.: What’s Bruin :.

What is an activity that you can do better than anybody else you know?

Fixing computer problems. I seem to be able to figure things out without reading manuals or calling tech support.

What is a subject where you are smarter than anybody else you know?

Prose or persuasive writing. At UCLA, my friends asked me to edit their papers.

What is a trait you possess that makes you superior to lesser humans?

I am the most organized person in the world. Everything has its place and category.

FQ Fiction: Which of your many stellar accomplishments should be recorded in the history books? (Can’t think of one? Make it up!).

When I was fourteen, I defeated Bjorn Borg in five sets at the lawns of my high school.

Tags: Participation

I just sold a teaching-related book for $84 used. It wasn’t even listed for two hours. Awesome. Good to get rid of junk and even make money off of it.

Tags: Amazon, Books

Decided to participate in a weekly meme I learned about through Neil Turner’s site.

FQ1: Where did you live out your chldhood years?

Throughout childhood, I lived mostly in Los Angeles County in California, of course.

Age 3: Stockton (northern California, didn’t stay very long, just moved to the USA from the Philippines).

Ages 3-6: Echo Park.

Ages 7-10: Huntington Park.

Ages 10-11: Cerritos.

Ages 11-18: Whittier.

FQ2: As a child, what was your favorite toy, book, television show, and cartoon character?

Favorite Toy:

Would have to be either a handball or roller skates. I used to roller skate to the local park to play handball against the wall.

Favorite book:

I don’t remember reading much until I reached 6th grade. Then I really liked Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys.

Favorite TV show:

I liked “Happy Days” for a long time. And then when I was in middle school, I loved “Wonder Woman”, “Chips”, “The Six Million Dollar Man”, and “The Bionic Woman”.

Favorite cartoon character:

Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, The Super Friends

FQ3: Charm us with a favorite childhood memory…

Going to the park in the summer after 6th grade to play ping pong EVERY DAY. I was practically unbeatable (against other kids my age). One day, this guy came to the park with an entourage . . . no joke. He must have been about 35 years old (but probably he was much younger, I was only 11 so I thought everyone else looked old). Anyways he challenged me to a game, thinking he could beat this poor little kid (me). How sad is that?? So he could show off to his friends. All I remember was that this guy was really good. He was so embarrassed to lose and left after one game. Of course, I don’t remember the score.

FQ PHOTO-OP: Show us a photo of just how adorable you were as a child.

Tags: Participation

It’s very simple: you get better specs, reliability, and service with Dell. Allow me to demonstrate what $2000 gets you in either case.

Sony: 2.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, 16 MB ATI Mobility Radeon, 40 GB 4200 RPM HD, 1 year service and repair, 12.1″ screen.

Dell: 3.0 GHz Pentium HT 4, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB GeForce 4x AGP, 60 GB 7200 RPM HD, 3 years at home service and accidental damage plan, 15″ screen.

Basically, Dell is the most affordable brand for laptops with the best service, and you get to configure it yourself. It’s obvious what to do here.

Tags: Computers

I really wanted to try the Firefox browser by Mozilla (i.e. old Netscape). But when I loaded the page, it really messed up this site. I’d like to make this site compatible. But until then, I have a redirect browser detection script to take the infidels to Internet Explorer. DONE!

Any suggestions?

Update: I converted the site to be compatible with Firefox. I really like the browser. It’s not as clunky as IE. The only thing I miss is the Milonic menu and I don’t like the space in between the top logo and the menu.

Tags: Firefox, web_design

It was the third time that we had brought Tony’s laptop into Best Buy for repair. Only this time, THEY lost the computer. Fortunately, or so we thought, Tony had also purchased Best Buy’s Product Service Plan (PSP). The salespeolple told us at the time last year that with the PSP, if anything goes wrong with your purchase, Best Buy will repair it AND if it can’t be repaired then they will replace it with something of equal value OR BETTER.

So on this particular trip to Best Buy, they had lost the computer and proceeded to tell us that they would only refund us $1200 when the original one cost $2000 because of depreciation. After many “negotiations with a light saber”, they ultimately decided to refund us the full amount of the computer and 2/3 of the PSP’s cost since it had been a full year past on a three-year plan.

Some plan. Instead of walking out of the store with a “better” model as the salespeople had told us a year ago, now we have to buy a new computer. What a hassle.

Truly they had no intention of honoring their guarantee. If the computer had been older, we would have lost even more money. Luckily, we still bring with us almost the full retail value of the original laptop.

Lesson Learned: NEVER SHOP AT BEST BUY.

Tags: Computers

This is hilarious. If you want a passport from Great Britain, you are not allowed to SMILE for your passport photo, according to Neil Turner’s article entitled Stop smiling!

Here is the link to the original article from “This is London”.

Tags: Humor

I know somebody famous… well, maybe who is going to be. David Morris, the author of Storm on the Horizon. It’s a book about one of the significant early battles in Gulf War I. Funny thing is I KNOW Mr. Morris.

Dave is the brother of one of my best friends (Dan) from my UCLA days. Dan was the best man in our wedding. Dave and his mom attended as well. I used to tutor Dave in math (Algebra 2) when he went to Poway High School.
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Tags: Books

I have two major deadlines at work, both projects I inherited from my coworker who is currently on maternity leave. One project is for a digital recorder that the Marines use to record ar-to-ground voice and satellite communications and the other is for another communications device that facilitates voice and satellite communications.

It’s kind of strange developing training for thins I don’t know anything about at the moment. We have to rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who are basically engineers and/or ex-Marines for the ino. Then I put together a training curriculum.
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Tags: Career

New more readable design. I guess I always preferred white backgrounds. They are more readable.

Tags: site_announcements, web_design