Office Depot Robbery
So the office depot rebate scam continues, I called back to follow up
a request that I send fax them a UPC symbol that they said
that I didn't send them. This was 3 weeks ago and they
said yesterday that it is taking them 6 weeks to process
new faxes. Theives! I will never buy a product with
a large rebate again.
Traveling in Southern Spain
Somebody recently asked the following questions about
traveling in southern spain. I am posting the responses
here so other people can benefit:
1) What is the weather like in late Dec and early Jan?
Not sure, this would be easy to lookup.
2)What do you guys know about Malaga or the Andulucian province in the
south?
I went to the Costa Del Sol which was extremely touristy and pretty
much everyone spoke english.
3) Is it very touristy there?
In southern spain yes, if you want something less touristy
I high recommend Sevilla, extremely beatiful. Once you
get off of the southern coast, probably around 30% of the people
speak limited english - usually the hotel staff speaks
good english. I was able to get around with very limited
spanish. I would recommend getting a phrasebook.
4) Is it expensive to eat out everyday?
Not sure where you are from, but I found that food prices
were comparable to the US. Tapas are served for dinner
and they are quite reasonable.
5) Can one get vegetarian food?
I am not vegetarian, but I had a friend that was.
She was able to eat fine in most restaurants, but
sometimes she would have to settle for just veggies
because that was all they had.
6) Is there high crime in the south that we should watch out for?
Not sure, We didn't have any problems. Some areas have
a gypsies with you just need to avoid eye contact with.
Some try to give you a sprig of some herb, put your hands
in your pockets when you walk by other wise they will
put it in your hand and demand a few euros. If you
don't pay them, they will threaten to curse you.
7) Can we manage in Malaga without a car but local transportation?
Usually you can walk to a bus station anywhere in spain. I found
the transportation to be superb. Just make sure you hotel is close
to the transportation routes.
How are Spanish buses and trains?
see above. I would also like to add that intracity
buses and trains are very reasonable. I think it
cost me 15 euros to travel 70 miles on a train.
9) Can we get by on limited Spainish and lots of English?
Of course, you just have to be patient.
EJB 3.0
I recently gave a presentation on EJB 3.0 at my
local javasig. They were an astute crowd
and pretty much asked me everything that
I chosen not to cover.
However they did not ask me why they should use
EJB3 over spring + hibernate. The main benefit
of EJB3 is that it will be standard based. But
functionally spring + hibernate has it beat.
Here is my presentation for anyone who is interested:
EJB3 Presentation
Fire Hazard Breaker
I just found out that the circuit breaker box that I have installed in my
place just doesn't work. How do I know? Recently I had a situation
where the breaker should have tripped, instead it burnt up the wiring
in the receptacle. Really scary considering it could have caused a fire.
The brand is Sylvania which I found out used to be Zinsco. The breaker box
was 25 years old and they did discontinue the defect breaker at some point.
So if you have an older Zinsco or Sylvania breaker get it checked out by an electrician.
Rockstart Programmers
I've always know that hiring the best programmers gets the job
done! Everywhere I've worked there is always some guy with
a beard and sandals who figures out the stuff noone else
can.
Here is an article discussing this in greater detail:
Rockstar Programmers
Spain Travelogue
My friend Lenny put his spain travelogue for our
contiki spanish trip online:
Maybe next time, I'll keep notes so i can do my own.
Note: For anyone thinking about doing a spanish contiki trip, I would
highly recommend it. Though I would skip most of the optional meals -
you can almost always get a better meal for cheaper.
Connecticut
What is there to do in southern connecticut, not much...
Being bored out of my mind I decided to drive to New Haven, CT
to try out a place called Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. After
being delayed for an hour by tractor trailer accident I finally
got to wooster street(Little Italy) in New Haven. The line at
Frank Pepe was out the door, a good sign, but I was hungry so
I went elsewhere. I'll be here for 5 more weeks, so my goal
is to try this place once!
JBoss
My company Harpoon Technologies is now a JBoss Certified System
Integrator: http://www.jboss.com/partners/si_program
So I am now a hibernate consultant working in Connecticut for
the next 8 weeks!
Spain and Portugal Pics
I just got back from my spain and portugal trip through contiki. I was quite surprised by the guy to girl ratio - 5 to 1. My reasoning is that when guys go to europe they go to amsterdam, when girl go to europe they actually want to see stuff. I guess you see stuff in amsterdam too... 
