Categories
Adventure Sports

Failed Curling Attempt

After watching the 2006 Winter Olympics the Shepherd and I declared that we wanted to play curling after watching much of it on TV that year. Well apparently we had forgotten our mission until 4 years later when the 2010 Winter Olympics came around.

After some brief research we found that the Philadelphia Curling Club was offering a $5 donation class today. So this had to be attended by us.

The Shepherd actually called me at 9:55 AM this morning ready to go. This may not seem early to most, but by his current standards this was an amazing feat and probably summed up just how excited both of us were to finally experience this grand sport.

The ride over took about an hour and a half. We didn’t take a signal wrong turn, which even with GPS we were both proud of.

Upon arriving, we soon discovered that we weren’t the only ones interested in trying out curling. I’d say there was probably 1500-2000 people waiting in a wrapping line outside in the cold with hopes of getting inside to curl.

We waited a good while, with the line barely moving at all. We later found out that there was no chance that we would have an opportunity to curl on this day. Truly tragic news indeed. With our dreams shattered we then decided to get a bite to eat and do something else nearby.

Apparently there isn’t much else to do nearby the curling place. We also somehow took about 4 hours to get back home due to a GPS device that decided to toy with us the remainder of he afternoon. While it was clearly a failed mission, I’m glad we at least followed through with our original plan 4 years ago and gave it a shot. Who knew curling would be this popular.

Categories
Adventure

Blizzard 2010

Got a decent amount of snow from the blizzard this weekend. I’d say probably around 16 inches or so, hard to tell with the wind creating drifts all over the place. But 16 is my unofficial figure for where I was.

Saturday morning I woke up to no Comcast. Meaning no TV and even worse no internet! I had planned to work on a few projects while being snowed in, but without internet access that wasn’t going to happen.

Lucky for me one of my favorite activities is shoveling snow. I really enjoy the challenge of taking on mother nature, and this storm was really bringing quite a formidable foe. I began Saturday around 8:00 AM, why I didn’t sleep in more is still a mystery to me. Suppose I was that determined to defeat the snow that the sky had the nerve to throw upon the driveway.

It was a lot and a very heavy snow that I had encountered. Arguably the heaviest snow I can recall, or perhaps I’m just getting that much older. Either way I bundled up as best I could, donned by brand new gloves, and gripped my snow shovel and walked into the windy blizzard.

Several hours later I had created a perfectly clean path for one car to leave should they be daring enough to do so. I knew that this storm was far from over, but kept reminding myself how much easier it would be to shovel just a few inches the next day versus almost 2 feet.

With all that currently could be done against this snow, I now reluctantly turned to the  indoors. I wasn’t exactly snowed in with whom I’d of selected under ideal conditions, so while the shoveling was a challenge, it would truly be nothing compared with being stuck in a home with whom I was stuck there with.

With the TV still out, these people were everywhere I would normally seek solace. With internet still down as well, my options were severely limited as well. I turned to my trusty Nintendo DS to entertain me, and decided to give The Legendary Starfy a try. I had picked up this title at the huge Toys R Us in NYC after some kid highly recommended it.

I owe my sanity this weekend to the mighty snow shovel and Starfy the brave and noble starfish.

Categories
Adventure Sports

Carousel Park

The Shepherd and I made a voyage to Carousel Park in Delaware today. They have a very highly rated disc golf course that we were determined to play. It was in the high 20’s and probably not the finest of days to be outdoors playing disc golf, but while not the finest of players we are probably the toughest (or most stupidest) disc golf players east of the Mississippi.

The park was huge! It’s a horse park, dog park, and a bunch of other things too. There were a ton of horses and little ponies there. They poop a lot, but luckily none was to be found on the course.

A lot of people had their dogs at the dog park, and I like dogs so that’s always a plus.

The disc golf course was very impressive. Some great distance and some insane hills really made it unique. It took a little bit to figure out the course the first time through, but that also gave me an excuse to sprint ahead to scout the course out.

I did manage to land a disc in the middle of a frozen pond, but was able to retrieve it by throwing out a life preserver with a rope attached and lassoed it in. I think I enjoy saving lost discs more than actually playing.

While a little bit of a trip, the course was so impressive that we will have to make some more trips out there. It’d also probably be wise to go when it’s a bit nicer out, it was so cold today.

Categories
Adventure

Christmas 2009

Christmas this year wasn’t too bad. Everyone I got a gift(s) for really seemed to appreciate what I’d gotten them. Got Dad a bunch of tools, something he always seems to need but never seems to have. I’m guessing they’ll all be missing too in just a few weeks. Got my younger brother Assassin’s Creed 2 for the xbox 360 and a big book of dogs. He’s always checking out different dogs online, not sure why but he likes that a lot.

I also got my older brother a credit card sized survival kit. It’s actually really cool, has a knife, whistle, light, toothpick, tweezers, and a fire starting thing all in a tiny credit card size package, very cool. Also got him a survival book to go along with the kit and a Judas Priest boxed set.

My Mom has had a pretty rough year. Losing her Mom, some of her siblings acting certifiably insane and really treating her very poorly, and my brothers just really letting her down. So I made her a big collage of old photos to remind her of the good times, back before everyone was so messed up. I scanned and re-touched and cleaned them up in Photoshop, bringing a lot of the ancient one’s back to life. She really appreciated it a great deal, and happy cried. So that made me and everyone else very happy, so that was a really good thing.

I got some pretty cool stuff too. We always joke that my Mom always buys us the worst clothes, which she does. So as I’m opening stuff up, she says how she asked the girl in the store to pick stuff out for me. I thought that was pretty funny, and it actually did work. All in all a pretty good Christmas with the family.

Categories
Adventure Development

Hack Day NYC morning

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Was up till 6:30 AM coding last night (morning). I was beginning to speak in crazy talk due to the last of sleep, so I figured it’d be best to call it a night and try to wake up early to finish our hack up. Oh, a very solid back end developer who just started up his own company is partnering with me on this hack.

We managed to make use of several API’s in building our hack:

  • YQL
    • social.profile
    • craigslist.search
  • Social
    • Social Directory
  • Geo
    • Maps

Based upon the Yahoo! profile of the logged in user, it searches Craigslist sleezy personal ads in the city of NY (and wow there’s some very interesting ones) and displays them on a map for the user along with more information regarding the compatible person. It uses keywords in the logged in users profile to search for a personal with something(s) in common. It makes use of several API’s in a fairly easy to navigate interface.

I have to say that Yahoo! puts on an incredible experience. Everything is completely first class, and I can’t believe that none of the developers here had to pay a cent for all the luxuries that they have shown us. A very classy company, and thanks for the amazing hospitality.

Foosball tables, fast wi-fi, electrical outlets everywhere, and a constant stream of food and beverage are going on. Also Rock Band Beatles on a big screen isn’t too bad either when you need a break from coding. Though after the hours I’ve been here, I must admit I currently despise every song they’re ever recorded.

Also, I haven’t met a bad developer here either. Everyone while competitive, is extremely anxious to help solve a problem when someone finds themselves stuck. It’s really an amazing experience and thus far I’m very glad I was able to attend. Plus they gave out awesome stickers and a very cool t-shirt too.

Later today hacks will be presented and judged, with prizes handed out. So, I gotta finish this thing up really soon.

Categories
Adventure Development

Open Hack Day NYC

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So far Open Hack Day has more than lived up to the hype. Met some really cool people so far. It’s fun to talk about all the different web technologies with them and hearing what languages and tools they work with on a daily basis.

The keynote by Clay Shirky was really good. He mostly went over how the web has changed how information is now being shared.

I went to the YAP session. Which was a pretty solid into to writing YAP applications.

Next session was YQL. Which was so packed that people had to sit on the floor! The guy sitting next to me was a pretty strange breather, which is always annoying. Plus he coughed while drinking a soda, which meant that I was kindly sprayed with some soda on the left side of my body. Very gross.

Lunch was awesome. I made a new friend all the way from Japan. A very interesting guy. The carrot cake stole the show in my opinion. Extremely good stuff.

Now I’m off to some more sessions, while trying to form a solid hack team for later tonight.