HerdingChaos

I have an iPhone 3G that uses active sync with our exchange server at work. This works great and generally I have no issues with the sync.

To keep track of all the goings on and doings of our family we have a shared google calendar.

I want both calendars on my phone in the Cal application. There is no way to do this. All of the sync services for google calendar use active sync and the iPhone only allows one active sync account at a time.

I think the only solution I have is to sync google calendar to iCal on my mac. Then when I dock my phone (which I rarely do) it should all sync. But this is not an over the air solution.

Looks like for the near term I will need to watch both the cal app on the iphone and bookmark my google calendar page in safari so I can look at the latest over the air.

Bummer.

Updated: There is no way to do this. The total POS that is Entourage has the one true calendar. Trying to sync another calendar into Entourage simply does not work. Have I mentioned that I still hate Entourage?

Updated v2: iPhone OS 3 beta totally fixed it. Works over the air exactly like I wanted.

I have not really done much with subversion in the past. I now have my old PPC based mac mini running svn+ssh with email notifications going out via svnnotify for a small group of us working on some things. It works pretty well. I guess any SCM is like any other, but I like trying new things once in a while.

I got a new job at work. I have been moving more and more to the edge of management vs technical contributor. I do not have any people working for me directly which is the way I want it. (Who wants to fill out all that paperwork when review time comes around?) But I now have technical responsibility for multiple product lines and there are 200+ engineers working on all of these products. Keeping up with all of this, aligning the work to a longer term architectural vision and ensuring the technical viability of our products means that I have not had much time to actually code.

I miss coding. When this has happened in the past I have always found some outlet for writing code. Last night finally sat down and compiled my first iPhone app and loaded it on my iPhone. The app is just one of the sample apps, but getting all of the signed certificates and all of the provisioning done so that you can actually load some random code on your iPhone/iPod Touch is not all that easy. Now I just need a great idea like this and I will be making my millions in no time.

Have not had much time to keep up with my blog. A ton has happened in the past year. I am going to try and pick this back up and start posting again. I guess we will see if that actually happens.

Sunset during the return flight from North Carolina

Making 190+ knots over the ground and only burning 14.7 gal/hr on my way to NC to visit family on new year’s day.

I got my new scooter in today. It is a Z20a from EVT America. (warning: annoying noise in flash animation at the head of every page on EVT’s site).

It is all electric. I have a eGo Cycle2 that I am replacing with the z20. This thing has a really nice ride and is way faster then the eGo scooter. Should be a great commuter bike for getting back and forth to work.

As you can tell I have not updated this blog for 5 months. The super abridged version of the past five months follows.

Early July: Loren became potty trained.

Mid August: Celebrated 11 years of marriage.

Late August: Went to Sea World San Antonio with the family and had a blast.

Mid September: My beloved dog of 8 years is diagnosed with splenic hermangiosarcoma.

Three days later: I have to take him to the vet and say goodbye because he cannot breathe without pain and cannot eat or drink.

Late September: I spread my wings and complete my bi-annual flight review allowing me to execute the privileges of my pilots license once more.

Early October: Took Andrew and Tracy for a flight in a rented plane. They loved it.

Late October: Tracy turns 6.

Halloween: We all dress as pirates!

Mid November: I bought a plane.

Late November: Andrew turns 8.

Which brings us to this month. I have been working more crazy than normal the last couple of months. Not that work is a good excuse to miss out on other stuff, but that’s what was happening. After tying up a few milestones at work, I took vacation from the 7th through today and did PIC’s 10 day instrument rating course. Today at 2pm I did my check ride and I am now an instrument rated pilot. I am also tired. In the last 10 days I have flown 30 hours in the plane and 9 in the simulator. Probably would have been more but the weather was really bad for three of the 10 days and we focused on ground instruction. Regardless I am looking forward to going back to work for a break from this intensive course. I think the course was great and would recommend it to anyone. But do not fool yourself, it is a lot of work.

It has been raining for a month. The large flood control lake nearby has been full for a while. A couple of nights ago a huge storm system parked over Austin and the area to the north west which also happens to be upstream. I took the following graph from LCRA, who operates the dam.

I was out in the area Thursday night (technically Friday morning) and I decided to lug all the camera gear out and try to get a cool night photo of the release from the dam. The dam had four flood gates open and max hydroelectric power generation running for a total release of 30,000 cubic feet of water per second. This equates to around 225,000 gallons per second or 13.5 million gallons per minute.

Both of the following photos were taken with 2.5 sec exposure and f/2.8 aperture. I took quite a few, but these were my favorite.

Today I called a seller about a plane.

Today I called a aviation medical examiner and made an appointment to update my FAA medical.

Today I called for an insurance quote on 2 different types of planes.

Today I put together a spreadsheet with a breakdown of expenses, investments, and rates we need to reserve per hour of operation for the plane.

Today I still have not flow since I put .6 on a Piper Warrior on Jan 7th 2003.

Today two of my children are old enough to go flying with me, and the third can come if I have mom along to help.

Today I resume my course because now I can take my family along.

Tomorrow (well not actually tomorrow.. I mean the figurative tomorrow); Tomorrow I fly.