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During the spring lacrosse season I helped
as assistant coach of Brady’s team and was
an umpire for Callie’s high school league.
Being an official is a lot of fun, especially
in a new sport like lacrosse because the
parents have not yet decided they know
the rules better than the officials. The high
school girls’ teams were great and also
forgiving when I blew a call (coaches, not
so much). After Brady’s regular season, he
joined a summer team which played games
in Oregon and in the Battle of Bothell. I
assisted the score keeper which gave me a
great view of the games: from the team
sideline and no-one was allowed to step in
front of us.
as assistant coach of Brady’s team and was
an umpire for Callie’s high school league.
Being an official is a lot of fun, especially
in a new sport like lacrosse because the
parents have not yet decided they know
the rules better than the officials. The high
school girls’ teams were great and also
forgiving when I blew a call (coaches, not
so much). After Brady’s regular season, he
joined a summer team which played games
in Oregon and in the Battle of Bothell. I
assisted the score keeper which gave me a
great view of the games: from the team
sideline and no-one was allowed to step in
front of us.
While Callie was working overtime to prepare props and run
lighting for her high school’s production of Cinderella Vicki and I
were parent advisors to Brady’s robotics team. We had two larger
teams this year and there was much chaos, but I think the robotics
team had fun.
lighting for her high school’s production of Cinderella Vicki and I
were parent advisors to Brady’s robotics team. We had two larger
teams this year and there was much chaos, but I think the robotics
team had fun.
Brady’s knee surgery from a
nagging injury from his
regular season team kept us
pretty much home bound
during the summer but we
did get a chance to travel to
Forks Washington and the
Olympic rain forest. The
beach on the Pacific was
covered in fog much of the
time we were there; it was
beautiful and somewhat
eerie. We also stopped at one
spot to discover one of the
largest trees on the west
coast.
nagging injury from his
regular season team kept us
pretty much home bound
during the summer but we
did get a chance to travel to
Forks Washington and the
Olympic rain forest. The
beach on the Pacific was
covered in fog much of the
time we were there; it was
beautiful and somewhat
eerie. We also stopped at one
spot to discover one of the
largest trees on the west
coast.
I spent most of the year contracting for Microsoft working on guerilla projects to utilize
and promote their Live Search engine. This work covered many areas of expertise:
programming, data warehousing, internet security and more. We built “error pages” for
the Microsoft web site (and for Microsoft’s partners) which used Live Search to help a
user find the right web page when they stumbled upon a missing page (aka: broken link,
404 error or removed pages). We also used Live Search and a special web site to prevent
ISPs from intercepting traffic to Microsoft’s inactive web sites (domains which are
registered by Microsoft but don’t have web sites up and running). I also used one of the
largest parallel compute farms (about 100,000 computers in some unknown data center)
to mine specific usage statistics through the Live Search peta-byte sized data warehouse
(mega-, giga-, tera-, peta-) to report on web traffic to these inactive web sites.
and promote their Live Search engine. This work covered many areas of expertise:
programming, data warehousing, internet security and more. We built “error pages” for
the Microsoft web site (and for Microsoft’s partners) which used Live Search to help a
user find the right web page when they stumbled upon a missing page (aka: broken link,
404 error or removed pages). We also used Live Search and a special web site to prevent
ISPs from intercepting traffic to Microsoft’s inactive web sites (domains which are
registered by Microsoft but don’t have web sites up and running). I also used one of the
largest parallel compute farms (about 100,000 computers in some unknown data center)
to mine specific usage statistics through the Live Search peta-byte sized data warehouse
(mega-, giga-, tera-, peta-) to report on web traffic to these inactive web sites.
My year-end project entered “crunch-
time” right at the beginning of
December, of course, which made
balancing holiday preparations and work
load difficult, but things finally righted
themselves and I got a chance to take
some time off around Christmas. That is
when the 2 or 3 feet of snow showed up.
For the first time in 3 years the snow
was fluffy enough to get the snow blower
out of the garage for some extended big-
boy-toy fun. And I got to do it twice!
time” right at the beginning of
December, of course, which made
balancing holiday preparations and work
load difficult, but things finally righted
themselves and I got a chance to take
some time off around Christmas. That is
when the 2 or 3 feet of snow showed up.
For the first time in 3 years the snow
was fluffy enough to get the snow blower
out of the garage for some extended big-
boy-toy fun. And I got to do it twice!
