Archive for August, 2008
I wanted to post something on this day; leave a mark so to speak. It’s not exactly a special day for me, but it does have its place in my heart. My favorite number is 8 and trip 8’s is almost as good as having four 8’s. Why is 8 my favorite number? It’s even, both as a number and in shape (more true for typed rather than written). and if you rotate it 90 degrees, it’s reminiscent of the infinity symbol.
I don’t recall exactly when I decided that 8 would be my favorite number but it’s been with me for as long as I can remember. A lot of my gadgets have 8 in the serial number (my new iPhone has a lot!). When I was with Sprint, I even had a cell number 8088. Yes, I chose it for the abundance of 8 as well as a reference to the Intel 8088 microprocessor. I never had it, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve gotten an TRS-80. 
Yes, I like the number 8.
Contrary to the astonishment I felt, I was notified of my cousin’s daughter’s first birthday party a month beforehand; I just forgot what day it was. Unfortunately, it occurred last week Saturday. I hadn’t bought a card nor did I have much cash money. So, I ended up scrambling to the bank, doing a withdrawal (I have to scrounge for my ATM pin number…) and shuffled off to the store to get a card.
I didn’t think it’d be a problem and, sure enough, it wasn’t and I was out like trout on my way to Natsunoya Tea House. With my iPhone 3G’s GPS and Google Maps, I found the place fine. Parking was the disaster. Not only was the lot full, but the streets were lined with cars. Somehow the place still had spots for valet, which I don’t know where they’d go. I ended up parking in a dead-end street at the bottom of a long hill. Good work out.
I saw family I didn’t see for a while at the party and the food was ok. It was kinda novelty with you having to take your shoes off before heading into the dining hall and the waitresses wore kimono.
Sunday was also a busy day with my aunt’s funeral. I saw folks from the other side of my family that I haven’t seen in a while and even a few people from karate. It was nice to see them all, even if due to a solemn event. While I can ramble about a birthday party, it’s hard to find words for a funeral, so I’ll just say that seeing friends and family from karate has me thinking about going back. I need the exercise, and perhaps it’ll brighten my uncle’s (who’s the founder of the karate club I was a part of) day knowing I came back.
So, my first attendance to the Manoa Geeks event was on Thursday, July 31 at HMSA. It was a pretty nifty experience, what with about 70 people attending in person and some others (20? Not sure) via chat. It was nearly full when I arrived and a pretty good indicator of the sold out status was the fact the pizza was wiped out shortly after the geeks were given the green light to mob the tables.
After the dust of dinner settled, a few people came up to demo and talk about products they were developing, from Labels That Talk, to New View Hawaii. Of particular interest that I might mention at work, though, is Errorlytics. This web service captures 404 errors and can use an appropriate redirect to the correct page. I think the only main drawback is when working with very large sites one would have to program in the redirects via rules. If the rules could be vague, like if the page is supposed to be a special offers page (rather than a specific page) then redirect to the main page listing special offers, it would probably be really nifty. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a full demo of it due to network issues. I know, I know, a full house of geeks and couldn’t get it to work. Stuff happens. 
Aside from that, Eric Nakagawa from I can Has Cheezburger attended and mentioned he’s working on an ICHC book. Also, Bytemarks Cafe is going live this Wednesday, be sure to catch it! I was surprised, I know I shouldn’t be, to find out that one of the folks working at HMSA knew several people I currently work with.
All in all, the experience was great and while I didn’t talk to many people, it was cool to soak in the atmosphere. An event I wouldn’t mind attending again.
