You would have to go back all the way to this post titled, ‘Job Promotion.. sorta‘ on February 10th, 2010 to know that I been working at Best Buy Corporate Headquarters for the past 6 months (Has it really been that long?) working with the Retail Web Development team. It’s been more than the predicted 3 to 4 months up here, and it looks pretty “permanent” for the time being as the group that we have here is a pretty solid group working together.

While I can not go into detail what I worked onto the general public, I like to go over some interesting numbers during my 6 months. For flying back and forth between MN and NY plus a side trip to STL (up to today) I have done 13 flight segments for a total of 12,730 miles since March 8, 2010. With the hotel that I been saying at I have earned a total of (as of today) 116,208 points. That does not include the 60,000 I used on a free room in NYC for September 11 and 10,000 points I used in Boston, MA for the Wedding I went to in May. So if we add those up 186,208 points total. I have passed 1,000 tweets since I been up here and more than the same with Facebook updates since I do it to both places (Tweet Deck for the win!). I know I spent a good 500 hours using the internet in the hotel to either play games or talk to loved ones and friends online.

My Cube Space: B4-417

So a lot of time an effort has been put into this project. At this stage the project is only at Beta. The team that will be using the site still has to test it out and all the (hopefully minor) bugs will be found over the next two weeks before it goes into a semi-live production state. But now I can start working on other projects.

I have learned also a new framework while up here, called ExtJS. Extremely useful framework that was part of the project.

While there are lots of people that I would love to point out that have helped me out emotionally and physically over these past 6 months while working on this extremely large project, I only like to point out a few due to the fact these people were the real support to my state. Without their support (texting, emailing, IM, Skype, twitter, facebook, and face-to-face, and phone calls) I would have probably have a breakdown and had to leave MN a long time ago.

• Mom
• Sister
• Joe Beaudoin Jr. (From FrakMedia!)
• Jon (From FrakMedia!)
• Rick P.
• Anonymous

You all made this project keep going. I thank you much!

But wait… I am not done! My cube is not really it’s a cube. It’s a half cube that I share with my cube mate from STL. We do have an official location within the building that we are in, numbered and everything, but I created my own sign to hang up. On the shelf I have a mascot being hanged by a ribbon string. Some fun things to play and get distracted with during those frustrating times. Books on AJAX and MySQL. Who needs books on PHP when you got php.net? My personal laptop is all the way over to the left. Always playing either music or videos while working and the ambiguities Facebook and Twitter feeds via TweetDeck. Monitor hooked up to the corp laptop with is to the right of the screen. The “+” yellow thing is a fun toy that is kinda like a boomerang. I’ll throw it to the cube behind me but it will come right back. The piece of paper that is hanging behind my personal laptop is just the alphabet so I can easily look at it to figure out where to place functions in alpha sort without having Netbeans do the work for me. Saves me a step!

So for next time I post, which I hope will be sooner rather than later, i’ll see ya then!

The criteria for keeping it has to follow certain guidelines:

• Could it contain private information?
• Does this serve a purpose with the current technology trend?
• Is it working in a state that I would use it on a daily basis?

If any one of these questions were answered ‘yes’, then I kept it. If not… well… it saw the dump.

Here are some interesting things that I found that were thrown away:

1. 2 IBM ThinkPad A20p Laptops
2. 1 IBM ThinkPad R51 Laptop
3. 1 Dell Dimension Laptop
4. 3 Broken Alarm Clocks
5. 1 Motherboard (Abit IT7-Max2) with P4 1.16ghz CPU (No RAM or Heatsink)
6. 2 80mm Case Fans
7. At least 100+ feet worth of Coax cable. (Don’t ask. )
8. EVGA 7600 GTS
9. ASUS v9950 Ultra (I remember I got this right after UVLAN 5)
10. 3.25″ drive cover for current desktop rig (Who uses floppy disks anymore?)
11. 2 Netgear Routers

Things that I did fine, but I need to keep them as they still have a use:

Curry Spring Dance 2005: Jon & Tricia and Lauren & Me

1. Old Sound blaster 4.1 Speaker System (It was still wrapped up in the plastic bags from when I came up from VA. I still only have two speakers from the 7.1 Creative system I got with the new rig.)
2. Police/Fire Scanner
3. Sirius Radio System (Won it was a door prize at the Superbowl Party for Fairfax County Police and Fire)
4. Picture’s from Curry College 2005 Spring Dance
5. My old LG Cell Phone (2 phones ago. Still works!)
6. My old LG Evny Cell Phone (1 phones ago. Still works!)

That’s about it. Everything else that I sorted through between DVDs, papers, and pictures these are just some of the funny things I found I still had. In total I had about 2 large boxes of trash of computer equipment which was a huge portion of the junk in my closet that I traveled with from MA to VA and then back to NY. There were some things that were just so odd and unique though that I couldn’t throw away, but that was to be expected. In any case, later this morning (since this is being posted just after 12) I will be able to pack it all up and bring it back home. I did a quick assessment from looking on how many boxes it will be, and I will just have enough room in my car to bring everything back with my clothes being in there already.

My movie collection, furniture, bed (with sheets), kitchen equipment, and bathroom (with towels) will all that will be left. If I come back to stay here for a night or two I will be sure to have to pack a travel suitcase.

More posts coming soon! I promise!

I can say right off the bat that I am not leaving the WordPress Core Contributor Group, I am just making adjustments to my other commitments that are the real slow downs in my goals.

Leaving for Good

As most of you didn’t already know, as of this post, I am now officially leaving the SourceMod/HL2 community. I haven’t coded and/or helped out in the forums nor provided updates to some of my more popular plugin in over 2 years of them first being released and with most of my time now away from the computer that can power the game, it’s pointless to continue to be part of this community.

Though I have tried to maintain my gaming clan and online gaming community playing, I am leaving my lifelong gaming clan ]CkB[ and gaming community CnB. I started playing with ]CkB[ when Tribes 2 was at it’s peak becoming also a major programmer in that community as well, fixing and testing out other plugins people released as well. And because of my travel’s to Minnesota leave me away from my desktop which can play the games, there is no point in being part of the gaming community that will be ending in the next few months anyway.

I think by now the Woopra community has known that I been very busy in Minnesota, but it’s time to make it official that I can no longer maintain the Woopra plugin I was tasked to take because of my deep knowledge of the WordPress code. Due to other circumstances, I can not even work on the plugin without major issues conflicting with my current job and that is something I can not ruin. John and Elie – Thanks for the opportunity to work on such a fabulous project from basically the ground up!

Minor “quit” (I did this one years ago in their forums) — I am leaving the vBulletin development group as well.

Limited Work

Now as I said, I still plan on being part of the WordPress core development group, but in terms of other WordPress related projects, designs, plugins, etc. I am no longer going to take on any more new jobs or work for companies and/or individuals that are not part of the WordPress core development group. I have one more plugin on the verge of completion and Tweeted which will I will still maintain however because of their popularity within the WordPress community.

No Change

FrakMedia! Productions is a bit different in terms of my responsibility and for that, it doesn’t fall under the same norms as everything else. I will still be a very active person developing and maintaining the FrakMedia! Productions sites and servers that the community (a very large one) depends on. So… no question there.

Since my life goals are something that I can not talk about in a public forum, I just ask that you appreciate all my hard work that I have contributed over the years to the different groups that I belonged to. This was very hard to post. I can not continue down the course of action if I want to accomplish my goals.

I still have active projects going on here on this site.. flash header.. which might change into a HTML5/CSS3 header once I convert some very important code into javascript/jQuery, but other than that I won’t be doing much. I will still be actively blogging, I just not taking on any more projects ever again.

MSP Airport at 14,000 Feet

Yep. You guessed it. This is the airport. Now if you look at the bigger picture you will see a white building that has the “target” symbol on it in the upper part on the left hand side of the airport grounds. Not sure what type of building it is, however our plane came in from that side landing on that runway going up to down (in this photo) directly inline with the little lake in the upper portion of the airport. When landing I witnessed another plane taking off on the right way running “diagonal” to our runway that is on the left hand (of this photo side) of the runway we landed on.

Best Buy HQ - Battleship Looking Buildings

Best Buy is located directly in the middle of this picture. If you look at the buildings that seem like 4 battleships, that is where I am! The building would be the 2nd from the far right building. Altitude is still close to 14,000 feet because we had just past the airport that would be to the right of Best Buy.

All shot on cell phone (without the phone part on).

I really wasn’t able to work on WordPress 3.0, release a new plugin, and/or expand the media feature I wanted to implemented on my site. I did however enjoy the many pleasures of life celebrating my birthday with a friend in the city, go to my friend’s (not the same friend that went to the baseball game and Iron Man 2) wedding in Boston, and then also going to see Iron Man 2 with the same friend. However, the pros in this case ruled in the case because I was glad to spend time not worrying about anything for a little while.

Ending the weekend with even the Yankees taking two out of three at Fenway park (They are still playing tonight’s game, but they are losing big time tonight) is even a highlight of this week. So I end this note packing my bags and ready to head to bed. I have a 4am ride into the city for an 8am flight back to MSP.

Update: After dinner, I was surprised with an Angel Food Cake from Mom and Sis because they didn’t spend my birthday with me. I was very surprised to say the least. Sis was being a sleuth keep me from knowing she was looking for candles when I went to the basement to get laundry.

Angel Food Cake

NY… see ya on May 28th!

The only thing I am disappointed in is that Terrance Howard was not War Machine. Studios gotta realize that people love seeing continuity in movies and not having the same actor or actress in their respective roles makes a huge difference. If you go see this movie, you must wait until after the credits. Just like the first one, there is something directly after the credits are over.

The days activities as noted from the previous entry started at mini-golf and then we all went to lunch a five guys. After that it was time for Jon to get ready for the wedding. I myself got comfortable sitting at Whole Foods doing some programing.

The real fun began at 3:45pm. Myself being the very prompt and on-time person to were ever I have an engagement, I headed to the church to where the Wedding mass was going to take place extra early so I can take up the sights.  Arriving at St. Mary’s Church, I realized I was the first one to arrive. So I took some pictures of the exterior of the church because the weather was perfect. No rain. No hot heat. Just warm with a little breeze. It could not have been a more perfect day.

St. Mary's

Close to 4:30, the guys and I was the planned meet up at the wedding to make sure we all got seats. When they all arrived, we still had plenty of time to do so because no one else had arrived yet. We hung outside until about 10 minutes before the wedding started. In doing so we saw the limo carrying Jon’s future wife, Trish, arrive. Once we saw the limo we waited the last possible second to go in before she got out herself.

There was a total of 64 people at the ceremony. Mass was about an hour plus ten minutes long. Me and the guys sat in a pew on the right hand side of the church, not in the last row, but the last row of where the last row in front of where the biggest parts of people were sitting. From our vantage point though we still had a great view of the ceremony. I was lucky myself to be sitting on the aisle. Watch Trish come down the aisle she looked wonderful.

Fast forward now to the reception.

After the wedding and the meeting of the new husband and wife outside the church, it was time to head to the reception area. Once finding my table, I grabbed a seat and met some of the other friends and family members. Realizing that myself and another guest were basically the only two friends of Jon from Curry to been bestowed to share the momentous and enjoyable night. After the food and other stuff, cut of the wedding cake, first dance, dance with the groom, etc., it was time to really get down and party.

Jon (Groom) and Myself, Photo by George Chin

Deep down I am a party maniac. And these are the situations that I love to dance in! Clubs are ok, but they don’t play the same style of music that wedding play. I had brought my loafers to wear because my dress shoes were too stiff to dance in all evening, so I was able to dance pretty much all night! And there are pictures! I know they exist, I just don’t have them right now!

At one point, contrary to  Jon’s wedding post about music selections, we were allowed to request line dance music. Woohoo! I did request 3 songs at the reception that I wanted to do myself other than the plentiful of music that was already going on.

1. Cha Cha Slide
2. Electric Slide
3. James’s Brown Shout!

No one from the party wanted to do the Cha Cha with me, but the kids who were at the wedding were dancing all night and they followed my lead though out the entire song! There is video of this as well! Towards the end of the night Jame’s Brown Shout! was the featured song after the last dance. This got the whole crowed on the dance floor. I even pulled an National Lampoon Animal House going on to the floor!

It was a great night and I enjoyed being part of the special occasion!

May senior rector vos utriusque per vestri novus vita una!

I have some video and will try to get it online later, but lets just say that this golf was no where close to the real thing. Oh… 2 hours till Wedding. This is going to be a fun night!

Waking up at the crack of dawn in NY, I headed towards the Cross Island Ferry at 7am for a 9am boat. This was the fastest way to the Boston area without losing too much sleep to do a lot of things in the Boston area. I wasn’t planning on seeing Jon until later in the evening so I had time to visit a few places before hand.

Arriving at the Hotel in Brockton, MA at the Country Inn and Suites, I checked into my free upgraded room — to a suite — to get my stuff organized for tomorrow. I will have pictures posted later, but this suites is nice with a full couch, king bed, mini-kitchen, and full bath. Located right near the stairs to go down stairs in the morning, this room is perfect. Then it was time to head out for a day/night on the town of Boston, MA and the surrounded area’s.

My first stop was my college, Curry College, where I saw with my own eyes the various improvements to the grounds and the new student center which is the new focal point of the campus. The pictures of the new center do not do it justice because it is gorgeous. Do you have $4 million dollars? You can name the student center of your choosing if you so desire. I also found a number of my teachers on campus to say hi and talk with them for a while. I got to see everyone I wanted to see.

I then headed up to Winchester, MA to visit an old family friend to check out his new apartment and catch up on what has been going on in my life. I stayed to about 6:30pm and at that time Jon was already to head out for the evening. Heading to our usual hangout place for dinner in Dedham, MA — Tahiti — we ordered and sat there for about 2.5 maybe even 3 hours before heading out.

Jon then took me around the area to show me the new stuff that has been put up including where the old Dedham Movie theater used to be, showing me this elaborate shopping center. I did remember that before I left for VA back in Jan 07 that they were starting to ground up and remove the parking lot that once covered the area. Now I understand why it was happening. This place is just like is Park City, UT where everything is lined up including a Bowling alley. The only differences between the Park City, UT and Dedham, MA locations was that Dedham has a movie theater and above parking where in Park City, UT there is no movie theater and it’s all underground parking. Place is amazing! Something I will have to try out once I come back up here again!

Overall it was a great evening and it was so good to see Jon before the wedding because at the wedding he was going to be busy. Tomorrow though is going to be a busy day. First up is the “pre-wedding” event at the mini-golf course and then the wedding followed by the reception.

Till… err… later today… cya!

Getting up in the morning was no problem for me. Minus the fact that it was raining, I didn’t mind. For only 4 times in 28 years has it raining on my birthday, and I like keep the record high, but yesterday was no usual statistic allowing it to fall in the ‘rain’ column. It cleared up even way before I headed on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) for the city in the early afternoon. By the time I got to the city and started walking around though it was hot and humid, but still had a nice slight breeze.

After taking the Subway to Grand Central, I walked back to Times Square and then with a peaceful stroll to Rockefeller Center. Cooling down (sorta) in a deli was a nice treat because at that point I was getting hot. Heading over towards 3rd ave was the next destination, but as I was heading over the clouds started ‘darkening’ up and while I was at 57th and 3rd, the rain started to come down and then a bit afterwords it was a downpour. Retreating into another deli for some more shelter was in order. Surprisingly it was the same deli I have stopped in a dozen time more before when I was working in the summer for the Hampton Jitney. With it being close to 5pm (the time the gates opened up at Yankees Stadium) I got on the 6 train at the 68th hunter station and transferred to the 4 on 86th street getting off at 161 and first – Yankees Stadium.

Yankees Batting Practice

Going by the old hollow grounds of old Yankees Stadium were realized when all I saw was rubble in the area of the old foot print. There was only the first base side grandstand framework still standing tall in the area. More than likely because it is so near the tracks of the subway that they need extra precautions to make sure when they take it down so it doesn’t intertwine with the rail lines.

I got to the stadium so early that it took all of 5 minutes from Subway to the entrance of the game. Usually it’s a bit longer, but in this case it was really quick. Once in the stadium, I headed to Monument park. It was the first time going to this monument park because all the other times the park was already closed by the time I got there. Next stop, as usual, was the Yankees on-site Museum because I wanted to see this past’s years World Series Trophy. I was trying to imaging another one in there. There is no more room in the glass case that they are stored in. Checking out the signed balls of that were there was another interesting thing as I love to do. Looking at some of the signatures is amazing. After that it was time to find my seats.

I got tickets to sit in the main level of the stadium. The view was amazing. The exact area was Section 215, Row 7. That put us directly in the baseline of first base and second. A few rows in front of me was the camera well of the first base side. You wouldn’t believe on how much footage comes from the main section camera wells and the outfield cameras. The field level cameras are rarely used for action shots on the field since players usually block line of sight to other things going on the field.

The Camera Well

Batter's Box Area View

The most annoying this about sitting here was that there was a fan with a huge sign sitting right behind the right camera position always raising the sign even during the game. I wouldn’t have mind when there was no action or base runners on 1st base. Oh well. Otherwise the view was perfect. You could see every part of the field perfectly without any obstructions. Even the right field corner you could see without any problems. While the game was pretty mundane even up to the point of the Baltimore Orioles scoring first off CC Sabathia, the crowed got really wild after Randy Winn (#22) hit his first home run for the Yankees in the bottom of the 4th inning to give the yankees 3 more runs securing the 4 to 1 victory over the birds in a short 2 hour and 30 minute (give or take) game.

Scoreboard View from Section 215

Press Area from Section 215

Getting back was even simpler. Getting to the game is always cramped with people because night games usually have the game traffic plus people heading home for the night and last night was no different. But leaving I was prepared for the worst when it came to leaving the area. Getting back on the 4 train it was surprisingly empty when the train arrived and it just us Yankee fans getting on plus it being an express train (which means it only stops at major transfer points) means it was relativity light ride to 42nd – Grand Central station. Getting off and taking the shuttle to the Time Square stop was the destination as I needed to head to the west side to Penn station. It being such a nice evening, I left the rail lines and decided to walk outside the rest of the way to Penn station down 7th, but before stopping in Times Square at night to take in all the lights and sounds of NYC. I love the new walking area. Getting at Penn Station at 10:32pm the 10:44pm train for Ronkonkoma station (where I left the car in the afternoon) was still there and hitching a ride on this train vs. the planed 11:14pm train made up for the late night. Taking a quick nap on the train ride was essential for me making it all the way back to my apartment which was 30 minutes from the station.

Getting back so late it was easy to fall asleep since I had been up since 7am (normal time for my body to wake up now) so I quickly fell asleep realizing that I was no more than 10 minutes into a movie I put on to sleep to.

I would categorize yesterday’s activities to one of the best birthday’s and nights that I have ever had. Everything was perfect. I could not have asked for a better day. Next thing on my ‘to do’ list: Best Friend’s Wedding in Boston.

Till next time…