Posted by lee
Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:34:00 GMT
Last season, the Jets pissed me off by signing Brett Favre to a one-year, $12-million deal. The man was done, eeking out one more season, and the Jets were building a team. Not the right time for that deal. In the end, the Jets didn’t make the playoffs, Eric Mangini was fired for going all-in on Favre and losing, and Favre retired. So the Jets are left in desperate need for a quarterback and a coach.
They’ve got both. They signed Rex Ryan, and I’m psyched about that. But Mangini left the Jets after his failed attempt with Brett Favre, and landed with the Cleveland Browns. The Jets, in their desperation, needed to trade up in the draft to be able to pick USC’s Mark Sanchez. And they did. They traded their 2nd round pick, 2 starters, and one potential starting quarterback.
And who’d they’d trade to? The Cleveland Browns. Go to hell, Mangini.
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Posted by lee
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:39:00 GMT
I have around fifty books in my apartment, and probably twice that much stashed in my parents attic. I used to be attached to my book collection, but lately it has seemed more like a shame for those books to sit around collecting dust on my bookshelf. Some of them have a lot to offer to future readers, all of them have something.
Last year, Daniel lent me a couple of Bill Bryson books. When I returned them to him, he told me that his intention was to give them away, and he asked me to do the same when I finished them. I thought that was an awesome idea. Until then, my book collection had been something special to me, but I VERY rarely re-read a book. I’d actually say I never read a book after finishing it – but sometimes it takes me a few reads to finish.
Daniel’s point of view made total sense to me. So if you’re looking for a book, and I have it, you are welcome to it. I would only ask that you pass it on to someone else when you finish it. Here’s some I’ve got with me now.
3 comments
Posted by lee
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:49:00 GMT
People were literally dancing in the streets. Cheers were echoing down Manhattan blocks from buildings above. Horns were honking and people were hugging. I smiled as a group of young women ran out onto 8th Ave and half danced/half cheered with each other. I looked away and made eye contact with a guy walking towards me, who smiled and high-fived me on his way past.
I was at the tail end of a 5 hour round-trip to LI to cast my vote at Bay Ave Elementary. Arriving back at Penn Station around midnight, that was the scene greeting me after popping up on 34th St. Having been disconnected on the train ride the whole time, I was curious how the election was shaping up. I was now pretty sure that Obama had won the presidency.
Is it always like this in cities where the popular candidate wins? The excitement on the streets reminded me of walking through New York after a New Years Eve celebration. This city is psyched for this dude. It would seem that most of the country is too.
The trip to LI was long, but having never updated my voter registration after moving to NYC it was my only choice tonight. Lots of Americans, over lots of time, have made lots of sacrifices to earn this right. This feels like the least I can do.
I hope he was worth it.
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Posted by lee
Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:37:00 GMT
Add your signature to support a very worthwhile cause –
http://www.truelovewaitsforademocrat.com/
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Posted by lee
Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:50:00 GMT
I was supposed to golf this weekend, but I didn’t make it out. I’d been sick for most of the week, but I had hopes of recovering quickly. Unfortunately, things got worse before they got better. I started to think about how many times I’ve had to resign myself to that statement. "Things will get worse before they get better."
When I clean my apartment, things get worse before they get better. When I’m coding my way through a refactoring, things get worse before they get better. When I’m frustrated with some bad habit, and I start trying to work it out of my routine, things get worse before they get better. In an economic crisis with your retirement in the gutter, things will get worse before they get better. On the wrong end of a heart break, things will get worse before they get better.
In many situations when we wish they wouldn’t, things get worse. Then they get better.
1 comment
Posted by lee
Thu, 29 May 2008 03:13:00 GMT
I got my Macbook Pro in February. For the first two months I had it, I dealt with the error you see in the title of this entry. The display would freeze and be entirely unresponsive, save being able to move the mouse cursor around. The dreaded "Graphics channel timeout" error would be written to the log every 12 seconds until I did a hard shutdown. Eventually, I had my MLB replaced at the Mac store. After a week of living without it, I had it returned to me with a brand new board installed. I got the error again the next morning.
Luckily, the latest EFI update has fixed my problem. Since installing the update (found here), I haven’t had this error occur once. Today, OSX 10.5.3 is available. I’ve installed it, and thus far there’s been no hiccups. Before the EFI update, I was patiently awaiting this release. There was a lot of talk about this update having the fix for the "Graphics channel timout!" error. The EFI update is what fixed it for me though.
1 comment
Posted by lee
Mon, 19 May 2008 00:17:00 GMT
I found myself answering this question on two separate occasions this weekend. I have a reading ‘goal’ of sorts, that I sometimes fall short on because of other obligations (distractions?). As in my weekend conversations, I’ll give the ideal list here.
I read:
* The Wall Street Journal every day
* The Economist every week
* One programming book a month. Just finished The Rails Way. Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns is on deck.
* One non-programming book a month. This one slips more often than I’d like. Currently its the biography of Alexander Hamilton.
* Refactoring, by Martin Fowler, every year. This was the first book I ever read twice.
* Buffetology, by Marry Buffet, every year. Light years beyond any other investing book, blog, or magazine I’ve read.
* Blogs. There are enough blogs worth reading out there that could occupy all of your free time. Probably all of your time, period. The process of slimming these down to a particularly useful and relevant list is a continuing one for me. I don’t want to spend more than half an hour a day on this.
* xkcd and profootballtalk.com are a daily must :)
1 comment
Posted by lee
Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:05:00 GMT
I’ve been going to the gym most mornings before work lately. It was tough at first getting up, but it was a quick adjustment and I’ve begun to wake even before my alarm. Anyway, today was a cold, wet, gray day in New York, so when I glanced out my window this morning, I decided to sleep in. I got up at 8:30 and came to work. The strange thing is, I feel more tired today than I have for weeks. Those people that say "I have more energy throughout the day when i get some exercise in the morning" are actually right!
3 comments
Posted by lee
Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:59:00 GMT
In less than two weeks, the rest of my team and I have put in over 120 hours each getting weplay ready to go. Its all been leading to tonight. The NY Times is running an article about our company tomorrow, and its online live right now. Its linked to TWICE from the home page of nytimes.com, and should be on the cover of the business section tomorrow. The image block on that page might even be a screen shot of our home page.
Its been a grueling two weeks at a totally unsustainable pace. It has been very productive, but we’re at a point now where productivity will start to tail off as we reach the point of burn out. Luckily, things will be letting up now and we’ll even get most of the weekend off. It’s been a real privilege to work with these guys in this environment, and we’ve impressed ourselves with what we’ve accomplished here. Every one of us would have liked to have done more, but none of us expected to have what we do.
Get on over to www.weplay.com and check it out.
2 comments
Posted by lee
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:04:00 GMT
As many of the millions of you out there in leebankewitz.com land already know, I have recently begun working at a web startup. All of your inquiries into how it has been for me are appreciated, and I apologize for the lack of response on my part.
I knew when I accepted this job that it would be a demanding position. It has lived up to all my expectations. The occasional twelve hour day, with most evenings spent reviewing code if not actually writing it, has been my introduction to life in a start up. Add to that my additional effort to get up to speed on the technology, and a very big chunk of my time is spoken for. But reminding myself how vested in the success of this company we are has been a great motivator. I’m really enjoying my time on Rails, too. I spent the early part of my career avoiding web programming like the plague, after a horrific stint in Java web programming back in 2003. Rails has made the transition back to the web an enjoyable one; something I thought was unlikely. Anyway, I miss you all and will find time for each of you :)
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