Raible Designs

From Vegas to Snow to Boston

Our visit to Las Vegas was a lot of fun. Little did we know, some friends we were meeting there were getting engaged on Thursday night. Of course, the girl (Kim) didn't know, but the guy (Mike) had been planning it for quite some time. We had a great time celebrating with them - as well as at the craps and blackjack tables.

I was planning on staying until Saturday, but Julie made me leave with her on Friday night. Her reasoning was because she was up and I was hemorrhaging cash. I didn't like the idea at the time, but loved it once I slid into my own bed late Friday night.

Leaving Vegas's 90°F temperatures and arriving in Denver's 30°F was kind of a bummer, but the 1" of snow yesterday and today is kinda cool. I leave in a few hours for Boston, where it's supposed to be cold all week. I was hoping for a warm and sunny Red Sox game on Thursday, but with a forecasted high of 40°F it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Oh well, bad weather means I'll probably bill and work on AppFuse more, so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Update: I just went online to check in for my flight tonight and found out that United cancelled my flight due to "crew legalities" - whatever that means. Orbitz booked me on the next available flight, which isn't until tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Doh!

The good news is I get to spend another night with the wife and kids. Unfortunately, tomorrow is going to be a brutal work day since I won't get on site until 3 in the afternoon.

Vegas, Boston, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, West Palm Beach and Connecticut

I have a hectic travel schedule in both April and May. The good news is it consists of trips for both pleasure and business, so hopefully I won't get too tired of planes. Tomorrow, Julie and I are heading to good ol' Las Vegas. A good friend of mine got us a free room at the Bellagio. Most of my trips to Vegas in the past few years have been for TSSS or bachelor parties, so it should be a lot of fun to enjoy it with my wife. Knowing us, we'll only be in our free room for a couple hours.

On Sunday, I'm heading out to Boston for a week on site at my client's. They wanted me to come out this week, but I convinced them that coming out for the Red Sox home opener was a better idea. I don't have tickets to the game Tuesday, but a good friend has tickets for Thursday and I'll probably go to Saturday's game too. If you have extra tickets to Tuesday's game, let's talk. I'd like to organize a tech meetup while I'm out there, but I probably won't have time. I'll be working long hours Monday - Wednesday in hopes of taking Friday off.

After Boston, I'm home for two weeks, then it's off to ApacheCon Europe. I'm leaving Saturday the 28th, staying in Amsterdam until two hours after my talk on Friday and then heading to Stuttgart for the weekend. I fly back from Europe and head down to Florida for a week's vacation with Julie and the kids. Then I'm off to Connecticut for a week to teach a training class on Spring, Hibernate, Maven, Ajax and all the other fun stuff that developers like to learn.

Phew, it's going to be quite the ride over the next month and a half. I'll try to take a camera and post pictures from all my adventures.

The Last Page

I started this blog way back in August 2002 as a way of sharing tips and tricks I'd learned with other Java Developers. It's been a fun ride for the last 5 years, and I do think having a blog is a great way to document your life's history.

For the last two weeks, I've only blogged a couple times and it's been really nice. After last week's incident, I think it's time to retire from the blogosphere. So here it is, my last entry. It's been a great ride y'all, thanks for reading. Hopefully we'll still see each other around - maybe on a mailing list or at a conference someday.

Cheers!

Tuesday Evening: April Fools! The hardest part of an April's Fools entry is making it believable. Looks like leaving it up for a few days was the trick. To Jim and Dave (who were offended by the way I used the Kathy Sierra incident) - I'm sorry. It was the only thing I could think that y'all might actually believe.

Taking the week off

I consider Kathy Sierra (and her husband Bert Bates) good friends of mine. I've seen them quite a few times over the years at various conferences. They're some of the nicest people I've ever met and I always enjoy our conversations.

The recent death threats she's received is sick and wrong. I don't know what to say, except that I hope they find the morons that are doing this and prosecute them appropriately.

I like Scoble's idea and will be taking the week off as well. Too bad, it looks like there won't be an April Fools entry this year.

The Playoffs Begin

A good weekend of hockey is about to begin: Pioneers Faceoff Against Wisconsin in WCHA Playoffs This Weekend. We have season tickets for tomorrow night's game, but not tonight's. Last night, I did my first search on craigslist and found a bunch - many selling for face value. One guy was giving away on-the-glass seats for free, but I missed him by a couple hours. Needless to say, I found some seats and will be attending tonight's game as well as all the other games this weekend. Go DU!

Update: While the games were good this weekend, they didn't end like I'd hoped. Oh well, better luck next year.

A glorious weekend in Steamboat

After 6 feet of snow in 7 days, we couldn't help ourselves and rushed off to spend a few days in Steamboat last weekend. I bought new skis on Thursday and worked all night so I could take Friday off. I knew the skis were for me when I heard their name - Atomic "Sweet Daddies". Friday morning there was 11" of fresh powder, so I tried to convince Julie we should leave right away. She said "No" because I hadn't slept yet and said I should get some rest. 4 hours later, I woke up and Julie was packed and ready to go. We headed out for the 3-hour drive right around noon.

Saturday morning, we woke up to 4 inches of pow pow and left the condo by 8:15. I was skiing with a buddy (Steve) and we were meeting his friend (Jason) at the Gondola for first tracks. Jason showed up 20 minutes late, but that didn't stop us from finding the powder. We headed up Storm Peak, hiked a bit to the good stuff and enjoyed knee-deep powder to start the day. That run alone took almost an hour and I was definitely feeling the Fat Tire I drank the night before. We had a couple more powder runs, a couple fast groomers and it was time for beer thirty at the top of the gondola. Skiing with Jason (a Steamboat local) was exhausting - especially since he'd already skied 6 days in a row! After lunch, I hit the hot tub, took a nap with Jack and then went tubing with the kids. We ended the night with several bottles of wine and Talladega Nights.

Sunday we woke up to no new snow, but the weather was beautiful. It was something like 40°F and the perfect Spring skiing day. Julie and I took the kids over to the "magic carpet" run and had a blast. Abbie needs no help these days, she can do "pizza" and french fries w/o even trying. She does circles (down the hill, up the moving sidewalk) the whole time.

Jack was a whole different story.

He kept yelling at me "Go down" when we'd get to the top. As I'd ski to the bottom, I'd glance over at him and see a grin from ear-to-ear. When I'd get to the bottom, he'd take off. No turning, no pizza - just balls-to-the-wall with a shit-eating grin and lots of giggling. By the time he'd get to me, he'd be going pretty fast. Luckily, I caught him every time - amidst gasps from the Texans who were learning how to ski on the same hill. After 6 or 7 runs, he'd had enough and we headed back for "nap time".

I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon skiing on popcorn snow that was warmed by the Sun all day. It was beautiful skiing weather and I was ready for the ride home at 4:00. Another trip to the hot tub, a couple Sunshine Wheat beers and we drove home to a beautiful orange and pink sunset. What a glorious weekend.

Steamboat: 5 Feet in 5 days!

From Steamboat's Snow Report:

Over 5 feet of snow in 5 days! I'm still trying to catch my breath. It was lost hours ago in the 16" of fresh glorious snow at the top of 3 O'clock trees. Still breathing hard...

If your not skiing sweet turns through the trees today kick yourself. The snow is bottomless and the skies are still snowing. Looks like Mother Nature is going to keep the white stuff falling for the next few days.

We're heading up tomorrow night - sounds like it's going to be an epic weekend. I might have to buy new powder skis!

Steamboat Photo of the Day

The Good Seats

There's nothing like getting the good seats when you attend a sporting event or concert. This weekend, we had 4th row seats to the Nuggets game on Friday night, 2nd row to the DU Hockey game on Saturday night and first row to The Doodlebops show on Sunday. Believe it or not, The Doodlebops was probably the most fun. The fact that smiles were plastered on Abbie and Jack's faces made it great, but also Abbie got to give Mo a high five and both kids were dancing like they actually knew how. Fun stuff.

Next weekend looks to be great as well. It's dumping in the hills - Steamboat got around 4 feet of powder last week. The forecast is snow all week, with Spring-skiing temperatures this weekend. We're heading up at the end of week, so I'm crossing my fingers hoping for mounds of champagne powder. In the meantime, it's time to start coding like a madman on my new project where I'm building an e-commerce site with AppFuse 2.0.

New Phone - BlackBerry Pearl

Yesterday I picked up a new phone - a BlackBerry Pearl. The main reason I got it is because I couldn't get my e-mail with my old phone. It seemed like I was tethered to my computer all the time when I was waiting for an important e-mail. Now I feel free. Not only does it works great as a Bluetooth Modem, but it also supports browsing the internet and all of Google's Mobile apps (GMail, Google Talk and Google Maps). Even cooler - when you add a bookmark to a page that has an RSS feed, it detects that and allows you to add a "Web Feed" or a Bookmark. When I added this site as a web feed, it prompted me for Atom Entries/Comments or RSS Entries/Comments. It also allows you to auto-synchronize with your bookmarks or feeds. In other words, it has a built in feed aggregator. With a $20 unlimited data plan from T-Mobile, I love this phone!

The BlackBerry Pearl doesn't work with iSync, but PocketMac seems to do the trick. Unfortunately, PocketMac makes you synchronize with a USB cord whereas iSync uses Bluetooth. The Missing Sync for BlackBerry may solve this problem, but with everything else being free, I don't know if it's worth shelling out $40 so I don't have to plug in.

Some of you may ask, "Why didn't you just get a smart phone with EVDO built in?" The reason I didn't do this is I had a Verizon EVDO card. We were up in Steamboat for a week in January and it absolutely sucked. I worked for 3 days while were were up there (8-12 hours per day) and it was way too slow for me. The average speeds where 120KB/sec and I can easily get those with the Bluetooth Modem on the BlackBerry. Also, I don't want a fully-functional mini-computer for a phone, I just want it for basic calling functionality and the ability to check my e-mail.

What about the iPhone? I'm sure this phone will kick ass, but the fact that it won't support J2ME means that Google's apps won't work. Of course, they'll probably create widgets that'll work on the iPhone, so that argument may be invalid in a few months. The biggest reason I don't like the idea of having an iPhone is one thing - Cingular. I had AT&T as my carrier for a couple years and their customer service was beyond awful. Whenever I would call them for help, it'd take anywhere from 15-45 minutes before I talked to anyone. Today, when I called T-Mobile to get my BlackBerry Internet service setup, they told me the wait would be 6 minutes and they'd call me back when it was my turn. I was very impressed. I hope more phone systems start using a "call me back" feature instead of the current "wait on hold for X minutes" debacle.

So I'm very happy with my new phone and anxious to use it in my travels next week. Where am I going? I signed a contract with a company out in Massachusetts to help them architect and implement a Java-based web infrastructure across all their projects. The initial scope is estimated to be 2-3 months. I'll be flying out to Boston periodically, but most of the time I'll be working from home. I had a number of very interesting full-time opportunities, but the gig I'm taking seemed to be the most interesting technically. With any luck, I'll make it to the New England JUG on Thursday night to hear Mark Fisher's talk on Message-Driven POJOs.

Update: I just found NewsGator Go! for J2ME. I use NetNewsWire on my Mac and FeedDemon on Windows, so it's great to see I can subscribe to my existing feeds on my phone. Thanks NewsGator!

Dad makes the local Montana News!

My Dad was interviewed in a Missoulian article a couple days ago:

CONDON - For years, Joe Raible and his family used a road across Plum Creek Timber Co. land to access their home in the Swan Valley.

Set about a mile from the nearest county road, the family depended on Plum Creek's generosity to access their homestead. And the company gladly obliged.

Not only did Plum Creek allow the Raibles to drive across its property, it even provided a utility easement for the family's telephone line.

Then, in about 1990, the timber company sold the property to a Florida man. Not long after that, a locked gate appeared across the road to keep the public out.

"At first he gave us a key to the gate, but then someone tore the gate down," Raible said. "He blamed us and dug a tank trap across the road right at our property line. He dumped the pile of dirt on our land and sowed the pile with logs so we couldn't just push it back in the hole."

Raible thought about suing, but changed his mind after a very direct discussion with his attorney.

"He told me that I could either put my kid through college or his kid," Raible said. "I had a friend who'd had an access issue and spent a lot of money on it. He lost."

The "Florida man" was a guy that I remember as "Jackass Burns". After using our "back road" for 20 years, he moved in and shut it down. That forced us to use the "front road" which has been a challenge ever since. My kids refer to it as the "bumpy road". Looks like lots of changes going on in good ol' Montana.