The Twilight Report

lunch, breakneck ridge (long) and shakespeare

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:56:00 GMT

Yesterday I had lunch with Adil, Ed, and pretty much the rest of my old work colleagues in EDA. It was really nice to see everyone and a pleasant surprise that pretty much everyone wanted to see me. After everyone else left Adil and I had a chat and I got to meet his kids, which was quite nice. Adil, don’t forget to send me that picture!

(click to see in Google Earth)

As promised (or threatened) I did the long loop of Breakneck Ridge after lunch. I did it in the afternoon, so it was a lot hotter and a lot harder than last week. I ran into lots of people this time. Most of them asked me for advice or how far it was going to be to the turn off. I suppose I looked like I knew what I was doing. I had this conversation several times: “Are you from around here?” “I used to be. I used to live in Beacon.”

Upwise it is like the last Breakneck Ridge hike except for more up after the saddle where you turn off for the short loop, and a more gradual descent. It is also about a mile longer. I feel like I left this hike as unfinished business when I left Beacon a year and a half ago. I’d hiked it a million times, but I left in a state where I wasn’t really up to hiking it anymore. Now that I’ve come back and hiked it again I feel a lot better about it.

After the hike I met up with my friends at Boscobel for As You Like It. I was disappointed that I missed Richard III, because it is one of my favourites, but As You Like It was really funny and definitely worth it. They presented it using a Western theme that accentuated the humour. Joe said it was his favourite Boscobel Shakespeare yet. I’m not sure that I would go that far, but it was quite good. If you are ever in the Hudson Valley during the summer I highly recommend seeing one of the plays that they are presenting that year. They usually do two plays each summer, they present them outside at Boscobel, where there is a lovely view of the Hudson.

...and with that, my Hudson Valley adventure draws to a close, as I head back to New York City, and prepare for my next big adventure in New Mexico.

Farewell Lunch

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 11:19:00 GMT

My farewell lunch at The Company was surprisingly pleasant. Pretty much everyone from the department showed up, except for my manager, but that was good because it gave Greg the opportunity to do impressions of him. There were even a few people from greater EDA who came, that I've gotten to know over the years.

When we were walking back to the building after lunch, people had bunched up into smaller sub groups, and I noticed that because of my pace I was sort of between groups, off by myself. I thought to myself: here I am the guest of honor and my anti-social tendencies have still taken over.

As I type this I just realized that I forgot to have Adil invite that cute Indian girl (the one that always seems to smile at me) to my farewell lunch.

Timing on Games

Sun, 30 Jan 2005 15:27:00 GMT

I had this funny dream last night that the timing team was now writing computer games instead. It was an odd feeling to wake up to.

Greg

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:53:00 GMT

Yet another in my series of critiques of my coworkers.

Greg is a true asset to the timing team. He is an excellent programmer, and unlike me, he understands the core timing and EDA infrastructure well. He agreed to debug a problem that we were having last night. In this business people draw up boundaries, assign blame and are rarely willing to help. Greg in sharp contrast gets in, gets his hands dirty, and has a positive upbeat attitude with a slight sardonic overtone (he likes to mimic his coworkers). I went home at like 8:30pm, seeing that there was no more than I could do. When I got into work today I found out that Greg and Alex had solved the problem (which, to my surprise actually wasn't in my code after all). I called Greg with the cover story that I was finding out what I needed to run with the fix (although I already knew), but really with the intent of thanking him for his hard work. To which he responded: don't mention it; that was a fun one.

Update: This entry was about Greg as a cricket fan.

L. A.

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:52:00 GMT

In a week I will be in LA, visiting a friend who I have seen exactly once in the past five years. We chat on-line all the time, but I am looking forward to seeing him; hitting the streets, ordering a thing with stuff, transforming into a train and driving around, seeing the easter eggs in the game that he worked on at EA, and generally having a good time.

And all of this... ls_slbd_dtop_pmac and DoubleThink II will be little more than a memory and something which I won't have to worry or care about until March.

ls_slbd_dtop_pmac

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 22:14:00 GMT

I would just like to state, for the record, today for the first time ever ls_slbd_dtop_pmac timed and abstracted to completion in parallel (12 processors) without core dumping, or producing errors. This is the best Australia Day ever!!!!