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I am enjoying the heat. This week it’s been in the mid to upper 90s. Sure, it gets hard to even sit without drawing a sweet… but I am tired of all the people bitching about it. Seriously, every Facebook and Tweet as of late is about how hot it is. Enjoy it! Perfect pool, wading, and water weather! I am not trying to sound self righteous or anything… because I will happily talk about it with people but I just wanted to point out how it’s the only thing people are talking about!

In their defense, though, this kind of heat isn’t usual around here. These are the kind of temperatures East of the Cascades or a bit South. Crystal and the kids are trying to stay cool; the kids are down to diapers and underwear. We’ve considered buying a portable air conditioner…

UPDATE: Apparently it’s hit a record high for our area… 102° F.

Recent things going on round up:

• The train to and from work has been running slow because of the heat, or so we’re told. I know rails can contract and expand as does anything in temperature changes but wow.
• I really need to check out the wi-fi on the train.
• I’ve been working out and trying to eat healthy but my weight loss has slowed way down. I’m hovering around 22 pounds lost.
• I figured out how to hide news feeds from people I don’t care about in Facebook. Bonus! This leads me to my next point…
• It’s amazing how complaining about mundane things (like weather, etc.) is all people seem to have to say if they aren’t bragging.
• Crystal needs some Christian Louboutin shoes… stat.
• One of my shoes broke and I am tired of wearing the same 4 outfits to work.

From my experience, head hunters don’t seem to know the difference between words like familiarity and expertise, PHP versus Ruby on Rails; I could go on and on. It leads me to believe that some of them really just look for keywords in resumes. I suppose this could be a good thing but it’s culminated in one heck of strange conversation this weekend.

It’s Sunday late afternoon and I get a call from some unknown number with a crazy area code. Why not answer it? On the other end is someone who has a heavy Indian accent and starts asking me for a few minutes. I tell him to please e-mail me the details as I am with my family and would like to look over things rather than hear about them while I am driving.

He confirms my e-mail address and then starts to talk about the position asking if I have experience in Ruby on Rails and MySQL.

I hang up. Seriously, if people are going to trust head hunters to be my first impression of a potential employer at least find someone who isn’t rude. I know that these guys are working hard and they have no affiliation to the company (most likely). Still, have some decency. Check the resume and ask yourself… is this really a fit or just a grapple to get as many potential candidates in front of their clients? Should I be calling this guy on a Sunday afternoon and then continue badgering him even after he told me to send him an e-mail and that now isn’t a good time?

Come on people.

Someone went through the effort of writing an entire database abstraction layer. Kudos? Nope: eventually I came across regular expressions and string replaces instead of binding parameters in their “parameterized query” scheme.

So disappointing. Honestly, I remember a mistake I made 5+ years ago of which Dennis still reminds me. I didn’t quite understand associative arrays just yet and used all integers for keys. Now that is fun to understand!

My commute to work today was largely uneventful except two rather strange and funny things I saw. The first was the King Street Station tower’s clock going back and forth in time. It’d go back about an hour and then go forward twenty-five minutes. That brought a smile to my face.

And a few block from work after my short bus ride I see a sign abandoned by a bum recently: “Ninja Squirrels Killed My Family”. I almost took a picture of that one.

We got a chance to visit with Jerry’s folks this Tuesday. It was wonderful to see them as it’s been far too long! As usual, the food was great and because Jerry and Jeanine regularly watch their nephew, child proof and toy friendly house happiness.

Saturday we spent time at the pool and doing other relaxing things. I’d already seen it but Crystal picked up a copy of Watchmen for me which we had to check out. Helen was asleep and Henry, well, we encouraged him to play in his room. Not a child movie at all.

Crystal and I have started talking about doing a music project together. It’s exciting! I’ve gotten some sweet new tracks thrown together for my own work but we sat down at the piano and worked out some cords. I am looking forward to sharing what we come up with.

I’m fairly happy playing Age of Conan here and there but I really would like to get a good console game so Henry and I can play together. Tomb Raider: Underworld was the last one we played together and it was fun to go through the entire game. Daddy and his sidekick. I am thinking about Drake’s Fortune as a potential candidate.

I ordered a new box for my subwoofers last week. My old box was built for 3 10-inch speakers and was built for our old Honda. The Mustang has a smaller trunk because of the larger shock wells. I am hoping to put my sounds together next weekend. I still need to get my hands on a wiring kit and a capacitor.

The title gets released to me July 29th. I paid a car off. It felt good to send in that final payoff payment! Yeah! And they thought they’d get another year’s worth of interest out of me.

Somehow I feel more anxious because it’s really mine. With proper care and maintenance I should have this one for a while. To celebrate I am going to replace the headlights. The current ones have old plastic that is weathered and yellow.

Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve done a list type sound off:

• The city is full of smells but it generally smells bad. The smell of ass is a repeat offending odor.
• People complain about everything even about things that are meant to address their previous complaint. Example: long, cold winters versus hot summer days, pot holes versus the construction.
• Costco kicks butt and I am grateful we have two to choose from.
• If someone or something is important enough to you, you’ll make the time to hang out or do it.
• Kids are an endless source of a wide range of emotions and destruction.
• Build a computer for someone and you are now responsible for it unless you want to tell them off.
• I won’t shop at Nordstrom but the Rack and TJ Max have some fine clothes if you are willing to shop.
• “Classy” happens a lot but it’s not a good thing.

We recently acquired a new bed. I admit that the $100 frame from Ikea has lasted us quite a long time and it’s actually really sturdy. We’re going to store it until we move to a bigger place where we can use a spare bed. The new frame is quite nice being of solid wood rather than steel. Eventually I’d like to replace the chest of drawers and night stand with something in a similar fashion.

I’ve ordered a new box for my subwoofers. I’m going to sell the old box and transfer 2 subs to it. The third I’ll keep as a spare. I still need a wiring kit and a capacitor but all in good time. The one thing I will have a hard time finding is the gain control knob that Phoenix Gold used to carry. I’ll check with Car Toys and see if I can get one there. It’s really handy to have instead of having to change the amplifier output via the deck.

I’ve been walking from work to the train station every day now. The city has most of 2nd Avenue torn up which makes the usual 10 minute ride into 45 minute stop and go ordeal. It’s only 1.4 miles and I need the exercise so I will continue doing this 25 minute walk unless I get lazy, there’s a downpour, or I’m in a hurry.

We drove through Bremerton yesterday to drop something off at the brother-in-law’s and we were quickly reminded of why we don’t want to live on the peninsula. There were a few moments where I thought that the commute on the ferry would be pleasant, cost of housing, etc. and we quickly shook our selves out of those thoughts.

Like anywhere, there are areas of low and high pride of ownership. Bremerton is a low pride of ownership (LPO) area with pockets of random high pride of ownership (RHPO). It’s odd because once you live out of that area, say, Silverdale or Poulsbo, the PO ratio changes, the cost of housing increases, and yet the job market absolutely blows except if you are in the military, contracting for the military, or are willing to commute to Seattle yet the benefits of the increased cost of housing aren’t really there.

But really that’s all over. Driving through parts of any town: Tacoma, Seattle, Renton… you really run into some “classy” people.

Recently I acquired michaelhradek.com which makes me happy the other Michael Hradeks I know of didn’t snatch it up first! Let’s see, there’s the surfer variant, the violinist, the guy on Facebook sucking down a beer bong…

Not really sure what I’ll be doing with it but working at a domainer company and not owning my own name brought upon me shame. Speaking of work, I am getting much better acquinted with the work and people. So far it all seems to be progressing in a positive manner.

My first week at my new employer has gone relatively smoothly. I’ve gotten used to commuting on the train. My days have normalized and they start at 6:30 in the morning. I try to leave the house between 7:15 and 7:30 arriving at the Tacoma Dome station with about 10 minutes to spare before the train leaves for Seattle. Parking, fortunately, is free. It’s a fairly comfortable ride; power outlets, wi-fi, bathrooms, tables, and fairly well spaced seating are all there. I get to King Station at about 8:50 where a few minute walk to a bus stop lands me on any one of several buses that take me to 5th and Olive. I get to work anywhere between 9:10 and 9:20.

The area is interesting in that there is plenty to choose from in terms of lunch. Nate works about 10 block South from where I am at so we managed to meet half way in between and have lunch. Overall, the city is a pretty filthy affair but I am growing to appreciate the consolidation of work and people.

As some of you know, I’ve made some dietary changes which have shed almost 25 pounds off my weight. It was awesome to go shopping for clothes and buy a lesser pant size. I spent some money buying new clothes but I admit I completely despised shopping for clothing. I’ve summed up my interest in dressing a little nicer to kicking it up a notch. After 3 years of not caring, I wanted a change. I think I’ve just been shopping at the wrong places all these years. Just as with anything else: you get what you pay for.

The South Beach diet has been good to us. It’s easy and involves changing eating habits to regular, low caloric and low glycemic-index foods. A typical day is a couple eggs and some V8, some vegetable snacks, a turkey chili or lean sandwich, hard boiled egg or tuna and some string cheese, and then a dinner of some lean protein and veggies. Sprinkle water throughout the day. There is no need to starve yourself or damage your body through some extremes. I guess it has characteristics of a Mediterranean diet removing most fats, sugars, and white refined anything (rice, potatoes, flour, etc.). It’s a lifestyle change. It can be a challenge though especially when you realize how much of what is cheap to eat uses white refined anythings as the base for food.

This weekend was awesome. We spent time with my mom and dad for the 4th. The kids got to have a blast getting use of a wading pool, tractor rides, ice cream on cones… it was a fairly fun experience. Normally holidays or visits to the folks is something akin to moving; you have to do it (or just not do it but suffer the consequences) — you get the point.

I’ve been listening to an array of more aggressive techno and industrial music lately. I think it reflects the general angst of stress and frustration over the last few weeks. Particular favorites have been Unter Null, Alien Vampires, and Zombie Girl along with a healthy dose of compilations featuring words like hard, gabber, and -core.

I started working out after Crystal inspired me to do so with her joining the gym. The LA Fitness here has, for $20/mo, unlimited child care during certain hours of the day. It is a fantastic deal offering her a break from the drone of taking care of the house and kids. I am encouraged that she’ll stick with it. But anyway, I too started (trying to) jog and lift some weights. I try to go at it for about an hour. It kicks my butt. I am pretty out of shape and I will admit that I can’t bench press or curl an impressive amount of weight. I feel a bit sore but I also feel good.

We dropped our kids off with their grandma and drove up to Southcenter basically doing a bunch of shopping. I usually avoid malls like the plague but this one has been fairly remodeled and the selection is fairly vast in terms of things to check out and see. After that we hit up several clothing stores so I can add some things to my wardrobe. I really don’t care to spend money on clothes but with the upcoming position and general distaste of being called “stained t-shirt guy” it was time.

I am a bit tired. It was a lot of walking and stuff.

Henry and Helen are doing well. Henry is constantly surprising us with his quick learning and catching on. It’s a good idea to go through and remove things we don’t want him finding. We’ve done some preliminary things but he’s now moving chairs and things around to get what he wants. He’s my little buddy and we play with his stuffed Diago toy; pretending, hiding, and crawling.

Helen is walking and being a handful for sure. She loves to climb more than Henry ever did. She’s frequently trying to scale the dining table and whatever else that is a challenge. She’s been pretty grumpy and she is still not sleeping through the night. That makes it hardest on Crystal since she’s getting up those times. On average she gets up about 3 times a night. Henry has been sleeping through the night since about 1.

Of course, Helen just turned 1 so she might finally start sleeping through the night soon. Her favorite things to say are… da da da da, ma ma ma ma, and ba ba ba ba.

It’s cute.