jorge's jome

The World Got Uglier Today

2008-07-11T02:15:20Z

My mother passed away early this morning. She had been in the hospital for the past month with kidney problems and pneumonia. After an initial few days in the ICU, she had shown signs of improvement. Sadly, about a week ago she started developing problems again and things deteriorated from there.

To say this has been devastating is a huge understatement. Although she was 74 years old, she seemed to be in fine health and was always running around all over the place. She was well known for just dropping in at people's houses with little or no notice, it was just part of her charm. I guess I sort of expected her to be around forever.

There are so many things I learned from her. She was an incredible woman. I can't imagine what it must have been like raising two boys mostly on her own. But I can't recall ever hearing a single complaint from her. I can't even say I ever heard her say anything mean or derogatory about anyone or anything. She lived modestly and didn't seem to care about material possessions or social status. Despite being from a part of the world that is still very sexist, I think she was a great role model for modern women. She was very independent and self-sufficient, and did anything she wanted to whenever she wanted to. Yet, at the same time, she was one of the most giving people I know.

The pain that I feel in realizing that I can't just drive up to go see her any more, that I'll never hear her voice again, is almost unbearable.

If anyone is interested, services will be held at the following location:

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
21300 E. Via Verde St.
Covina, CA 91724
(800) 204-3131

The viewing will be on Tuesday evening (7/15), and the interment will be Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. the following day. Flowers may be sent to Nivea Ibarra at the above address.

Italy Update Soon

2008-07-01T18:49:24Z

We just got back from Italy at 2:00 a.m. this morning, a 28-hour day of planes, automobiles and sitting in airports. We're both pretty beat and are trying to get over the jet lag. I will be posting a lengthy blog entry about the trip with lots of photos. It should be up within a day or two.

Four More Days

2008-06-13T19:59:36Z

The big day is almost here, I'm getting really excited about this trip. We're landing in Venice on the morning of the 18th, we'll be there for 3 days, then we head to Lerici for 6 days, then finally to Florence for 4 days. Aside from Venice and Florence, other cities we plan to hit include Pisa, Lucca and Siena. And, as Lerici is so close to Cinque Terre, we will definitely spend one, maybe two, full days in that area.

In order to help us navigate our way around Italy, I picked up a TomTom 130S. BTW, Costco has this unit on sale right now for $179.

I used it around town and was quite pleased with how it performed. The only issue is that the standard configuration didn't have enough room for the US/Canada map and the Italy map, so I had to remove the US/Canada map for now. As you can see, the unit is very small and easy to carry around. It comes with a mount that you can attach to your windshield. Or, remove the mount attachment and it fits nicely in your pocket, great for walking around town. But, the really cool thing is that Google Maps lets you push waypoints directly down to your device.

Makes it a piece of cake to plan your entire route and add all your POIs along the way. FYI, I'll be uploading photos as often as I can considering I'll be spending most of my time out and about. But, if you're interested, here is a link to the Picasa album to which I will be posting my pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jorge.velazquez/Italy2008

Murphy's Law

2008-05-24T04:42:17Z

So, I go out to my truck this afternoon. If you live in southern California, then you know it has been raining for most of the day today. I get to my truck and notice the windows are halfway down. For those that don't know, I drive a Nissan Titan. Pretty damn nice truck, too. I love it. So, anyway, I'm like, WTF? I know I didn't roll the windows down, it has been pretty cold and, if anything, I've been using the heater. Now the inside of my truck is pretty wet and I'm more than a little annoyed. Turns out, there is a "feature" with the remote keylock which allows you to open the windows remotely by pressing and holding the unlock key. Yeah, I wonder who the genius was that thought that was a good thing to do. The unlock key must have gotten pressed somehow (I always have my keys in my pocket) and I was completely unaware. Now I get to sit in a rain-soaked seat while I drive around. Nice. I became aware of this "feature" by searching the web looking for possible reasons my windows seemed to roll themselves down. Interestingly, there are lots of other owners who have had the same thing happen to them, and it always seems to happen when it's raining or snowing. :)

Goodbye, Weather Podcast

2008-05-02T20:32:05Z

It's a sad day...I've decided to remove my weather podcast. The reason for this is an email I received from weather.com which clearly outlines their T&C for use of their XML data feed. Specifically, I am concerned about these conditions:

"YOU MAY NOT USE THE SERVICE IN CONNECTION WITH AMONG OTHER THINGS...AS ALL OR PART OF ANY STREAMING VIDEO OR AUDIO CONTENT OR FOR DELIVERY BY ANY MEANS OTHER THAN STATIC DISPLAY ON A TRADITIONAL WEB PAGE ON YOUR WEBSITE OR DESKTOP APPLICATION."

"Your Website or Desktop Application must...display weather data for no more than three (3) locations at a time..."

I am most likely in violation of one or both of these. The whole T&C seems to go against all of the reasons that would drive you to provide an XML feed in the first place...to me, at least. It certainly makes it impossible to use for any type of mashup or any other interesting app.

So, I can get weather data for no more than 3 locations and can only display it as a static web page...whoopdeefuckingdo. Completely useless.

Howdy

2008-04-16T19:48:46Z

Well, I haven't posted a blog entry in, like, forever. I guess I just sort of lost steam, too much going on to really sit down and post anything useful or interesting. Although, I did want to put up a picture or two, blog entries just seem to be so much more interesting with photos. I've been shooting a lot of kid events lately, since so many of my friends have kids that are getting to the age where they are starting to play sports and have other activities going on. You can see most of my work on my Picasa site. I am particularly proud of this picture:

That is the oldest son of one of my good friends. He is 13 and has been playing water polo this year, and is quite good at it. I rented a 300mm lens from George's Camera on 30th and University, specifically for this game, and was quite pleased with the photos. Here is another:

Well, expect to see more photos up. I'm going to try to post a little more often, and am also going to try to always include a photo or two.

Vista Still Sucks

2008-02-21T20:29:17Z

Wow, how many ways can Microsoft bungle Vista? I'd love to sit down and write a lengthy blog entry on all the things that are wrong with it but, thankfully, a few faithful readers and other news sources have it covered way more in depth than I have the time for.

Now HERE'S a MasterCard Commercial

2007-12-14T17:29:14Z

Asus P5KC motherboard...$154.99
Intel Core2Duo 3.0 GHz 1333 FSB 4MB Cache processor...$299.00
2 GB DDR2 PC6400 memory...$69.99
Thermaltake 650W modular power supply...$149.99
GeForce 8800GT 512 MB DDR3 video card...$269.99

60 FPS while playing World of Warcraft, ability to tab in and out of game instantly, load-up times in the single-digit seconds...priceless.

Now That's Just Cruel

2007-12-05T05:51:37Z

There's no way I'm going to make it three weeks without opening this.

You Are Getting Sleepy...Very Sleepy...

2007-10-30T00:04:48Z

Trip Update

2007-10-13T22:39:42Z

The 10-day camping trip is going about as well as possible, so far. I drove out to Zion on Wednesday and camped at the Watchman campgrounds for two nights. I took the shuttle to Court of the Patriarchs, came back to the canyon junction and walked the Pa'Rus trail back to camp. Thursday was pretty busy, I decided to hike to Hidden Canyon, one of the hikes on the "strenuous" list. It was a lot of fun, but definitely wore me out. Friday was travel day, I packed up and left Zion in the morning and got to Bryce Canyon around 11 a.m. Bryce is just amazing, the first time I saw it I think I just stood there with my jaw wide open until a fly went in my mouth. I started out with a hike down the northern side of it. Today, my 2nd day here, I went to Bryce Amphitheater, and stood there with my mouth open again. Really amazing stuff. Anyway, this is a brief update, I will post a very long article once I'm back home in about a week or so with lots of details. In the meantime, enjoy some of the photos I have taken. Higher resolution photos can be found here.

Two More Days

2007-10-08T17:54:20Z

In two days, I'll be headed up to Utah to start my camping trip. I'm really looking forward to it. My first stop will be Zion National Park, one of my favorite places. From there, I'll go to Bryce Canyon National Park and Arches National Park. Then, I will cross over into Colorado and visit Great Sand Dunes National Park and then, finally, Rocky Mountain National Park. I am planning for two nights at each location, with some travel time in between. There will probably be a couple of side stops along the way (Colorado City?) and I plan to be fairly flexible with my schedule. In other words, if I decide I want to stay one more night at a particular park, or cut one leg of the trip short, then I will do that.

I'm pretty excited about the trip. I'll be uploading photos here. I'm not sure how much Internet connectivity I will have, but between my air card and any hot spots I find during the travel days, I should be able to put up photos fairly regularly. I'll also do an occasional blog entry, time permitting.

System Stutter on Dell Laptop

2007-09-28T19:12:31Z

If you're experiencing a system stutter every 20-30 seconds on your Dell system, try shutting down the Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service in the Service Manager. I was having this issue with the brand new Latitude D830 I purchased. I first noticed it while listening to music with Windows Media Player, the songs would skip every 20 seconds or so. Moving the mouse around continuously revealed that this was affecting other system activity, as well. After shutting down nearly every app that was running on my system, I managed to make the issue go away as soon as I shut down the service I mentioned above. In the past, I have had issues with the Dell-provided software that has come pre-installed on their laptops. Dell, I'm sorry, you make great laptops but your software sucks. It has gotten to the point where, as soon as I receive a new system from Dell, the first thing I do is uninstall all of the Dell software. Hopefully, this fix will save you time and headaches. I suggest disabling the Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service completely, it is not required. I did talk to Dell support and hopefully they will add this to their known issue list, or at least fix the service and provide a patch for their customers.

Here We Go Again

2007-09-18T01:38:47Z

I got laid off again last week. Man, I'm a loser. Anyway, I plan to take a little time off and do some camping. I haven't nailed down a date yet, but I will probably head out around the 2nd week of October. The tentative plan is to go up to Utah, with stays at Zion, Bryce and Arches national parks, and then head up to Colorado and visit Great Sand Dunes National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, and maybe Colorado Springs. My national parks pass is good until the end of the year, so I plan to get as much use out of it as I can. I'm just going to throw all my camping shit into my truck and head out. I'll have all my camera gear and I intend to do lots of shooting. I will either be blogging my trip on this blog, or I may do it all though Picasa, I haven't decided yet. I'm probably leaning more towards using Picasa, since my photos will all be geocoded and it'll be fun to track my progress through the southwest as I visit the different spots.

I'm getting excited about it, the trip is sounding like a hell of a lot of fun. I'm basically going to keep going until I decide I want to come home. That could be three days or it could be three weeks, I don't know. It's going to be all primitive camping. I'll post more details as I get some dates and other trip specifics nailed down. Oh, and I've got room in my truck for one or two more people. :)

Hmmmmm...

2007-09-09T20:17:05Z