DMR and ken

Ken Thompson

Dennis Ritchie

These people never cease to fascinate me. I’ve read every article written about these two with awe — having started development of  an operating system (Unix) that spans decades and a programming language (C) to come with it.

It always makes me think if I could ever do something to that level.

Hmmm… These quotes from Alan Kay came to mind:

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

“Snobbery:
Turn up your nose at good ideas. You must work on great ideas, not good ones.”

Priorities

When I was a bachelor, life was pretty straightforward — I’ve got nothing to be concerned about but myself, my job, and where I’d spend my money.

However, things are different now that I’ve got a family of my own. I have a wife to share my life with, as well as a son who keeps us happy (and preoccupied) whenever we’re together.

Before, I won’t trade anything for my job. Now I won’t trade anything for my family.

Just a few weeks back, my wife was diagnosed with UTI. It has been her third visit and things are not getting any better. She’s feeling a slight pain on her right side. We’re getting impatient with how she is being treated by her current doctor that we seeked for a second opinion. Now she’s scheduled to have an Ultrasound and had her blood taken for testing.

As for me, I’ve been taking several of my leave of absences — either to accompany her to the clinic or to take care of our son while my wife’s away from home. We’re currently at the testing phase of our current project, and I know I’m badly needed at work.

I just can’t bear the thought of taking care of work when my family needs me. As I keep telling myself (and my wife whenever we argue about work and going to the clinic), if ever I get kicked out of my job, I could just go get another. If one of my family is gone, I cannot find a replacement for them.

That’s the way it is now. Some may think I’m nuts for some of my decisions but I don’t have any regrets about it.

A realization

Just when I was continuing my E398 review (which I admit is going as slow as molasses) I came to one conclusion.

Working for a company that does outsourcing is great in that you get to take on cutting-edge projects. We sometimes have projects that require us to keep everything inside our workplace and not even tell others about it in detail. I get to enjoy the somewhat ‘covert’ part of hte project.

However, after the project, credit isn’t given to you. The patent (if ever there is) will not even be given to your company, but to that whom you did the project for. You get to remain anonymous outside the project.

It’s no big deal for me actually. Credit may be taken elsewhere (like taking on an open source project on the side).

But if your finest work would come from within that outsourcing job… Hmmm…

My Finest Work

All great artists have their Magnum Opus. Similarly, all great technologists have their Life’s Work.

I’ve been working in the Technology industry for almost 10 years, and for all projects I’ve been involved with, I could not clearly identify myself with any of them.

One of my most cherished modules was the Resource Manager I designed as part of the firmware of one of our clients’ multifunction printers. Nobody thought (except me) that queueing the request for resources was needed when I designed it. Only during actual testing that they acknowledged its necessity. It still makes me smile when I think about my co-engineers telling me “Akala ko dati hindi kailangan yun, nung testing na, dun mo makikita yung gamit niya.” However, for some reasons, the project manager got paranoid with some bugs that were found in my module during testing that they decided to take me out of the project and have another engineer take over (the one who took over my module told me later that he haven’t changed anything from the code I passed onto him, which made him wonder why I was replaced in the first place). I was really disappointed, but of course I have moved on from the experience and have been involved with more interesting projects. I take a lot of pride with what I did for that project, but I clearly cannot say that it’s my ‘finest work’.

I want to make something, whether it is part of my job or my own idea, that normally is regarded as unimportant, yet would be very beneficial (to whom or what, I cannot say). I’m not looking for something that would make me popular or rich, but I’m looking for something that others would consider to be ‘indispensable’. Only after making something like that would I be able to say that I’m fulfilled in my chosen field.

Come to think of it, I thrive in doing things in the background. ‘Low-key,’ ‘low-profile,’ others might say.

Welcome the SyncMaster!

I ditched my aging and color-blind (the red component of the CRT isn’t functioning for several weeks already) AOC 7GlrA and bought a new Samsung SyncMaster 740N last night.

Specifications

I’m right in the middle of doing my review for the Motorola E398. A review for this monitor will follow suit. 

A New Lease On Life

According to my Father, of what happened to him these past few days.

Tuesday was his last day of stay in the hospital — by afternoon they were already at home watching a video of  my son’s birthday party.

He still has to do a follow-up checkup after a week or two, to make sure his lungs are really cleared of the phlegm and carbon dioxide that caused him to have difficulty breathing.

I don’t know if he can remember everything that happened to him, but I’m sure that my mother will be telling that to him.

It’s a Celebration!

I took my family to SM Manila last Sunday to celebrate for my recent promotion. We had dinner at Mann Hann, a restaurant similar to Hap Chan (where we celebrated our anniversary a few months ago).

I especially loved the Maki and the fired dumplings we ordered. Too bad there weren’t any soy milk for me — I miss the tofu-like taste of the drink.

We also had the pictures from Raven’s birthday party printed at Kameraworld — 77 pictures in all! That was for the album my wife had been keeping for the past months. She intended to make some sort of a scrapbook out of the album, with all the pictures of our son in it.

We didn’t had much time to roam around — my father is still in the hospital and I need to go there in case they need something that I could be of help with.

At least we had a fun family day…  

Who says Friday the 13th is unlucky?

I did — but for once, I did not. Not today.

Imagine the shock I got during our afternoon meeting at work when my project manager announced that I was among those who got a promotion for ‘exemplary performance’.

I’m not a Senior Design Engineer/Project Leader any more, I’m now a Junior Engineering Supervisor effective since January 2.

I wasn’t expecting the promotion since I felt like I’m having a mediocre performance at work right now. It turns out that a supervisor took notice of my performance from my previous project, and recommended my promotion.

I was thanking him profusely through email. He just replied, ‘It’s been long overdue.’

I told my wife about it. She congratulated me and told me she’s proud of me. I also told my mothe, who relayed it to my father in the ICU. She told me my father was all smiles after hearing the good news.

At least something good happened this week. Not all days turned out bad.

After the Fun…

My son’s birthday party was fun while it lasted… Never did we knew that the following days won’t be as happy as that…

Raven’s own bank account

Monday morning, we went to the bank to open an account for my son. He got a total of Php1500 aside from the gifts given to him, so we decided to start safekeeping it for him. It was easy enough, though we had to quickly make an ID picture of him as required by the bank.

Problem starts

Then I got a text message from my sister. According to her, my father went to the hospital and would be staying there for the rest of the night for checkups as suggested by our family doctor. So I went to the hospital to find him lying on a bed in a private room, a little oxygen hose (similar to that used in some facial treatments) dangling in his nose. We just talked and talked, and even fooled the doctor-in-charge into thinking that we are foreigners. Nothing to worry about, he said, just a little routinary checkup.

The next morning, on my way to work, I sent a text message to my mother, checking how my father is doing with the tests. She told me that my father’s blood pressure was going up and down several times during the night. Still nothing to worry about, I said to myself. So I just told my mother that I’m just a phone call away if they need me.

I arrived late for work, so I bought breakfast and had my meal while checking the day’s e-mail. An hour later, my sister sent a text message telling me to come over the hospital. She will be bringing a blood sample of my father to the lab for some tests. My father needed a respirator, and my mother is quite confused on what to do. I told my manager about it and I was allowed to take the day off to attend to my parents. I relayed my sister’s message to my wife, who in turn skipped going to work to be with me in the hospital.

We arrived in my father’s room a little before 12 noon to find a lot of nurses and doctors inside. My father had a breathing tube stuck to his mouth and a doctor was pumping air through the breather. My father’s face was all puffy and he lies unconscious. My mother’s, sister’s, and grandmother’s eyes were sore from crying.

It turned out that during the night, he had difficulty breathing. The nurses apparently weren’t attentive enough to alert our family doctor about what’s happening until early morning when my mother shouted at them to do something about it, as the tips of my father’s fingers were getting dark and his face was turning pale.

I heard from the doctor as my mother was talking to him that my father’s lungs got filled with carbon dioxide because he had difficulty expelling the used air from his lungs, so they had to sedate him, place a tube on his mouth and pump air for him. We had to rent out a respirator from another clinic to help him breathe.

So rent out a respirator we did. It was connected to him and we waited for anything to happen. Slowly, my father’s face turned from pale to normal. Thank God.

Medical findings

But it doesn’t stop there. The respirator needs to stay connected to my father to help him breathe, so they will be placing a tube through my father’s nose, through the esophagus, down to the stomach. The tube ’s supposed to help him take in food while the respirator’s in place. As the tube is being inserted in his nose, I can see my family crying. The doctors were having a hard time placing the tube, causing my father’s nose to bleed. They gave up a few minutes later.

When the blood tests came, it became a bit clearer — my father’s blood pressure started to rise because his blood’s oxygen content was low, a side effect of his difficulty breathing. It also turned out that the culprit was my father’s long-time ailment — emphysema. The doctor suggested that we take my father to the ICU so that he can be watched over and immediately treated if further problems appear.

Unfortunately again, the hospital’s ICU is being renovated so we had to hire an ambulance to take him to another hospital. After settling the bills in the current hospital, he was transferred by ambulance to a hospital near my parents’ house.

At present

Until now he still is inside the ICU. He’s doing well now. He communicates to us through a magic slate my cousin/godmother gave him. He wanted the tubes to be removed, but the doctors won’t let that happen, as it might trigger adverse effects due to a sudden change of environment. They had to gradually lower the oxygen that helps him breathe day by day, to gradually help him back to breathing on his own. He’s smiling a bit every now and then, and manages to play a joke or two with the nurses taking care of him.

The only thing that keeps us getting worried right now are the hospital bills that we have to pay on a daily basis (quite unique to that hospital, really). At least my father’s alright now and steadily recovering.

I could still remember telling him before I left for home on his first might in the ICU:

“Maraming nagmamahal sa iyo dun sa labas. Kasali ako doon.”

Holidays, holidays!

It’s the year 2006 already! It’s mid-January, and I still haven’t updated my blog.

Lots of things took place in-between my posts — my son’s first Christmas, New Year,  his first birthday, his first haircut, and his own bank account! I have tons of pictures lurking in my PC, and in time I’ll be posting it on my albums.

First Christmas

My son’s first christmas was a real blast for him! On Christmas Eve, we went with my in-laws to church to hear mass. He was all excited seeing all the pre-mass presentations and hearing the choir sing christmas carols. Of course he’s wearing a new set of clothes and shoes — what parent would not want his/her child to wear something new for Christmas?

After mass, we had noche buena — the elders, that is. My son was busy trying to open the gifts everyone gave to him — a toy from Lolo, a set of pajamas from Grandma, a bag from his Titas and some money from his Titos!

The next morning, we went to my parents’ house. Hey, he got all the gifts, mommy and daddy didn’t get any! Anyway, at least he was all excited with opening all the gifts and playing with them. We tried to let him taste ‘buko salad’ — he wasn’t able to enjoy it much though, his teeth got tingly (as far as we can see from his face while the icy salad touched his teeth). Tatay and Nanay loved his ‘hip-hop’ look.

First New Year

The first new year he experienced was not quite as exciting as Christmas — he was too sleepy to enjoy it! He wasn’t scared of the firecrackers though (thank God!), but was really afraid of getting near the ‘torotot’ (after he heard it let a really loud fart-like sound). He was dancing to music being played on the radio (at least before 11 in the evening), and he wore red — like mommy and daddy did. We had to wake him up 15 minutes before midnight to see all the fireworks outside the house.

First Birthday

Just last weekend, my son celebrated his first birthday in nearby Jollibee. Not all were able to come though, as can be seen from all the excess food we had after the party (most of them bailed out at the last minute and we couldn’t take back our order of 100 meals) — we had to ask those who came to take home some of the food to make sure they won’t go uneaten.

Daddy and Mommy danced (to the tune of Average Joe) with Jollibee! It was my first in a long time to dance in public, and I realized not a lot of people in the party know that I know how to dance. Even my mom-in-law was talking about it, hahaha!

Lots of gifts abound, most of them were either toys or clothes. We now have a sea of batteries in our closet after taking them out of the toys to make sure they don’t leak and damage the toys. Now daddy has a lot of batteries to use for the wireless mouse and keyboard!

First Haircut

After the birthday party, we went to Kids’ Hair in SM Manila. Service was good, the barbers obviously know how to do their job. I wasn’t able to get the name of the barber who cut my son’s hair, but we’ll make sure that he’s the one to do the job for my son when we come back.

My son wasn’t scared (unlike one kid who was screaming his lungs out as his hair was being cut), though he was curious enough to do a little look at his barber every now and then. Barney on the TV in front of him didn’t do any good — a lollipop did the trick of making him stay put.

Now he won’t be mistaken for a ‘cute baby girl’.