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The show Intervention runs Sundays nights on A&E. Courtney and I try to catch it when we can. It’s a documentary (read: reality) show about people addicted to anything from video games to meth. The show documents their addiction and at the end the users are thrown into an intervention meeting, unbeknownst to them when they were asked to participate in the show. Drama ensues as addicts begin to make excuses for their lifestyle. Eventually they all admit that they want to change for the better and agree to seek help.

“Where are they now?” updates roll as the show ends. Some people recover, some slip back into old habits. The last episode we watched was about a 19 year-old drug addict named Corinne. She had grown addicted to herion over the last two years. As the show follows her around you see her starting to seek out new and different kinds of drugs. You watch her addiction completely control her life. She has no money, no job, just a junkie boyfriend willing to supply her with more drugs.

In the end she, like the others, agrees to go to treatment. The show follows up with her a few weeks later. She has cleaned up, gained weight, and talks coherently. She expresses her gratitude to everyone who helped her and she seems well on her way to making a better life for herself. As the credits begin to roll the followup text informs the viewers that three weeks after the filming ended Corinne started using herion again.

After the show ended Court and I both were stunned by the outcome of Corinne’s story. We have watched other people go through the same thing and relapse but none of the other stories touched us like Corinne’s. She seemed to have everything, then she threw it all away. When given a second chance, she chose to throw it away again. I think it hit close to home because Corinne seemed so normal, so much like us. Typically the addicts have lived a life I cannot relate to. Heck, they even had the ex-lead singer of Days of the New on. But this girl was different. She could have been anyone I knew.

Her changes during recovery were obvious. She had gained weight and had stopped shaking. Her thoughts were organized and she seemed to be able to focus. To take a second chance on life and discard the gift seems selfish. I feel sad for those people with such low self-esteem that hiding from the world behind drugs is the only solution.

I’ve done the HTPC thing and I built was a big headache. I learned quickly after purchasing a Tivo why it’s the only way to go. Tivo is taking a page from the smaller PVR firms and will be adding weather, traffic, and Live365 streaming next year. Thank you, Tivo. I love you too.

I had my first code review at the new job last week. It’s always a little intimidating the first time around. I’ve spent the first 3 weeks trying to feel out standards, best practices, etc… It was also the first code review in a long while where I was not the one making the critiquing. All in all, it went very well. I was quite happy with the process and the constructive critism given. Most comments were simple styling preferences, the logic of the code was correct.

The first question I was asked during the review was, “What’s the byte size of the object?” I was stumped. I have never had to worry about bytes and bits before. Call me new school, call me ignorant, but in a managed environment one just doesn’t worry about the size of objects created. The first project I’ve worked on is in C++, which I haven’t done in nearly 8 years, and is an unmanaged language (no garbage collection, memory management, etc..). Hence the question about byte size is quite important. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing the nauances of an int versus short when utilizing precious memory space.

When I switched jobs I knew I was getting into a different position than I had been doing for the past couple of years. I changed from being a lead developer to a code jockey again. It was a tough decision for me to make. I enjoy being a leader. I like to design solutions. But I growing tired of working with the same systems day in and day out. I spent 4 years struggling to solve the same problem. I decided to throw in the towel for a new adventure.

I don’t regret my decision to take a new job. I am in a more technically structured company. I am more comfortable than I have been in a long time. Stress has melted away. But it has been an adjustment that is taking some time to grasp.

Listen up friends, relatives, and in-laws. I’m never one to make up a very good Christmas list. The requests for the list are already starting to pile up. So I’ve created this ultimate Christmas list. It’s organized by price and centralized in one location. Here you will find what I want for Christmas. From here on out, you’re on your own.

If you’ve made it this far and nothing really floats your boat, you can never go wrong with gift certificates to Caribou Coffee, Best Buy, or Express.

The governor of New Mexico claimed to have been drafted by the MLB A’s in 1966. After a newspaper discovered that there was no record of him ever being drafted by a major league team, the govenor made this statement:

“After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter … I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s”

At least his lie didn’t take us to war, I guess.

One of the features of starting a new job at the beginning of November is having zero vacation time. So on the day that I am typically kicking down the doors of retailers, I’m working this year. I would love to believe that some store out there has something I cannot live another day without, the truth is Court and I usually come home empty handed and bitter about humanity. Today may be one of the least stressful Black Fridays ever; I am secluded from the malay of the malls. Man, it’s quiet in the office.

In October Courtney and I went to Green Bay for Maggie and Nick’s wedding. When we arrived home I discovered two dead computers. I accidently found Lambaeu that weekend.

Ah, the flame war once again rages here at the office. Will robots be able to one day automously determine whether to conquer man or will man have to program them to do so? So many questions to answer….

After the Great Crash of 2005 I decided to beef of my systems for backup and recovery. The last component was installed on Sunday. Let me give you the rundown of the setup:

The linux server (a.k.a. the green machine) has two new 200gig SATA hard drives. They are set up in a hardware-based mirrored RAID. The old hard drives were also mirrored but it was software-based. Under a software RAID the disks are formatted a little differently. When I was attempting to recover from the crash I had a hard time finding anything that could read the RAID with one of the disks missing.

Secondly, I set up a NAS disk hanging off my windows machine. Ok, ok, it’s not a *real* NAS, but it is an external hard drive connected to a networked PC. So I guess you could call it a Networked Area Storage.

Each night the critical files from the green machine are rsync’d to the Windows machine. Then each night the critical file from both machines are rsync’d over to the NAS. So at any given point I have multiple duplicates of just about anything.

Lest I not forget to mention the UPS I purchased just prior to the crash. It has already saved my computers on a few occasions.

I was working out on an olyptical machine up at my local gym when I smelled a faint waft of pizza in the air. I noticed a group of gym workers standing around looking very suspicious. As they danced around with giddy anticipation I stole a glance at their pride and joy. One of them was holding a Papa John’s pizza box. With very guilty looks on their faces they darted around attempting to conceal the possession. Two of the workers quickly shuffled off behind a desk where they proceeded to eat the pizza by ducking underneath the desk. We accidently locked eyes for a moment. They became deer caught in headlights. You could see the thought of jamming every last piece in their mouths before I ratted them out cross their minds. I laughed it off and tried to get the wonderful smell of pizza off my mind. I thought maybe blogging it would help. It hasn’t.