A few weeks ago I received an email from a reporter who was doing a story on only children. Somehow she found this blog and, noting that I have an only child, wanted to interview me for said story. Initially I was surprised that she actually found this place but I agreed to a phone interview. It went well and I thought, "I could be in a news publication that wasn't techie or Linux specific. Far out." Shortly after the interview she called back and asked if it would be ok to have a photographer come out and take some pictures with the potential of having one appear in the article. Again I thought, "Even farther out." The photographer came over and took about a thousand pictures of everything from me picking my son up from school, us doing his homework, us playing PS2, and just hanging out in the back yard. About two weeks later the article was published. It is available on the Newhouse website at -
http://www.newhouse.com/archive/melendez050605.html.
It not the cover of the Rolling Stone but it seems that I am getting my 15 minutes of fame in 30 second increments. :-)
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Comments on the Spanish GP
The Flying Finn just crushed everyone else. Kimi started from P1 and never lost the lead of the race. Fernando Alonzo, the obvious crowd favorite rocketed out of the gate, as the Renaults are wont to do, and jumped from P3 blasting past Mark Webber who started in P2. The Ferrari's didn't fair well this time out. Rubens ended up just out of the points at 9 while Michael left on lap 46 with some major tire failures. As for Kimi, he had been saying that the McLaren-Mercedes was much better than the field if it could finish a race. And he was right.
As for the Championships, it looks like the Schumacher/Ferrari dominance will finally be broken. While it's still very early in the season there's good indications that we will have a new Drivers Champion in what seems like a hundred years. Time will tell.
As for the Championships, it looks like the Schumacher/Ferrari dominance will finally be broken. While it's still very early in the season there's good indications that we will have a new Drivers Champion in what seems like a hundred years. Time will tell.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Extremely late comments on the San Marino GP
I didn't get to see it but the race was a scorcher. Renault won for the fourth time in as many races and Fernando Alonso took his third straight win but only by 0.2s over Michael Schumacher in the new Ferrari F2005. Ferrari had been running the F2004 car for the first 4 races due to some issues with the F2005. But it seems to have been ironed out. Maybe. Rubens Barrichello went out on lap 18 of the 62 lap race with "electrical problems."
Jenson Button and Takuma Sato disqualified from third and fifth respectively following a BAR weight infringement. Thursday the BAR-Honda team was handed a two-race suspension due to the infringement. Additionally, a 25-second penalty was added to Ralf Schumacher's race time for an unsafe pit lane maneuver. This took him from what could have been a sixth place finish to just out of the points in ninth. Team Toyota will not be happy with that.
Red Bull Racing finished in the points again and have now scored points in every race so far. Granted it's not been at the same level as Renault. The former Jaguar-Cosworth team has scored 7, 4, 1 and 1 points for a total of 13. However, that is enough to put them in sixth place in the Constructors Championship.
Jenson Button and Takuma Sato disqualified from third and fifth respectively following a BAR weight infringement. Thursday the BAR-Honda team was handed a two-race suspension due to the infringement. Additionally, a 25-second penalty was added to Ralf Schumacher's race time for an unsafe pit lane maneuver. This took him from what could have been a sixth place finish to just out of the points in ninth. Team Toyota will not be happy with that.
Red Bull Racing finished in the points again and have now scored points in every race so far. Granted it's not been at the same level as Renault. The former Jaguar-Cosworth team has scored 7, 4, 1 and 1 points for a total of 13. However, that is enough to put them in sixth place in the Constructors Championship.
Now it's on to Spain, where there's sure to be one or two people cheering for Alonso.
2005 Drivers Championship
Pos Driver Nationality Team Points
1 Fernando Alonso Spanish Renault 36
2 Jarno Trulli Italian Toyota 20
3 Giancarlo Fisichella Italian Renault 10
3= Michael Schumacher German Ferrari 10
5 Nick Heidfeld German Williams-BMW 9
5= Ralf Schumacher German Toyota 9
5= David Coulthard British Red Bull Racing 9
5= Mark Webber Australian Williams-BMW 9
9 Rubens Barrichello Brazilian Ferrari 8
9= Juan Pablo Montoya Colombian McLaren-Mercedes 8
11 Kimi Räikkönen Finnish McLaren-Mercedes 7
12 Alexander Wurz Austrian McLaren-Mercedes 6
13 Jacques Villeneuve Canadian Sauber-Petronas 5
14 Pedro de la Rosa Spanish McLaren-Mercedes 4
15 Christian Klien Austrian Red Bull Racing 3
16 Felipe Massa Brazilian Sauber-Petronas 2
17 Vitantonio Liuzzi Italian Red Bull Racing 1
2005 Constructors Championship
Pos Constructor Points
1 Renault 46
2 Toyota 29
3 McLaren-Mercedes 25
4 Ferrari 18
4= Williams-BMW 18
6 Red Bull Racing 13
7 Sauber-Petronas 7
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
On Telecommuting
[If this seems semi-coherent that's because it's 3am. But I believe the idea behind this is sound.]
It seems that I am not quite setup for telecommuting. Not from the technical aspect. I got all the hardware and software I would need to do the kind of work I do. It's more like the world isn't quite organized and ready for it. Very few organizations have a defined policy for it and those that do have such widely desperate methodologies it's a wonder that anything could get done. Someone needs to organize and create a simple plan that can be used by everyone to build their policies on. It's true that the actual needs and technical situations of every organization will be different but the overall policy can be done as a framework upon which the specific needs can be fairly simple to merge. People forget that a policy is not supposed to be a technical guideline but a methodology to use for creating or using whatever the policy covers. I'll bet dollars to donuts that there is already an ISO policy for telecommuting. I'll also bet that it's not used by many, if any, organizations. This leads to the splintering effect and to what we have today. If there were some way to develop/implement/enforce a policy across the board then maybe I could get a job where I could be all setup to telecommute.
It seems that I am not quite setup for telecommuting. Not from the technical aspect. I got all the hardware and software I would need to do the kind of work I do. It's more like the world isn't quite organized and ready for it. Very few organizations have a defined policy for it and those that do have such widely desperate methodologies it's a wonder that anything could get done. Someone needs to organize and create a simple plan that can be used by everyone to build their policies on. It's true that the actual needs and technical situations of every organization will be different but the overall policy can be done as a framework upon which the specific needs can be fairly simple to merge. People forget that a policy is not supposed to be a technical guideline but a methodology to use for creating or using whatever the policy covers. I'll bet dollars to donuts that there is already an ISO policy for telecommuting. I'll also bet that it's not used by many, if any, organizations. This leads to the splintering effect and to what we have today. If there were some way to develop/implement/enforce a policy across the board then maybe I could get a job where I could be all setup to telecommute.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Car accidents
My son was in a car accident this morning. His second mother (it's a long story) was bringing him home so he could go to school and some kid who was speeding ran into them. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt. The kid had to go to the emergency room. My son was quite a bit shaken up, this was his second accident but this time he was in the front seat. The pickup he was in didn't have a back seat. The air-bags deployed but he had already turned his head away so it just got him in the cheek. His ankle was bruised or sprained, the kid hit the passengers side of the pickup. Anyway, we kept hi home today and are going to take him in for a "just-to-be-safe" doctor visit tomorrow. Hhmmm... I should try and remember to call the school about tomorrow.
It all reminded me of the accidents I'd been in over the years. Most were fender benders but two were significant. One was when a guy pushed me off of the road into snow and ice which caused the car to crash into the middle guard rail, slide right over two lanes and hit a small snow bank at the foot of a retaining wall. I was ok but the car was totaled. It was my sisters car. She'd only had it for a couple of weeks. She was not amused.
The other one was fairly serious. My head when through the front window and everyone in the car was hurt to some degree. Nothing bad enough for hospital but more than just a little bump. The passengers were my two brothers and our sister. Afterwards I was very shaken up, mostly about the fact that I could have caused one of my siblings to be critically hurt or worse. The cause, though, was the right front tire blew out on a snow covered road. We went down a 12 to 15 foot embankment where the care ended up lying on the drivers side after doing a couple of rolls. There was more but these were the highlights. For weeks after I could still see the car rolling whenever I'd close my eyes.
It all reminded me of the accidents I'd been in over the years. Most were fender benders but two were significant. One was when a guy pushed me off of the road into snow and ice which caused the car to crash into the middle guard rail, slide right over two lanes and hit a small snow bank at the foot of a retaining wall. I was ok but the car was totaled. It was my sisters car. She'd only had it for a couple of weeks. She was not amused.
The other one was fairly serious. My head when through the front window and everyone in the car was hurt to some degree. Nothing bad enough for hospital but more than just a little bump. The passengers were my two brothers and our sister. Afterwards I was very shaken up, mostly about the fact that I could have caused one of my siblings to be critically hurt or worse. The cause, though, was the right front tire blew out on a snow covered road. We went down a 12 to 15 foot embankment where the care ended up lying on the drivers side after doing a couple of rolls. There was more but these were the highlights. For weeks after I could still see the car rolling whenever I'd close my eyes.
Lots of stuff I can't remember
There's been so many things I wanted to post on here but just keep forgetting to. Hell, I still haven't even seen the results from the F1 race two weekends ago. Here's some things I can remember...
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Ok, I can't remember squat. I should carry something around with me like a mini-tape recorder so I can at least get the idea or subject I am thinking about down for possible future postings. I have one of these around somewhere. It's probably in a box in the garage with all the other crap I can't find. Oh well... A lot happened today so I'll post separate entries for them.
Unless I forget.
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Ok, I can't remember squat. I should carry something around with me like a mini-tape recorder so I can at least get the idea or subject I am thinking about down for possible future postings. I have one of these around somewhere. It's probably in a box in the garage with all the other crap I can't find. Oh well... A lot happened today so I'll post separate entries for them.
Unless I forget.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Head meets desk; desk wins - II
Just another angle. Man, it hurt. But it does look cool with all that blood running down and all.
Head meets desk; desk wins - I
Yes, I really did fall asleep at my desk and crack my head open on it.
[UPDATE 04/05/2005 16:28] - I did not post these pictures to garner sympathy. I posted them because they look cool. I have pictures of a number of injuries I've sustained over the last few decades, all of which I think look cool. Unfortunately most of them got lost along the way.
[UPDATE 04/05/2005 16:28] - I did not post these pictures to garner sympathy. I posted them because they look cool. I have pictures of a number of injuries I've sustained over the last few decades, all of which I think look cool. Unfortunately most of them got lost along the way.
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