Salsa

Today was a pretty good day. Our CEO let us out of work a little early both because we had some good sales news and to enjoy the three day weekend. I spent yesterday afternoon getting VMware workstation up and running on my Windows XP machine running a Mandrake Linux 9.1 virtual machine inside of it. I constantly have the need to run some Linux tools and do some Linux development, etc. at home but I also have a need to run Windows all of the time and don't have an extra computer to spare.

I had some problems getting the network interface up and running within VMware and Mandrake and after some internet searching found that this article from VMware that made me add the line "MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes" to my /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth[n] file where ifcfg-eth0 was my interface. Also, I read that Mandrake had some problems detecting the correct network card and I followed the directions here even though they were for Mandrake 7.2 to get things working. I'm actually not sure they did anything because I made both networking changes at the same time, and after selecting the network card the directions mentioned it seemed to find the same network card again after probing the interface. Maybe it helped, I'm not sure. I hope it helps you!

I just finished making some hot salsa from a recipe I got from a good friend of mine's Mom who's from Mexico. It's relatively simple to make although I screwed it up the first time pretty badly. Here's the hot salsa recipe:

Lupe's hot salsa recipe:

8 Jalapeno peppers
8 yellow chilis (they look like yellow jalapenos)
3 steak tomatoes (not hothouse if you can help it. steak tomatoes are just big tomatoes, you can also substitute some smaller vine ripened tomatoes, etc.)
2 cloves garlic
16 os tomato sauce

Blacken/roast the peppers and tomatoes in a skillet you don't mind charring a bit, or on a BBQ (I grilled mine on a gas BBQ). Make sure to cook them all whole (don't cut them up). Set them all aside. Now in a blender, blend the tomato sauce and the garlic until well blended. Remove the stems and add the yellow chilis, blend, then the jalapenos, blend, and lastly the tomatoes. You don't need to liquify the last three ingredients you can leave them a little chunky, just blend until they seem to have been chopped up and stop.

The first time I made this recipe I wasn't sure how to blacken the ingredients and I decided that I needed to cut them all up. Well, it made a bit of a mess and I didn't manage to blacken much of anything except for my skillet. Since they were chopped up, the tomatoes liquid kept boiling off and preventing everything else from getting blackened. The second time I made the salsa it was much better. It is pretty hot though so if you want it a bit milder try cutting down on the number of peppers.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm outta here.

Child Sports Stars

I just had a long conversation with an ex-coworker and friend of mine, Rys. We've hardly talked since Rys left Pivia last December but have had occasional e-mail correspondence and kept in touch. It was nice to talk and catch up on everything that has been happening in Rys' life. Rys is currently looking for a job and would be an excellent candidate for anyone looking for a serious backend C++ developer. You can find Rys' resume here.

As for me, life is good. I'm still recovering from my soccer tournament last weekend although I'm still pretty sore. Work is going well and I've been getting quite a bit done lately. We're getting ready to put out a new release and it is nice to be able to tidy up some loose ends and really polish the product up. I'm looking forward to the three day weekend although some of my Saturday and all of Sunday will be taken up helping a friend move up to San Francisco. I hate moving and am really happy that I haven't had to move for the past 5 years. However, that means that I've managed to accumulate a ton of junk that I'll have to get rid of when I move next year.

Oh, I was getting my haircut yesterday and they always have TV on there. I saw this amazing little 3 year old named Mark Walker on Live With Regis and Kelly that could shoot baskets on a full sized hoop like it was nothing. He was pretty amazing and Reebok has hired him and is setting aside money for him to go to college in return for using him in some ad campaigns. You should really want the video of him making 18 baskets in a row on an 8 foot hoop. Here is another link, and another to some articles on him as well.

Well, that's about it for now...

Pain and Family

Right now I am in an enormous amount of pain. I played in a 5 games soccer tournament this weekend and am not quite in the shape for all of that sprinting I guess. Every single leg muscle, butt muscle, stomach and back muscle that I have feel completely torn. It was quite an effot for me to even get off of my bed over to my desk where I'm writing this. This is definitely going to be a week of relaxing for me. As for our tournament performance, we ended up only winning one of those games but every game was really close and we were ahead towards the end of the game in two of them. In multiple games the other team scored a goal in the first few minutes, the last of which we were playing down 3 players some of which hadn't showed up or we were trying to pick up, and the others were still putting on their shoes but they started the game anyway. All in all it was a fun but painful weekend of soccer, on my muscles at least.

I also had my parents and siblings down visiting as I previously mentioned, and it was fun to have them at the soccer tournament as well. My little sister Brigitte played in the 3 games on Saturday (it's a coed team if I hadn't mentioned it before). I've never played on a team with her before and it was fun. She did a great job and was a solid defender that really helped out in the back. My family left this morning at around 7:00 for their 14 or so hour drive back up to the Seattle area. Pretty crazy drive and I'm sure a pretty tiring one. I'm glad I wasn't making the drive although it may not have hurt me as badly as the soccer game. I also think I'm going to lose a few toenails on my left foot from the game. I had a good collision with someone else's foot during the game while trying to make a cross. It jammed my toes and several toenails have started turning black. Well, that's about all for now folks, I need to get some sleep. Until next time!!

Family and Food

I just got back from a filling dinner at a local Indian restaurant in Santa Clara named Mayuri. It's one of our favorites and the owner knows us there. If you ever get a chance stop by and tell them that some friends from Santa Clara University that usually bring in big groups for birthdays sent you. My parents just drove down from the Seattle area with a stop in Ashland and a stop in San Francisco. I'm taking the day off tomorrow to spend some time with them. This is the first time the whole fam has been down here in over 5 years. We still haven't figured out what we're going to do yet, maybe hang out around here or maybe head to the beach. I'm getting tired and need to get to bed so that I can wake up a little earlier than usual to hang out the with fam. Goodnight!!

Growing Up

Another day another post. Let me see, maybe a little more information about me and my life. I grew up in Portland, OR and spent almost all of my life in a great little neighborhood known as Eastmoreland. I went to gradeschool at Holy Family, a local Catholic parish school, high school at Central Catholic, and finally left the wonderful state of Oregon to find fame and fortune in California. I'm not quite there yet but working on it!

A Bit About Me

Okay, now for a first real post with a little information about me. My name is Nick Woods and I am a software engineer currently employed at a company named Pivia located in Cupertino, CA. We have a great software product that helps speed up web sites, especially for users with bad network connections. I rent a house with three of my friends from Santa Clara University where I received BS in Computer Engineering. I've been seriously developing software for around 13 years and have done a little of everything from firmware and low level systems programming through networking, high level application development, UI design and development. In the little spare time I seem to have I manage to get in a little soccer and volleyball, hit the beach to surf, paint (mostly with oils and acrylics), hang out with friends, try to keep my room clean, and enjoy my life.

In the Beginning

Here I am in the middle of the day entering the wild world of blogging. I don't have a ton to say here right now and just want to see how this all turns out. If I like it I hope to start posting here often.