Site back up
January 5th, 2011
I got the site back up, but I don’t plan on blogging further. Resume is updated however in the Resume Page section.
Still trying to close on the house
August 3rd, 2009
After closing has been postponed now for the 5th time, we are getting tired of this whole process. Friday was supposed to be closing and we didnt find out until Ashley had already arrived at the Title place to sign. Our loan has been ready for our new home, but the buyer of our old home unfortunately used Chase. They have been a huge pain to deal with and have really taken their time and wasted ours. They don’t seem to care either. I’d never do business with them again after this deal. I’d sincerely tell the buyer with an offer that had Chase’s name on it to find a discount broker that probably gives you a better rate anyways.
We can’t wait to move into the new place, so it is killing us to sit here all packed up with nowhere to go. And, trust me, setting up and cancelling the 5 billion things that need to be done with a move is not fun either. Ashley and I ended up going to a movie grill tonight to zone out for a couple hours and to not think about it. So far, so good with our new neighbors though, they all have seemed very friendly (the ones on both sides we have met so far). And, Bridget is definitely read to tear up the trails. But, its sad leaving this place, too. I really liked this house, but I think we will like the new neighborhood with lakes and trails.
Selling our house…Again
June 6th, 2009
Nothing exciting happening lately other than prepping another house for sale. Seems like there shouldn’t be very much to do, but there always is because you want it to look the best it can for that crucial 2 week period when it goes on the market. This time I happen to be doing a for sale by owner, but still getting it listed on the MLS, etc. Hopefully, it works out. When we look for our next house, we will definitely use a realtor and I’m all for paying the 3% to a buyer broker that finds a buyer for my house, but since we haven’t lived in this house very long, I’m looking to save a little on the Seller part.
Doesn’t add up to as much, as it would have, in say, Seattle 
But, we had a really good realtor up there that sold it very fast (4 days maybe) and handled all the hassles for us. The one tough thing with this listing is that we have to get our dog out of the house before anyone shows it. I’m not sure how people avoid this normally? So, that might become a big inconvenience for me.
Hopefully, all goes very well, and its only a short inconvenience, but I know we have to be ready for the long haul.
Interesting award related to IT tool we implemented
May 11th, 2009
In the past year, I worked on the implementation of a Revenue Coverage Optimization tool (RCO) at HP. The optimization algorithm used in the tool was developed by HP Labs, which has recently received the 2009 Franz Edelman Award, the world’s leading prize for excellence in operations research practice, for it. For myself, this relates my work to the overall bigger picture very clearly. It’s great to see someone recognized for it and for the overall project’s success. Here’s a snapshot from the HP Labs article:
With the RCO tool says Ward, “we were able to offer PSG a new metric that hadn’t been considered before: what we called ‘coverage.’ Coverage accounts for the importance of products that generate revenue on their own, as well as those that enable the sales of other products.”
Figuring coverage into the equation allowed one division of PSG to establish that roughly 20% of its products, if optimally selected, could completely fulfill 80-85% of all customer orders. As a result, the group was able to significantly decrease the time it took to serve their customers, as well as make order fulfillment times reliably consistent.
PSG now runs the RCO tool as a part of its regular planning cycle, says PSG special project manager Holger Mishal. “We call it the Recommended Offering Program,” he says, “It’s really helped us create predictable and therefore very competitive order cycle times.”
RCO is also integrated into a second program at PSG, called the Global Product Offering Program, which offers HP’s global customers a set of products that they can buy in every country in which they do business.
“We’ve used the tool to analyze all orders from enterprise customers worldwide,” says Mishal. “It allows us to accurately determine which 20 to 30 percent of the features and configurations we offer satisfy 80 percent of the orders.”
The result, he says, is a global product set much better attuned to customer needs. Before RCO was applied to the process, Mishal notes, “only around 20% of customers used the process. Now, the adoption rate stands at 83%.”
Three articles have been published on it which explain it in more detail:
H.P. Labs Pulls Out the Measuring Stick - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com (NY Times)
http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2009/apr-jun/RCO_tool.html (HP Labs)
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/090428d.html (HP Press Release)
Award acceptance video:
iFest
April 26th, 2009
Went to iFest today with Ashley and Russ and Ashley Beth. There was an Ireland theme this year, so I thought that would be cool. But, we were a bit disappointed. First of all, everything was overpriced from the moment you paid $15 a ticket to get in. We’re talking over-priced compared to Texans’ game beers over-priced. We did see an interesting band Beoga on the Mucky Duck stage, which made us wish we had just skipped iFest and just gone to see them at the real Mucky Duck. The food was ok, but I for some reason thought there would be more food options. The Beef Guiness stew was pretty good though. Anyways, we wandered around for 4-5 hours before we headed home, exhausted from the heat and humidity out today. There was a breeze occasionally, that definitely helped, but not enough. So, I’m back home now trying to catch up on work before some calls tonight.
Orca watching
April 21st, 2009
We’ll be up in Seattle in 2 weeks, so need to actually plan what we will be doing. Other than the brew-your-own-beer pub that I’ll cap some bottles of Bob and Carlos’ batch of beers, looks like we may do something we never did while we were there…Orca whale watching. You take a ferry across to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands and from their catch one of the many whale watching ships. Sounds like a fun day of watching for whales and seals and taking a boat ride, hopefully not a rainy or too cold boat ride.
So far, it looks like this might be the best rated: http://orcawhalewatch.com/whale_watching_tour.html
Its $75 for a 3-3.5 hr trip.
Create-a-scape
April 16th, 2009
Very cool idea from HP for creating Mediascapes. A Mediascape is sort of like planning out an area to use GPS to locate landmarks and then planning a tour or game using these landmarks as triggers. You carry around a PDA with GPS enabled and as you walk with headphones on and you pass by the area where you have setup the Mediascape to play a sound or recording or whatever it does that. You can easily use it in museums/historical places for tour guides, but its also applicable to tons of different ideas, like a scavenger hunt or something to give clues as people reach certain points. For example, say I pick 8 places outside and I set the GPS locations in my Mediascape along with a Clue to pop up on the PDA whenever someone finds one of the locations.
Seems like a great way for kids to engage their creativity, as well as adults. A family member could setup a trail of GPS points to commemorate a certain event in their family and you could retrace the route or anyone else could later, as well. Even road trip-wise, someone taking a road trip could mark points, as they went and leave a pretty cool way for someone to follow their trip to the detail. They could then share that on sites like Tripadvisor.com, etc.
Arcade Fire on old ACL Show
April 8th, 2009
So, I’ve been taping Austin City Limits shows on PBS for awhile now to catch any of the good bands that end up playing there (recent shows – that may have been old show replays – included bands like Black Crowes, Swell Season (from movie Once), Neko Case, etc.). Ashley and I decided to watch one tonight and it was Arcade Fire, one of my favorite bands from late 2004/2005 when they were on smaller stages until now where they have gotten fairly popular. It was pretty good and reminded me of how much I enjoyed seeing them live at Fat Cats off of Washington in Houston back in January 2005 I believe. Ashley was supposed to make it, but wasn’t feeling up to it that night, but Eric came with and we were fully entertained by Final Fantasy (a one man violin playing/mixing band) and then Arcade Fire in that small little smoke filled venue. They were bouncing off the walls in there literally and it was funny to see them all try to cram on this little stage (there are like 8 of them). But, that will definitely go down, as one of the best shows I’ve seen. There is nothing like seeing a band with that much energy playing in such a small venue, where you are very up close and personal. I’ve searched my blog and Eric’s during that time frame, but can’t seem to find mention of it, only that I was listening to the album in April ‘05.
Anyways, Ash wanted me to get her the song Wake Up on some music device and the only one I can find is the creative Zen nano, but I can’t find the album Funeral in my music collection. I even have the cd somewhere, but must not have copied it over back then. I’ll have to find it and while I’m at it back up our whole physical media collection to digital. That will be a short task, I’m sure:) In the midst of all this, I did stumble across a cool YouTube video of David Bowie & Arcade Fire back in 2005 (Bowie and others were fans), so enjoy:
April 7, 1933 … a day in the life of beer
April 7th, 2009
April 7, 1933:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/04/dayintech_0407
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signature repealed the Volstead Act, legalizing 3.2 percent beer. It also paved the way for the December ratification of the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment and deep-sixed Prohibition altogether.
So, I celebrate FDR today.
Houston music
April 3rd, 2009
Houston music blog…seems interesting, telling about upcoming shows, etc.
