kris

Not Dead Yet

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 17:22 on 3 October 2020

Chase is not dead yet. He is dying, we know this. But not today, world, not today.

Kris' Curry

Book page Instead of being asleep at 22:22 on 14 October 2017, kitt created this:

Ingredients

1 package of extra firm tofu

1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
2 large carrots
1 large potato
1 large sweet potato or yam
1 large onion (yellow is good, white is also good)
2-3 heads of bok choy
large handful of snap peas

3 cans of coconut milk (not water)
1 small jar of red curry paste (not sauce)

Olive oil

Prep:

Read more about Kris' Curry

Sheep Farm Antics

Blog kitt decided around 11:48 on 14 June 2017 to publish this:

Kris wants to retire with a sheep farm. Neither of us knows what that means, so I arranged for us to spend a week with Melissa on her farm, learning about managing a farm with sheep. We learned a lot. Was a lot of fun. Managed a few good pictures, too.

"Proud of something I did."

Blog Instead of being asleep at 14:06 on 19 July 2013, kitt created this:

"I want to say I'm proud of something I did."

There aren't very many times Kris says this to me. I don't believe it's because he isn't proud, he does some great things and should be proud of those things. I believe it's because he doesn't need to say that he's proud of them, because he's happy with what he does, and his happiness at his success is sufficient. So, when he said that he was proud of something, I stopped what I was doing to listen.

"I'm proud that I assume my code, and not someone else's code, is causing problems on merge or checkin."

I smiled. I thought it was an odd statement until I thought about it more.

I lost count of the number of times Arnaud would yell, "This is shit!" at work, and claim the problem we're having on launch is TFE, without actually determining the root of the problem. I lost count of the number of times one department blames the other department, without actually fully understanding the problem. I lost count of the number of times a software guy says it's a hardware issue and the hardware girl says it's a software issue. I lost count of the number of times Kris told me stories about the long-ex-coworker who would merge, find conflicts, and tell Kris to revert his code back a couple versions so that the ex-coworker wouldn't have merge conflicts.

Merge conflicts are a fact of life in development. Put on your big boy pants and deal with them.

It's easy to say, oh, this change is someone else's fault, because we want to be right, we want to believe our work is clean, and that any issue is with someone else's work. It is rare that someone is always right (unless you're Arnaud and you're talking about me, in which case, I am always right). And yet, the easier case is to blame someone else.

And Kris doesn't do this. Merge conflict, something he did, let's check it out. Test not passing, something he changed, let's check it out. New bug introduced in the last build, something he did, check it out.

It's a different perspective than most people have. I think it's the perspective most great developers have.

Backseat driver

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 10:06 on 13 February 2011

Okay, let me state right now, for the record, I am a backseat driver. When I know where I'm going, I want the driver to go the way I would drive, which is nominally the most efficient way to go. When I don't know where I'm going, I want to learn, and then I want to know that the way we're going is nominally the most efficient way to go.

See that trend?

Right. Efficiency, in terms of either time or distance, ideally both.

That all said, Kris and I went to Whole Foods this morning. Kris started going to the nearest one, and I asked him to drive to the one slightly farther away, on San Antonio. The one in Cupertino doesn't have the low-fat Brown Cow peach yogurt, the one on San Antonio does.

Why is this important? Well, the low-fat Brown Cow peach yogurt is AMAZING. It tastes like peach custard. Yummy!

Yum.

Mee.

So, he turned around, and headed north instead of south. When he turned onto 85, I turned to ask why he was he was going on 85. He promptly said, without my finishing my question, "Bah, El Camino." I decided at that moment I wasn't going to offer my opinion on how to drive to the grocery store, I was just going to go with it.

Driving up El Camino takes about 7 minutes to get to Whole Foods. Turns out, 85 to 101 North, there is no San Antonio exit off 101 North. We drove to the next exit at Embarcadero, but there's no easy 101 South entrance from the Oregon Expressway exit. One U-turn later, and we were back on 101 South, and well past the seven minutes had we just driven up San Antonio.

I kept my mouth shut.

I kept my mouth shut as there was no 101 North exit onto San Antonio.

I kept my mouth shut as there was no 101 South entrance off Oregon Expressway and Kris made a U-turn.

I kept my mouth shut as we hit every stop light on San Antonio on the way west to El Camino, taking more than twenty minutes to go that seven minute drive.

And I was surprised when, as we approached Central, Kris asked me, "Should I turn here or go straight?"

He continued to ask for my opinion about which way to drive as we continued on San Antonio, turned left onto El Camino and parked at Whole Foods. He even asked for my opinion for how to drive back.

So, either I needed to keep my mouth shut just a little longer to draw out the need for my opinion, or maybe, just maybe Kris misses my non-stop running commentary on how best to drive.

Right.

Green Day

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 11:54 on 5 September 2010

Andy is on a roll. Well, sorta.

He bought four tickets to see Green Day at the Shoreline, and invited Chris, Kris, and me to go with him. Kris spent the day in Santa Cruz at the Labor Day ultimate tournament (note to self: mixed was up at Crocker Amazon, I should ask my friends how they did), so was already slightly tired when Andy and Chris came over. Of course, Chris rode 120 miles, and Andy rode 60+ miles today, so really the only slug today was I.

After seeing the Killers months ago at the Shoreline, and more recently, seeing John Mayer with Jonathan last month, we had a better feel for what to expect time wise, and chose to arrive later and leave later. We left the house after 7 for a concert that started at 7. Since none of us wanted to see the opening band, this worked really well: traffic was non-existant, we had a good exit parking space, we arrived just as Green Day took the stage.

Andy bought us AWESOME seats. We were two rows up, on the inner left side (204 B 1-4, if you know the lay of Shoreline Ampitheatre).

While the seats were awesome, the company around us was not.

Just behind us were a group of men who were very excited fans. Now, that wouldn't be a problem, if they were just excited fans. They were also stoned, drunk excited friends with no boundaries. While Kris was just outside their reach, I was not, and managed to be spit on, hit, shoved, trounced and dumped on during the concert. Beer was dumped on my back side by one woman who walked back and forth along our row at least four times, before settling inbetween the guys behind us, which is to say, not in her own seat. The group of three guys behind us became six people, as they jammed into the good seats.

When I wasn't being mauled by the people behind us, I have to say, I very much enjoyed the concert.

Ear plugs were a requirement for this concert. "I was fine until they loosed the cannons," was Kris' comment. And yeah, they had cannons or gun shots or something that produced a heart-stopping BOOM during the concert. Many times during the concert.

Yeah. Ear plugs. So much better than, "Yeah, after one of those booms, I couldn't hear for thirty seconds." Kris was the only one who didn't have ear plugs.

Sucker.

I have to say, I'm not so sure about ten year olds at the concerts where the lead singer spends the first ten minutes saying fuck every ten seconds. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck, or some such. Some dad kept walking his kid back and forth in front of us (did I mention we had a lot of people walking in front of us? Must have been something special about our row), dragging her along behind him.

Neither had earplugs in.

One of the things that (should not have but) surprised me (nonetheless) was the number of people invited to the stage. The first guy that came to the stage did a full stage depth sprint into the audience to crowd surf off of it.

The next one up was a woman who gave Armstrong (lead singer) a hug so fierce he had to sing around her hug. The true professional he is, he managed without missing a beat. Quite entertaining. She walked off the stage.

The next girl on the stage also did a running leap off the stage into a crowd-surf. Problem was, she didn't make it farther than about 10 feet before she flipped up, and took a nose dive to the floor. Andy and I were both, "!!!!!!" though Chris and Kris didn't see the drive.

A couple people had difficulties getting on stage, which was kinda humourous. I have to say if I were in the front, and was asked to come up to the stage, I'd be screwed. I don't know half the words to the songs. Fortunately, I wouldn't be asked up: too cheap to buy the expensive tickets needed to be in a position to be asked up.

I was most impressed with the band as entertainers when about 90 minutes into the concert, Armstrong cried out, "Everybody on stage!" I have to say, holy crap, wow, talk about a security nightmare.

One guitarist was completely mauled by a couple fans, and yet managed, somehow I have no idea how, to keep playing. The drummer was swamped, and crazy people were dancing on stage. After a short while, security did start moving the fans offstage. One side of the stage, the security people waved, and offstage the people ran. The other side, however, wasn't so willing. One kid decided, after being herded offstage, to come back onstage. As he moved by the security guard, the security grabbed him. Unfortunately, the kid decided to resist. Two jerks and a headlock later, the kid was forcibly walked off stage. The remaining fans didn't seem to have problems moving quickly offstage.

One more person was allowed onstage, selected from everyone who both claimed he knew the lyrics (really really!) and was jumping up and down furiously. The woman who was chosen to sing really needed to be told if you're up there singing, you don't get to dance with your hands in the air: the microphone goes at your mouth. She didn't quite get understand that detail, but did seem to know the words.

Well enough she was hauled back on stage after her crowdsurf, to be handed a guitar from Armstrong.

Best concert ever for that woman.

We ended up staying until about 9:55, which is longer than I expected us to stay. Kris was willing to go since he needed to be up at 6 again for Labor Day. We left, to no traffic. Alas, Krispy Kreme didn't have any Hot Fresh Now to satisfy after concert munchies.

Oh, and for any other Berkeley boys out there, there is no West Bay. It's the Peninsula.