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December 31, 2004
Updated Agile Resume
Not that anyone is really interested, but I've updated my resume. It can be found in multiple formats from the front page of my static home site www.berteig.org/mishkin. You can also click on this link to my resume of agile stuff. I've had my resume on-line for about six years and it has been critical to me finding several jobs/projects.
Posted by mishkin at 02:26 AM
December 29, 2004
Good Link about Learning French
How I learned French in One Year. For what it's worth, I still think that Rosetta Stone is an excellent method for learning a foreign language.
Posted by mishkin at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)
Trouble in Distant Parts
A couple of days ago we received news that an uncle of mine has fallen to a very low degree. Once considered a very stable element in the family, he's hid himself away with a very young woman and has admitted to being on crack. Strong steps are being taken to help him out, but who knows what the end result will be. It's a little bit shocking to hear of this, but in some distant manner I can relate. People can do some pretty odd things in the name of love.
Posted by mishkin at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2004
Moles and Games
Found a mole in our basement - the small furry kind - the kind that moves around, not the kind on one's skin. And played a bit of Morrowind again. Justice has been enjoying a game called "Blackbelt Chinese" - basically Mah Jong for learning Chinese characters by matching them with little iconic pictures. My mom is visiting. I would like to highly recommend a software product: "DVD Idle" for allowing viewing of any region DVD's as if they were region-free. Also has nifty stuff like allowing you to automatically skip the FBI warnings and the previews (particularly obnoxious on Disney DVD's) to go directly to the menu or the film itself.
This is the extended entry designed specifically to irritate a particular "Y".
Posted by mishkin at 05:30 PM | Comments (1)
December 23, 2004
Ug. Sick.
Not much to say really: sore throat and a little achy. What can you do?
Melanie is getting a cell phone. I'm getting mine replaced because it totally sucks (its an Audiovox) - I can never hear it ring or feel it vibrate, the keypad is too small and sometimes the keys don't register if I'm dialling quickly, the menu structure is painful to use, and reception isn't very good. Try Nokia - they have good phones.
Posted by mishkin at 09:01 AM | Comments (1)
December 21, 2004
Changing my Tune
I recently purchased two Linksys NLSU2 Network Storage Link thingees...
At first I was very very disappointed with them: I couldn't get them to work with my external USB2.0 hard drive enclosures. They wouldn't format the disks. I did tonnes of web searching and finally decided to try upgrading the firmware to some open source stuff. And it worked! Now I love these things. I've got two 200GB disks each in a separate enclosure. One disk holds all my stuff: personal and business files, mp3s, etc. The other disk is the backup. The NLSU2 does the backup automatically for me every night. Okay, so its not off-site, but it's a sight better than before (no backups). Now. If you're not comfortable doing risky things with your hardware, I strongly recommend avoiding this product. However, if you're technically minded and interested in fiddling a bit, these things are yet another great product from Linksys.
Posted by mishkin at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2004
Lost My Passport
On Friday the 10th I lost my passport in the cab I took from the airport to my home.
I've been trying to find my passport. It has my work visas as well as some sentimental value. The problem is that the cab that I took didn't give me any contact information: no business card, no name on the VISA sales slip, etc. I so called my credit card company - they don't have the merchant's name either. I seem to be stuck. So, today I'm cancelling my passport and applying for a new one. Ick.
It's actually kinda funny too, because I'm working for a credit card company and I know for a fact that the information that I'm looking for is in their systems. But I also know that it may be operationally very very difficult to retrieving due to policies, system boundaries, etc. Blah.
Posted by mishkin at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2004
Recent Photos
The kids are growing up. Justice is reading and reading and reading. Haifa is getting interested in learning to read. And Verity has started backwards-crawling. This evening we went to Justice and Haifa's first gymnastics recital. They were great. Another cool thing is that the club has an olympic gymnast so we got to see some top-level performances. Melanie said she really was surprised at the encouraging atmosphere at the recital. It makes her feel much more comfortable about our kids being there.
We've finally settled into our new home. We're very happy about it in most respects: it is beautiful, spaceous, well laid-out, and is on a very large lot. The photos above give some sense of the interior, but really can't do justice to the incredible amount of light and the good feelings of being here.
Posted by mishkin at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Back to Richmond
I'm going back down to Richmond for a couple of days. The work I've been doing recently has been incredibly interesting: process/methodology consulting. I was able to work for a few days with Mary Poppendieck of "Lean Software Development" fame. I learned a lot about metrics for software projects as well as queuing theory.
Posted by mishkin at 10:59 PM
December 13, 2004
Too Much To Tell
Moved, started a new contract, life is good. More details to come soon :-)
Posted by mishkin at 05:40 AM