Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 =  111.08 mi daily
                                                                x  255 days
                                                               --------------
                                                                28,325 mi
Flying:
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
  1,617 mi x 2 = 3,234 mi
                                                             =  10,546 mi

Cruise:
  1,318 mi
                                                             =  1,318 mi

Walk (via pedometer minus treadmill estimated)
  1,160 mi - 250 mi =                                        =    910 mi

Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                        = ~1,300 mi

                                                               --------------
Total:                                                          42,399 mi

Velocity for 2011: 42,399 / 8,760 = 4.84 mph

Laps around Earth: 42,399 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 1.7 laps

My average speed is now almost 5X what the NASA’s crawler-transporter’s did moving the Shuttles.

One odd thing I’ve noticed is that even when I come to the realization something can’t be repaired because of either cost, ability, parts, whatever, I’m still obsessively inclined to reassemble as if I completed a successful repair. Every screw exactly as it was fully assembled from the factory. It’s similar to a mortician dressing up the diseased before burial. I’m not sure if it’s an intellectual challenge (do I recall where everything goes) or just some sort of OCD. I suspect the former slight more than the latter. I can’t recall ever just sweeping something off the table into the trash.

I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, or if it’s common amongst those who repair their own gadgets.

Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 =  111.08 mi daily
                                                                x  255 days
                                                               -----------------
                                                                28,325.4 mi
Flying:
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
  1,540 mi x 2 = 3,080 mi
                                                              = 10,392.0 mi

Walk (via pedometer minus treadmill (246 mi))
  1,145 mi - 246 mi =                                         = 899 mi                    

Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                          ~1,300.0 mi

                                                               ----------------
Total:                                                          40,916.4 mi

Velocity for 2010: 40,916.4 / 8,760 = 4.67 mph

Laps around Earth: 40,916.4 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 1.64 laps

That includes the 2,000,572 steps recorded via a pedometer. I realized tonight I was about 1,000 short of the 2 million mark so I hopped on the treadmill for a quick 1,000 step walk to make it at around 10:00 PM.

My velocity last year was 4.43 mph, so a slight jump based on a few more steps and slightly more flying.

The show:

The real place:

I haven’t been to many of the popular bagel establishments in NYC to compare, so I can’t say for certain if they are the best in the city or not. I will say it was very good and served very fresh. It’s also very likely the first Bagel place I’ve been to with a Zagat plaque on the wall.

This may be a new holiday tradition.

One of the notable exceptions is Act I Scene III of Hamet when Lord Polonius gives some advice to Laertes. This seems like pretty sound advice for anyone:

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice” always reminds me of Plato’s “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something”.

Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 = 111.08 mi daily
                                                               x  255 days
                                                               -----------------
                                                               28,325.4 mi
Flying:
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
    779 mi x 2 = 1,558 mi
                                                              = 8,870.0 mi

Walk:                                                           1,065.0 mi

Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                          ~1,000.0 mi

                                                              ----------------
Total:                                                        39,260.4 mi

Velocity for 2009: 39,260.4 / 8,760 = 4.43 mph

Laps around Earth: 39,260 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 1.58 laps

Not bad, more than a lap around the earth! At an average distance of 238,857 miles it would still take 6.08 years to make it to the moon.

For those who need some background, they can read my previous post from 2006.

Hopefully we can get bug 394616 fixed so Firefox doesn’t mark Festivus as a misspelled word. It’s getting annoying (I know I can add the word, but I periodically clean things up and that goes away). That said, a spell checker’s ability to correct my amazingly wrong spelling of Hanukkah is amazing. No matter how badly I misspell it, and I can assure you I do a great job of it, Firefox always knows what I want. If you haven’t tried that before, give it a go. Someone told me a long time ago Hanukkah is one of the best words to test the abilities of a spell checker with. This is true either because spell spell checkers require skill to fix it, or because it’s so easy to misspell. Next time you need to review spell checkers, this is a test you can use. you’re welcome.

While I’m on the topic of holidays, here’s a Christmas message from a monkey as the queen typically does. It’s pretty well done for a YouTube video.

3 power hours of working at it, and I’m down to < 250 email and only about 1,500 items in my RSS reader. Should be able to finish the catch up in the next few days. That’s got to be a record. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so far in catching up so quickly.

From Then To Now

This started out as a few static pages over 5 years ago, and eventually turned into a blog in March 2003 as a college Freshman. Generally I’ve kept the format pretty much the same, the most notable change was switching from more “random” posts to mostly tech related posts in recent years. This wasn’t intentional, it’s just how it worked out. The reception to that change has been overwhelmingly positive. Though I’ve been asked from time to time, to bring some humor back.

Just since graduating college in 2006, I’ve been mentioned on numerous blogs, made the Digg homepage, quoted on Ars Technica (more than once), linked on Gruber’s Darling Fireball. Most of that is pretty recent too. Daily traffic has been increasing pretty steadily during this period.

Now 1,323 posts and 3,481 comments later, I’ve been contemplating what I want to do next…

Where it’s going

I’ve given a fair amount of though as to what I want to do here at the 5 year mark. I’ve decided to make the following changes slowly over upcoming months as I think it’s a better approach:

• New Design – The current design has been live since about 2005, with only minor tweaks. It’s to narrow for many images I’ve wanted to use, and there’s a lot of wasted space. The new design, already in the works is optimized for 1024×768. Also pushing content up further by removing that stale image from the header. I initially though I’d change that more often, but it’s not happening. I had hoped to have this done for today, but that didn’t happen. Instead “it’s done when it’s done”.
• Features vs. Regular Posts – The biggest change from a content perspective is I want to make is to distinguish what will be more notable posts from the daily posts. These posts tend to be a dozen a year. Both in terms of development, giving them more time and thought, to how I present them. I’ve yet to decide exactly how to accomplish this.
• Post Regularly – I’ve always posted in bursts, it’s become a dirty habit. I’m going to give it yet another try to be more consistent. I think being regular makes things flow better and results in a better thought process. Will my mind work like this? I don’t know. But if it can, that would be awesome.
• Going Off Topic – This is clearly a more technical blog (where else do you find holiday SQL and other code jokes), but it’s time to bring some off topic stuff back. Not sure when this will start, but it’s a goal of mine.
• More On Topic – I spend a fair amount of time lately on current news. I’m thinking of slowly downplay this a little more and focus on real development stuff.

There are other changes planned, some large, some small, but there are the ones that I think are worth mentioning right now.

The focus on technology, in particular web development, and business will remain, I have no intent on changing that. I just want to improve how I do it, and what surrounds it.

Before someone asks, I’ll still cover all Firefox and Thunderbird related news both big and small as I always have. Nearly half the posts on this blog fall into that category. They are among the most popular ones, and some of my personal favorites.

Like anything else in the world a website falls into three categories: it grows and matures, it dies, or it sits like a rock. I like the idea of growing and maturing.

So here’s to the next 5 years.

I’m also working on some changes to this blog. It’s been a long time since that’s happened. Hopefully I’ll have it out of dev and running by the end of the month.

As a result I won’t be posting to much during this time.