Alta

From Expanding Your Horizons

Current revision as of 18:35, 14 March 2008

[edit] Saturday, March 8, 2008

[edit] Dog

Our dog had a terrible experience this year! She is recovering well now though. Two days ago we left the house for our jog as we do almost every day. This time we only got a few meters from the driveway when the neighbor dog came barreling pell mell around the corner and straight for us! I turned to run back to our house, but the neighbor dog was on us in a moment. He latched his jaws onto our poor dog's back. I was trying to drag almost 100 lbs of dog muscle toward our driveway and at the same time trying to kick the other dog and at the same time screaming at the top of my lungs. My dog was yelping. I felt so bad! Finally I got onto our driveway, and the other dog let go and ran off. It was a long time before my heartbeat slowed down after we got into the house. I called 911 and animal control officers came and picked up the dog, which was still running around the neighborhood. I took our dog to the vet. She has two puncture wounds - one of them pretty big and deep. I have to clean the wounds twice a day and give her penicillin. She might be a little bit sorry when she stops taking her antibiotic because I put the pills inside a piece of hot dog and then put peanut butter on it. She likes that:)

My recommendation for getting your dog to take pills: Cut a slice from the end of a hot dog. Cut a slit in the hot dog disc. Insert the pill into the slit. Spread a bit of peanut butter over the slit. The peanut butter serves three purposes: Hold the pill inside the slit so the dog does not eat the piece of hot dog and spit out the pill Provide a little extra much-loved treat for a poor sick dog Comic relief. Have you ever seen a dog eat peanut butter? It's hilarious!

Blissed out on a squeaky toy >

[edit] Working in the Open at Sun

At Sun Microsystems, where I work, I use the internet all the time to do my job. I have been in meetings where some attendees are in the meeting via phone, some are in the meeting via chat, and some are updating wiki pages during the meeting based on decisions that were just made a moment ago. I have been in webex meetings, where people from all over the world watch what someone else is doing on her computer and type questions into the interface or make voice comments. Sun has a 3D education environment called Wonderland that enables students to explore a subject through their own avatars - similar to a video game. Your avatar can go into a different room, look at a map, open a box, raise her hand to ask a question. Sun has a program for high school students called Fresh Brain. At Sun I communicate with our users and customers through forum discussions. I have a company blog, I have a wiki, I post documentation on other wiki sites, I add information to various web pages on the OpenSolaris site, I have been on live streaming video (click 12/20/07 8:10PM PST). A colleague of mine does very popular 99-second NetBeans videos.

For an interesting and humorous look at social software and group dynamics, see Clay Shirky's "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy".

[edit] Saturday, March 17, 2007

[edit] Hiking

This past year has been a big hiking year for me. My friends and I often hike Mission Peak in Fremont, California on Saturday mornings. This past year, we hiked it faithfully pretty much every single week, in freezing cold and in deadly heat. Sometimes we hiked it twice in a row. Why did we torture ourselves like this? We were preparing to hike Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the U.S. "lower 48." Our entire group summited Mt. Whitney on September 1, 2006.

[edit] Dog

Our dog loves to go for long walks - at least an hour. She loves to hike Mission Peak. But nine months ago and again recently she has had an infected paw, and we think it is from the tough, rocky Mission Peak hike. We don't really want to stop taking her. She loves it. What to do? I am thinking about getting her some dog booties and reinforcing them with leather or some other tough material. What do you think? What is your suggestion? Both times she needed antibiotics that cost us $100 - Yikes! Please feel free to add your comments here.

Hi~! This is from K. Gal~! I really like your website~1 lol My dad works at Sun Microsystems too~! I wonder if you know him... Your poor dog... I wonder what he looks like... Plez show a pic... Thanks~! -K. Gal (P. S.:Plez visit my page~!)

Sun is the Most Rockin place to work!:)

Alta: Okay, here is a picture of our dog

Our daughter brought our dog home two years ago. Someone abandoned her on our street:( She was there for two weeks, looking sad. I guess neighbors who had dogs must have been leaving food out for her. She just sat on the same place on the sidewalk all the time. Then one day she ran in front of our daughter's car! Our daughter parked on the side of the street and walked home, and the dog followed her. So now we have a dog. She is the cutest most loving dog ever. She is colored like a Dalmatian but has other features that look more like a Labrador. She is smaller than either of those dogs, about 45 or 50 pounds. She is a cutie-patootie!

[edit] The Name Alta

"Alta" is the feminine familiar form of "Albert". It is a Germanic name. I have a Great Aunt Alberta. My mother's name is Alta, and her mother's name is Alta. In my case, "Alta" does not mean high or tall as in Altamont or Altadeena. In my case, "Alta" rhymes with "Al", not with "all".

[edit] Saturday, February 25, 2006

Years ago, I taught an Expanding Your Horizons workshop on Basic programming. A little programming, like math, is good for everyone to learn because it teaches reasoning and logic skills.

Around 1996 or so, I started leading a workshop on HTML. If you create your own web site or blog, you will need HTML knowledge.

Three or four years ago, I started leading a workshop on JavaScript. This is a lot of fun and can really spice up your web site. But many blog sites and web sites will not allow you to use scripts.

Two years ago, I began working at Sun Microsystems, Inc. in Silicon Valley. At Sun, pretty much every project has its own wiki site. This allows people located in Beijing, China; St. Petersburg, Russia; Prague, Czechoslavakia; Santa Clara, California; and many other places to easily share information about this project. How should we design this product? How should we solve this problem? What is the schedule for this project? I also have my own web page within Sun where I provide information about all the different projects I am working on. I also have a blog at Sun.

So learn some HTML and wiki markup and share information with the world!