Even though it was magnitude 3.6, and the epicenter was about 10 miles away, it just barely woke me, and I wasn’t really sure at the time if was a quake or if a particularly heavy freight train had just passed. After all, I live pretty close to the railroad tracks, and have learned to sleep through quite a bit of rumbling. Also, it’s not unusual for pictures on the wall to rattle a bit when a big train goes by.

Still, I had a vague sense that this was not just a train. Checking the USGS web site, I discovered that this had, in fact, been the largest earthquake in Maryland since the 3.1 Hancock, MD tremor in 1978.

There was no damage anywhere that I could see, and although Twitter traffic didn’t show anything, I soon found quite a few Facebook statuses mentioning the quake ( the majority seem to have slept through it).

No car alarms, no sirens, and a lot less shaking than in the San Francisco area quakes I’ve experienced.

Still, it’s something to talk about. Almost worthy of a blog post.

The USGS places the precise epicenter is at 39.167°N, 77.252°W:

View July 16, 2010 Earthquake in a larger map

Traces from the Maryland Geologic Survey

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

I quickly discovered that I wasn’t the only one who had been waiting for this opening. When I arrived at about 7PM, it was very crowded both upstairs and down (and extremely noisy downstairs), with quite a waiting list at the Hostess’ station.

I was expecting some friends to be there ahead of me, so I wandered around looking for them and got my first beer – a Cask Conditioned Oliver’s Ale (Baltimore, MD). Upon discovering that my friends weren’t going to be there, I inquired with the Hostess about the approximate wait time for a party of one, and was delighted to find that Meridian has a communal table, and there was one vacancy. Brilliant! Not only was I seated immediately, but I also got to meet several other diners and see more of the food.

My first neighbors were just finishing Half Smokes with Pork Chili and some French Fries with Rarebit Sauce (both of which they recommended). On the other side, another new friend was just receiving her Burger with Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Grilled Onions, which was also rated a winner.

I had been looking at the menu online since early May, and already knew what I would order: The Double Cut Brined Pork Chop with Rhubarb-Hard Cider Sauce. It was served with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Braised Kale, which I paired with a Trade Winds Tripel, from The Bruery (Orange County, CA). My order arrived in a very reasonable time, as I chatted with my fellows at the communal table. The Pork Chop was tender and moist, a very generous serving, nicely set off by the sauce. I would highly recommend this to anyone with a good appetite.

As some folks moved on, I acquired new neighbors at the table, who ordered the Pork Quesadilla, Grilled Trout, and Braised Short Ribs. Once again, I heard no complaints.

As I was finishing my meal, Chef David Shewmaker dropped by and chatted for a few minutes. I introduced him to some of my new friends, and we all complimented and congratulated him.

I rounded out the evening with a pint of Old Rasputin Stout from North Coast Brewery (Fort Bragg, CA).

I’ve seen several restaurant openings, and they usually start out well enough, but crash and burn before the evening is done because they are simply not fully prepared. Not so at Meridian Pint – everything appeared to be running smoothly my entire time there, and the word from some of my new friends was that it continued to do so well into the night.

Congratulations to the team at Meridian Pint on an excellent opening night. I hope to be returning often and for many years to come.

Meridian Pint – http://meridianpint.com/ – 3400 11th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

In part, it was a social experiment. I had recently completed a contract which had me living with Navy SEALs for a few months, and had begun to see the differences in how others reacted to the guys with and without tattoos. It was long before tattoos had gone mainstream – in fact, tattoo parlors were still illegal in New York City, as well as many other places. Still, I felt a tattoo fitted who I was at the time, and decided to get one which could easily be covered by a short-sleeve shirt, and which could also be partially or fully exposed, if I so desired.

I commissioned the artwork from Dawn Wilson, a well-known Science Fiction illustrator, and was very pleased with the design she came up with. Then, I set out to find a tattoo parlor and learn more about what was involved. I ended up visiting every tattoo artist I could find from New York through Virginia, and met a lot of interesting characters. That story will have to wait for a much longer post (or series of posts).

Early in 1984, I settled on Great Southern Tattoo in College Park, MD. Charley And Sandy Parsons were (and are) talented artists, and they sterilized all of their needles in an autoclave. I felt safer there, and I liked them personally. This was, incidentally, just a few months before my daughter was born.

Having found the tattoo parlor, I sat for a 2 1/2 hour session, and then the social experiment started. The details of this will also have to wait, but I feel confident that I would not get similar reactions if I were to do it today. I have also never regretted having the tattoo. I’m still looking for old photos of the actual tattoo, but haven’t found any so far.

Original artwork for my tattoo

Fast forward 22 years. I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and underwent surgery and radiation treatments. My Radiation Oncologist tattooed a grid of dots on my body to ensure that I was lined up exactly the same in the beam every day.

This gave my darling Goth Princess daughter the idea to have a tattoo done in my honor (by this time, she already had three). Over the course  of the next couple of years, Maeve had a friend design the tattoo, and worked in a number of features referring to me:

1. It’s a Mermaid
2. Her shirt is made from a torn-up Diver flag
3. She is holding a Chaos symbol
4. Hidden in her hair are my initials

Maeve had her tattoo done at Read Street Tattoo Parlor in Baltimore, MD. All in all, it took 3 sessions and a total of 4 1/2 hours. It was supposed to be a surprise, but when the time came for her first appointment, nobody else was available to sit with her, so she called me. With the cat out of the bag, I accompanied Maeve for all three sessions Here are photos taken at the end of each one.

The folks at Read Street were interested in seeing my “old school” tattoo, and until I found myself having to explain what it was, I hadn’t realized just how much it had faded over 26 years. So, I went back to Great Southern (at their new location in Alexandria, VA), and had mine touched up. It took about 2 hours, and came out great. What’s more, they did it for free, explaining that their work is guaranteed, and that includes touch-ups. You can’t beat that for customer service.

Once I find an  old photo of my tattoo, I’ll add it here. Here is a before and after, though. The first was taken the day before my touch-up, the second as soon as it was done.

If you’re in the Baltimore-Washington area and looking to have a tattoo done, consider Read Street Tattoo Parlor and Great Southern Tattoo.

Posted from Alexandria, Virginia, United States.

The biggest one first, even though it comes second (as they both involve time travel, it doesn’t matter). On Saturday, 3 April, the eleventh Doctor (and the youngest one ever), Matt Smith, arrives for his first adventure in “The Eleventh Hour”:

The Doctor has regenerated into a brand new man, but danger strikes before he can even recover. With the TARDIS wrecked, and the sonic screwdriver destroyed, the new Doctor has just 20 minutes to save the whole world – and only Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) to help him.

And on Friday, 2 April, Philip Glenister and Keeley Hawes return for a final time in the time-travelling drama Ashes To Ashes:

The third and final series of Ashes to Ashes is back – and it’s a real slap in the face for DI Alex Drake. Time travelling copper Alex thought she’d made it home to the present day, but wakes to find herself in a hospital bed back in 1983, having been shot by her boss, DCI Gene Hunt, three months ago.

Back in CID a lot has changed; with Gene on the run, Ray Carling has been promoted to DI and is running the show, while DC Chris Skelton and WPC Shaz Granger have ended their romance and new Discipline and Complaints officer, DCI Jim Keats, is breathing down everyone’s necks.

6 April 2010 Update

The new Series of Doctor Who will have its US premiere just two weeks later, 17 April, on BBC America.

Also, while the US won’t see Series 3 of Ashes to Ashes for a while, Series 2 starts 11 May on BBC America.

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

IT jobs, and probably all jobs, were incredibly scarce in 2009. I’m beginning to see signs that the situation is improving. I’ve been getting more interviews in the past couple of months, but that doesn’t mean a lot until I can actually land a position somewhere.

While it is somewhat depressing, the experience hasn’t been all bad. I had the opportunity to get some up-to-date studio training and set up my Voice Over business, and have been doing some long-overdue work around the house.

Also, thanks to the very generous severance package from Sun, I’m still paying the bills, and I’m not desperate (yet).

Anybody need a slightly used Technology Evangelist?

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m happy that the end of uncertainties stemming from over a year of this acquisition process (first with IBM, then with Oracle) will allow things to finally move ahead, and for customers to begin making forward-looking decisions for their computing hardware purchases.

On the other, the culture at Sun is about to be irreversibly changed, as Sun sinks below the horizon and becomes part of the largely-soulless software giant.

I will also miss the huge number of friends I made in my years at Sun (at the time of my RIF notice, I had been there almost precisely 1/3 of my life), and being part of a company where, as Scott McNealy said, we “Kicked Butt, Had Fun, Didn’t Cheat, Loved Our Customers, and Changed Computing Forever”.

After seeing both Russell Tovey (George) and Sinead Keenan (Nina) in the final David Tennant episode of Dr. Who, I found that I was more than ready to get back to this brilliantly written show.

Being Human is a comedy-drama series about three twenty-something housemates trying to live normal lives, despite struggling with unusual afflictions – one is a werewolf, one is a vampire and the other is a ghost. They face a human threat in the form of the mysterious Professor Jaggat and the cold-hearted Kemp. Jaggat and Kemp are fundamentalist Christians who have discovered the existence of vampires, werewolves and ghosts – and are determined to destroy them or carry out brutal experiments upon them. They believe that vampires are the Devil incarnate and must be destroyed; that werewolves contain an evil gene that can be removed by violent scientific experiments; and that ghosts must be forced over to the other side whether they like it or not.

1 February 2010 Update

Series 2 will be ending later this month, but BBC have already announced that a third series has already been commissioned, so we can expect new episodes at about this time next year!

21 May 2010 Update

Series 2 will come to BBC America starting on Saturday, 24 July.

Today, Oracle actually mentioned SPARC in an ad in the Wall Street Journal.

This might not seem like much, but it’s a huge change. There hasn’t been any marketing mention from Sun about SPARC systems in nearly a year (the newest SPARC server, the SPARC Enterprise T5440, was introduced in October of 2008).

While my little team travelled the Americas telling anyone who would listen why SPARC was still important, the Sun executives simply stopped mentioning SPARC, instead talking up the x64 products which are, let’s face it, almost identical to everybody else’s x64 products.

Even Jonathan Schwartz hasn’t blogged about SPARC in over two years!

Then, my whole SPARC team got torn apart, and most of us were laid off in May in preparation to sell Sun to IBM.

But IBM isn’t buying Sun. Oracle is (probably). And while Sun hasn’t mentioned SPARC in advertising in a year, suddenly Oracle has.

Makes me feel good.

Sun Ad from 15 Oct 2009 WSJ

I actually had the idea to do this some time ago. When I have looked into getting work as a Voice Actor in the past, the biggest obstacle was that I didn’t have a Demo, and getting a Demo produced would mean spending quite a bit of time in the studio.

So, finding myself suddenly free from the daily grind, I almost immediately went up to Schenectady, NY to take some classes and record tracks with Voice Coaches (see my earlier blog entry here). After a couple of months of work, the production work on my demo was done, and as of today, my new web site is live.

Please go and visit the new site, listen to demos, and most importantly, tell your friends about me if they are doing anything that could use a professional Voice Over.

I’ve been waiting for the iPhone version of Google Latitude for months. It’s a nifty way to find out where your friends are, or which ones are close by. It might seem like a loss of privacy, but if you’re already blogging, tweeting, and/or Facebooking your life away, this shouldn’t bother you too much. Also, it has some pretty nice privacy features to allow you to hide when you want, as well as to control the quality of position you show on a person-by-person basis.

The Latitude page has been saying that it’s coming soon for iPhone and iPod touch for quite some time. I’ve been using it on my laptop for several weeks, but if I want to keep my location updated, my phone is the obvious choice of device from which to do it.

If you have an iPhone, chances are you can get Latitude working, though it might take a few tries. On Mobile Safari, browse to m.google.com/latitude, and you will either get right in to Latitude, or you will get a “Coming Soon” page (which is what I got, at first).

Just keep reloading the page every once in a while (I had to do it 6 or 7 times), and you may eventually find yourself using latitude. Press the “+” on the bottom toolbar, and add a shortcut icon to your Home Screen, so you can get back to it.