boston

While sitting and listening to the Drupal in China session at the Boston DrupalCon Aaron Winborn, creator of the emfield module, added support for the Chinese video sharing site tudou.com. Support was added in about 30 minutes demonstrating how easy it is to extend the functionality of the emfield and of Drupal.

My flight from Vancouver to Seattle to Boston to attend the Boston DrupalCon was a little less than desirable. The differences in flights in the U.S is amazing. My seat was comfortable with ample legroom and the flight incredibly smooth. The check-in attendant, however, was rude and actually told me that today was the day that I learned how to "fly" (because apparently I had no idea how the airports worked).

Its 2 am right now. I'm exhausted from the day before and I have a long day ahead of me. The bus leaves the Port Authority on 42nd street in approximately one hour and it will take another 4.5 hours to get to Boston. From Boston I need to take the redline subway to Cambridge; which is another hour long ride. Finally I'll arrive at the Berkman center where I'll sit with 20 other people and talk about "Open Media Publishing Tools" or better said "Open Source Media Stuff"

I'm extremely excited for this talk. In reality it is a room full of geeks talking about what the future holds and hypothesizing about what the obstacles are to that future. Much of what we'll say will turn out to be completely false but some of it will turn out to be true. Who knows what will come of this meeting but at the very least I will have talked with a few more geeks, made a few new geeky friends, and spoke, on record, about super-geeky things that someday will be commonplace in the household.

Everyone is welcome to participate in Second Life; that is, if you're into Second Life (which I'm not...) 

This year I wasn’t able to spend Christmas with my family; plane tickets were just a bit too expensive. Thank-fully Diana invited to spend Christmas with her family… aawww isn’t she sweet? 

Christmas in Boston. 

We jumped on the Fung Wah bus to Boston around 10am on Christmas Eve. Not wanting to lug a ton of gifts to Boston and then back down to New York Diana and I exchanged presents on Friday night. Our luggage was light and consisted of only a messenger bag and a single small roly-poly suitcase. 

Once in Boston we primarily stuck around her parent’s place and met various different people of her family. Just like last time I spent most of the night looking like a deer caught in the headlights. I really need to learn Cantonese. Every now and again I would hear my name; which immediately made me nudge Diana for a quick translation. Usually the translations weren’t too exciting; something like “Is Jacob Jewish”? 

No… Just because I’m white with blondish/brownish hair and I live on the east coast doesn’t make me Jewish. Really. 

Anyhow back to Christmas. It was great. On Christmas day we did not open gifts. Instead in the morning Diana and I went to the movies, avoiding all the crowds, and watched “The Family Stone”… ehh.. not the greatest movie, but it had its high points. 

Christmas dinner, however, was great. It consisted of several different types of thinly sliced raw meats, fish, vegetables, and noodles. In the middle of the table was a boiling pot of seasoned broth over an open flame. All food was cooked fresh in the boiling pot of water piece by piece by grabbing it with your chopsticks and dipping it in the boiling broth for a few seconds. 

Oooohhh.. so good. 

Oh by the way, apparently I am a master with chopsticks. Ooorrr Diana, her family and friends have never seen someone as white as me work the “sticks” so well ;) he he…

That’s all for me. I hope your Christmas’ were merry and bright. 

It has been several months since the last time I "Blogged". I have no real excuse other than that I have been busy with work, crazy women, crazy friends and just an all around?hectic lifestyle. I have recently taken two steps back and reevaluated a lot of the things in my life and changed several things. I think that every once in a while this is an exercise that we all do, sometimes we do it internally and the changes are not so apparent other times we make drastic changes that are very apparent. I would classify this right in the middle. For many of my friends nothing will change for others they'll see a big change.

sssooooo.... What have I been up to?

(deep breath).... 8k run, 10k run and another 5k run this weekend. I went to Boston to meet Diana and then we went to NYC (both of which were awesome), wine tasting, my cousin's birthday up in Seattle, Salsa dancing every now and again, started a Becker Conviser course for the CPA exam, developed and framed about 20 new pictures including a 4 1/2 foot long panoramic (it is sweet). I haven't been to the mountain for sometime now, nor have I been surfing.

I have two new additions to my "Family"

• A sweet Panasonic 3CCD Mini-DV camera.. wait I mean Scchwweett.
• An AWESOME 10 yr old Classical Guitar in perfect condition! ; Takamine CP132SC

Other news..

My student loans are due this month and my Masters degree still hasn't made me any more money.

I have tons more to write about but that should give all two of you an idea of what has been going on with me.

Until next time.