Saorrento

I am not really one for re-posting what I learn from other blogs, but this was so inspirational. As it turns out the post that I read from the controversial Russian site fishki.net, was a re-post from the original site http://ferdinand.johannes-l.net.

To all those who have dreamed a dream, only to be stumped by their own financial situation, remember, nothing is beyond your reach!

Although the end paint job may appear a bit too blingy, the potential is definitely there.. Ladies and Gentlemen, the worlds slowest Porsche!

I feel privileged in the fact that I have a job that I both love and loath and challenges me on a daily basis. Metaphorically, I wear so many various hats throughout the day I would warrant my own hat stand. I am a marketing designer, project manager and first and foremost a software engineer, who spends better parts of the day inventing engineering feats that often come to mind during my morning slumber through peak hour traffic each day to work. Today was no different.

If I was to sacrifice all dignety that the title Software Engineer brings by using high-level development suites such as Visual Basic than this post wouldn’t exist, and the problems that I am challenged with on a daily basis would only be momentarily trivial, solved within moments with a frolic on Google. My daily work takes me to the depths of the Windows world, the world of the Win32 API using C/C++, a world that is now shrouded by fancy Frameworks and Foundation Classes.

Where Google may provide solutions a plenty for higher level programming delemas, when it comes to Win32 API in C, even the Microsoft MSDN library becomes vague with suggestions, and the majority of reliable documentation comes from software development books published back in 1995.

This does more often than not lead to frustration, and in fact is responsible for my embrace of the C# language; the simplicity of Visual Basic, but so much more powerful and integral than its Visual counterpart. No matter how voluptuous C# may seem at times, in a Software security sense, it doesn’t stand a chance against C, which is why no matter how tough times may seem, I power on in my dimly lit world.

When things go right, it is just as Hugh Jackman portrayed in Swordfish, and no, I am not referring to the scene where a hot blonde was going down on him whilst he was attempting to hack into the Military of Defense systems, rather the adrenaline rush you experience discovering you have solved a day or two long problem, doing a little victory dance to the beat of the music playing in the background and toasting your brilliance with a glass of wine or in my case tonight, Jack Daniels.

My day ended with the epifany: It is such hard work getting fancy results from a C application… I feel like I work in the boiler room of some steam ship, covered in Microsoft legacy crap, when all the squeaky framework apps like C# sit in first class with their tea and bickie!

To which a friend queried ‘Then where does Visual Basic stand?’

A smug grin formed across my face as I replied ‘in the form of the large duplo lego bricks that toddlers play with.’

The end is nigh. No I am not about to start preaching of revelations and the second coming, for the truth of the matter is we probably won’t last that long. We are quickly accelerating into a world where we attempt to destroy atoms by colliding them against one another just to see what lays beneath, where addressing the issue of road safety, rather than making the highways safer they simply lower the speed limit. A world where unless you grow it yourself, chances are your corn cob has spliced jellyfish DNA in it, making it more frost resilient. A world where each and every year children develop an allergy to something new, last year was peanuts; 2010 is bananas.

As we approach the height of the technological frontier forged by the creative geniuses of our generation’s time such as Bill Gates etc, we’re slowly rattling apart. The world, bent on religious warfare, with extremists turning to terror to alter the status quo. Where religious hot topics such as abortion and euthanasia are looked at negatively; by religious law, humans do not have the right to destroy a life. What about creation? What’s going to happen when teleportation and cloning become the new thing; does a clone have a soul? When the teleporter breaks down the subjects body at the molecular level and reassembles them on the other side do the newly assembled bodies have a soul? Will the church redefine their doctrine on souls so we can all get back to happy hour in these SciFi times?

Having just recovered from the second worst financial crisis in modern history the governments are still spilling billions of dollars into preventing global warming. But is the world warming up? If so, are we directly responsible or is it part of a natural cycle. Earth has been through an ice age before, is mankind going to fight Mother Nature and try to prevent the next blaming it on ‘Global Warming?’. Are we polluting the earth? Yes! Lets start with that, lets reduce the carbon emissions, but to it to clean the environment, don’t be too surprised if the climate around the world continues to change.

If aliens landed tomorrow, what would your first reaction be? To scream? To pick up a weapon? If this is true, pity the fool, you have seen too many alien invasion films. Chances are that a life form intelligent enough to venture into space has the cultural understanding of ethics and morals and not be interested in Armageddon.

Too many approaches to ideas and not enough order has lead the world into the chaos that it is today. Will we straighten ourselves up in time, or will we be the fate of some of our own Hollywood creations to the likes of ‘Resident Evil’?

As much as I was excited about visiting a new place like Phoenix, I was also somewhat reluctant, especially after spending the last five days in Las Vegas. From Vegas’ wild night life of neons and alcohol to the sandy plains of the wild-west; or at least that is how I pictured it to be.

For the most part I was right, but I have enjoyed it here none the less. Sitting at a higher altitude, with the desert heat of 100ish degrees (30ish Celsius for the metric folk) Phoenix has been a nice relaxing stop on the way to Russia.

Although a great time of Phoenix was spent either at our motel recuperating from Vegas or at a engraving company I visited I did see enough of Phoenix to begin forming some opinions of the Arizona people and Americans all together.

The people are FRIENDLY. Never have I seen so many smiles and friendly gestures, which is a shame because I have always thought Australia would be one up on the US on this one. From continual gestures from drivers to walk out in front of them crossing the road, to a friendly smile and service of the waitress’s at the local bar and grill – Phoenix has been a very welcoming place.

On our first night there Michelle took me out around the neighborhood – since she had the opportunity to scout out food spots during the day while I was with Vision Engravers seeing how their production line worked. Being in the engraving industry I found the tour of their facilities particularly interesting, as I am already very familiar with their product from a customer receiving perspective, it was great to see it from the construction and engineering perspective. Anyway, I digress; Michelle and I stopped in at a bar and grill for dinner, the bar itself was very ‘yankee’ with wooden floors and walls, men wearing their truck-driver caps at the bar sipping a pint of (by Australian standards pathetically WEAK) beer, while those with families and tourists alike took up the tables and seating along the parameter which were serviced by the friendly waiter staff.

Being a huge fan of Potato Skins, something to which I owe to my Aunt and Cuz for introducing me to at the Queens back home we ordered an entrée size serving for starters. For those who have not had the pleasure, and I mean that as they are simply divine, a ‘potato skin’ is simply a potato, halved, with the potato contents scooped out and replaced by an assortment of cheese and bacon and lightly grilled n’ served with sour cream.. YUM… hmm I digressed yet again… anyway, this was followed up by a cheeseburger (an American favourite) where the waitress asked would I prefer fries or mashed potato (Michelle jokingly thinks she was just asking to strike up conversation with me) of course I ordered the fries, who has mashed potato with their burger?! The evening also involved several rounds of Budweiser which got cheaper as the night progressed between our waitresses fudging up the bill and that we were now well into ‘happy hour’.

Although being at a grill there was a pretty good assortment of beer to choose from our choice of Budweiser came easy since it was the only beer not labeled ‘Lite’ – since when did the yanks drink lite beer? Australia may be now the fattest nation (which if you come over to America you may find hard to believe) but we sure as hell can drink ‘em under the table! – Even their Strawberry Daiquiri uses Lite Rum!

So although the Phoenix stopover has gone in a blink of an eye, it has left a strong impression; very friendly locals who won’t ask for a tip to smile, desert heat with zero humidity which agreed with me, and the realization that our Australian accent is alluring to the locals!

Next stop Denver ahoy!