day trips from there. This time we checked out of the hotel and drove to Cedar Creek, Utah for the second leg of our vacation.

Our intention was to visit the major National Parks in Utah. So, with our stay in Cedar Creek, we made trips to Cedar Breaks National Monument, Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon.

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Kolob Canyons

Zion National Park

Bryce Canyon

Next we drove over to Green River, Utah, in order to visit Arches National Park, Canyonland National Park (which I kept calling “CandyLand” by mistake. Honest!), and Capitol Reef.

Arches National Park

Canyonland National Park

Capitol Reef

The photos above aren’t even a glimmer into the beauty that these parks contain. Absolutely breathtaking. You gotta add it to your “bucket list” and then go check it off!

After a bunch of days hiking around in 100+ degree temperatures (it’s okay, “It’s a dry heat”), we made our way to Sandy, Utah for the last leg of our trip.

Not only did we celebrate our eleventh wedding anniversary with a delicious dinner while there, we also spent an evening watching the Salt Lake City Bees (the Triple A minor league team for the Los Angeles Angels) play some baseball.

Me and my better half

We arrived back in Cleveland just after midnight on 20170718. The parking pass stated our car was there for 18 days and a little over 21 hours. A nice, long vacation.

The very next Sunday we got tickets to go see the Cleveland Indians play, so . . . you know . . . that was a no-brainer!

I almost forgot: I also brought home a souvenir from our trip. At first I thought my allergies were acting up, but allergy medicines didn’t relieve it. Then I thought it was turning into a cold, but cold medicines didn’t relieve it. After missing work, I went and got a Z-pack (antibiotics) which killed whatever it was I brought home. I prefer the National Park t-shirts we got instead.

Then last weekend my wife and I got to go to Toledo with some good friends to enjoy a Toledo Mudhens ballgame (Triple A minor league team for the Detroit Tigers) and a day at the Toledo Zoo.

We love our baseball!

Finally, the company I work for had its company picnic at Canal Park in Akron to watch an Akron RubberDucks ballgame (Double A minor league team for the Cleveland Indians).

And that’s about it. My summer vacation. I know, it’s only the beginning of August still, but when it comes to time off from writing, it’s over.

See you in the dugout!

©Emittravel 2017

It’s the 2nd of April and I’m Ready to Stretch!

I sit down ready to blog. There are a number of things on my mind that I could write about, but what dominates my thoughts is something that has me so wired that everything else falls short. And that something?

Baseball.

Our Cleveland Indians hat collection

Okay, not JUST baseball, but Opening Day baseball. Today is the first official game of the season. Not for the Cleveland Indians (they play tomorrow), but for baseball in general. And my wife and I have been anxiously waiting since our Pitchers & Catchers Report party mid-February for the first pitch.

Now, there are those of you reading this that don’t give two spits about baseball. And that’s okay. I’m not going to try and convert you. To be honest, until last season I really didn’t care all that much either.

And it’s not just baseball either. I’m not into games in general. I don’t like to play them. Once I was asked to join a softball team. My response was “Softball is seven innings long, and my attention span is an inning and a half.” (Thank you Smothers Brothers for that line’s inspiration.)

My wife and I have attended an event in Utah called Nerdtacular, which is comprised of folks into technology, cosplay, comic culture, and gaming. We are attending it again this year. We love hanging with the folks there. We listen to a lot of podcasts by those who host the event, EXCEPT for those that focus on gaming. Just not interested.

At work I don’t consider myself a “team player”; I consider myself a “team worker”.

But somewhere along the line from third base to home plate, I fell in love with baseball. Not to play it. No. Not that. Again, my attention span is far too short for that. But I love to watch the game. And I don’t care who is playing. I just love to watch.

Lisa and I at Fifth Third Field for a Toledo Mudhens game

There is something magical about a well-executed double play.

We have plans to watch as many major league games as we can on TV this year, and attend as many minor league games in person as we can. Heck, we are even looking at the possibility of catching a Salt Lake Bees game when we are in Utah this summer.

And it’s weird. I’ve never been this into any sporting event before. I had a pastor who once said that football was 50k people who need exercise watching 22 people who need rest. To use my wife’s line, “this body is built for comfort, not speed”. In other words, I should be doing anything physical outside of watching a sporting event. But baseball . . .

Lisa with Muddonna of the Toledo Mudhens

One of the best parts of baseball!

Here’s to a wonderful baseball season. May your home team play above and beyond what they did last season. I know I’m going to be rooting for mine.

Now, excuse me while I go grab some peanuts and tune in a game.

Play ball!

©Emittravel 2017

Is This Seat Taken?

I've come to notice that many of those I called "friends" have ceased to be.  Especially those going back to the hazy, crazy days of my youth. What happened? I'll tell you what happened: life. Life is what happened. People move to different locations, different jobs, different circles. Marriage takes you out of one and places you in another. Have kids? Some would say that life was over - at least one's social life.

If I focus on those who are no longer a "connection", it can become pretty depressing. But, I was reminded of something this weekend: big friends come in small packages. Life can be impacted in profound ways by the seemingly insignificant connections.

A year ago (July 2014), my wife and I flew to Salt Lake City, Utah, to attend Nerdtacular. I wrote about it in a previous blog post. Up to this year, Nerdtacular has taken place around the Independence Day weekend. This is the first year that it will be held the weekend of July 31 and August 1. My wife and I decided to not go this year, in order to save money and make it a long vacation next year (to coincide with our 10th wedding anniversary).

At one point during the event last year, we were waiting in the lobby to get into the ballroom for an event, and found ourselves in a conversation with a gentleman from The Great State of Texas (I believe "The Great State of" is part of the state's name, right?). You have to understand, there are people who come from all over the world to this event. Josh was friendly, funny, and engaging. That, by the way, pretty much describes the personalities of folks who attend.

After that weekend we kept a connection with Josh over Twitter. I mentioned him in the same post as above, so check it out for a taste of his Tweetness.

As July approached this year, I realized that I saw less and less of Josh on Twitter. He is a very intelligent software developer, so I'm sure his time is quite limited.

Yesterday I reached out to him via chat and told him we were thinking of him and to let him know that we would not be at this year's Nerdtacular, but were going to be watching the live broadcast of the event (check out Alpha Geek Radio). My wife suggested that if he got in front of a camera to wave.

His response impacted me so much that I'm writing this post. He basically expressed his disappointment and said that he had been looking to get together all year. He also said he was a reader of this blog, and that he wanted to discuss my recent sabbatical. Quite an intimate topic for someone I met briefly a year ago.

And that is the thing. It doesn't matter when, where, or how - it's in the least likely moments when a connection will grab you by the hand and hold on. You have to keep yourself open to those life puts in your path. Sometimes the simplest can be the most impactful.

Oh, and I guarantee, while I watch the live stream of this year's Nerdtacular, I'll be scanning the crowds for Josh.

© Emittravel 2015

Developers! Developers! Developers!

Some of you who follow tech news will undoubtedly recognize the title of this blog article as a quote from former Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer. I feel a kinship to Mr. Ballmer: we both like to rant. He, from the stage of Microsoft events - and possibly the sidelines of Los Angeles Clippers' games, and me, from the digital pages of this blog.

Rest assured, even though this particular article will deal with technology and developers, I have great affection for those who spend their days huddled in front of computer monitors writing line after line of code. My day job is that of Executive Assistant to the Chief Technology Officer, and administrative assistant to a staff of over 150 I.T. and business analytics folks. I also spend much leisure time listening to podcasts from the likes of individuals as Tom Merritt (@acedtect), Paul Thurrott (@thurrott), Mary Jo Foley (@maryjofoley), Patrick Beja (@NotPatrick), Jonathon Strickland (@JonStrickland), and a "digital Jesuit" named Robert Ballecer, SJ (@padresj). Sometimes, though, I think that what comes out of the keyboards of some developers leave the customer's best interests out of the mix.

This past summer, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting a number of great folks at an event in Salt Lake City, Utah called "Nerdtacular". Along with some fantastic artists, musicians, and simply "geeky" podcasters, we got to meet people like Josh Freeman (@jdfreeman11) from San Antonio, Texas. His Twitter bio states: "Software Engineer. @thefullformat host. Netflix C-list horror connoisseur." He also tweets statements like "Design better software today than you did yesterday. Continue doing so until the day you stop writing software." and "If sleeping is the human version of rebooting, is dying the result of an uncaught exception?".  Josh is the inspiration for this article.

"Dear Developers. The removal of a feature is NEVER considered an upgrade. Signed, Your Customers." - me.

The above is one of my major gripes regarding technology. Here's an example why:

Back in the day, Microsoft came out with their iPod competitor: the Zune. I have one of the 30 GB brown "bricks", and I really like it. It holds a large chunk of my music collection, but not all of it. I have auto playlists that I use to dynamically go through my music collection. For instance, I have one that pulls all songs, minus genre:Christmas, with a play count of less than one, shuffles it, and limits the playlist to no more than 30 GBs. I sync that playlist and start enjoying the music. When next I synchronize it, those songs that no longer fall into the playlist criteria (for instance, a play count of less than one) will fall off, which updates the overall playlist, and syncs new songs back to the device. This way I can work through the 26k+ songs in my collection without hearing the same Billy Joel song over and over (not that THAT would be a bad thing!)

The desktop software the Zune used was also called Zune - a kind of iTunes. You could play music through your computer, or sync it to a device. This was built on Microsoft Media Player (11?) All was happy in the world, until Microsoft came out with its new Zune HD player. When this device came out, a "new" desktop software was released as well. Microsoft came out with their own Market Place, and the Media Player core was not sufficient to do it. So, they rebuilt it from the ground up. And, since they were under a deadline to get the software out there to match the Zune HD hitting the shelves, many of the features were missing.

"A fast approaching deadline is the most important reason to have code reviews, not to skip them." - Josh Freeman

One of those missing features was the ability to generate auto playlists. Yup! One of the most useful features - a carryover from Media Player - and it was "removed". Okay, maybe not "removed". Just not in that current build. After a time of many people complaining in the forums, missing features slowly returned. But that took time. (And don't get me started about the mainly-useless Xbox Music either!)

I understand that sometimes a program needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Sometimes the program becomes so large that it slows down your computer just running it!

"More code doesn't necessarily mean more better." - Josh Freeman

What's even more annoying, is when you install an update to software and it "breaks". One of the reasons TO update is to fix security holes. Not updating software can therefore be a risky proposition. Unfortunately, most updates do not let you know what is changing, until after you've updated and it becomes a mess. Let me give you an example:

You have replaced your refrigerator with the newest model. Not only does it keep the food cold, it has many adjustable shelves, an ice maker, a water dispenser, and a beautiful stainless steel exterior. Very nice. One day, overnight, an "update" gets pushed. When you walk in your kitchen you find that your refrigerator is missing all of the shelves (the food is piled on the bottom), the ice maker doesn't work, the water dispenser is missing, and the stainless steel exterior is now a vinyl-clad hot pink. When you go online you find many other people complaining. The only responses you get are "the shelves will be returned in a future update", "we are aware of the ice maker issue and are working on it", "what water dispenser?", and "the color is a UI upgrade." At least the food still stays cold.

So, please, developers, and those managers pushing the deadlines, keep us, your customers in mind when you make changes. The future of your products depend on it! (Remember Vista, Microsoft?)

"Feature - feature - break - feature - break - fix - break - test - fix - test - fix - break - feature - break - break." - Josh Freeman

(Special thanks to Josh for inspiring this post: looking forward to seeing you at a Nerdtacular again soon! -j.p.)

© Emittravel 2014