Desperately Trying to Find Apartment

2005-11-14 2 min read Happened to Me... Marco

Ok, I am about to give up. My conditions for an apartment are too strict, and I cannot find anything that matches the criteria. Besides, I don’t have time to continue looking: I have to be out of my current apartment by the end of the month, and the Thanksgiving weekend is going to cause a huge hole in my schedule.

I still have a lot of furniture that does me no good. Have to get rid of it, since all apartments I can find are tiny. Must be a San Francisco thing. Or maybe it’s that the bigger apartments have all no cats policies.

First Attempts With Joomla

2005-11-13 3 min read Site Updates Marco

tohI decided to bite the bullet and start migrating to Joomla. I wasn’t expecting much of an issue, since the code bases just forked, so I followed the easy path and copied Joomla over Mambo.

To do so, first create a copy of your Mambo directory:
cp -a mambo moomla
The moomla directory will be our new playing ground while we test the installation.

Next unpack Joomla into the moomla directory:
cd moomla
tar xvzf Joomla_{your version here}.tar.gz

Starship Troopers (1997)

2005-11-12 3 min read Movies Marco

This is a really hard movie to get, and even when you get it, you are still left with doubts as to whether you actually got the right thing. Confusing? Get ready for more.

Paul Verhoeven’s film Starship Troopers is on the surface just a plain sci-fi militaristic action thriller as there have been dozens before and after. Humanity (represented by the Federation) is caught in a deadly fight with an alien race, the Bugs. Space ships and infantry are sent to the bugs’ remote planet to fight for Earth’s life.

10 Worst Habits of Productive Employees

2005-11-06 1 min read Site Updates Marco

You know how it feels when you are trying really hard, but it somehow never seems to matter much? When you feel like your manager doesn’t see what you are doing, when you are not getting credit for all the hard work?

I know how it feels from both sides. Moving on to management changed my perception of how to make my work relevant, just as much as interviewing candidates improved my interviewing skills. Check out the essay {moscontentlink:Bottom 10 Habits of Productive Employees}!

Goofy?

2005-11-06 2 min read Snow Updates Marco

Dude! Check out the board. It’s still regular. I can’t believe it!

Regular, for all you that don’t know yet, is a board on which the bindings are mounted to make you face to the left. Goofy is the opposite. The terms, I am told, come from wave surfing, the sport closest in physics to snowboarding.

When I went to do my first boarding trip ({moszoomalbum:2004-12-26}) I had no idea at all and ended up choosing regular more because I felt like a regular guy (stop laughing!) than anything else. I realized later that I had been too rash, but by then I had spent so much time getting comfortable, I didn’t want to change things around.

Staircase Complete

2005-11-04 1 min read Ninole House Marco

Just finished speaking with Brad: the progress on the house seems to be fantastic! I don’t know how much of that I got right, but here is what I remember:

The staircase from the ground floor to the first floor is complete
Some of the interior walls are put in
The cabinets are all moved out of the container and placed in the kitchen
The plumber started working and thinks he’s going to be finished over the weekend

The only surprise (other than pleasant) in all of this was that there were three tubs, not two and a shower basin. Go figure. He’s going to make it work, regardless. Amazing!

Yahoo! Maps Beta

2005-11-04 1 min read Web Marco

Did you try the new [Yahoo! Maps](http://maps.yahoo.com/beta)? It’s aimed squarely at Google Maps, and it’s really a neat solution.

Flash based where Google prefers AJAX, Yahoo! Maps is fast, accurate, and has such nice gimmicks as:

drag and drop of locations to the “Directions” area
multiple locations for way points
finds places of interest along a route, not just near a point
live traffic cams

All in all, a huge success for Yahoo!

Slow start?

2005-11-04 1 min read Snow Updates Marco

According to the [Wester Regional Climate Center](http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?cataho+nca), there is definitely a shortage of snow on the mountains around Lake Tahoe. Looks like this might be a slow start of the season!

Usually, early November already sees accumulation, and the average snow depth for the month in Tahoe City is 3 inches. Now, looking at the resort cams, there isn’t any snow left even on top of the mountain! It’s so bad that Heavenly even turned off their cam, presumably not to embarrass fans.

Switching to Joomla

2005-11-03 1 min read Site Updates Marco

Yes, it’s true. I have been looking at Joomla, the new fork of Mambo. I am still not quite sure what happened and why the fork was necessary, but the Joomla boys seem to be the good ones, and a lot of activity has been pouring in their direction.

So far, there seems to be no real reason to change, other than the name. On the other hand, this new template I am using is really wonderful. Surely beats the mody_lightblue template I had been adapting and adopting.

The Godfather (1972)

2005-11-02 3 min read Movies Marco

Rarely have I had such split emotions about a movie. I was not prepared for what I saw, and I am not sure I have a coherent opinion about this movie. It is exciting, and it is dull. It is wonderful, and it is disappointing. There is just not one opinion to form, but a great many, and very conflicting ones.

In short: the movie is about the Corleone family, a Mafia family that is trying to wrestle itself out of a complicated system of vendette that has engulfed the family’s scion, Don Vito Corleone (played by an astounding Marlon Brando). The Corleones disagree with the rest of the mafia on using drugs to make money, thinking that it is too risky and that there is a real danger that the cohabitation between government and mafia will end as soon as drugs are part of the business.

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