Here are some cool inventions from 2005 in no particular order:

• Airless Tire
• i-unit
• New Training Wheels
• Perfect Brew Tap
• Life Straw
• Nike Max Sight
• Electronic Rope
• Rise and Shine
• Sleep Tracker(very cool!)
• Form fitting door
• TV anywhere

This was another audiobook that I hadn’t heard anything about, but it had gotten some good reviews and was one of the ones audible.com was promoting, so I decided to give it a shot. The book is about a son whose father has recently died, and he begins to find information about how his father was court marshalled during WWII. In researching more, he learns how his father, a JAG officer in the army, tries find another officer (Robert Martin) which is a part of the OSS, a secret department of the military which runs special operations. The book goes back and forth b/t the son and the father, but spends about 85% of time retelling the story of his father…David Dubin. I must say the reader for this book was excellent, and I’m sure that helped, but the story itself was excellent in my opinion. I’m not going to say it was a cliff hanger or anything, but it just seemed to flow smoothly and catch my attention, helping me to recall the time and places we spent in France and Germany.
The book seems to be more guy oriented as I look back on it now, although there is a love interest in the story. Her name is Gita Lodz, and judging by the way she is described she seems like quite a woman…ambitious, sexy, driven…geez, that sounds vaguely familiar to a woman I know.

Anyways, I’ve never done this before, but I thought I would copy down Amazon.com’s editorial reviews of the book, and let you compare what they say to what I have said. Of course, I wrote my review before reading their excerpt, so as not to be influenced.

Graver at work

Here is a random picture of me at work. My colleague just happened to be taking pictures of other things and decided to snap this shot. As you can see, I am trying to get some ‘greenery’ in my office by adding a few plants. Grant it, they are really small right now, but they’ll grow eventually.

p.s. One of these days I’m going to have to start my own company so I can have a large office. However, I’ve got a new position in the Cisco Media Network, so I’ve got a lot of cool new things to learn about over the next couple of years. Wish me luck.

This was by far the laziest weekend in a long time for me. Let’s recap:
Friday evening: Went to a holiday party at our friends house til about 1am
Saturday: Took dog for a walk, then watched Duke beat Texas in basketball, followed by a nap and another long walk for the dog. Watched TV that evening.
Sunday: Went to bar to watch morning NFL games with friends, came back and watched the afternoon games at home (Go Fins), followed by watching the Sunday night game at home, and finally watched the finale of Survivor. Although, I did manage to get some push ups and sit ups in during the Sunday evening game.

So…I now need to make a pact with myself not to watch so much TV, although it was mostly sports, so I don’t feel too bad.

This book took me approximately 6 months to finish. The reason…when the people were packing our stuff in Germany, they decided that it should be packed as well. So, after reading the first half of the book, I had to go on a 3 month hiatus until I finally unpacked the box it was stored in.
Anyways, the book is good and gives a very detailed account about Einstein. I wasn’t aware that he had actually came up with his famous E=mc² equation. Of course, it took forever and a day for the world to finally come to the realization what it actually meant and the applicability of it, but to do it at such a young age is just amazing.
One thing that author makes sure to point out continuously through quotes of people that actually knew Einstein was that he was a very good humored person and full of wit. People would come to see him and were down right afraid b/c they didn’t think they had anything intelligent enough to say to him, but after just a few minutes he would make them feel at home with a joke or question of some sort that got the conversations going. The book is well written, but if you are not into biography style books, then leave it alone. This is not a novel style book, but does go into some interesting things like his childhood, his political views, his views toward WWII and the atomic bomb, and just a bunch of things you would expect to read about in a biography.

House Decorations

A long time ago I asked my dad if we could put up Christmas lights on our house in Miami, and his response was simply ‘No, I don’t want a bunch of extra nails on my house.’ So, I told myself when I get a house, I am going to decorate it no matter what. Well, the time has come and I finally own a house, so let the decorations begin. I actually started off by pulling at least 8 boxes from storage labeled ‘Xmas’, and started slowly going through them pulling all sorts of things I had no idea Barbie and I had. After a while I found some lights, but they weren’t the kind I wanted, so I went down to Osh and got some of those ‘icicle’ style white lights. Unfortunately, I only bought one set of them in the beginning, and ended up having to go back a couple more times to cover the house. Well, the decorations are complete, and although we don’t have a Christmas tree this year since we are going to be in Miami, it is still nice to see lights when you come home and have the inside of the house in a festive mood. Next year I plan on doing a lot more, but figured I would wait til after Christmas to buy more things since everything will be on a closeout by then. Click on the “House Decorations” link above the image on the right to see what our house looks like from the outside.

Most of you will have no idea what I am talking about, but there has been a big change on our server this morning. After being up for 584 consecutive days, we finally rebooted our server. This was not done because of any issues we experienced, but b/c it was time to upgrade our kernel from version 2.4 to 2.6. Although this means nothing to you, and will hopefully be transparent, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Tim on a job well done. Basically, if the server didn’t come back up, I would have had to drive up to Fremont and probably spend the better part of an afternoon talking with Tim while working on the server directly. We did have a scare though, as it took approximately 10 minutes to fully reboot and come back online, but as always, Tim is the man, and you should all be thankful, otherwise dgraver.com may not be up right now and you wouldn’t be reading this.

In case you care, here is an article from IBM on the benefits of web serving on a 2.6 kernel vs. a 2.4 kernel:
Kernel comparison: Web serving on 2.4 and 2.6

I would just like to remind everyone that 64 years today, December 7, 1941, was the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. As Isoroku Yamamoto, a Japanese general said, or so it is claimed he may have said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Actually, this quote became famous from a movie named “Tora! Tora! Tora!” from 1970, which is supposed to be fairly accurate. As we all know, this statement was very true, as it was the camel that broke the camels back and basically forced FDR and the U.S. to no longer remain isolationists and enter WWII. Of course, Churchill was also very helpful in getting us in the war, as he had been trying to persuade FDR for years. Either way, today is a very important day in U.S. history, and I just wanted to remind everyone as it doesn’t seem to get much publicity these days.

This past weekend wasn’t just about football, but also about Kristen becoming 13, and entering those infamous teenager years. Friday night she had her b-day party in Modesto, roaming the mall in some sort of scavenger hunt with her friends. Saturday morning, her and the family drove over here to San Jose, where we all went to see the play “Mama Mia” as part of her b-day gift from us. In case you don’t know, the play is based on ABBA songs, something Kristen became very keen to while living in Germany with us…mainly due to Barbie’s influence though. After the play, we headed over to Trader Vic’s for dinner. Unfortunately, this Trader Vic’s restaurant couldn’t compare to the one in Munich, so I don’t think we’ll be going back anytime soon…although the dessert that Kristen and Trevor got was exceptionally good. Well, after all of this, the kids somehow convinced the grown ups to let them stay the night at our place, with the plan of meeting up the next day to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Dublin, CA…which is about halfway b/t Modesto and San Jose. Of course, the reason the kids wanted to stay had nothing to do with Barbie and I, but instead b/c of a 75lb. white German Shepherd named Kymba. Kymba was in heaven going back and forth b/t the kids the bedrooms, and eventually sleeping in both of their beds during the night, making sure each kid got enough love and attention. So…Sunday we headed up to Dublin to meet up with Kathie and Keith to watch the movie, and although some didn’t care for the movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Best book of the series I have read so far, and right up there for best movie of the four also. All in all a good weekend, a good movie, and good football games.

Not since the weekend of Oct. 29th and 30th has both FSU and the Dolphins won on the same weekend. This has mainly been the fault of the Seminoles, as they apparantely decided to take the month of November off from football, thus not getting a single win the entire month. Anyways, as I have been saying since about that time, it doesn’t matter what happens, all FSU has to do is to win one more game…the ACC Championship, and that is exactly what they did this past weekend. Of course, they decided to add a little drama to the game by allowing 3 Va. Tech Touchdowns in the 4th quarter, but they still walked away with the win, and a BCS bid to the Orange Bowl. As for the BCS and bowls, I have always been a big proponent of it instead of a playoff schedule. My reasoning has always been that it makes the regular season games like playoff games…you lose and you are pretty much out of it. However, I read an article about how someone pointed that conferences that have championship games basically make the regular season not as important, b/c as is the case with FSU, you can lose and still go to a BCS game. Of course, you are not playing for the national championship, but you still get a big bowl game. I guess it comes down to the fact whether you think a regular season loss should prevent you from winning the title, or if you think you should get a 2nd chance through a playoff system. I still like the regular season format…nothing like a super important game early in September.

OK…now about the Dolphins game. I watched the first three quarters (Tivo’d), then proceeded to fall asleep for the 4th quarter. For those that don’t know, the Fins were down by 20 pts in the 4th quarter, and were showing no signs of life, so I decided to just crash on the couch and not pause the game. Of course the Dolphins proceeded to make their largest comeback in 31 years, and score 3 TDs in the final 13 minutes to win. I actually woke up after the last score, which came on a 4th and goal from inside the 5 yd. line and with only 6 seconds left in the game. What a game to miss, and I feel really guilty about it, but I was up til 2am the night before watching the FSU game…a man has to have his priorities. Either way, the Fins got the win, thus ending a fantastic weekend for both Seminole and Dolphins fans!