Sickness sicks

My sister-in-law and nephew have been slightly sick recently, but they all have pretty good immune systems it seems.

I, on the other hand, weigh in at 135lbs and 5′ 10″ tall. I do not have a great immune system. In fact I have such a bad immune system, that I would currently lose a race to an asthmatic ant with some rather heavy shopping.

This sucks. Hopefully I’ll feel better in the morning.

My paternity leave is almost over, and I have a LOT of work to get done when I fly back to California. More on my current project later!

Linux on the Desktop at Google

Yes, Google has a linux distribution it uses for desktops.
Yes, it’s called Gubuntu (a prize for anyone who can guess which other distribution it might be based on 🙂

For those of you in SoCal, Vince Busam, a current Google systems engineer will be giving a talk on Google’s use of Linux on the desktop as the USC LUG on Feb 23rd 2006. Details here.

No, there are no plans that I know of to release Gubuntu to the public 🙂

The hardest thing about working at Google..

I think I’ve figured it out.

At my last company, it was easy to become the superstar systems admin. All you had to do was learn the basics and then relentlessly tackle the tasks no-one else wanted to or knew how to.

The problem with working at Google however is that everyone else already knows everything. And you can’t really find anything that others don’t want to approach. It certainly makes life interesting.

Yahoo admins conceed that Google is the better search engine

In a surprising statement, two Yahoo! executives admitted that they have lost the search battle to Google.

There are a number of rumours as to why Yahoo! might announce something like this.
Their earnings statement released last week fell far short of analysts’ hopes, that their stop dropped 12%. It still has not recovered.
Maybe they’re going for the sympathy vote, or perhaps they’re hoping that honesty will win them favour with their stockholders.
Personally, I think they’ve given up on being the best search engine, in order to focus their efforts on other markets. Their recent purchases of Flickr, and del.icio.us might be an indication of that. If so, this setback may only be designed to give Yahoo! time to regroup.

Are you looking for a job?

Google’s hiring.

We need people who are willing to relocate to Oregon for systems admin / data center engineer positions.
There’s a lot of growth inside the company, lots of room to learn and earn more.

A lot of people ask me what it’s liek to work at Google. I’m hard pressed to find anything bad to say. The people are amazing, and the company clearly cares a lot about the employees.
Being at the forefront of even a small part of the technology industry is an amazing experience and I encourge others to apply.

You can send your resumes/CVs over to me ([email protected]) and someone will call you back pretty fast.

A hunting a will go…

There have been many reports over the last few months on Google’s search for a new executive chef. Our previous chef, Charlie Ayers (former chef to The Greatful Dead), left last year.

The San Jose Mercury News published an article by one of the remaining contenders,
Steve Petusevsky. It’s a good read, and goes into a little details about how much the food teams here care about the quality of their product. All fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices are fresh, as are all of the various meats and seafoods cooked daily.

Tikka Masala for lunch today I think.

One year later…

Could I be any lazier?
life has been getting increasingly chaotic over the last 12 months. Fortunately my ability to cope has increased at the same time. A quick run down of events from the last 12 months:

  • Family moved from Oldtown, ID to Priest River, ID
  • Family moved from Priest River, ID to Laclede, ID
  • We’re expecting another baby boy in the next few months
  • I moved from Los Angeles, CA to Mountain View, CA
  • Left EarthLink for a much better job while allows me to see the sun (sometimes)

I’m sure much more has happened that I just can’t think of right now…
I did just return from a trip to Toronto. It’s very cold there, with at least a foot of snow almost everywhere I went. Contrary to popular belief, Canadians have several redeeming qualities:

  • The courts make SENSE; they stated clearly the P2P technology is not illegal even if it’s used to infringe on copyright, and last week ruled that “sex clubs” so no harm any of the consenting persons who frequesnt them and should be allowed. This completely throws out the notion of “social acceptable”, which IMNSHO is an out dated ideal anyway. Down with social rule, up with individal freedom!
  • The Canadians are a very friendly bunch, I had an absolute blast. They’re about as friendly as I’ve seen people, without being sickeningly jolly.
  • They say cool things like “It’s the fuzz! Cheese it!”

User Unfriendly

What the fuck happened in the last month?!
Everything has gone to hell. I’ve had to come back to LA twice! Not only that, but they upgraded the software on my DVR. Now it likes to enter “power saving mode” at random times. WTF?? If it misses a single recording as a result I’ll be seriously pissed off.
To top it off, EarthLink gave me a new phone/pager device, a Blackberry 7750. Nice device, but the keyboard number keys don’t have letters over them, so dialing “1-800-COMMUTE” is nearly impossible. I mean really, how fucking difficult would it have been to let you push the letters and have those translate back to numbers?!

Argh.

Busy body at work

We’re under going a pretty massive re-org at EarthLink. Things are all up in the air. Some people thinks it’s a great thing, and others are quite unhappy about it. it’s going to get very interesting in the next few weeks.

I’m trying to keep myself busy, find new cool things to do. Apparently I’m making a good impression. I hope that’s a good thing and not a bad thing.
There’s so much to do, and not a lot of time to do it. It feels like I’m going to get swampped in the next few weeks 🙁

Friday!

Another busy morning. Kevinb left for his Africa Adventure today, so we’re down a man for the next month. Plus with me going to Idaho for a week people here are going to be stretched quiet thing this month.
I’m sure it’ll be over soon

I’m not looking forward to Brandy and the kids moving away, at all. In fact it’s damn depressing 🙁 I hope Joseph doesn’t forget me too quickly. That’s going to be hard.

I’m trying to spend as much time with him as I can now. I’ll just have to find some way to keep myself occupied while I’m alone. Let’s see….

  • Star Trek episodes
  • Star Gate episodes
  • Seeing everyone on the webcam (damn, I must set that up..)
  • Writing more papers
  • Working on my software
  • Working on the forum hosting
  • I need more episodes…..

That should keep me going for a while I think 🙂

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