stevengharms.com

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Originally uploaded by sgharms.

Here are some more pictures from the class portion of my trip.

Not much to add, if you liked Cryptonomicon and / or Quicksilver you know what you’re in for more of.

1. I got the chance to talk to my sweetie today and that was awesome.

2. We started class and I must say I love being here. The people are so committed (damn well better after the gross amount of euros we’ve dropped) and have such interesting ideas on topics from politics to UI design to the semantic web. It’s really sort of symposium on the future of technology, neat tricks, and cool stuff.

3. In any case, take a look through the flickr photosets. I hope you find them interesting.

Hey i don’t have much time to type, but i have pulled in some great pictures of Roma that I will soon upload.

Buncha other fun stuff. See you all again soon.

Roman Photoset
Originally uploaded by sgharms.

Here’s a photoset from my two and a half days in Rome downtown. I only got to scratch the surface, but here’s what I saw.

Well, as mentioned previously I’ve begun my sojourn to the Old World. This morning my awesome girlfriend took me to SFO at 0430. We got to the airport fairly quickly and check-in was uneventful. The only real bummer was that I realized that I had left my excellent Christmas present from Elle, a great coat, in the backseat of the car and that it was too late to do anything about getting it back. So, I’m a bit worried about the weather and my attire but I’ve heard rumors about a fashion industry being centered in Rome, so I’m sure I’ll find some way to go.

I have a long history of buying leather goods in Europe.

To the meat of this post, I’m flying with Delta’s codeshare partner “Song” airlines which is a product of the battle for low-cost carriers. This is a real hoot. Much as Southwest changed the standard of service, design, and, uh, ambiance in the 70’s and 80’s by putting the T&A in sTewArdass, Song seems to be putting the “Way Westerners like to think about Asians” into the air. To prove my point, the lavatories have wooden laminant floors in them - to keep beneficial feng shui

First things first, the airplane’s color scheme would not be far off from being acceptable at a dot-com: magenta, green, orange, and blue on the leather seats. I wouldn’t say that the seats had any extra legroom or rump-room (surely to be a problem in the future if current social trends continue). Nevertheless I found the furnishings to be nice, complete, and adequate.

The opening safety spiel was done by a peaceful monotone voice that was very similar to a guided meditation, or a yoga teacher’s narration. It asked us to visualize a relaxed takeoff and to raise our hand “gently, ever so gently” if you are unable to complete the funkyfoo associated with being in the meergency exit row.

Each seat also has its own in-headset screen that can be used to order up on-demand programming. There are movies (“The Constant Gardner” or “Historp of Violence”, “40 Year-Old Virgin” being on the movie channel), on-demand playlists that can be selected from a cache of mp3s, etc. On the whole, there are many multimedia opportunities that can be enjoyed while being seated.

Only thing they’re missing in cattle class is laptop A/C power.

I’d also like to add that the staff seems to be a bit younger and hipper. There’s not so much the “First-Class New York to Paris” high class thing (yes that was taken from the abysmal Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle (tee-hee), “View From the Top” which I saw, uh, on an airplane).

I think an interesting development of the airlines effectively getting out of the hospitality business is that more and more people are taking all of the hospitality elements into their own hands. I sit here with my portable music, portable DVD. I don’t count on getting anything decent to eat on the plane, so i take care of that before I leave. I have my own superior head-rest and warmth materials. I suppose, at that point, the airline is nothing more than a glorified people-shipper.

I was also wandering about the cabin on the way to the bathroom and I saw my favorite old-school window manager ‘twm’ running the ‘ash’ shell. I take it that this is the system that’s used to upload all the movies and music when the plane comes back home. I was pretty interested to find out more about this OS, what it runs on, and what it’s been optimized for. Here’s a pic:

The OS is called BusyBox and is a stripped down Linux variant.

I’ve never taken Jet Blue, but I think that the experience must be similar. I’ve really enjoyed my trip on this airline and would definitely recommend it as a better way for moving about domestically, if you’re so inclined.

Oooh, I’m over Michigan now, home to fine Michiganders of all ilk and size.

On Thursday morning I’ll be leaving the Pacific and heading back to the Old World - perhaps the oldest of the old, Rome.

As usual the flights from the Western section of the New Empire eastward are really quite painful, but such is the cost of living where the sun melts into the sea (over and above cursable rents).

The question may be asked as to why I am headed out so far. Well, as those of you who have actually looked at the right column of this blog may have noticed, I have an interest in Mac OSX programming. I’ve tried for the last two years to really try to get some time (or discipline, I prefer to blame it on the former) to master the idiom and be able to make Great Software that would make my life (at the very least) and the lives of others ever so slightly better.

The trouble is that I don’t work in the idiom on a daily basis at work (like I do with, say, Perl) and between being lazy, tired, on-call, distracted, moving, needing to go to the gym, etc. I haven’t focused on the matter with regularity, slowly pouring mental water on a large stone until i slowly erode the mystery. Instead I work on 20 pages on a weekend, and don’t look at it during the week, and soon I find I have to backtrack instead of being able to actually know.

Well, I decided that I was going to sear the concepts in my gray matter with a week of intensive study with the teachers of Big Nerd Ranch. The teacher of this class, Aaron Hillegass, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the material and his book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X is the best book on the material. BNR gives you the chance to work hard, learn a lot, and have a guru there to answer your tiniest questions. In other words, heaven.

Aaron’s company runs training out of their “Big Nerd Ranch” in Atlanta, GA regularly. Their first class for the new year (I noted in early December when I started to think about really giving this a go) was during Valentine’s Day week in February. Now normally this wouldn’t have mattered, but in the last year things have changed and I am very much focused on spending my first Valentine’s day with my sweetie in some special way.

That said, my next opportunity is in May. So there I sat, thinking here I am in month 12 and the chance to learn that which I want to learn occurs in month 5, almost a half-year away. It was simply too long. I then noticed a class taking place in Rome in January.

“Rome? That’s awful far…. That’s awful expensive…”

Well the difference between Rome and Atlanta from SFO was just a few hundred dollars … and for the ability to catch the fire to convert on my resolution…. well, that, as they say, was priceless. So I went through the gyrations of sending money abroad (much thanks to Stefanie, the coordinator who made all that less painful) and booked the flight. I’m departing on Thursday so that I can arrive in Rome on Friday. That will give me Saturday and Sunday to get the edge off the jet-lag so that I can be somewhat attentive during a class.

People who know me know that I do not like to stay up really late, really, it’s like systems just shut down. Therefore it’s very important to get my schedule in sync a wee bit before.

It’s nice to know how your body reacts to international travel before you go, really. You can prepare a bit.

Anyway, I’ll be staying near Grottaferrata at Villa Fiorio. I can’t say that that looks like a bad place to spend ones time. A lot of Mac Cocoa, Italian food, new friends, and the scenery of the tiber. It sounds great to me.

I also love making friends around the world! I’ve been making international friends since I met my friend, Wooden Spoon, in Food Science and Nutrition in 1995, it’s just great to talk and meet with intelligent people from around the world and hear what’s new in their world. That was confirmed by my study abroad year and my subsequent visits back to the UK, the Continent, and Australia. People in faraway places are interesting and generally better educated on my Empire than my co-citizens. The nice part is that many of the people in this class are going to come out this-a-way for the Worldwide Developers Conference and it will be a chance to catch back up again. I’ve always skipped WWDC because i thought I was too Cocoa Ignorant — no more!

So, I’ve started the pile of things to take: Outlet converters, camera, hiking boots, Rome guidebook, power converter…

I’ll keep this site updated with events as they happen over there as I have opportunity.

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Originally uploaded by sgharms.

While I bought my new car a few weeks ago, weather (rain) and other obligations (moving into new apartment) have prevented me from taking my first real geniuine road trip.

On Saturday, we grabbed our coats and sweaters and hit 17 south towards Santa Cruz. It was a real thrill to drive through that speedy and windy pass with something that has the ability to climb the hill with a certain level of verve.

We then picked up the Pacific Coast Highway (or, PCH if you live here) and headed on down to Monterey. I had been planning on just stopping in downtown Carmel but then we saw the exit for the 17 mile drive.

I had never heard of it, but it seemed like a nice drive. We pulled off the highway and wound up following the path down to Pebble Beach.

It was a great drive, leisurely, with many scenic vistas. I think we’ll have to go back down again soon!

You couldn’t shut up for weeks and weeks about how USC had it in the bag. Just because the school is in the backyard of your corporate parent’s theme park, that’s no excuse to downplay the blood, sweat, and grit of my alma mater, The University of Texas.

I am so proud of those men out there, and I enjoyed paying my Chili’s tab to the USC cheering waiter with my Texas Ex charge card.

I looked into that mass of orange bodies, their hands moving to “The Eyes of Texas” in unison and I remembered the sunny days on the bleachers at Memorial Stadium, the windy ass-cold days in late October (usually the Tech game, who knows why), and how that song was the backdrop to a moment where the students and the players and all the spectators knew that somehow an “us” was being created.

Congratulations, champs!