Ryan Whaley blog

Pictures

I went to the Bay Area Derby Girls (BAD Girls) championship game this weekend between the Oakland Outlaws and the Richmond Wrecking Belles. This was my first time at a roller derby match. My friends Frank and Kimberly suggested the idea and were gracious enough to even give me a ride to the venue and order a ticket for me. They had seen previous matches around the bay and are fans of the sport.

Now I can see why they are fans. The rules of the sport are easy to understand, for the most part. The players have personality and work the crowd well. It was easy to pick out some favorites from the teams. Damanda Riot is possibly the scariest woman I've ever seen and Kitt Turbo was impressive with her speed and maneuverability (both on the Oakland team).

It's hard to see in the videos but they managed to attract a respectable audience, much larger than I expected. They had PBR, whiskey shots, and corn dogs available at the concession stand. I managed to keep myself to one PBR. They even had a pre-match warmup and halftime show with Cheer SF, a non-profit adult cheering squad. The male:female ratio was around 10:1 but they entertained and did a great job.

Overall, it was a good experience and I'm glad that Frank and Kimberly let me tag along. I would definitely go again. If you'd like to see some video from the match click the "continue reading" link below.

Still can't figure out postoffice for MT, so I'm going to use imified+gtalk

A sample conversation with one of the locals in my new neighbors. It helps to know that I'm a budding Java developer:

Worker At Quizno's: Nice day today
Me: Yes it is. I'm new to the neighborhood and I'm really liking it
WAQ: The weather is nice but the standard of living is so high, you have to have a good job in order live here.
Me: Well, I'm a software developer so I do ok.
WAQ: Oh yeah? I used to do that too. I was a Java developer with a financial firm. I introduced them to J2EE back in 1999. *smears mayo on my sandwich*
Me: Oh.

Maybe it's time to go learn some Lisp.

I'd like to stop buying stuff just for the sake of having stuff, but then something like this comes along.  My inner 10-year-old is flipping out.  14 scenes, new minifigs, and 4,000(!) pieces of pure lego-loving.  So useless but so freaking cool.  I hope this becomes the GI Joe aircraft carrier of this generation.

Full post at gizmodo.

Feature: "You've Got to Watch The Wire" by Scott Blaszak (3/7/08)

(Via McSweeney's.)

I don't know if I'd go as far as this guy but the though does cross my mind. I am disappointed that McNulty got a name-drop but Bubbles got passed over.

Seriously, though, you should go watch this... now. Go sign onto netflix and throw it in your queue. I'll wait.

Interesting Java Job Trends

There's some good information on that page about what sort of Java techniques and libraries are sought after.  It could help those currently looking for a Java development job focus their effort on stuff that will get them the most interviews.  But, as always, do what you really love.  If you're good enough you can find a job in whatever niche you're working on.

After doing my own job hunting I'm more curious in the indeed trend graphs used in that post.  They seem like a good way of answering specific questions about what's being sought after.  Here's a few I tried:



Very unscientific, but it does make me feel better about working with oracle forms and reports for all those years.

Mates of state - rearrange us. This my first listen to the album and I can alraedy tell it's going to get heavy rotation on my ipod.

Goons can be pretty interesting, who knew? Here's the group of goons I hung out with Saturday night in downtown SF.

Obama has an excellent viewpoint on the interaction between faith and politics in America.