Classic Car Show at Old Town Orange

The town that we live in, Orange, is a quaint little town whose hub is this circle with a park in the middle and four streets heading north, south, east and west lined with antique shops, cafes and restaurant with that old town flair.

Last Sunday as we were going to Watson's Pharmacy to get breakfast - yes, you read right - it's a diner in a pharmacy (This same diner was where they shot the movie starring Tom Hanks entitled, That Thing You Do.) we stumbled upon this car show. They have small classic car shows in Main Street near Costco, but this one was a big show. Hundreds of classic cars lined the streets going to the circle. They were real crowd pleasers! Take a peek...

Wild Animal Park San Diego

Wild Animal Park in San Diego had this cool TV ad with the zebra taunting a lion who was just on the other side of a pane of glass. This was the exact setup at the lion camp, the male lion was enormous. Here are some clips I took during our time there.

Third Time's the Charm: Waterworld Show

Our first two visits to Universal Studios LA were great, the Jurassic Park ride being the highlight of the first and The Mummy Coaster being the highlight of the second. The only thing we did not enjoy was the fact that we missed the last Waterworld show - both times, we came 5 minutes after the doors closed!

The third time we visited the park, we made sure to go to the Waterworld show first, it is after all one of my favorite shows here. I took video clips of our time at this attraction - please forgive our side comments:)

Stay Connected with Time Warner Cable

When I first came to the US, I bought $10 worth of Super Asia International Calling Cards every week to talk with my parents back home. I then wished that there could be an affordable and unlimited international calling plan so I could call my mom any time I want just to ask what she was having for dinner or how to cook a certain dish. Wouldn't it be great to be able to call my dad just to ask for his shoe size before going to the mall or to a sale? To get to the point where you don't have to cram everything you need to say in one hour and forty minutes...

Time Warner Cable just launched a One Price International Calling plan that gives you up to 50 hours or 3000 minutes of international calls a month for just $19.95 - the price of 2 phone cards (which just gets you 3 hrs and 20 mins)! I signed up as soon as I found out that the Philippines was in their list of countries you can call - it's just limited to land lines at the moment, but it cut my cost in half and gave me 46 hrs and 40 mins more calling time. I have been calling my family everyday since just to see how they're doing. Now I have to hunt down my friends' land lines to catch up from time to time, but hey, I'm not complaining about that!

I get most of my services through Time Warner including Cable, Internet and Digital Phone. The company has saved me a lot of money over the years I've used their service. The one time I had a problem with my cable box, they replaced it immediately and upgraded my box to an HD DVR (although I only figured out that it was a DVR recently hehehe).

I love this new service and I definitely recommend checking it out if you use international phone cards. And just in case you're wondering - this is not a paid post!

3 Doors Down at the Grove of Anaheim

I took my sister to watch 3 Doors Down at the Grove of Anaheim. This is the first time any of us has watched a show here. I've always wondered about the little Spanish-villa-like structure right at the foot of Anaheim stadium where the Anaheim Angels play.

The place looks bigger outside than it actually is. It had no seats in the main concert area so everyone was standing, when we got there the first partition was already cramped to the hilt - and not enjoying the thought of pressing up against strangers who are mostly taller than we were, we opted for the second partition, which still had a lot of space when we got there.

12 Stones and Red started the show. I don't know the songs of 12 stones, but my sister likes Red's song called Pieces and they were both great bands - probably just newer ones that need more exposure for more people to appreciate though. Most of the people there had seen them in concert for the first time that night - both bands did a show of hands for that. We all came for 3 Doors Down - and they definitely did not disappoint!

A Great Mentor

I learned to code in PHP through books and through following the code of my Sr. Software Developer back when I was still working for Cerulean Software, Inc. The people I work with now only know him as my great trainer - he was the only mentor I had when it came to PHP.

And when I read this article about the Top 10 Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer, I couldn't help but smile thinking hey I was trained by that kind of software engineer! Hopefully I become such a teacher to those I train in the future... Kudos to you, Mike, you rock!

clipped from www.readwriteweb.com Top 10 Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer It only takes a couple of smart engineers to create quality software of immense value, and below is a list of the top ten qualities you should look for when hiring a developer: Loves To Code Gets Things Done Continuously Refactors Code Uses Design Patterns Writes Tests Leverages Existing Code Focuses on Usability Writes Maintainable Code Can Code in Any Language Knows Basic Computer Science

Opening Night for a Web Developer

Although my job title is actually web programmer, I prefer the term developer. I develop a website into maturity with my team until it's ready for public consumption then launch it for our users' enjoyment.

I've launched sites before, most recently our very own Prayer Community - which was a huge success with our user base. But I've never launched a site to replace two sites that already exist!

I walked into the office at 6 AM - everyone was already there. It was almost 7:30 AM before we actually had brought the sites down after dealing with a few minor issues. We deployed our redesigned and upgraded website and coded all that needed to be coded. We tested privately for a few hours and opened the site to the public before noon - having told our users that we were going down for maintenance, I can only imagine what they had thought when they saw the completely new website.

We expected to be fighting fires immediately, but thankfully there weren't any major fires to deal with. It's been ten days since "opening night" and all is well. The new features are being used and appreciated. The people who are maintaining the site are appreciating the simplicity of updating it. All is well... Now on to the next stage play - I mean project... Hehehe...

And you know that adrenaline rush, emotional high, on-edge excitement I always talk about feeling on the opening nights of the stage plays I used to direct? I felt it that day - on April Fool's Day in the year 2008, I finally felt a grand passion for what I do - develop online user experiences.

Ruby on Rails vs PHP - RailsEnvy.com Commercial #2

I love the PC vs. Mac commercials - but being a PHP programmer who has been trying to find the time to learn Ruby on Rails since it came out - I really love these YouTube commercials. I can totally relate!