Geography Quiz

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My Adventures in Toiletry

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of water spraying, thinking it was either my sprinklers or the neighbors having an issue. I open my bedroom to realize that the noise is inside the house.

I also see water standing in my family room. The downstairs toilet water inlet had sprung a leak. A quick twist of the value and the leak was stopped, but the damage has been done. In various parts of the house, I had anywhere from a quarter to an inch of water standing.

As of now (Wednesday April 26th, 6:11 pm), all flooring (including the new flooring as seen on the blog has been removed. Many blowers and dehumidifiers are being placed within the house to dry it out.

The cats are currently living in the garage.

The Everett Blog computer has been moved upstairs into the bonus room at the top of the stairs.

According to the cleaning crew (Steambay), the house will be heated to 85 to 90 degrees, with humidity like Arizona to dry it out. It is expected to take 3 days.

Insurance company is on it, with the claim adjuster stopping by on Tuesday.

BTW: within the last couple of weeks, I have also broken a tooth and the Civic has a flat tire.

Free Food Alert

Ben & Jerry's outlets will be offering free ice cream on 25 April 2006.

Site is back up (obviously)

I think the problem was that the "Enter" key was stuck on the keyboard. After about an hour of messing with the computer, it dawned on me, pressing the key seems to have fixed it.

Very odd. Not declaring victory until at least a day of operation.

Where The H E Double L Has Tim Been

Nowhere in particular is the answer. Been hanging with Angela a lot, enjoying and loving her company, playing with her two dogs (Keema and Midget), watching hockey, hoping the Sharks make the playoffs...

Until I get the "blogging" feeling back, check out "My Boring Ass Life", Kevin Smith's blog.

Still Here...

I am still here. Should have a set of pictures of a trip to Cambria that I took last week up on the site hopefully by the end of the week.

Not a "New Year Resolution" list...

Here is a list of items that I consider to be a "life" list. A list of things that I plan to accomplish or desire to accomplish in my life. Some of them are "actionable" at this time, while others are "future" based.

Not a fan of New Year Resolutions... absolutely no reason to wait for a day to arrive to start!

Skills

Learn to fly an airplane

Learn to ride a motorcycle

Learn a martial art

Learn to play a guitar

Vanity / Health

6 pack abs

Great cholesterol levels (either with medicine or ideally without)

Run a mile in under 10 min

Relationship

A relationship that makes me want to scream out loud with love and happiness

Spend at least a couple of hours a work doing volunteer work

Call me "Handyman Tim"

With a little help from the internet, I have repaired my treadmill. Amazing!!

The tread roller at the backend of the machine, had a screw pull thru the plastic cover. Therefore the roller was not attached to the machine anymore... a big problem. I attempted a couple of "in house" fixes but the plastic cover just wasn't going to work.

Jumped on the internet, within 10 minutes had the replacement part order. Delivery took place late last week and the reconstruction of the machine was accomplished successfully last night.

Fountain Update/Location

Still in the garage, next to the garbage can.

Wow, is it dark outside

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.

I was just sitting at work and felt it was late. Later than normal for me to be at work. I then saw that it was only 5 pm and got back to work.

An hour later, I realize that today is the shortest day. I guess I noticed that fact without actually realizing it...

Left Handed Presidents

Had this topic come up the other day. Did you know that the last 4 out of 6 Presidents were left handed?
Here is the complete list of left handed Presidents:

• James A. Garfield
• Herbert Hoover
• Harry S. Truman
• Gerald Ford
• Ronald Reagan
• George Bush
• Bill Clinton

Makes Me Happy

Sliding 5 feet in my socks on the hardwood floors.

New Car for Tim?

Here is a new program at Tim's company, Hyperion Solutions...

Hyperion Solutions Corp. is offering its employees $5,000 toward the purchase of fuel-efficient cars, the business-performance-management software vendor said Monday.
Under its "Drive clean to drive change" program, Hyperion will reimburse employees $5,000 when they purchase a vehicle that gets 45 miles per gallon of gasoline or better. That standard is achievable by fuel-efficient cars that use hybrid, diesel, and electric motors, the company says.

Hyperion aims to provide the $5,000 reimbursement to as many as 200 employees per year. Employees who have been with Hyperion for one year or longer are eligible on a first-come, first-served basis. Employees can get the reimbursement for one fuel-efficient vehicle every four years.

Switching from a car that gets 20 mpg to one that gets 45 mpg can reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by as much as three tons per person per year, Hyperion says. Many scientists suspect that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a primary cause of global warming.

Based in Santa Clara, Calif.--the heart of Silicon Valley, which is notorious for its crowded highways--Hyperion employs approximately 2,500 people in 20 countries

Backyard Project Update

Quick update on the backyard project.

I am guessing it is 1 to 2 days of work still left.

Grass, lighting, fountain installation, and gate are all that is left. The landscape dudes will be at my place on Friday to try to finish all of these items.

The backyard is looking great. I can already tell and feel that it will be comfortable and peaceful place to hang out.

If all goes well, I might have the final pictures on the site on Saturday.

Death of Bird

Unfortunately the bird called Bird passed away some time on Wednesday. He has gone to the big cage in the sky.

Bird Cam is now Backyard Cam

BirdCam has been converted to the Backyard Cam for the duration of the work in my backyard.

Added benefit, can now go to the bathroom when I get my mail via the porta john next to my mail box.

Definition of Fall

I made the switch from A/C to Heat last night (10/23/04) when I got home from my week in Stamford CT. Always a momentous occasion...

Evergreen Times

The Evergreen Area of San Jose has its own little community paper called the Evergreen Times. I enjoy reading the paper when it appears on my doorstep. They recently created/expanded their exposure via the internet.

As always my favorite part of any paper is the "police blotter".

This month's favorite report:

9/2
Mountain Lion Sighting
Terra Nova Lane
Several citizens reported seeing a mountain lion in the back yard of a residence. Officers searched the area, but the lion was not located. Animal Control, Fish and Game were notified.

According to Yahoo Maps, Terra Nova Lane is 2.8 miles from my house. Terra Nova Lane is very close to where I watched Dale play soccer in my area.

Update: Links about the mountain lion sighting:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/090304_nw_sj_mountain_lion_sightings.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5907710/

Interesting Story about Arbor Software

I joined Arbor Software on March 18th, 1993. It was a very interesting and exciting place to work. The dynamics between individuals could probably be a good case study in a college class. Very strong personalities in the Engineering department of only about 14 individuals. Lots of conflict, not sure everybody liked each other, lots of fun playing foosball to unwind. The thing that did keep everybody focused was the product and the desire to go public (IPO).

The company eventually merged with Hyperion Software to create Hyperion Solutions. I will be celebrating my 12th year anniversery this March. I believe the company has about 2500 employees. Quite a bit more than when I joined.

Below is a snippet out of an article that describes a decision that was vital to the success of Arbor Software.

btw: Kirk Cruikshank is a graduate of University of Michigan.

The below was written May 06, 1999.

Inventing credibility

The Reflection story underscores an important lesson: Successful PR strategies build credibility at the same time they're building a buzz. For an example, we turn to Arbor Software Corp., a company that went public in November 1995 and racked up the fifth best performance for an IPO in Wall Street history. But just two years earlier, Arbor's future had been, at best, murky.

In that year, 1993, Kirk Cruikshank joined Arbor Software (now part of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Hyperion Solutions Corp.) as senior vice president of marketing. The startup had 32 people and a promising software application, still in beta, that enabled relational database users to slice and dice data into useful information. "The market segment and space [were] not there. We had to build the market," says Cruikshank, now president and CEO of TradingDynamics Inc., a Palo Alto-based startup that develops trading systems and applications for online business-to-business auctions.

Like most startups, Arbor didn't have the money to bankroll a mammoth advertising campaign, so Cruikshank targeted "free" media as he set out to invent a product category. "PR has phenomenal reach if you're good at controlling the message," he advises. Although Arbor hired a PR agency, because of the product's complexity Cruikshank wanted to shape the initial campaign message in-house. But he relied on the agency to supply crucial feedback and to orchestrate a full-blown media onslaught--including a press tour and speaking engagements.

Arbor claimed that its enterprise software made it much easier for office workers and executives to examine huge corporate repositories of data using ordinary computer spreadsheets. Cruikshank's plan: get a prestigious endorsement from an industry guru to bolster these claims.

Who better than Dr. Edgar F. Codd, the father of the relational database? When Cruikshank suggested hiring Codd's San Jose-based consulting firm, Codd and Date Inc., to write a white paper, his colleagues were skeptical. "They expected that he'd say, 'This stuff stinks,'" admits Cruikshank. "But he was a good scientist, open to ideas." The resulting white paper not only endorsed Arbor's software but coined the term on-line analytic processing, or OLAP.

Overnight, Arbor found itself with a highly promotable new product category. Although some competitors and critics discounted the white paper as nothing more than a paid endorsement, Arbor believed it now possessed powerful competitive ammunition. Then Arbor's PR agency, The Horn Group Inc. of San Francisco, noticed that Computerworld's editorial calendar featured an upcoming article on innovations in business analysis software. They pitched the white paper's conclusions to the respected trade publication, and the editors took the bait--an exclusive featuring Codd and his associates' unexpected conclusions.

The resulting story kicked up a storm of controversy. (And the editor in chief of Computerworld printed a retraction a few months after the original story, stating that the staff did not know that the Codd and Date white paper was commissioned by Arbor.) "It had an explosive impact on the industry," recalls Cruikshank. "Controversy is fabulous, as long as it's the right kind." By polarizing the market into camps, Arbor hoped to emerge as the new thought leader.

But the job wasn't over. Cruikshank recalls the advice of spin doctor Sabrina Horn, founder and president of The Horn Group: "[She] said, 'We [have] to evangelize this [the white paper].' So we ran East and West Coast dinners for analysts and all the major trades." For a startup, those image-bolstering meals weren't cheap--about $75 to $100 a head with good wine, appetizers and dinner. In the smoke-and-mirrors game of startup PR, Arbor was following one of the basic commandments: Start acting like a big company (even though you're not).

Arbor knew it was finally playing in the big leagues when competitors started joining the startup's OLAP Council. Gradually, OLAP became a new industry standard. Three years after going public, Arbor Software had 450 employees and fiscal 1998 revenue topping $82 million. It subsequently merged with Hyperion Software in August 1998 in a deal worth almost $800 million.

The full story

What is going on with Tim?

Been very quiet on the ol' Everett Family Blog...

I have gotten into a comfortable rhythm (funny looking word) recently.

The life cycle of Tim:

• Walk / Run a mile at least 3 times a week at 6 am


• Work a typically 8 to 9 hour day


• Been cooking dinner at home at least 3 times a week (chicken breast on the George Foreman Grill)


• Visit Gold's Gym for at least 45 min at least 3 times a week, usually around 9 pm.


• Nights that I don't go to the gym, at least 60 ab crunches and at least 45 pushups.


• Volunteering on Thursday nights for two hours with Innvision helping kids with homework and other learning activities during the summer.

Outside of the normal "life cycle", I have been downloading a lot of great live concerts via bittorrent. Requires a bit of busy work to get the music converted into a format that my ipod will play, but well worth it.

Good sites for live concert music:

• Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)


• bt.easytree.org::EzTorrent (http://bt.easytree.org)


• bt.etree.org | Community Tracker (http://bt.etree.org/)