General – Page 91 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

San Jose – Friday

Still marvelling at the geek landmarks. Dwight Silverman remarked on me being such a tourist. Bah! Who cares? I embrace my dorkitude!

Look! It’s Earthlink!

That whole building must be filled to overflowing with Internets!

Friday night I opted to shed my nerd skin and cruise into downtown to check out the nightlife.
I found a place called The Blank Club.

It’s very similar to the Austin Continental Club in size. Had I been there a few days earlier I could have seen The Reverend Horton Heat in about as intimate a venue as you could imagine…with none other than Throw Rag opening.

On this night the touring act on stage was a very old school type ska band called the The Aggrolites. Very enjoyable!

I doubt I’ll find myself in San Jose again in the near future but if I do, this is a good venue to know about.

California uber alles

I have arrived, safe and sound, in San Jose.
Yup, there’s a nerd loose in the silicon valley.

It’s amazing to see all the geek institutions. The office I am here to work in is housed in the Quantum building. They don’t make hard drives anymore, they sold that off to Maxtor. But still! I had a Quantum Fireball hard drive in my old machine back in the day!

Driving around I had to stop and snap this picture:

I can’t explain it but it just struck me as so very cool to see this.

Maybe tomorrow I can get a picture of the Intel building.

New job, same as the old job

It’s official. All the paperwork has been signed.
The merger/acquisition is complete.
With no effort on my part I now work for a different company than I did last week.

Of course there will be changes. Some I know about, others I don’t. No announcements have been made regarding any of this so the waiting game continues and the rumors are flying.

This is my fourth merger so I pretty much know what’s coming. And, to a certain degree, I know where I stand which is comforting. My co-workers who have not yet experienced a global reorganization are understandably nervous and apprehensive.

It’s hard to believe that I have been here for 5 years. This is the longest paying job I have ever held.

I’m off to our California office tomorrow to assist with some things there. I get the weekend to myself so I will head off to San Francisco for clam chowder and a chance to see the sea lions at Pier 39.

Oh yea, and Ghiradelli Chocolate.

Delicious risotto

Cynthia has now added home made risotto to her cooking repertoire.

She is amused by the response to the pork chop post. I pointed out that this is no less weird than the fact that several people have actually linked to the beer butt chicken post.

There’s no obvious rhyme or reason to what will and will not get a response around here.

Cliché, I know

This is oh-so-funny in that tired and predictable way…

World Cup on my desktop

I found a program called TVUPlayer. The trial version lets you watch ESPN for free.

That means I get to watch the Ghana vs. Brazil match! Woo-hoo!

Light Rock Express

Snapping a few random pictures at the Light Rock Express show at The Big Top produced this rather interesting shot.

It looks as though someone let the Löwenbräu genie out of the bottle…
Either that or Gene, the drummer for Molly and the Ringwalds and William S. Graham, Manager of the Light Rock Express, are smoking from a Löwenbräu hookah of some sort.

And what’s that glowing orb above Bill’s head?
Could it be the ghost of Shoeshine Charlie himself?

Insert “snakes on a plane” joke here

As I have mentioned before, I have quite the fascination with snakes. I have owned them and I consider myself quite knowledgeable on the subject and even considered pursuing a career in herpetology once upon a time.

Cynthia, on the other hand, has an understandable fear of snakes. She will watch in horror as that Australian nut job “The Crocodile Hunter” pulls the tail of of a Mamba or some other poisonous snake in one of his cable shows.

I recently learned of the Houston Zoo’s Walk on the Wild Side Tour – Texas Snakes event from my friend Wyndi and commented on how cool that might be to attend. Wyndi asked if I would be joining her and her sister as she had made reservations. I kind of dismissed the notion and said I would mention it to Cynthia but I did not expect that she would want to put herself in a position to be around snakes in any capacity.

Imagine my surprise when Cynthia expressed an interest in attending the event.

I went online and made the reservations. The event was this past Saturday and Cynthia had a blast. The transformation from fear to fascination was remarkable. She even held a snake for the first time in her life and didn’t freak out one bit.

I doubt we’re any closer to being able to keep a snake in the house, but Cynthia has come a long way and does not exhibit the same repulsion she did previously and that’s pretty remarkable in my book.