Posted by Joel
Sun, 04 Jun 2006 23:31:00 GMT
We went to La Rondalla again. This really annoying set of tables of like 20 people was incredibly loud so I requested we move seats. We talked about the differences between various sets of friends, what it means to be an interesting person, people who tend to lead groups; stuff like that.
After eating and on the way out the guy who sat us came out. I was talking to David about whether he was the owner, because he was dressed up in a suit and was older, but David didn't think so. He overheard us talking because David didn't see him and we felt awkward that we were caught talking about him. He said he designed the interior of the place and had been working there for 25 years on Saturday nights as a host. He gave us a little flyer advertising an art show he was doing the next week.
We went to a party after that hosted by Dan. He is a DJ in David's UIUC set of friends; Sergio is also a DJ. So there were turntables and I got to play with them a bit. They also had a Roomba. The bathroom was very exotic, where neon lights would light up and samba music would start once you closed the door. They had a fancy Japanese-style toilet with the seat warmers and bidet and everything. It was kind of a yuppie party. I am not normally fond of parties and was hesitant about going. Nearly all of these people went to UIUC. The highlight for me was talking to his roommate, Reed, who is an "off-and-on" Apple employee. He told me he created the application that became Front Row, and demoed it for us. He owned a lot of Macs including a Cube.
I was also introduced to some 20 year old kid that evidently I'd met prior. They introduced him to me on the basis that he was interested in Rails. He clearly was not really an engineer, but eventually told me he had 1.5 terabytes of disk space. I asked if that was to store illegal movies, and he told me it was. We went on to discuss the recent closing and reopening of the Pirate Bay but shortly thereafter he began disclosing to me that he had a number of illicit ventures, such as faking traffic to his clients' sites, click fraud, comment spamming (SEO, "Search Engine Optimization", he originally called it, but admitted he used a number of shady means to increase ranking).
I became quite disgusted with him and told him off. I said he was the death of the Internet and needed to stop this shit and find something constructive to do which will actually help people. He was trying to network and give me his number in case "I ever needed someone" and I said "I would never hire you."
Besides him the night went well. Once again we went up on the roof (different apartment this time) and it was truly a site to behold. I went up there by myself near the end of the night and just sat there and looked out.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 04 Jun 2006 01:28:00 GMT
Yesterday I clocked up a lot of hours for once which was nice. David and I went to 821 when he finished work, and then we all went to Safeway and got some food to prepare. We cooked pork chops, chicken, some small potatoes and steamed broccoli. It was all delicious, just really good. I was impressed.
I got a new book. I still haven't finished the Rails book, but I will soon. Honestly I probably could have absorbed this new book from the Wikipedia articles, but I got a book on Design Patterns. This is mainly because that one interview quizzed me on flyweights and polymorphism and stuff that I came to admit I should probably be more familiar with. While I realized I have used many of these in the past due to my own intuition, I didn't know the name of them, or was using an impure version of them that could have used more fleshing out. Theory aside, they have very practical uses, and it makes sense to understand the terminology and vast assortment of known tools when designing applications.
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Posted by Joel
Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:08:00 GMT
I'm feelin pretty great right now. Just relaxing and things are going my way. Total ups and downs in this life.
I introduced another dev to Rails, which is always a warm cozy feeling.
Thinking of my last post, I think I will make a dev-centric blog, probably at joelhayhurst.com. It'll have sporadic updates whenever I have some new nifty thing to discuss, and could help gain a positive web presence for myself, and my buddies and family members still get to read about how much I love cereal here at ediblepet.
And I love cereal.
I watched an Anthony Bourdain on India and loved it. He is just the coolest guy.
A bunch of us went to Cha Cha Cha. Twelve of us, no reservation. The very moment David, Katie, and I showed up, we all got seated. It was like God's divining hand was trying to make the night as agreeable as possible.
Good food. Weird food I don't normally eat. Came home and did RH radio and went to bed. Woke up at noon. Cereal. Coffee. Called some people about gigs. Did some contract stuff. Music. Feeling good.
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Posted by Joel
Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:52:00 GMT
Yesterday I watched everyone's favorite movie about gay cowboys (one of the many!). It was really good.
I started writing a long entry about how it's naive and foolish to keep a personal journal like this on the web. How I'd been doing it since I was 14, but I needed to stop.
My rationale was that my name on the web should only be attached to positive work-related things. For instance, if I had a site with a portfolio of projects I'd worked on, and maybe a web development blog which was useful for fellow devs to read, I would look much more impressive.
Instead, potential employers or girlfriends or whatever can find this blog and see a guy talking about his life fairly candidly and for many people that can be a bit weird. I don't personally think my life or thoughts are all that outrageous. Sure, I don't present myself as some totally together and with it and perfect guy, but I'm pretty sincere with what I write about.
I don't have a secret double life, online or otherwise. This blog strips all of the mystery out of my life. Yes, I'm a guy who spends most days at the computer reading about random things, learning about things, implementing things, chatting with people, and some days I go out to eat or drink or visit people. It's not that abnormal.
As for why I do it, that's a tough question. But ultimately I decided not to close my blog. I don't want to push some fake public persona, this is the real me, and that's all I can be, so whatever. If you don't want to hire me on the basis of this blog than I don't want to work for you. I've learned over time how to be tactful and not offend people and still get my point across.
Anyway, I talked to the big company again today, and they really liked my worksheet. In fact, they said I got a perfect score, and that that was very rare. They also asked me for my GPA, which is kind of a bummer because it's not very high, but hopefully they won't judge me too harshly on that. I'm looking forward to interviewing with them.
I updated my resume on Monster and got two pokes today from companies. One is just a limited-scope PHP contracting gig. Pays really well so I'm going to probably take it if offered.
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