Muppethouse » General

Shush!

Ryan — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:59:09 +0000

Shush! Ring restorer is my new best friend.� When I silence my phone I often forget to turn the sound back on when the meeting is over. This app ties into the phone’s normal silence functionality, prompting you with a timer dialog.� Set it for the time of your meeting and it will turn the ringer back on automatically.

What a View.

Ryan — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:19:09 +0000

Although it looks like a postcard, this is the view of the bay I had from the couch I was working from in the SF Google office on Friday – not too shabby.

X-Rays

Ryan — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:55:15 +0000

I had some fun playing around with the fancy x-ray imaging data the radiologist gave me on convenient compact disk, check it out.

There are a couple areas to point out. First, the damaged ligament (anterior tibiotalar ligament) is between my tibia and fibula in my ankle, and there is a pin going through both bones pulling them together. The separation would have led to a loose ankle and ultimately arthritis, and the “after” picture shows everything in the ankle pulled together more tightly. Second, in the side view note how far the break travels up the back of my fibula beyond the support area of the plate, wow.

Ewww, Gross

Ryan — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:39:37 +0000

Had a visit with the orthopedic surgeon today and unveiled the monstrosity underneath all that gauze and ace bandage.

Eleven staples
Five screws
One pin
One three-inch steel plate

Four more weeks and I hope to be out of this evil evil boot, I will not miss it.

Ryan is temporarily out of service

Ryan — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:57:46 +0000

Day one of sitting around incapacitated and I have not quite figured out how to make the best of it. My arm bruise is ripening nicely and I’ll find out how long this pesky broken leg will take to heal. Being a fairly avid walker I am hoping to find some other sort of outlet, sitting is not so fun.

Meatless March: Episode 3

Ryan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:25:36 +0000

And so it begins.

Today Stacey and I start the third annual little sojourn in to the world of meatless living. For the month of March we will abstain from consuming the flesh of animals. Much to the distress of my grandmother, it turns out that a fish is indeed in the animal kingdom, and consuming its muscle tissue would break our rules. Tonight we dine on vegetarian chili, should be a tasty month of alternative eating.

Stevie Nicks

Ryan — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:50:21 +0000

Somewhere between 1976 and 1987 Stevie Nicks went from hot, to not hot. The scientific world has been battling with the question of when that exact moment was – I look to you to bring us closer to that answer. Thank you and god bless.

Resolution Fail

Ryan — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:12:09 +0000

Bummer, I did not accomplish all my goals for 2009. That said, I still feel I did quite well in 2009.

First resolution was to “not drink alcohol or eat dinner out when I have work the next day”. This one was a win, and as far as I can tell it is a habit I will continue to follow.

The next one was, “Each day at work I will spend one hour programming, reading about programming, or studying for industry certifications”. There were many nights drifting off to sleep with a Python book or some BGP test material. I actually made it until nearly Thanksgiving before I failed at this one (the excuse is that I was too engrossed in a project at work to spend time on this). Anyhow, it made for a remarkably productive year. I passed the Cisco BGP test and managed to get fairly sharp at Python (oh, and put up a fairly comprehensive Python tutorial podcast).

I also vowed to go on a walk every work day. I did some serious walking in the last year. I typically go for a walk in the morning for a couple miles, then one at night for a couple more, with a mile or two spread out throughout the day. Unfortunately, there was one Friday where I did not get outside to walk or walk while at work – dahhh, so close, but missed that one day.

I also wanted to “read” a book every month – which mostly meant audiobooks. Although there is no doubt I polished off at least 12 in 2009, I certainly did not complete one in every calendar month – so I fail. I did polish off Atlas Shrugged, which is pretty darn large – and I read an honest to goodness dead trees book, The Cuckoo’s Egg.

Thanks to the walking I had no trouble keeping my weight under control this year. I probably weighed in around 20lbs beneath my threshold when we went to the lake. Mission accomplished.

I only came up with one resolution this year. I will walk every street and path in my community, Countryside. I’ve been tracking my progress on a Google Map with the Tracks android application. The tough part of this will be all the paths through the wetlands down toward the Potomac – some of them are muddy nearly the entire year. Anyhow, I think I just need a year of setting the bar slightly lower to recoup.

View Countryside Walking in a larger map