Anita’s Gigabits

I learn a little more each time… when going with a large group of people, limos are the way to go. People told me this but I didn’t believe it until I experienced it for myself. Depending on the amount of people you have, it does come out to the same if not cheaper than taking cabs. It’s best to inform the concierge or doorman of the hotel you are staying at of your plans for the current and following evening. They will be able to get you a limo when you need to be picked up as well as be able to get you on guest lists for various nightclubs you may want to visit. Sadly I learned this too late, but know it for next time. Also, make sure to ask and remember the name of the doorman or person that is helping you, and be sure to tip them, they will be more likely to bend the rules or give you preference over other guests. A little kindness (and money) goes a long way.

This time around we got to go to Mix Lounge at the top of THEhotel at Mandalay Bay. This lounge has 360 degree views of Vegas and one side where you can see down the entire strip. I’m not sure if this lounge is not as popular as the others or if it was an off night, but we were able to find tables to sit at and getting drinks at the bar didn’t take too long. For THEhotel guests the cover is $10 but we got in for free somehow. If you’re staying at THEhotel or Mandalay Bay, it’s definitely worth checking out.

We also hit up O’Sheas again and it was way more fun than last time. We turned a beer pong table into flip cup madness, and 20 games later we won 16-4. I’d like to point out that this was my very first time playing flip cup, and I think I did a pretty good job, nevermind that I spilled half my beer all over myself. Most of the fun was having a great team, and fun opponents.

For our wedding in November I want a life sized companion cube from Portal. I want to use it as an envelope box for gifts. I thought it was a pretty clever idea, and it’s got the pink heart on it and everything. Turns out I can’t seem to find anyone else that has done it. Maybe I finally came up with an original idea, who knows. I found two models that come close to what I want, Karen Chu who made one as part of her halloween costume and a PC case that someone made which is extremely clever. Both of these models require a talent which I don’t have… so if anyone knows of someone who would want to build it for me, please let me know.

I haven’t wrote in a while and figured it would be good if I got back into the swing of things. The school semester finally ended and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. Now I just wait for the grades. Mostly I am excited about getting back to the things that classes has kept me from, most importantly my cupcakes. They feel neglected. Since Memorial Day is coming up, and we’re having the annual BBQ, what better reason to make cupcakes! I also need to get back on those side project and… oh yah… plan a wedding. But cupcakes… gotta keep the priorities straight.

Back in January I was caught in a speed trap in the Williams tunnel in Boston. Although, I was riding alongside another car, I was picked out and pulled over. The officer said I was going 69 in a 45, which could quite possibly be true, I wasn’t looking at my speedometer and he had a LIDAR gun. So I took my $240 ticket and went home (going the speed limit of course).  This was my second speeding ticket ever (the first one being in 2002) and my first ticket in Massachusetts. So as I did with my first ticket, I was ready to pay it right away. I went online the next day to the Mass RMV site, entered in all of my information including my credit card number only to hit Submit and have them tell me my ticket wasn’t in the system yet and I had to wait 10 days to pay it. Very technologically advanced.

So in the meantime, I called my insurance company to see how much of a hit I was going to take since in Mass every moving violation increases the premium on your auto insurance. I still don’t understand how a speeding ticket affects my insurance policy, but that’s an argument for another time. The woman at my insurance company informed me that I would be paying about $200 more a year for the next 6 years… SIX YEARS. So my $240 moving violation fine was going to cost me $1,440. Super. But then the woman on the phone asked me to recall the events leading up to my ticket. I explained how I was on Mass Pike coming from Newton driving in the middle of 3 lanes. Once I reached Boston just before the Williams tunnel the left lane turned into an exit only, so I was paying more attention to the road signs rather than the speed limit sign. So I went into the tunnel going highway speed in the left lane, perfect target. Apparently, a cop is always standing around this corner in the tunnel so I probably should have known. The insurance lady told me to fight the ticket. She said based on what I had told her I would get off. I mentioned it to a few other people at work and they all told me the same thing. So I sent in my request for a hearing and waited for the date.

I few weeks later, I get a letter with the date which is 2 months from when I originally got the ticket. So I spent that time researching traffic laws in Mass and what to say and how to act and what to wear. In all my research, I find out the night prior that I go before a magistrate first, then I can appeal the magistrates decision before a judge. So the next day I dress up in business casual attire and head to South Boston. When I get there, there’s a long line of people waiting to see the magistrate, apparently fighting tickets is just as routine as buying bread. I was also the best dressed person there. One lady was actually in sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt. One guy brought a little baby along with him, I don’t think the magistrate fell for it. Then it was my turn, I walk in, sit down, moleskine in hand with all of notes and talking points only to have the officer tell the magistrate that this was my first ticket and she let me go. All that build up for nothing. She said that she typically lets first timers go. But in the end at least I got to go through the experience of (at least half way) fighting a ticket. And, my insurance doesn’t go up, which is the best part.

So if its your first time getting a speeding ticket, definitely request a hearing… worst case, you have to pay the original fine, but at least you have a chance of getting rid of it altogether. Also, if you are in Mass here are a few good tips I came across in my research:

How to Beat a Speeding Ticket
Unoffical Guide to the DMV

So far this is the best tutorial I’ve found for quickly learning REST using Rails. Rails REST 101 is actually on Softies on Rails but I couldn’t find a direct link to the table of contents (since it’s broken out into 5 lessons) on that site, but I found a good one here. Also check out the update for Rails 2.0 and newer.

A few months ago I joined a pledge to write a blog post about a woman in technology that I admire on Ada Lovelace Day, which is today. So the woman in tech that I admire the most is my sister-in-law, Krutika Patel.

Krutika graduated from Sardar Patel University in India with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and she is an Applications Developer for Aaron Rents, Inc. She is also one of the most talented people I know. She develops in C#, ASP.NET and the dying language of FoxPro as well as being a SQL guru. I can’t count how many times I’ve IM’ed her for help and have gotten a response (that works!) almost immediately. I’d like to think that is just because I am family but I know she’d do the same for just about anyone.

In addition to having a full-time career in IT, she is also the mother of two boys who are easily two of the smartest kids I know, no doubt to having a smart mom. What’s great to see is how Krutika lives in the typical southern community of stay-at-home mom’s and housewifes yet she is able to and is excited to have a career in the tech field doing something she is great at while still raising a family and being involved with her kids 100%. IT is a tough field on its own with new technology being creating so quickly, if you don’t keep up you get left behind.

Krutika’s ability to balance her family and her career in such a difficult and ever changing field is an inspiration to me and all the women who get the pleasure to meet and know her.

This week is restaurant week in Boston, and like every year we like to try a new restaurant as well as return to some of our favorites. Due to the not so pleasant economical situation we decided to limit our restaurant choices to two this time, one new and one vintage. Tangierino was our new. It’s a Moroccan restaurant with influences from the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

First, I was a bit annoyed that they did not have their restaurant week menu posted online to view (well there was a link that was dead). When we arrived at the restaurant, I thought the decor was a bit over the top, it was very dark, lots of colored drapes everywhere and the restaurant is like a maze. The hostess took us in a zig zag to the back of the restaurant to seat us by the window and there was no way I could find my way back to the restrooms. Another drawback was the fact that they only served the restaurant week menu where other restaurants give you the option of ordering from their regular menu if the restaurant week options do not appeal to you. Our waitress was trying to convince us that during restaurant week, restaurants only serve what is on the prix-fixe menu, I decided to let it go and not argue with her.

I started off with a lychee champagne drink that did not really taste like lychee at all, but was still good. For appetizer I got the lamb in phylo dough with an eggplant vegetable side, it was very good. The lamb wasn’t too strong, the phylo wasn’t very oily and I typically stay away from eggplant as it tends to get mushy when cooked, but it was mixed very well with spices. Alex got the tuna tartar for appetizer which was severely lacking in tuna. It was mostly diced up cucumber and mango with some guacamole and what I think was Russian dressing on top. There was very little tuna. In fact this is what it was supposed to look like, and I am now kicking myself that I didn’t take a picture of what we actually got, it looked nothing like that.

For my entree I got duck breast with mashed potatoes, and I was fairly unimpressed. It was delicious but a very small portion. In fact, it was three small, medium thick slices of duck and a small round of mashed potatoes. The duck was very tasty but the mashed potatoes were nothing special, there was no Middle Eastern or Moroccan twist to them, just regular mashed potatoes. Also on my plate was a single cooked fig and a single cooked apricot. Gladly, I have a smaller appetite so this sized portion was just right for me after the appetizer I had had. Alex had the chicken with couscous for entree and it was about five times the size of my meal. He got two large pieces of chicken and a very large helping of couscous with plenty of seasoned vegetables on top. It was a very tasty meal although you could get the feeling that it was meant to have more spice and more of a kick to it. Maybe they assumed people couldn’t handle the spice and made it bland.

Dessert is my absolute favorite meal, and it will make or break a restaurant experience for me. Unfortunately, it broke this one. First there were only two dessert options, flourless chocolate cake and fruit sorbet. I went with the flourless chocolate cake mostly because I knew Alex would go for the sorbet. Now, if you’ve had the flourless chocolate cake at McCormick and Schmick’s you can only imagine how excited I was to try this one. Sadly, this one was nothing even close to McCormick and Schmick’s, in fact our waitress was incorrect in saying that it was a cake, it is actually a souffle as stated on their menu. Had I known this, I would not have ordered it. When it came out, the “cake” was warm much like a souffle would be and the ice cream on the side was half melted. I took one bite of the “cake” and was done. It tasted like chocolate gelatin, it was one of the worst desserts I have had. I ate what was left of the ice cream on my plate and shared the sorbet. The sorbet was very good, watermelon and tangerine. It was sweet and tarty and very fruity.

Overall, the food was good but I felt for restaurant week they could have done a better job especially since they were not serving anything from their regular menu. The dessert was a big disappointment. I would give them another chance but I would order off of the regular menu and probably not get any of the items I had for restaurant week.

Who really reads the warning labels anyway?

I have recently been sporting a brilliant shade of purple in my hair (thanks to Shannon!), and I absolutely love it. Except that I need to touch it up now and again until I get the permanent version in there. Good thing is that the touch-up can be done myself at home, bad thing is that I end up making a mess doing it. So as I finished gooping up my head in what looked like blackberry jello pudding and I noticed I had gotten some color on my neck. I went to wipe it off and the color had already set, I knew it would have come off eventually after a few days, but I had big blotches of purple on my neck in the meantime. I tried using soap and a washcloth scrubbing hard and it didn’t even fade. Then I noticed the box of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers that we had just bought; clever me figured that if it can work on soapscum it could work on hair dye. If you’ve ever used a magic eraser you know that it feels pretty soft but seems to literally erase any kind of stain. Well it does work on hair dye, rather nicely I may add. The purple blotches came right off, except immediately afterwards my neck started to burn, and it was very sensitive when I touched it. That is when I decided to read the warnings on the box: “Do not use on skin.” They might as well have added “We’re talking to you, Anita.” I put some neosporin on it and the next day it had turned into a nice obvious red rash. So I basically just rubbed off a few layers of skin, I would have been better off with a purple blotch. Eventually the rash went away, but lesson learned: magic eraser is deceptively magical.

Last Tuesday evening I went to a Web Innovators conference at the Royal Sonesta hotel in Cambridge, MA.  Some time between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning my phone disappeared. Since I checked every possible place it could be, I’ve deduced that it got stolen at the hotel. So to the person who picked up a white iPhone that wasn’t yours, could you kindly return it please?

Yah, I know that’s very unlikely, but it was worth a shot. In the meantime, I’ve learned a very important lesson. And like most lessons for me I tend to be the last horse that crosses the finish line. My phone didn’t have the passcode enabled on it. In my defense I had it at one point but it became so tedious to type it in each time I wanted to use my phone (and I used it A LOT) that I just figured I didn’t need it. Boy was I wrong. When I realized I had lost it the first thing I did was try to call it and it went directly to voicemail. Since I knew the phone couldn’t have drained its battery overnight, I assumed someone found it and turned it off or it was in pieces. I immediately changed my email passwords and was able to confirm that whoever had it had not checked my email or made any phone calls. After changing my passwords and logging my account out of all sessions, I cancelled the phone and data service to the device. But that still doesn’t help with the fact that whoever has it can see all of my contacts, text messages, notes, pictures and other information I had on it. So it was a pretty steep price to pay to learn a valuable lesson on security. Now I am on the hunt for a better way to protect my phone than just the standard passcode (which I am most certainly using now). Ultimately, I want to be able to remotely wipe my phone clean whenever I need to as well as use the built-in GPS to track it. Please comment on what you’ve got or what you know of.

I am not as picky as some when it comes to writing utensils, since most of my writing is done on my computer. But recently I’ve been using my Moleskine Reporter Notebook to keep track of all of my to-do’s and random notes on the go. I was given a Pilot Frixion pen, it erases with a rubber nub using friction, very cool. It’s nothing like those erasable pens from the 90’s that burn a hole in your paper and you can still see the reminants of the ink. This pen erases clean away with no rubber shavings left behind. It’s genious! This is favorite pen to write with, with the Le Pen coming in close second…

The Pen Addict is having a giveaway for the new line of Pilot Frixion pens. But don’t enter, because I want to win!