Also, another local outfit, MaxPoint Interactive, is growing their talented team and looking for engineers with skills/interest in big data (hadoop), high performance web based systems and Web UI.  QA folks for both manual and automated QA activities and IT staff to fill several positions including IT Director, Data Center Sys Admin and Corporate Sys Admin. If you are digging this, contact the CTO, Kurt Carlson.

We hit some traffic coming into Auckland, but eventually we made it to Base. Base Auckland is the kind of hostel that grinds people into the ground and leaves them wondering where they are and how they got there. With 8 stories and 100′s of beds, Base Auckland is a beast of a hostel. It is filled with dysfunction and despair interspersed with intense revelry. If possible, avoid it. If not, stay only as long as necessary. There are a good amount of long timers there and you can see the struggle in their eyes.  We unpacked our bags and I headed out to grab a meal at Wendy’s. Australia doesn’t have Wendy’s and the only one I saw in New Zealand was in Auckland, so I decided to get some familiar food and walk around the city.

Eventually, I returned to take part in a poker tournament. Base has a poker tournament almost every night. There is a $100 bar tab on the line and the tourney helps get people in the bar and get the bar warmed up for the evenings. I ended up placing fourth and then headed up to the room. Up in the room, I was greeted by some roommates pre-partying. Tonight was a Toga Party night and there were free drinks for everyone wearing a Toga. Why not?

Auckland is a hopping off point for many people to head to another country or head back home. That makes an arrival in Auckland a special night for many. A last chance to get it all out before confronting a new challenge, a new place, or a life that was left behind. This was the case for a few on our bus and we did it big. The night started with wine in the room, then cocktails in the bar, then free drinks at the bar, then Jager Bombs, then more cocktails and absolute mayhem. Eventually we closed the bar down and headed out with a few locals to a bar on Vulcan lane. I think we made it home at around 5. Below are some pics from that night.

What kind of establishment has a claw game that involves live lobsters?

Guy and Kate

Free Drink

Sloppy with evil eyes

Man on a stripper pole. Do not like.

At least Guy has pizzazz.

Guy bought us a round of Jager Bombs

so goofy

closing the tab

perfectly normal

the bar had normal people in it too

vdg is trouble

trying to steal a lobster

vdg being vdg

This was the end of my New Zealand tour. The rest of my time in New Zealand would be spent getting myself together, looking for a job, finding permanent accommodation, and trying to settle in New Zealand.

Some pics from the ride:

Tour Progression:

View New Zealand 2009 in a larger map

Below are some pics of crossing the Cook Strait

Even the sheep have to take a ferry in between islands

I was sort of fretting the entire day because one of the Tri-Nations games was in Wellington that night (All Blacks vs. Australia) and I hadn’t booked accommodation. Luckily, my bus driver was able to find me a bed at Base Wellington. When we got in the city you could tell it was game day. The city was packed and everyone was out drinking and partaking in other pre-game activities. I took it easy, checked in, unpacked some gear, and made a trip to the grocery store to get some food for the evening.

At this point in the trip I was looking forward to Auckland and contemplating how to get some long-term accommodation arranged and find a job. All of my friends were now gone or in different parts of the country and the buses heading north only have a handful of people on them making it hard to find and assemble a crew.  Had a great nights sleep.

Happenings since April:

Helped bang out another pretty major release at SM
Still commuting by bike
Have put in some pretty solid swims at Barton Springs on a consistent basis
Completed Ironman France in Nice, France
Visited Kate Becker in Nice
Saw Lukey B and Dave and some of their mates in Manchester
Met up with Jacko and Michelle in London and went to the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park
Exploratory visit to Copenhagen, Denmark
Visited Uli and Kristin in Hamburg, Germany
Visited Stef and Sven in Halle, Germany
Finished Walden by Thoreau, The Communist Manifesto by Marx, Unit Test Frameworks, most of Java Power Tools, and began the Critique of Pure Reason, The Wealth of Nations, and The Republic of Plato

Looking forward:

Would like to knock off a half or two in the second half of 2011
Complete my current reading and further reading
Get my schedule discipline back to where it was in 2007-2008
Further increase bicycle commuting
Get the diet sorted again
Find or start a running group in the neighborhood – bare minimum: get runs in during the week
Join some kind of social cycling effort
Possibly join T3 again for weekend rides and runs
Have a greater impact at SM
Get some Android Dev going and get further connected with Ubuntu (possibly Ubuntu Orchestra or just more involved in Ubuntu QA)
Control my mouth..hehehe
Last but not least: take another stab at sobriety

Some milestones:

~14 months back in the United States of America

~13 months with ServiceMesh

~a few trail runs done, 1 Marathon done, commuting by bicycle

~pretty boring, focused on work and personal studies

Current activities:

I’m currently focused on activities at ServiceMesh and training for Ironman France. I have also been lightly involved in some community projects (Ubuntu, Google Chrome OS). Additionally, in the evenings, I have been reading a variety of books in the realms of technology, philosophy, and government. Public libraries are a great community service.

Some motivations:

While particularly focused on personal behaviors, I have also been looking outward at local, national, and global behaviors and the government policies that function at each of these levels. While not committed to any extent greater than my own self at this point, I believe I possess a desire to advocate and promote ideas focused around increasing the quality of life through healthier lifestyle choices, particularly by focusing on alternative methods of transportation, physical activity, and diet. To a lesser extent there is also a desire to create a perception of living a better life by living a fulfilling life. While this latter motivation is probably greater in depth, I am still working to define what constitutes a fulfilling life.

Tour Progression:

View New Zealand 2009 in a larger map

mikey getting some r&r after summiting Mt. Fyffe

yours truly enjoying one of the hottest tubs

There’s only so much time you can spend chilling in a hot tub. It was low season and there wasn’t really anyone to chat up. Mikey and I left after having thoroughly enjoyed the springs. Next, we hit up a small grocery store and picked up some sandwich items and snacks for the road. We got into Christchurch in the evening. We took the long way in and had a little tour of Christchurch while trying to find the hostel. Christchurch is one of my most favorite places. It is absolutely brilliant. In hindsight I probably should have tried to find work there instead of making my way back up to Auckland. The first time I was in Christchurch I stayed at Base. This time we stayed at Jailhouse Accodomodation. The hostel is a renovated prison and is one of the coolest places I’ve ever stayed. Mikey and I had a quiet night catching up on laundry, internet, and having take out Chinese food for dinner. Check out some pics of the hostel below.

much thanks to: http://www.programmersheaven.com/mb/beginnercpp/367391/367391/newbie-programming-error/ – There are bunch of sites with code for print_it.c and programmersheaven.com was the only one that had working code.

code:

/* print_it.c-- This program prints a listing with line numbers! */
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
void do_heading(char *filename);
int line = 0, page = 0;
int main( int argv, char *argc[] )
{
char buffer[256];
FILE *fp;
if( argv < 2)
{
fprintf(stderr, "\nProper Usage is: ");
fprintf(stderr, "\n\nprint_it filename.ext\n" );
return(1);
}
if (( fp = fopen( argc[1], "r" )) == NULL )
{
fprintf( stderr, "Error opening file, %s!", argc[1]);
return(1);
}
page = 0;
line = 1;
do_heading( argc[1]);
while( fgets( buffer, 256, fp ) != NULL )
{
if( line % 55 == 0 )
do_heading( argc[1] );
fprintf( stdout, "%4d:\t%s", line++, buffer );
}
fprintf( stdout, "\f" );
fclose(fp);
return 0;
}
void do_heading( char *filename )
{
page++;
if ( page > 1)
fprintf( stdout, "\f" );
fprintf( stdout, "Page: %d, %s\n\n", page, filename );
}
/* print_it.c-- This program prints a listing with line numbers! */#include <stdlib.h>#include <stdio.h>
void do_heading(char *filename);
int line = 0, page = 0;
int main( int argv, char *argc[] ){char buffer[256];FILE *fp;
if( argv < 2){fprintf(stderr, "\nProper Usage is: ");fprintf(stderr, "\n\nprint_it filename.ext\n" );return(1);}
if (( fp = fopen( argc[1], "r" )) == NULL ){fprintf( stderr, "Error opening file, %s!", argc[1]);return(1);}
page = 0;line = 1;do_heading( argc[1]);
while( fgets( buffer, 256, fp ) != NULL ){if( line % 55 == 0 )do_heading( argc[1] );
fprintf( stdout, "%4d:\t%s", line++, buffer );}
fprintf( stdout, "\f" );fclose(fp);return 0;}
void do_heading( char *filename ){page++;
if ( page > 1)fprintf( stdout, "\f" );
fprintf( stdout, "Page: %d, %s\n\n", page, filename );}

now all that’s left is:

gcc print_it.c -o print

./print print_it.c

1. Download WebcamStudio from the creators site at www.ws4gl.org. This will eventually forward you to sourceforge. Grab the .deb file from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/webcamstudio/files/

2. Install the deb file by double clicking it. This will open up the Ubuntu deb installer. The deb installer is now included in the Ubuntu Software on newer releases. Click the install button. (Note: If you have Synaptic open, the installer will hang until Synaptic is closed. This is a bug in Ubuntu)

3. WebcamStudio is installed on the Main Menu under the Sound and Video section. Click the WebcamStudio link to launch the app. You can also press Alt+F2 and type in webcamstudio.

4. Once WebcamStudio launches you will need to select your webcam under devices. Double click your webcam.

5. Everything else should be easy. Click the play button under the Source Layer section. To verify that your webcam is working, click the output menu on the menu bar and select Show Preview. This will open up a preview window.

6. As you can see the coloring is off. To fix this we are going to apply an effect by clicking the effect tab and selecting SwapRedBlue and then enabling the effect by clicking the move button.

7. Now that everything is good we are going to go to justin.tv and login to our account. Click the Go Live! button in the top right and the select webcam. If you only have one video source available on your pc, the video feed from the webcam we previously configured should be displayed.

8. Next, lets do something special with WebcamStudio. Select the Output menu on the WebcamStudio application and then select SinglePaint. This will open up another preview panel that has paint options. We can use this to paint anything on the video stream we would like. If you like these kind of things, make sure to check out the effects tab in WebcamStudio.

Please feel free to donate to www.ws4gl.org.