While everyone on Facebook is taking some random quiz (and most aren't even quizzes), I've recently been thinking about places that I want to visit. There's also a list of places that I'd like to return to, or at least spend some time living there. That's for another time.

Places I'd like to visit (in mostly no particular order):

1. Pripyat/Chernobyl, Ukraine
2. Amazon Rainforest and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3. Egypt
4. Athens, Mykonos, and Santorini, Greece
5. Dubai, UAE
6. Cairns, Australia
7. Cape Town, South Africa
8. Machu Picchu, Pero
9. Skiing in Hokkaidō, Japan
10. Great Wall, China (and Hong Kong)
11. Phuket and Bankok, Thailand
12. Madagascar

While French locations are noticeably absent in the list above, if I were to include France, the following places are on the list:

1. Skiing in Chamonix
2. Skiing in Courchevel
3. Bordeaux
4. Mont Saint Michel
5. Loire Valley

If you're looking for more places to go, check out the 44 places to go in 2009 according to the NY Times. And OMG, a "farm in northeastern pennsylvania" is recommended among the 44? You must be kidding me.

Attention: I am not looking for a recruiter.

Over the past weeks and months, I've received numerous unsolicited phone calls at work. Each call starts the same way:

Hello Joe [mispronunciation of Polastre],
My name is [Recruiter]. I represent an [exceptional, exciting] senior [software, application, hardware, database, etc] engineer who is coming out of [Yahoo, Google, Sun] and mentioned that [Sentilla, insert company here] is on [his, her] top 5 list of companies that they're considering. This individual has over [massive amount] of years of experience. [He, she] has experience with [buzzwards like object oriented, Java, C++, J2EE, Python, Windows, Unix]. [He, she] is currently interview, but is being very selective. Please return my call as soon as possible so I can set up a time for you to interview this candidate.

Alternate versions sound something like this:

Hello Joe,
You were referred to me by [insert name from Executive Team page of website]. I have an urgent matter I must talk to you about. Please call me back today at [xxx.xxx-xxxx].

Look, I'm not looking for a recruiter. Your calls are spam, yet there's no law for me to put you on my "do not call" list. What's worse is that as your company's press releases increase, so do the number of calls you receive. If you're going to leave me a voicemail, at least be creative and don't use the script. If you do use the script, you're not only guaranteed that I'll never call you back, it's also guaranteed that I'll let my colleagues know not to call you back -- EVER.

You're annoying, stop calling. It is spam, and telemarketing. When will the FCC enforce the Do Not Call registry? Maybe I should start posting mp3s of the voicemails online?

I've been using Google Calendar extensively to try to keep track of all of my meetings. In general, I would say that it has been marginally successful; the sharing is very basic and it doesn't do resource scheduling (such as "I want a Conference Room, any conference room, for my meeting"). No matter, it is better than using a legacy option like Exchange/Outlook or iCal. I can get there from my iPhone and open it with any web browser.

Over the past few weeks I've been struggling with a bug in Google Calendar, and couldn't figure out why it was happening. It turns out that Google, as you would expect, tries to be too smart without understanding the consequences. Furthermore, the Google ego means that there is no bug reporting form. Whaaaa?

The bug goes like this: If you click on the calendar and create an entry, it will interpret the words in your entry and try to be smarter than you. For example, if you type "Meeting at 3 in Menlo Park" in the text box, it will create an hour long meeting at 3pm on the current day with the location of "Menlo Park". It will even ask you if you want a map.

Here's the bug: With Sentilla, we do a lot of work with Sun Microsystems... you know, those Java guys. Every now and again, we even have meetings with them. I type into the box "Sun Meeting at 3 at Sentilla World Headquarters". Next thing I know, Google Calendar says "event created" and I can't find it anywhere. Weird. I repeat this process 3 or 4 times. Same thing. Turns out, Google is putting the entry on Sunday (get it, "Sun") and calls the meeting "Meeting". Grrr. Damn you Google. Eric Schmidt was from Sun... Google, you can't be against Sun!

Leo and I went to the closing day of the California Academy of Sciences at Howard Street. The academy, which relocated temporarily to Howard St about 3 years ago, is now preparing to relocate again to its new home (which was also the site of its old home) in Golden Gate Park. The new academy building is considered a revolution in green design, including a living roof full of flowers, plants, and trees. It opens in September 2008.

Anyway, the closing date for the academy was fun. We got to see the penguins in their last public feeding (they're funny looking). We got to play with eels and snakes and see a huge tank where they grow coral reefs. We saw some dry ice presentations (anytime you can play with dry ice, you know its a good day). And I had a staring contest with a giant turtle (see picture below).

The New York Times has listed San Francisco as one of 53 places to visit in 2008. Why? To see the new academy building. Yes, its that cool.

I'm off to Italy in the morning to talk at EWSN and then Switzerland and Austria to get some skiing in with Jan.

MacBook Air -- I was in love with it when it was announced. but a number of things dissuaded me from immediately purchasing one (i was tempted!)

1. no cell-modem support. need this for traveling to work everyday.
2. battery is not replaceable. this sucks for airplane trips.
3. hard drive is 4200 rpms. this means it is slow, which kills performance.
4. no ethernet port. useful!
5. usb dongles. do i really need 15 things hanging off my macbook?

Apple also announced the MacBook Air case -- the world's thinnest laptop case. I have to say that this blog post is the funniest thing I've seen about the MacBook Air.

Time Capsule -- Can I bury it and have it backup my Mac wirelessly? Then dig it up 30 years later and realize that I wasted a lot of money 30 years ago. Steve reinvented iSCSI. All we wanted to do was use an iSCSI device to back up our MacBooks. But no, you had to brand some lame item. Oh, and Steve-o, AirPort Express has USB ports for hard drives -- why can't I use those? This is exactly why I hate Apple.

iPhone -- Yay, I can finally determine my location (within 2 miles) using Google Maps. (note sarcasm) Where is my file browser? Where is my ability to store the Caltrain schedule and view it without an internet connection? Who cares about multiple SMS and rearranging my icons? Grr!

The best part of the iPhone update is a feature not documented on any blog. Somehow they missed it. Apple changed from using the POP interface of Gmail to instead using the IMAP interface. The IMAP interface means your iPhone is always in direct sync with your Gmail account, which is tremendously useful.

iTunes movie rentals and Apple TV v2 -- This feature has so many flaws it isn't even funny. Only 24 hours to watch the movie (but 3 months to start watching, weird). HD versions are only available for Apple TV, not when downloading with iTunes to your PC. Oh, and did I mention that Netflix is letting you download movies for free and watch them whenever you want? Oh, and Netflix has 6,000 items now; iTunes will have 1,000 items by the end of February. Apple, just give up, seriously. This is a silly feature that I'll never use.

I thought MacWorld would top CES, but it seems like both have let me down this year.