bismark's blog

Thoughts on Battlestar Galactica (Spoiler Alert)

If you haven’t finished BSG yet (Amy Jo!), stop reading immediately.

Ok. Mariam and I made it through all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica. Overall, I really enjoyed it. The series was fun to watch and for the most part ended in a satisfying way.

Favorite character

Surprisingly, I think it was Gaius Baltar. Yes, I know that seems like a strange choice, but a lot of times I actually felt sorry for him, both for his own stupidity and the unfair way that the other characters treated him. He was certainly the most interesting character (not nearly as one dimensional as someone like Helo). I am glad he “redeemed” himself in the final episodes, but I also really found him intriguing while on New Caprica.

Least favorite character

Felix Gaeta. I found him obnoxious from the beginning and it just went downhill from there. Really hated him during the Baltar’s trial and the mutiny. He was closely followed by Cally. Massive whiner.

Biggest Disappointment

I hate the way the Chief’s story end. I like him a lot, but after he killed Tori, it seemed we didn’t see anything else about him. But according to the BSG Wiki, the following occurs in Daybreak Part 3:

Walking in the savannah, the Tighs speak with Galen Tyrol a final time. He has decided to go to the northern highlands of Earth (likely Scotland). Before they part, Saul says that if what happened to Cally would’ve happened to Ellen, he “would’ve done the same frakkin’ thing.” As Galen leaves, Saul and Ellen embrace.

So I went back to re-watch that episode on Netflix, and that I cannot find that scene (it’s supposed to be right after the fleet flies in to the sun). I am disappointed about that since a) that would have given me at least some feeling of closure and b) now I wonder how many other scenes were missing from the Netflix episodes. Strange.

Questions

1) Do the final five not age? They all looked the same way as they did during the Earth flashbacks, but didn’t Tigh and Adama know each other for a really long time? That part didn’t seem to make much sense to me.

2) What were the final five? Were they humans that had figured out resurrection or were they actually a different species? They were descendants of the 13th colony of Kobol, so it seems like they would just be humans. But the above issue about aging may go against that theory. The other seven models are also obviously not human (no aging, don’t appear to need to eat, can hook up to computers by shoving wires in their wrists). It just seems strange that “cylons” existed as a separate group alongside the humans on Kobol.

Overall, I was not very happy with the explanations of the origin of the final five and the current race of cylons.

That’s about it. I’m not sure if I would watch the entire show over again or not.. It is pretty long and even with a few sicks days doing little aside from watching episodes, it took a while to get through.

Blogging Again

Hi again.

I’m going to start writing again. I am tired of just being a consumer, it’s time to start producing again (more on that later).

Things are going well. Mariam and I had a nice relaxing vacation for two weeks in Mexico (though we did pick up something that’s doing nasty stuff to our digestive tracks… yes, we are getting it checked out). Work is good; I leveled up this last quarter, which is a nice star on my resume plus added responsibility. Which I like.

So yeah, life is good.

Mendocino

So Mariam and I have been married now for six months and last week we were finally able to take some vacation time. I wanted somewhere laid back and relaxing, so we decided to drive up the coast to Mendocino. It was just what we needed.

We took our time getting there. I picked up the rental car early Saturday morning and we started driving up the 1.

Unsurprisingly, it was a foggy morning, but the drive was still beautiful. We made stops along the way to take pictures.

For a quick side trip, we drove up the Russian River to Geurneville.

I think I actually got five skips with that stone. Very impressive I must say.

After some ice cream, we drove a few miles north to Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve to do a little hiking. It’s amazing how quiet and still everything becomes as soon as you walk into a redwood grove.

We saw some really old trees.

I told Mariam to go stand inside this one. I liked the picture of her nervously looking inside more.

After the relaxing hike, we kept heading north along the coast. The road gets really winding north of Jenner, so I quickly got tired of driving. Since we didn’t have a reservation on Saturday night in Mendocino, we decided to spend the night at a Motel 6 in Ukiah. Well, the road we took from Point Arena to Ukiah was even worse:

View Larger Map

I think that was the second most stressful drive I have ever done, right after the 2 hours of trying to stay awake driving between Needles and Blythe on Highway 95. But we made it without any problems.

The next day we went to church in Ukiah then drove back out towards the ocean. The Mendocino coast is pretty awesome.

We grabbed some dinner and then walked out on the headlands.

This is Mariam at the top of one of the many water towers in town.

After exploring town, we went to check in to our bed and breakfast. We stayed at the Glendeven Inn, which was awesome. Our room was amazing. Mariam loved the fireplace and the hidden door behind the bookshelf where they innkeepers would bring us breakfast each morning.

We started Monday morning off early with a yoga session with one of the owners of the inn and then we set out to explore. Well, first we decided to meet the llamas there on the farm.

Afterwards, we drove up the coast a bit to Fort Bragg to check out the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens.

The dahlias were in bloom, which was really nice.

The gardens also had some really nice paths along the ocean.

After the botanical gardens, we went to the Point Cabrillo light house.

That’s my Gladiator moment.

It was a nice relaxing walk out to the point and back.

By that time, we were hungry for dinner but also wanted to catch the sunset, so we grabbed a pizza from Mendocino, dropped off our car back at the inn, and ran out to the coast.

We caught it just in time.

It was a nice way to end a great day.

Tuesday started with another yoga session and breakfast. I should point out now that the breakfasts at the inn were awesome, especially the eggs fresh from the chickens. Then it was time for the ocean kayaking.

All of these pictures were actually taken at the end when we got back to the cove. There were a few more waves on the other side. The guide took us few a few caves along the shores of the state park, and it was really beautiful. Most of the time we were in between large rocks and the cliffs, but a few times we had to cross open water with some decently large waves. Mariam got a bit nervous a few times, but we still made it. Sadly, I only saw one seal for a brief moment.

Since the coast was covered in fog, we drove a few minutes up the Big River canyon to the sunshine for our picnic.

Mariam’s clothes got a bit wet during the kayaking.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by walking around town and taking naps. As part of Mariam’s birthday, we went out to Cafe Beaujolais for some romantic French dining to finish off our fun day.

Wednesday was sadly our last day and we took our time leaving the inn. We took the much faster inland route down the 101 to Petaluma. Since it really doesn’t feel like Fall here (honestly it never feels like any of the 4 seasons), we thought we would try to get a bit into the mood by going to a pumpkin patch.

We got thoroughly lost in the corn maze (maize?) and we picked out a pumpkin that is still waiting on our counter to be carved.

We left this little guy at the patch.

Having the corn maze surrounded by big sun flowers kind of ruined the whole Fall mystique for me.

We finished off our trip with a stop at Roy’s Hot Dogs for some greasy meat products. I got a deep fried chili dog. Pretty much amazing.

That was a much needed and a much appreciated vacation.

Moving

Just one last post about moving: I am so sick of it. Honestly, I really wish this tiny studio apartment would be enough for me for the rest of my life so I never have to see another cardboard box again. Let’s recap the last eight (eight!) years of my life:

• Provo MTC
• Kiryu
• Ageo
• Takaoka
• Nasu
• Kamagaya
• Kawagoe
• Baraboo
• Deseret Towers
• Helaman Halls
• Baraboo
• Carriage Cove*
• University Villa
• Wyview*
• Kyoto
• Yokohama
• Cinammon Tree
• Provo House
• Sacramento*
• Provo House #2*
• Sacramento
• Madison House
• Eagle Heights
• Excelsior District
• Mission District

Twenty four places in the last eight years. The ones with the * are the locations I lived for 8 months, the longest continuous length of time spent in any one place. I am really sick of moving. Our current lease is for a year, so we shall see what happens.

Catching Up (Photos!)

Ok, since the last month has been absolutely insane with finding a new apartment, moving all our stuff from Wisconsin, big releases at work, etc, I decided to just make up for my lack of posting with some pictures and short descriptions.

Here is Mariam and my grandparents with all of the furniture we bought at Ikea. Yeah, we basically furnished the whole place in one trip. I am still amazed that we were able to fit it all into the back of my grandpa’s SUV. It was so stuffed that I had curl up in the back seat and have Mariam sit on my lap. Longest trip across the Bay ever.

So yeah, our apartment is very little. It’s half the size but twice the price of where we were going to live in Madison. The joys of San Francisco. We just used UPS to ship all of our stuff out (which thankfully is not much, since we have no space left). It took us about a month to final get everything completely unpacked and all the furniture built, but now it is really starting to feel like home.

As you can guess, this was quite the challenge.

My coworkers. Yeah, this is what I have to put up with everyday at work. We have fun. Our schedule has been crazy busy, and I hope someday I will be able to talk a little more about what I have been working on. The really fun thing is that the week of our move was when we were doing our first major roll out. Staying at work until 3 am and then spending the next day moving suitcases is always a blast.

The weather in San Francisco has been really great for the past couple of weeks. We are finally getting our summer. Mariam and I spent yesterday out and about: first we went to the farmer’s market to pick up supplies for tonight’s tacos dorados extravaganza at our grandparents house. Then we hit up Katanaya with Brooke and her boyfriend Jon, which was tasty. Later in the afternoon Mariam and I walked up and down Crissy Field to enjoy the awesome weather and that’s when I took this picture. Hard to believe this is the same city where I spent the entire month of July wearing a hoodie.

I think Mariam and I have finally entered a state of normalcy, something that has been hard to come by since our wedding. It’s pretty crazy it’s already been 5 months. Since it’s her birthday and our six month anniversary coming up in October, we are looking into doing something fun like a long weekend up in Mendocino. We shall see. It’s just nice to finally feel like we can settle down.

Dropping Out of School

I mentioned in passing in my last post that I had dropped out of school. I am sure some of you might have no idea why, so I thought I had better write a post on what’s up.

I started as a full time employee at Zynga on August 16th. It was a pretty crazy week coming to the decision and figuring out logistics. On the Wednesday before my last week of the internship, my team lead brought up the idea of a full time position. HR made me the offer the next day and we had the weekend to think it over. We gave our answer on that Monday.

This was not an easy decision and I did not take it lightly. There were many factors that went into it, though first I want to make clear what was not involved in the decision:

1) This was not about money. Mariam and I were doing fine on my student income. We have no debt and school was essentially free. Sure, having a positive cash flow is awfully nice, but I didn’t drop out of school for financial reasons.

2) No one forced me to choose the job. Mariam was actually against it and it took a lot of discussing and convincing before she agreed.

So what were some of the deciding factors?

1) I didn’t love grad school. Some of that was my own fault: I didn’t put in enough effort to make it really worth my while. I think that part of the reason I didn’t try was because I didn’t really enjoy it. I’ve never been interested in research or writing papers. I just want to make cool stuff. Will I ever go back to grad school? Possibly. I know, I know, it’s so tough to go back to school after you get an income, but if I decide I really want/need it, I will do it.

2) I am not convinced a graduate degree in computer science helps me in my career goals. None of my peers have advanced degrees, but they certainly have years of experience that I lack due to school. Now, if I wanted to join a research lab at say Google, an advanced degree would be important. But when my ambitions are more along the lines of becoming an independent software developer, I think real world experience trumps academics.

3) Stock. Ok, yes, I know above that I said it wasn’t about the money, but maybe it did play a small role… Given the direction that Zynga is going right now, I feel like it’s important to get as much stock as quickly as possible. Obviously I know nothing about the business decisions at Zynga, I just have a gut feeling the stock is going to be quite valuable in the future. I think an opportunity like this, a change to join a fast-growing startup company that is actually making money, is pretty hard to come by.

4) I’m feeling old. Yeah, I know, I am only 26. But so are guys like Marco Arment and Alex Payne, and they are already rockstars in the tech industry. The more I thought about spending another year away from real world experience, the more I felt like that was just something I could not afford. My hiring manager took me out for lunch during my “deciding” period, and he told me that he would have thrown out my resume given the lack of actual experience. I feel like it’s time to stop spinning my wheels and I really did not feel like one more year of grad school was going to put me any closer to achieving my goals.

I’m happy with the choice I made. I enjoy the interesting engineering challenges I’m getting at work and the fun atmosphere. Now that San Francisco is finally having some summer weather, Mariam is starting like the city too. Things are going well.