brandon’s blog

Andy

June 28, 2008 – 11:31 am
I know this guy, his name is Andy. He moved to Alaska a few years ago, he works at a hospice care center in Fairview. He was in love with this girl, so when she called him from Texas and told him that she needed him, Andy told her to move up here. To leave her boyfriend and everything else in her life and move to Alaska. She did it. Enter, Liz Burrito. Liz is a nice girl, she's a talented musician and generally a pretty cool chick. She left Texas about a year ago, came to Alaska, and moved in with Andy. They had a pretty intense relationship. Liz was very important to Andy, and Andy to Liz. So when they would break up, I would just assume that they would get back together; because that happened. Liz and Andy went to Texas on vacation a while ago, where Liz hooked ...

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Democrats

June 11, 2008 – 12:59 am
I have a hard time with politics. The political parties, the media, the pandering, the players. It seems like the whole system is designed to be self-defeating and that idea is not exactly encouraging. But sometimes; the whole thing can be pretty cool. I went to the Alaska Democratic Convention a few weeks ago. It was pretty awesome. I've been volunteering my time to help out on the Obama campaign over the past year and a half and I got wind of a volunteer opportunity through some mailing list. I'm not a Democrat (I don't think) or even an especially enthusiastic volunteer but the experience was still one of the most enjoyable I've had in a while. I can't really explain what I did out there, because I don't really know what the fuck was going on, but the guy who was telling me what to do knows. So, I'll quote ...

Posted in obama, volunteering | No Comments »

Bike To Work Day

May 15, 2008 – 9:18 am
Today is Bike to Work Day. I've been looking forward to this for a while, even since before the last one. That was a year ago. This was my day to start riding to work. So I hit that goal, it's a good feeling. I rode in, it was pretty quick. It only took 40 minutes, which is only a little longer than it takes to drive in. The bike that I bought to commute on is fucking awesome. I passed a few people that were riding 'mountain bikes', which reaffirmed my choice to buy something appropriate for commuting. When I got into work and sat down about 10 minutes ago I noticed a problem. It was kind of freaking me out until I found this post.

Posted in biking, work | 1 Comment »

I’m Eating a Coconut

April 23, 2008 – 8:43 pm
This has to be the most work I've ever had to invest to eat something. Seriously, I've had to track and kill things that took less total work to get on a plate. Somewhere in there, at about 30% 'till completion, I actually had to stop and apply a bandage. It's not even a good coconut. It's all hard and grainy. It really did take an hour to get this thing ready - and that's not even the sad part of this little story here. The sad part? Well that part is that I was filling up time while I transfered a file from my laptop to a mobile device via IR, and that it's not done yet. It's actually, this very moment, not even close to done. I'm putting a JVM and a piece of sample code on there, like 20megs, it's moving - literally - at the speed of light, ...

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

I Hate Commercials

April 11, 2008 – 2:03 am
I heard this commercial on the radio this morning that really pissed me off. It was early so I couldn't figure out what had pissed me off. At first I thought it could have been a poor person or something (I'm pretty irritable for the first half an hour or so) but then I realized it was this ad. I was still pissed off so I wrote this letter to the editor. I was driving to work yesterday morning and I heard a commercial I had never heard before. This guy was boasting about how his cell phone company was named the "Best Alaskan Service Provider" or something to that effect, and expressing his appreciation of that event. The tone was what I would call 'cheese-ball'. Today on my way to work I heard another ad. Immediately it was explained that this was AT&T's response to the other segment. This guy was ...

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Connecting to IMAP Gmail with the JavaMail API

April 9, 2008 – 10:06 pm
I've been writing a java app that checks my email for a message with an attached *.nzb file and passes it off to a newsreader. It's a pretty simple task and it getting it done simplifies things for me. I will no longer have to drive home to "tivo lost" or whatever. Anyway, my starting point in writing this app was to look around for a 'Gmail API'. That was a bad starting point. I didn't really think my problem through and it cost me a half an hour. I realized that in order to connect to Gmail I should simply use the IMAP functionality that makes Gmail rock particularly hard. Getting an IMAP connection to Gmail is pretty simple in Java. You will need the JavaMail API, available from Sun, and a dependency if you're running anything prior to Java 6. Then you can use a function like this: private static Store makeStore(){ ...

Posted in programming, work | 5 Comments »

What’s In a Week?

April 8, 2008 – 2:18 am
This week is off to an absolutely miserable start. It's not like it's on track to be the worst week ever, but definitely in the "Bottom 50 of All Time". Really though, what is a week? Lately, more and more, I've found myself turning to Yahoo Answers for information such as this. Yahoo Answers is what can only be called 'Clif Notes: Wikipedia'. At this site, people submit a question, people answer the question, people vote as to what they believe is the most correct answer. There may be some flaws in the system. Based on the success of Yahoo Answers in answering the question: "On which days does the week begin and end?" I am returning to Wikipedia for my mundane information needs. For the record, it starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. There are some caveats to this, but for all intents and purposes, it's Sunday to Saturday. This actually works out ...

Posted in social, work | 2 Comments »

Knee, Pain, Etcetera

March 24, 2008 – 3:47 pm
On February 3rd I fell while I was trying to learn to telemark ski. It sucked. As it happened, I tore my ACL and sprained another ligament. On March 11th, I had surgery to repair the damage. That also sucked. So, for the past few months I have been generally laid-up and miserable about it. Somehow, while dealing with this stuff, I've managed to work on my house a bit. I put in a laminate floor in one of the downstairs bedrooms and put some paint on the walls upstairs. I also started a batch of beer. I took a two week vacation partly in anticipation and partly as a result of the surgery. It was good, I needed a break from work. Seriously I love my work, the people I work with, and pretty much everything about it. But still, I need a break every now and then. I realized recently ...

Posted in remodel, social, volunteering, work | 1 Comment »

Birthday Gift

February 29, 2008 – 4:34 pm
My friend's kid is having a birthday. He's either turning 9, or 13. I can't remember. Anyway, I'm not sure what to get this kid, and if I'm going to show up at the roller rink and skate around for an hour (and I am going to) I should probably bring a gift. I don't know what kids like, I could go with the default video game option but he may already have the one I get, plus they cost like 50 bucks now. I've decided to get him his very own Led Zeppelin album. Specifically 'Presence'. I think that this is probably one of the best gifts I can get this kid. I can still remember the experience of connecting with Creedence Clearwater Revival for the first time, and it was awesome. Even if he doesn't have an experience like that one, or even if he doesn't listen to the ...

Posted in music, social | 3 Comments »

Skiing

February 26, 2008 – 5:47 pm
So, I've been injured. I've got a knee injury and it looks like, at the very least, it will require some serious rehab time. I'll not be able to ski the Tour of Anchorage. I'll not be able to play racquetball. All in all, I'm pretty bummed about it. I'll get over it though. There hasn't been shit for skiing weather this past month anyway, between the wind knocking trees into my favorite trail, ice rain, and frigid cold; I haven't wanted to get out much anyway. There's always next season. And next season, I'm doing the Tour.

Posted in skiing | No Comments »