Albert's big day

Today is my brother-in-law's wedding day. He's a lucky guy, marrying a beautiful and God-fearing woman named Connie. I'm really excited for him. I have the honor of reading 1 Corinthians 1-13 in the ceremony; should be fun.

And then we'll chow down on some yummy food. We already had some good Chinese food for the rehearsal dinner. Eating is one of my favorite parts of any wedding. Yum.

Weddings themselves are interesting affairs. They are a ton of work for the new couple to pull together, especially today when families are often spread out geographically and can't help with the preparation. It seems to me that they often take on a life of their own. What I end up telling most couples shortly before the wedding is to stop worrying about the details when the day approaches, and just enjoy it. It won't go perfectly, and it doesn't have to. They're going to get married and have a party with their closest friends and family, and that's all that really matters.

Congrats, Albert and Connie. May God smile on your marriage and give you both strength, wisdom, and love for each other for the rest of your lives. Hooray!

We're Moving!!

Talk about a whirlwind of activity. Right after vacation and right after CES (huge time-drain for me), we started looking at houses. Our current place, which we LOVE, only has two bedrooms, and we'd really like a third.

I certainly didn't expect, though, that we'd find a house within days of starting our search for real, but that's what happened. And Thursday night we signed the docs that made it official. So we're moving!!

I'm totally excited about it; the new house is great. Not perfect, of course, but great. For those interested in such things, we'll probably close in two weeks, fix up the place, move, then stage and sell our current place. Exact timing TBD.

Ok, about the house. No pics yet, but coming soon. The house is a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath with a relatively large lot (~10k sq. ft) since it's at the end of a cul-de-sac. Upgraded kitchen with new cabinets and granite counters, large great room with white tile floor, large master bed/bath, etc. There are a few downsides, too, like the apartment complex across from the backyard, but they're all manageable. In general, the house has a lot going for it, but most of all, the thing I love about the house is that it has *potential*. It's in move-in condition already, but I'm as excited about what I *could* do with it as with what it is today. Of course, I'm a product manager. I get paid to come up with ideas.

I already have the first 4 phases of work (next 5-10 years, if we're even there that long) planned out. Phase I: move the stove top to another spot in the kitchen, and landscape everything. Phase II: open up on of the bedrooms into the great room with pocket french doors. Phase III: Add a covered entryway and a bay window for some depth and curb appeal. Phase IV: expand back corner, turning existing bedroom into a hallway, two bedrooms, and a study/family room.

I'm way too broke to do any of these these right now, except for Phase I which I'm keeping my fingers crossed for, but I can dream. And the beauty is that they are achievable dreams! Anyway, I'm stoked.

Moving party date TBD.

Microsoft is pissing me off

When Apple announced Apple TV at MacWorld last week, I was so stoked, b/c it would finally in a convenient way let me get my music from my PC to my TV. Then my friend Danny asked me, "why, you already have an xbox 360". And so I thought about it and decided to give it another go.

Big mistake.


Freakin' MSFT. First I had to install a new version of Windows Media Player, version 11. Then I discovered that Microsoft, for some completely idiot reason, doesn't support .aac filetypes, which is what I have my entire library ripped in (b/c it's better audio quality). And since it doesn't recognize those files for it's library, it won't share them to the xbox (which *will* play them, by the way). And there's no way to force WMP11 to share specific files.

Pisses me off like crazy. I mean, AAC is STANDARD, not company-specific. It's like mp3 but more up-to-date. Apple supports it. And yes, songs from iTunes Music Store are in an Apple-specific flavor that nothing else will play either, but at least iTunes will play (and rip) basic .aac files. And MSFT won't even recognize them.

Truly annoying. By ignoring industry standards and trying to force their own thing, they've basically made my $400 Xbox 360 with all its "media center extender" capabilities a very expensive DVD player (and not even HD). Ridiculous.

I'm even more ticked because I tried *for the second time* to get it to work.


I cannot wait to get my Apple TV. Of course, I'll have to get a big screen TV for it to work...

Yahoo! Go and oneSearch

CES was a blast, and not just because of the *massive* LCD screens (check out my Flickr photos), although those were nice. We launched Yahoo! Go and oneSearch (check it out), two products that I've been working on a LOT for the past many months.
And all that hard work payed off! We got a lot of awesome coverage in the press and with CES attendees, and the general reaction was really positive. It was a ton of fun. And I got do a few entertaining interviews, including one live radio spot, which was a first for me.
Check out my quote. Cool.

Time to Get Your Geek On

It's Sunday night, I'm in Vegas at the Flamingo, and CES starts tomorrow morning. Cool. All your base are belong to us.

21 & 22

I spent the last 2 days scrambling to file some patents on a product that we've been working on furiously for the last many months, trying to get them done before an impending deadline. I was on the phone with one laywer until literally past midnight on Thursday drawing diagrams on a whiteboard, taking pictures with my phone, and sending them to him so that we could communicate effectively long distance.
But I finished the last one last night at 9:30, a full hour before the deadline. Whew!
In the course of the discussion the lawyer asked if I'd done a lot of these, to which I responded yes, but in doing so realized that I didn't actually know how many I'd filed. So I checked. So far as I can remember (I might be missing some), I filed my 21st and 22nd patents yesterday. Cool.
It's only my pride, of course, but for some reason, filing patents gives me a huge sense of satisfaction. I love it. Now, of course, I have to wait 5 years or so to find out if the patent office is going to grant me the patent. With all those filed, I have yet to actually be awarded one. But it's just a matter of time.

More than meets the eye

Oh, boy. I saw a preview for Transformers this weekend, and I can't WAIT! I remember in the cartoons that the transformers were always kind of, well, non-threatening, even when the Decepticons were blowing stuff up. But in the movie, they are SCARY! It's AWESOME. I mean, shouldn't a huge, tractor-trailer-turned-robot be scary, even if he's a good guy? Wow. I'm so stoked. Bring it.

The Good and the bad bad bad

I saw a number of movies last weekend, both in the theater and at home. It was the first time in quite a while that I'd gone to a movie - working too much, I guess - and the popcorn was great.

I went to see Night at the Museum last Sunday (was it really only 5 days ago?). It was a fun fun movie! Totally predictable, inane plot, yes. Clearly someone had an idea about everything in a museum coming to life and tried to put a story around it. Totally transparent. But it was fun anyway. No great acting, no great dialog, no great meaning, but it was entertaining. So good.

Soph and I also rented some dancing movie with Antonio Banderas - Take the Lead - which is based on a real life story. That movie was a lot of fun. It was also predictable, but the plot was at least meaningful, and it was entertaining. Also, the soundtrack was GREAT. Tons of fun, and it sounded fantastic on my stereo. Sooooo nice. I love my stereo.

And finally, when Soph when to see Dreamgirls with Ellie, Will and I went to see Eragon (mostly b/c neither of us wanted watch Dreamgirls). What a mistake. We should have played frisbee golf or something. While the book that Eragon is based on is a really fun read with decent characters and fast action, the movie was HORRIBLE! Like D-. Bad bad bad. The acting was bad. The dialog was worse. The sequencing was awful. If I hadn't read the book I would have had no idea what was going on. Have you ever seen a movie with a scene that's obviously intended to be "powerful" in some way? Like it was supposed to move you to tears, or was supposed to feel really ominous, or was a "soaring moment"? This movie had all of those, but instead of actually being powerful, they only felt like they were *trying* to be powerful. This is one of those things that if you're going to attempt, you need to succeed, because failing is worse than not trying. Unfortunately for Eragon, they tried over and over again, but failed every. single. time. It might have been laughably bad, but I sat through it for 2 hours, so even when I laugh at it, I'm sad. It was just bad. bad bad bad.

When does Transformers come out again?