Gale Force

I was chatting with a friend today and he relayed a story about a call to Apple tech support. Trying to diagnose a problem they told him to perform a maneuver that most gymnasts would have trouble with.

“While holding the Apple + Alt + P + R keys, press and hold the Reset/Power button.”

Convinced he had been asked to perform the most difficult key press combination of all time, I told him about the time I had to do a zero out reset on my Palm Treo. I think they called it a zero out reset because you have exactly a ZERO percent chance of performing it correctly.

Here are the directions from PalmOne’s website:

1. Read through these instructions before attempting the reset. We made this method of zero out reset extremely awkward to perform, so that it would not happen by accident. You may need the help of a dextrous friend if you find it too difficult to do by yourself.
2. Connect your device to its HotSync cable or cradle. The HotSync cable does not need to be connected to your PC, and it does not need to be connected to power.
3. Press and hold the Power button and UP on the 5-way navigator.
4. While continuing to hold Power and UP, press and hold the HotSync button on the HotSync cable or cradle. As you press HotSync, make sure your other finger doesn’t slide to LEFT or RIGHT on the 5-way navigator; it needs to be exactly on UP during the entire process. Although you are pressing the HotSync button, a HotSync operation should not begin.
5. While continuing to hold Power, UP and HotSync, press and release the RESET button on the back panel of your device (where’s the reset hole?). This is very difficult to do with only one person; you may wish to hold the stylus in your mouth and use your hands to press Power, UP and HotSync.
6. Release Power, UP and HotSync.
7. If you did this reset correctly, the screen of your device will go blank, and you will not be able to turn it on. The charging LED will not light up, even if it’s connected to power. It will appear to be “dead.” (any other activity — such as the Palm OS logo or a rainbow-colored Boot Log screen appearing — means the reset was performed incorrectly; try again)

First off, when they suggest you may need a dextrous friend to assist you with the reset you know you’re in trouble. If that weren’t bad enough, by step 5 they’re actually suggesting you hold the stylus in your mouth! Uhh I’m no lawyer or anything, but asking people to put a slim, sharpened metal object in their mouth to press buttons seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

And I love step 7: “If you did this reset correctly”. Come on, you KNOW for a fact the person didn’t do it correctly. Just be honest and change step 7 to read: “7: Do it again…and again…and again”.

Sorry Pete, I’m pretty sure the Palm Treo zero-out reset is THE most difficult key press of all time.

PS - Thanks Jake, Andy and Mark for helping me reset my Treo that day….

According to the race results, I am the 8th fastest 30-something year old in Orem. Take that 9th place guy!

I’m not normally one to toot my own horn (at least publicly) but I’m proud of the fact that I just ran my first 5k race ever! After all, a mere 6 months ago I weighed 252 lbs. and I couldn’t even drive 5k without getting tired. Now my scale uses the numbers “1″ and “8″ to tell me my weight and I’m signing up for races as fast as I can find them…I feel unstoppable. And hungry.

Sorry about the self-aggrandizing post…I couldn’t help it.

My recent blog posts have not been nearly geeky enough…I mean my Blog’s tagline is “Family Man + Geek at Heart”. You’ve certainly gotten a glimpse of the “Family Man” part of the equation…but now I’m gonna hit you with some pure geekitude!

There’s a new programming language that has the coding community all abuzz (thanks Pete for bringing this important technology to my attention!). I don’t generally give too much credence to new programming languages…but this one has the potential to redefine software engineering as we know it. May I humbly present…LOLCODE.

Let the code samples speak for themselves:

Example 1: Filezorz

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
AWSUM THX
VISIBLE FILE
O NOES
INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE


Example 2: IF/THEN/ELSE

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
GIMMEH VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10?
YARLY
BTW this is true
VISIBLE "BIG NUMBER!"
NOWAI
BTW this is false
VISIBLE "LITTLE NUMBER!"
KTHX
KTHXBYE


Simply the best implementation of natural language programming ever.  I encourage you to familiarize yourself with this emergent technology.  It won’t be long before employers will be requiring a working knowledge of LOLCODE for any serious software engineering position.  The following links should start you on the path to LOL zen

• LOLCODE Home
• LOLCODE Examples Page
• LOLCODE Implementors
• LOLCODE Keyword Documentation

For additional inspiration you may also want to check out

•  ICANHASCHEEZBURGER
• LOLBOTS

This weekend was the big Orem city summer festival, or Summerfest, as they like to call it. My family and I took in all that it had to offer including the 5k Fireman’s race, the Rotary Club breakfast, the booths, food and fireworks…and of course the CARNIVAL! I love the annual invasion of the carnies…strange people from strange lands coming to your town to amuse ripoff, entertain swindle and bedazzle jade the locals (or “townies” as we’re affectionately known).

Although I doubt there is a formal application process to become a carny, I am convinced that if there were it would look something like this:

Section I: About You
Name or Alias:
Age or rough approximation:
Address (N/A acceptable):
Highest grade level completed (circle one): 2 3 4 5

Section II: Please Answer the Following Questions
Do you like children Y N
Do you have any experience around or near children Y N
Do you have any children of your own Y N

If you answered Yes to any of the previous questions, we’re sorry but we are unable to accept your application at this time.

Seriously though…I did not catch even the briefest suggestion of a hint of a smile from any of the Carnival staff the entire day! Where do they get these people (OK I doubt I really want to know the answer to that)? I swear there’s a massive untapped market for Carnivals where the operators are 1) friendly 2) can speak English 3) have most of their teeth and 4) have a wardrobe consisting of more than wife-beaters and jean shorts. But what do I know…

In parting I would like to share a few informative links:

• Carny Lingo - The Ultimate List
• Carny Entry on Wikipedia
• Photos tagged “carny” on Flickr

Can’t wait until next year…

I’m not sure how it evolved, but over the years my friends and I have come up with Garbage-Pail-esque names for many of the restaurants around town. We generally use this alternative naming convention (ANC) when we’re trying to decide where to go to lunch. A typical conversation might sound like this:

“So where do you want to eat today?”

“How about Taco Smell.”

“Nahh…we ate there earlier this week…maybe Pizza Slut?”

This invariably goes on for 15-20 minutes before a decision is finally made, but I thought it would be fun to document all of our alternative restaurant names for your reading enjoyment.

• Of course there’s the afore mentioned Taco Smell and Pizza Slut
• Up-Chuck-a-Rama
• Sindy’s
• Burger Schwing
• Up-Chuck E Cheese (let’s be honest…anyone that used “Chuck” in their restaurant name was asking for it)
• Scary Queen
• Barftic Circle
• El Pollo Grosso
• Grodey Yogi
• Papa Cajones
• Sbarrfo
• Wienerschnitzel (no alternate necessary…I giggle every time I hear it)
• Appalling Burger (Apollo Burger)

Do you have any “pet names” for places you like (or dis-like) to eat?

We went all out on Jachin’s birthday party this year. After being inspired by another mom who put on a sweet Mario party I was confident I could do something similar (the confidence faded quickly).

First I made the invitations using some awesome graphics I found on the Nintendo website and the ever-cool Super Mario Bros. font. I also created some “coin boxes” using 4″x4″x4″ boxes that I purchased from Uline. I used this Question Mark Brick graphic, scaled it to 4″x4″ and printed them 4 per page then attached them to the boxes using a glue stick. Once the boxes were done I put the invitation, some easter grass (don’t ask me why) and some bubble-gum coins (chocolate coins were preferred but too expensive) inside and had Jachin deliver them to all of his friends. While I was going I made several extra boxes to use as decorations for the party.

Whew…invitations done…on to the cakes!

Being the lazy efficient person I am, I chose two Mario characters that would be easy to re-create in cake-ity goodness. First, the innocuous Goomba. He’s brown (chocolate icing) and he’s mushroom shaped (no artistic skills required). Next up, Blooper. He’s white (vanilla icing) and squid-shaped with few defining features (again…no artistic skills required). Perfect! Here’s the inspiration and the final product:

You should know that I have neither expertise nor skill in the area of cake decoration. For those of you who actually know how to decorate cakes, I apologize for my amateurish foray into your world. Case in point…the ultimate Mario cake. /bow “I’m not worthy”.

Invitations, check. Cakes, check. On to the piñata.

Desirous to have all aspects of the party stick to the Mario theme we decided to make a Chain Chomp piñata. We found a basic round smiley face piñata and painted it to look like a menacing Chain Chomp! The kids loved it.

Invitations, cakes, piñatas oh my. By this point I was exhausted and frankly I had lost some of my ambition. I had big ideas for cool party games but we just didn’t have the time to do them justice. In the end we let the kids decorate their own “coin boxes”, we played “pin the star”, we broke the piñata then we let the kids play some old-school Super Mario Bros. (including a “who can complete world 1-1 the fastest” contest).

Overall I think it was a big success. The kids had fun and I’m sure Jachin will remember this birthday for years to come. I have posted all of the party pictures online in the Gallery so feel free to browse them there!

“I’m sorry but our princess is in another castle….”