$4xx to replace the front brakes and rotors.

And then… a ticket from the Los Altos police department. It say that the infraction occured during “dusk”. But at 7:50pm, it was clearly night (6:20 pm was the end of visible light according to the Navy.) Do I have a case?

Hm.

Lunch 2.0 ? Welcome to Lunch 2.0!

a social phenomenon referring to a migration of web 2.0 company employees to other offices around the Silicon Valley area; characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share food and ideas, and “the lunch as a conversation”

I’m so subscribed!

Ah, finally I’m home after my misadventures in BOS airport.

The flight from JFK-SFO took 7.5 hours due to weather delays in SFO, the flight was supposed to take 6.5 hours, and 6 during the summer. For that amount of time, I could’ve gone to London Heathrow from JFK.

But I’m home. And I even have a working SIM card so I have cell phone service again. (Using payphones is expensive!!)

So… that’s that!

Sorry for this ultra blurry photo – it’s hard taking a photo while driving!

Emily is the sister of Sarah Hughes, who, in turn, is also a cousin of radio shock jock Greg “Opie” Hughes; host of XM’s the Opie and Anthony show. They’re from Great Neck North – the rivals of Great Neck South, where I went.

Wow, the wikipedia entry for Sarah has some more interesting info:

Before the 2002 Olympics, her parents, both Cornell University alumni, contacted James Maas, one of their former professors at Cornell, author of Power Sleep and noted sleep psychologist. During their meeting, Maas learned of their daughter Sarah and her training regimen. He suggested that, in order to improve her skating, for two weeks, she should sleep nine hours a night, every night, even if this meant training less. As Maas recounts every year for his Psychology 101 class, her skating abilities noticably improved within two weeks. Convinced, Hughes continued this sleeping regimen throughout her training period. Maas cites Hughes as one of his examples of why sleeping is very important.

Sleep is important!

One of the few upsides of today’s travels was this nify photo of Manhattan that I took while on the jet from Baltimore to Boston:

(click on it to see a larger version)

Well… I also took this photo but I’m not nearly as proud of it as the one above:

Ah, the airlines that fly to BWI…

My flight from BWI-BOS arrived 1 hour late, and I missed my connection from BOS to SFO! Because it’s a holiday weekend (it’s a holiday? I didn’t know – I’m not getting Monday off.) all the flights are full. My next guaranteed flight is on Sunday apparently.

Looks like I’ll be sitting at BOS all weekend on standby. And without a cell phone!

Update 1: So the reason that my flight from Baltimore to Boston was held was due to high winds. Apparently winds were so bad that an American Eagle plane had its windshield cracked on take off in Boston. Yipes.

But because it is weather related, they won’t pay for a hotel room for me. So I got them to fly me to NY where I’ll stay with my parents for the night and then go from JFK-SFO in the evening on Saturday.

Bad Weather and Winter Break are working against me.

Update 2: Well now I’m in NY. I’m semi-guaranteed a flight from JFK-SFO at 932pm on Saturday. I’m going to cross my fingers and try for standby for the 715am. Wish me luck.

Of course now that I’m in Baltimore, my phone has decided to stop working. Murphy’s Law.

My 5600 is reporting “invalid or missing sim card” – even I was able to receive a call just fine this morning.

ARRGHHH.

Update 730pm: So since I wrote the above, the following comedic sequence of events happened:

0. I tried cleaning the SIM card contacts with my shirt, toilet paper, tissue, hotel towel. I even tried the old NES technique of blowing on it. No luck.

1. I called Cingular. They ran me through some basic troubleshooting and told me they would send me a new SIM card – but it would take 2-5 days to receive. Argh!

2. I thought about buying a pre-paid SIM card at a local store as a temporary measure. But my phone is locked. So I went to Erik’s Unlocking a 5600 page. Lo and behold, you need a working SIM card to unlock your phone. Argh!

3. I took a taxi to the local Cingular (formerly AT&T Wireless) store to see if they had any techs or extra AT&T Wireless SIM cards. Nope. None. No techs, and no SIM cards for an AT&T Wireless customer like me. Seeing my problem, one of the sales guys took the SIM card, and rubbed it vigorously with his thumb. (Actually it was more of a vigorous schmearing action.) And it worked! Argh! Unbelievable!

4. I made a quick call to verify that it worked. I checked email to verify that it worked. It all worked! All it took was some of his thumb grease.

But wait… why isn’t this post over? Because…

5. 2 hours later, I look at my phone and its searching for a signal… in downtown Baltimore. What the heck? I reboot and it says that I am now Denied. Argh!

Remember Step 2? I’m guessing that when they placed the order for a new SIM card, they cancelled my existing one.

So now I’m back to Square 1 – no cell phone service for the next 2-5 days. Argh!

Don’t call me. And don’t leave any messages.

Good thing I had some free time in my hotel room to catch up on some blogs… otherwise I might not have noticed that Mark tagged me.

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Program Manager at Microsoft
2. Network Engineer Intern at Dresdner at 75 Wall St — Dresdner is a giant bank in Germany that you’ve never heard of.
3. Student Residential Network Coordinator at Johns Hopkins — Where I would hunt down people who stole IP addresses (they were $180 a year), earning the name “NARC” amongst my CS colleagues.
4. Lowly factory worker in the New York City garment district — Including a 2 week stint at a warehouse in East Newark, NJ. Not just Newark… East Newark.

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Wayne’s World
2. Lost in Translation
3. Das Boot
4. The Crow

Four Places I’ve Lived:
1. Mountain View-Sunnyvale, CA
2. Baltimore, MD
2. New Hye Park-Great Neck, NY
3. Queens, NY (Though I’m originally from Brooklyn. People find this very surprising for reasons I don’t understand.)

Four TV Shows I Love:
1. Family Guy
2. The Shield
3. 24
4. Drawn Together

Four Places I’ve Vacationed:
1. Hong Kong
2. Las Vegas
3. Grand Cayman
4. London

Four of my favourite dishes:
1. Chicken Parm Hero from Hero Boy.
2. Peter Luger – They only have 1 dish there. Don’t ask for a menu unless you want to look lame.
3. Lobster at Per Se
4. Salted Chicken – available at many Cantonese style Chinese restaurants, like Kirin.

Four sites I visit daily:
1. FlyerTalk
2. Fidelity.com – and then shake my head.
3. WSJ
4. Mark was right – I just look at my feeds.

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Any W Hotel again.
2. First Class on a Cathay flight again.
3. New York.
4. At my desk at work. Seriously.

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Omar Shahine
2. Dan Steingart
3. Jenny
4. Andy Ruff