Farewell, Gainesville

After two years of living in Gainesville, Cherry finally moved back to Melbourne yesterday. She still has a couple of classes yet to take, but they are available online, so she doesn't have to stay in Gainesville for them.


It was certainly an interesting couple of years! Cherry was exceedingly excited when she first got accepted to UF, but had a tough time adjusting to life in Gainesville at a top tier university in her first semester there. She had settled down a bit by her second semester, but she still had some trouble in some of her classes, especially BPI, or Business Processes I.


By her third semester, though, she was a regular pro at UF life. We went to every Gator football game together, with Ed, that season, and what a great season it was!


Cherry was much more in rhythm during her second year in Gainesville. It got off to a bit of a rough start, but she was no longer stressing a lot over school and was able to make some new friends.


It really does seem like just yesterday that we started living apart again, after just living together a few years earlier. We're definitely looking forward to the next phase of our life!

HP Computers - Racist?

I was actually going to post a nice, meaningful post about Cherry moving back from Gainesville and my latest MBA class meeting, but seeing as I haven't gotten my photos in order yet, and Karn showed me this video, I had to share it with you all first. Enjoy!

Jordan's Wedding - Part III: Breaking the Ice

Despite going to bed at after 6AM on Thursday night, Pablo and I were up at about 9:15 AM on Friday morning. You see, we had heard that the complimentary hot breakfast was pretty good, and we had to see for ourselves. Plus, I didn't want to miss out on the new day!

After breakfast, we went back upstairs and woke up the rest of the group. We played some more Street Fighter while the others got freshened up. Before long, we were piled up again in our Rav4 and on our way to Jordan's house to drop off his car (which he had left behind at our hotel the night before).


So, Jordan lives in this nice old neighborhood where everybody owns gobs and gobs of land. Seeing vast expanses of grass makes me want to frolic uncontrollably, like so: Click to see video

Once we got inside the house, we met up with Jordan and his grandmother, Nana, who is looking fantastic at 93 years old! She is also sharp as a tack - despite only having met Paul and George previously, she was able to identify the rest of our party based only on descriptions from Jordan and possibly a few old photos! Plus, she is a Gator fan and talked heartily about how she hoped Tebow would win the Heisman (which, as we all unfortunately expected, didn't happen this year)!


After leaving Jordan's house, we made our way back to Downtown St. Louis. We found parking near the Gateway Arch, undoubtedly the main attraction of the city (though co-worker Neil found himself much more interested in the Anheuser Busch brewery).


Not sure how difficult it would be to get tickets to go up into the Arch, we headed straight there... that is, until us Floridians came across something fascinating that we'd never seen before: a frozen pond! We spent about thirty minutes standing on the pond, breaking the ice (literally), and throwing chunks of ice across the pond before we had our fill of one of the joys of living up north! Click on the links for videos of our playtime!


Stay tuned as we go up into the St. Louis Gateway Arch in Part IV of this miniseries!

Jordan's Wedding - Part II: Going Out on the Town

With our party assembled, the group finally headed out to dinner. Jordan had asked me where we wanted to eat. Having had some experience in the Midwest, I knew the answer to that one - anywhere with huge portions of meat. I could almost endure the ridiculous Midwest winters just for the wonderful meat alone. Almost.


So, we made our way over to McGurk's, a pretty swanky place that served, among other things, great cuts of steak. We met up with Jordan's childhood friend and neighbor, Todd, who turned out to be a really cool dude. We caught up on each others' lives, but perhaps the most interesting story was Paul's shared story of when he came once to visit Jordan and Jordan used his rental car to do a "lawn job" on the neighborhood asshole's lawn, then proceeded to crash it into his sister's car!


After dinner, we dropped Todd's car off at his house, then back to our hotel to have a few beers and otherwise get ready for the night's festivities. Of course, once Todd saw our secret weapon, the Super Nintendo, he had to get in on the action, so we happily obliged.


Finally, we were ready to head out. All seven of us piled into the Rav4 and headed to Downtown St. Louis, where we got a few fantastic shots of the famous Gateway to the West, the St. Louis Arch.


After shopping around for a bar or club, we finally landed at Big Daddy's on "The Landing", the main bar street in downtown St. Louis, where we met up with Jordan's future (now current) brother-in-law and our arch-nemesis for the remainder of the trip, Joe. Jordan had apparently been pressured into bringing the 24-year-old Joe along on our adventures that night, no doubt to chaperon us. We tried to drag it out as long as we could so Joe would get tired and leave on his own. When we left at 2AM, Pablo even put on an Oscar performance as he feigned drunkenness to try to end the night early for him!


Alas, our efforts were lost and we ended up taking Joe along for the ride to Eastern St. Louis, which is actually in a very shady part of town, and not even in the state of Missouri at all. East St. Louis is actually in Illinois, where the, shall we say, adult establishments stay open till the wee hours in the morning. Right on cue, however, Joe stymied our plan by keeping Jordan outside in the cold and lecturing about who knows what (Jordan's in-laws are very conservative people) for almost an hour. When Lucas and I went out to just drag Jordan in, Joe grabbed Lucas' shirt, and I backed up my fellow La Manchan by knocking his hand away. Joe took that as a cue to come after me! Now, I'm not normally a violent person by any means, but I have been known to throw down on occasion! Fortunately, Jordan and Todd were able to calm things down a bit before we got trounced by the bouncers at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club!

Unfortunately, by the time Joe finally let Jordan into the club, it was almost closing time. We were able to stay for about 45 minutes and watched a few dancers. Most were of the "meh" category, but there was one that put on an impressively acrobatic show with the spinning wheel and the poles - and much to the rest of our group's amusement, she turned Paul down when he went up to her for a lap dance. And, if that weren't enough, he was shut down yet again when he asked another one after being blown off by the first! That's right folks, we are so lame that even strippers would turn us and our money away!


Stay tuned for Part III!

Boeing 787 First Flight!

Hot news!


The Boeing 787, AKA "Dreamliner", finally made its first flight yesterday after a nearly two year delay. This event was especially significant for my company since we provided the avionics package for it.

Check out the features and the video webcast of the flight here: Boeing 787 Dreamliner First Flight

Ping Pong Prodigy

Yay for YouTube Cop-outs!

Seriously though, this girl is pretty good. Speed, agility, power. All on demonstration in the video. Enjoy!

Jordan's Wedding - Part I: Fellowship of La Mancha

I've been a pretty busy traveler this past year. Earlier in the summer, Cherry and I took a short trip to Key West, then we took another trip a bit further away to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee in early Fall.

A couple of months ago, my good friend and former roommate from UF, Jordan, called me up. I met Jordan in my sophomore year at Florida, the year after I lived at La Mancha. Most of my friends at the time (and even today) were either from another country or of another nationality, so Jordan, with his blond hair and Midwestern background, became affectionately known as the Gringo of the group. Through a series of events, he ended up having to go back home to Missouri to finish his studies, so I hadn't seen him in about eight years. So, I was a bit surprised when he suddenly invited me to his wedding. Jordan lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and the wedding was scheduled to be in mid December, so it wasn't looking too attractive at the time. However, I finally gave in to my emotions and booked my trip.


Former roommate Paul had arrived the day before. Paul was the oldest in our group, and was born in Uruguay, though he also has some Argentine blood in him. Despite his Hispanic background, having traveled a lot in his childhood caused him to essentially lose any semblance of a Spanish accent. Paul moved in with me and Jordan during my junior year at UF, when I moved away from the infamous Royal Village apartment 128 seeking a quieter, less smokey life (which wasn't entirely successful, but an improvement nontheless!). After graduating, he moved to Atlanta, where he currently lives and works. At about 6'5", he is also easily the tallest member of our group, not that that has anything to do with anything!


Jordan and Paul picked up Lucas early on Thursday morning. Lucas is from Argentina, but of Scottish descent. He studied primarily Geology at the University of Florida and fell in love with the beach while he was in Gainesville, joining us several times for trips to St. Augustine. He was roommates with Paul while they were at La Mancha, but currently lives in paradise on Oahu, Hawaii, where he is working on his Ph. D at the University of Hawaii and "working" on research dives and cruises when he isn't surfing. He would later coin the catchphrase of our trip: "Just Show Me the F*cking B*tches!!!"


Meanwhile, also on Thursday morning, I headed out on my way. My bag couldn't fit in the storage bin, so they made me check it all the way through to St. Louis. Unfortunately, before I let them take it away, I neglected to retrieve my coat, so, when I had to freeze my butt off in 18 degree weather in jeans and a T-shirt when I boarded the plane from the tarmac at my layover in Cincinnati! Not long after, I landed in St. Louis, where I met up with former roommate Pablo. Pablo was the first person I talked to when I got to Gainesville, as I met up with him at the bank on campus as we were setting up our bank accounts. That day, he was excited to tell me that he was from Costa Rica, but I was pretty disinterested, and more or less brushed him off! We later found out that we actually lived in the same apartment complex (La Mancha) and became good friends and later roommates in the aforementioned Royal Village apartment 128 thereafter. After graduating, Pablo moved to Philadelphia, making him the northernmost resident among us.

After meeting up with him, Pablo and I picked up the Rav4 that would serve as our group's transportation for the next few days. Hungry as we were, we headed over to Jimmy John's to grab a bite to eat, then set up our "secret weapon", the Super Nintendo, and played Super Street Fighter II while we waited for the rest of the party to arrive.


While we were playing, Jordan, Paul, and Lucas went and picked up former roommate George, who should have arrived the night before to split the cost of the hotel with Paul but couldn't make it due to flight cancellation. George, like me, is an ABC. However, unlike me, he is an American Born Colombian, not an American Born Chinese. He has a tendency to inevitably show up in every photo taken, wherever he is. He currently works in Miami, FL.


And thus begins our story...

Wufoo's Net Promoter Score

The following feature is an "A" paper that I wrote for my Business-to-Business marketing class. In fact, it was my best paper yet - the teacher said it was "flawless". Like Mortal Kombat. Xtreme!

The context is on whether or not a Website can provide a "Delightful Customer Experience". With Karn's help, we found the site Wufoo.com, and I wrote my assignment on it. Wufoo certainly sounds like a pretty cool tool to use, if you need that kind of thing. The paper below will let you know all about it! - Grantis Mantis

As an early adopter of the World Wide Web in the 90s, I was never able to create the web empire I imagined I would when I created my very first website. Contrary to popular belief, not all engineers are great coders, and to this day, my claims on web space remain little more than venues where I express haphazard trains of thought and share photos and other media. While my failure to make it big in web-commerce is likely due to lack of effort, the ability to create online forms for registration, surveys, invitations, and payment without knowing a lick of code could have helped me overcome my lack of software prowess. As this very assignment references, companies today need to have robust websites with all of the aforementioned features. While companies could use their own resources or hire contractors to develop these features for their website, they could save substantially if there were an easy way to create professional looking forms. Startup company Infinity Box’s website, Wufoo.com, provides individuals and companies alike a way to do just that.

Wufoo.com is a website that provides an interface to create online forms for various purposes. Their website is similar in design to many so-called Web 2.0 websites, with clean presentation, bold colors, and easy to read text. Titles and subtitles are shown in a whimsical text to match the site’s whimsical name, which, as the site’s FAQ explains, was derived as a combination of the names of music groups Wu-Tang Clan and Foo Fighters. Just as attractive presentation can help a salesperson close more deals, an aesthetically pleasing website helps to create a better experience for potential customers, and Wufoo.com is, if nothing else, an attractive website:

The presentation of the website also makes it very easy for potential customers to get around and find information. Clear links are presented on the homepage, leading to pages that explain their product, show some examples, and allow potential customers to try it out for free. A variable splash page shows how Wufoo can help enhance websites for individuals, businesses, education, and payment interfaces. Additional links take customers to detailed product features, information about the company, FAQ pages, explanation of pricing, and also a list of prominent clients that use Wufoo.com, a list that includes companies such as Microsoft, Best Buy, Disney, J. Crew, the American Red Cross, Amazon.com, and Ycombinator (the venture capital firm that incubated Infinity Box when they were getting started). Most technically impressive is the site’s interactive tour, which contains videos demonstrating the site’s features.

Payment is safe and easy, as the site is encrypted for security. As previously mentioned, there is a clear link to the pricing information on the homepage, clearly showing the prices for the different levels of service, which is quite competitive considering the alternative of hiring IT to maintain your forms. When you are ready to try the product, clicking on another link takes the customer to a registration form no doubt created using Wufoo.com, where you can either make up to three forms for free or go “all-in” and purchase the service.

If potential customers have any further questions or comments about Wufoo.com, there is a link on the site that launches a pop-up window where the customer can ask questions and provide feedback directly to Infinity Box. Users, potential customers, and fans of the company or site can stay on top of updates via the company’s blog or through Twitter and Flickr. Furthermore, as with any self-respecting Web 2.0 site, Wufoo.com also has a member forum where users can show off their Wufoo.com creations, find tips and advice, or request new or improved features.

After thoroughly going through the features of Infinity Box’s nifty form-making website, I give Wufoo.com a solid 9 on the NPS scale. The site is intuitive, easy to navigate, attractive, and it provides any information you could want and ample opportunities to ask if you don’t find what you need. An informal survey of ten friends, plus me, resulted in the following splits:

No. Promoters: 7
No. Neutral: 4
No. Detractors: 0

These scores yielded a total combine Net Promoter Score of 63.6% (which is quite good - anything above a 50% is excellent!)

I discussed the scores with each of my survey takers. All agreed that Wufoo.com is an attractive site that is easy to get around and get information about. One immediately recommended it to his fraternity, which is always looking for better ways to collect dues. The most negative feedback came from individuals with experience in web design and IT, who thought that the price was a little high, that the data would be kept on Infinity Box’s own servers (rather than the customer’s server), and that “there are people who could do it better”, no doubt indicating themselves. However, they agreed that for people who have less software or web design experience, Wufoo seemed like an excellent tool that was a good alternative to hiring a full-time IT employee or was handy for anyone wishing to put together a quick and easy website.

Why Gold Medals go to China

The previously aforementioned Kaveh sent me this photo series this afternoon, and as many China related stories do, it got me thinking a bit.

The photos are proof that hard work is the single greatest factor that contributes towards success. Think we've got it tough?

It's an interesting dilemma - these kids sacrifice their childhoods and go through intense pain, and only a select few will ever truly be super successful, but those who make it achieve fame and fortune, as well as pride. Reportedly, many of the "best of the best" in other countries, including the U.S., go through excruciatingly tough regiments as well, though here it is either a choice they or their parents make, rather than their country.

The burning question: is it worth it?

Kaveh's Visit

My good friend and fellow Tri-fectorate member Kaveh came up to visit me this past Monday. He travels quite frequently for his job, and is also in a long distance relationship, so like me, he often drives down to work from his significant other's apartment in Jacksonville early on Monday mornings, and has done so since last year. Realizing that we were both driving early this past Monday morning, he called me and we chatted for about two hours, making the drive go much quicker.

Turns out that Kaveh works just about half an hour from where I live, so he decided to come up an watch Monday Night Football after work. It was his first time in Melbourne, so I took him for a drive down to Historic Downtown Melbourne before we stopped at Duffy's for dinner and to watch the Monday Night game between the Packers and Ravens. Of course, we were more interested in mourning together about the Gators loss this past weekend, so we headed out after finishing our great value dinners (Duffy's apparently has $9.99 entrees on any menu item on Monday nights, including full rack baby rack ribs that were fall-off-the-bone, just how I like them), but not before running into Alex and Neil, who had just gotten off work at 9:30PM!


Of course, I couldn't let Kaveh leave without taking a photo for Grant's Pad with my Canon PowerShot SD1200IS ELPH camera! The picture came out pretty nice, despite how foggy it was!

It was a pretty short visit, but we had a lot of fun and talked and talked and talked about Gator football. Kaveh doesn't live that far away - we should really visit more often!

And it all comes crashing down...

So this is what the Patriots must have felt like in 2007...

32-13, Alabama wins over Florida. It was a good run, but Alabama executed, shredded Florida's vaunted Defense, and prevented Tim Tebow and Co. from making history this season.

The Life of Urban

Surfing around the Gator Boards in the last few days before the showdown between No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Alabama, I came across this incredible article about Florida Head Coach Urban Meyer.

I never knew much about him, especially outside of his coaching life, but this article really dives deep. Read it!

Urban Meyer Article

Mario's Maker

The long article below is an interview with Super Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, conducted by the current president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata. It's a very nice look into just what went on in creating the most famous video game mascot on Earth, even more famous than Mickey Mouse, and also gives us a look at the newest Mario game, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, available for sale today at Grant's Pad Super Store!

Iwata Asks: New Super Mario Bros. Wii


Enjoy!

Grant's Pad Super Store Grand Opening!

Coming to a blog near you, it's the Grant's Pad Super Store! Get all of your Nintendo games, electronic gadgets, Gator Gear, and Kung Fu/Fitness equipment here! Keep an eye out for new products by visiting the store from the Grant's Pad Links in the sidebar!


For those of you asking, yes, I do get kickbacks when you buy from my Amazon Associates store. But if you were planning on getting things like this anyway, please buy from me!

Thanks to Karn for the heads up on this awesome new feature! Visit his store here!