the bits

Welp, the training is over. The instructor said he’d recommend us all for certification to deliver this material, which rocks… I had to wait quite a while to find out if I got certified to deliver the QuickTime Streaming Server course. How long, you ask? Why, until today, as a matter of fact… the training coordinator ladies came in and talked to us for a while, and I asked her what the status was for my QTSS cert, and she said that I’m all set… so, two certifications in one day! Wooop!

Everybody’s left now… I’m still hanging out in the trianing room. The instructor is finishing up compressing some quicktime movies of our presentations, and he’s letting me hang out in here until he has to split. It’s rather nice, actually… got the lights turned off, the beats pumping thru my ‘phones, enjoying the absurdly fast wireless network that spans the entire campus… I’ll be taking off shortly for the airport to turn in my rental car; my flight leaves San Jose at 8:20 or so, arrives in SeaTac at like 10:45… then it’s back to the ‘grind’ – well, after taking tomorrow off, that is ;)

Presented a chapter on Process management today… weehaw.

Victor, the developer of the QTSS training curriculum (and the instructor of the QTSS session in Santa Monica that I attended) dropped in just before lunch today, so he and I ate at the Macs Cafe. He pointed out a few notable personalities that happened by, and I bs’d about IRC :) Turns out his office is in the same building which houses the training room I’m in this week.

After class had concluded, I met up with Matthias (aka murr on opn), who works at 2 Infinite Loop, which is where the core OS / QuickTime development happens. I was gonna get a bunch of video, but it somehow felt sacriligious to do so, so I didn’t. Anyway, he showed me around a bit, and we talked about this and that… His development experience is insane.. 17 years of Mac dev, author of MacPerl, currently one of two guys that does all the speach stuff in Mac OS (synthesis and recognition). The speach stuff is incredibly interesting… it’s about the closest thing Apple has to AI. There’s way more going on under the hood than I ever imagined. I was fully impressed at the amenities at 2 I.L., including a pool table, a ping pong table, a handful of arcade games, and foose ball :) There was also a whole bunch of NeXT machines with what appeared to be every version of NeXT Step installed on them. I asked if they were actually used very much, and Matthias wasn’t sure, but he did mention that some of the developers keep NeXT machines around for reference purposes, which I think is pretty cool…

Anyway, tomorrow evening at 8:20, I fly back to Seattle. As much as I love being in Cupertino, I’ll be glad to be back home in my Chair and in proximity to all that makes Capitol Hill an attractive place to be :)

Another fun day of training :)

I presented a chapter today, and will do another tomorrow. I must say that I’m extremely pleased with the way things are turning out… the format of the training is really perfectly designed to allow for tangential discussions when necessary, so I never feel like we have to gloss over the important details / sticky points.

Our instructor posses a truly awesome amount of knowledge, and not just tech. related. Three times today he provided fairly high-end literary references that actually pertained to the discussions at hand… then tonight (we all went out for dinner together) I saw him doing sign-language really fast to somebody on the other end of our tables cause it was so loud in there… He’s an ex NeXT developer, and I got a chance to talk to him by myself tonight when he gave me a ride back to my car which was parked @ apple. It really really stokes me to be able to associate with and learn from this kind of person, and I get the feeling from walking around the apple campus that the place is loaded with them.

I was pretty sure before coming down here that I wanted to work for apple in Cupertino – now I’m absolutely sure of it. All things in time however… I’m quite pleased with my Seattle situation right now, and I expect to continue to be pleased with it for years to come.

Here’s a few clips for your multimedia-consuming delight.

Here’s the Sunday night recap

…and here’s the day 1 recap :)

Take a spin around 1 Infinite Loop!

Now it’s Tuesday morning, and class is about to start :)

Delayed… blarg

Flight was supposed to depart at 3:20, it’s now 3:24 and we won’t know when we can board until 5:00. Some kind of mechanical problem… I hope they fix it :)

Fortunately I at least have something to occupy my time while I wait… namely some new tunes courtesy of Damon. I’m also getting Bish ready to be my mobile video workstation for the next week. I’ve got a DV camera on loan (thanks again damon ;), and I plan to get plenty of stuff of the Apple campus and whatnot… plus it’ll be good practice for me as I continue to prepare for my Final Cut Pro presentation for the Apple Seminar program, and then also my Final Cut Pro classes which start in August…. got iMovie and Final Cut Pro ready and waiting on Bish, and Cleaner to provide some compression so I can upload segments during the week.

There’s a guy across the room with a TiBook and he keeps eyeing me. Wonder if he wants a showdown or something. “Look at him and his little iBook. I’ve got a TiBook”, he may be thinking to himself.

—

Now it’s most of the way though the first day… wow :) The Apple Campus is pretty damn leet, though I’ve only seen a small portion of it so far. There really aren’t any tours or anything, so I’m hoping I can get somebody to show me some of the different buildings. We had lunch at the Macs Cafe, which is a pretty choice place to eat… all sorts of different kinds of foods… even a big vegan section (not that I’m vegan or anything).

It seems as though I’m supposed to have taken this course as a student before going through the “T3” (train the trainer), which gets me certified to teach it. The QuickTime Streaming Server class rolled the instruction and the T3 all into one session… which isn’t the case here. Not to fear, however… since I’ve been living and breathing this stuff for a while now, I don’t really feel like I’m behind or anything. The only potential problem is that I’m not intensely familiar with the instructor materials (powerpoint slides, for example)…. but it seems as though some of the other people I’m here with are in the same boat.

My classmates are almost all Apple system engineers, mostly in k12, so I definitely feel like the geek factor is quite a bit higher than it was for the QuickTime Streaming Server class (in which there were only a few apple employees…).

Anyway, things are gewd :) I think I got my dialup situation straightened out, so I should be online tonight :)

I’ll be presenting the File Sharing chapter of Admin Basics and the Processes chapter of Server Essentials, which will be videotaped for later review by the certification people. I think I’ll also set up my webcam during my presentations so you can see me in action :)

*bling bling*

“Hello, this is Andre in sales, how can I help you?”

“This is Lauri from corporate.”

“Oh, hi Lauri.”

“I just wanted to make sure that next week is okay for you.”

“Next week… for what?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“We’re sending you to Cupertino next week for training.”

“REALLY?!?”

She giggles a bit at my enthusiasm and then proceeds to tell me that this time around, since the training is in Cupertino (which is Apple’s headquarters for those that may not know), they’re gonna try to put me up in some sort of Apple sponsored apartment scenario, where the Apple people live :) I told her that’d be fine by me…. heh. Also I guess this time they’re renting me a car. woo :)

So, more apple training… Lauri wasn’t even sure which particular session this is… my guess is either Server Essentials or Administration Basics, both of which are pretty squarely centered around Mac OS X Server. Most excellent :) I’m excited about the training, but I’m most excited about the fact that I finally get to go to Apple HQ. Being the mac jedi that I am means that I’ve felt the pull of Cupertino for quite some time – in fact, I expect to be working there for apple full time within the next few years…. but for now, a visit will be totally frickin awesome! wooop!

Another day, another dollar…

good: pretty decent sales today

bad: 12.5 hour work day

good: Apple came by the store after we closed for an xserve presentation

bad: they didn’t actually have one with them (supposedly they started production yesterday)

good: they did, however, supply free pizza and yes, even beer! (I had three, plus one for the road)…

bad: it’s tough to type with this bus bouncing all around like it is…. life is so hard ;)

good: I’m geekier than the rest of the llamas on the bus (go BLEET BLEET BLEET)

bad: the only people on the bus at this hour are either dead tired or in possesion of a rather elevated freak factor…. (I guess that’s really not so bad…. sure as hell beats the classic puritan superficial bullshit of small town USA)

good: tomorrow is my friday

good: I’ve got a dual gigahertz g4 tower on loan from my store for one whole month!

good: including NFR copies of final cut pro 3 and dvd studio pro (which I’m using to prepare myself to teach aforementioned software titles)

It’s totally interesting to me that all of this good and bad stuff is completely relative. Personal values change over time, but I still always seem to be able to find things that I consider “bad”, even if I really have it pretty damn good. It is for this reason that I think life is less about the destination and more about the journey. If one cannot be happy *now*, with whatever situation happens to be in effect (within reason), then maybe it’s not reasonable to think that one will be able to attain happiness through some worldly means…. or maybe this whole thing is just one big mind f*ck (or maybe that’s what consciousness is in the first place…. more likely, however, is that the beer has inspired dilusions of intellectual philanthropy, in the throes of which I currently endeavor to find a graceful end to this journal entry…)

that’ll do.

So, everything is good :)

As of yesterday, I became certified to teach: Setting up and Managing an Airport Network, Moving from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, and Getting Started with Mac OS X. These are somewhat new Apple curricula, and are much shorter in length and smaller in scope than, say, the three day Quicktime Streaming course and others. Consequently, all that’s required to become certified to teach them is existing Apple Certification (which technically I don’t have yet, but everybody just seemed to assume that I do… I should hear back from ‘them’ any time now), and participation in a conference call in which the curriculum is discussed, followed by a question / answer session… so, woo :)

Also, work wants me to start doing Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro classes, which is just fine by me… problem is I can’t practice cause my g4 is too damn gimpy. So I’m getting a loaner from work (hopefully tomorrow)… not sure what it’ll be, but I’m guessing either a 933 or dual Ghz powermac g4… I hope to have it for at least a few weeks ;) I’m currently planning to pick up a dual ghz after MacWorld in July (when the prices drop)…

I also got recruited to do a song and dance for the Seattle Digital SIG group (not sure what that stands for just yet, but they’re digital video peeps I think) about the general state of the mac platform / mac os x / high end apps, etc. I’m glad to have the ability to do different stuff than just sales all the time… I gotta have variety or I get stir crazy ;) My training offerings should begin soon, and as far as the training I’m taking, that’s also continuing to progress.

I’m waiting until next paycheck before I start to buy more stuff for the apartment, just cause I know that I can wait…

Other than that… uhm… just doing my thing, I guess :)

Got the rest of my stuff moved into the new space… computers are all set up; ethernet is strung downstairs…

Did some basic grocery shopping… it’s starting to dawn on me how much stupid stuff I need to buy… I’m gonna do my best to keep it as simple as possible… I’m looking for the perfect mix of style and minimalism :)

Snapped some photos of the new space for all to enjoy….

I’ve said it a few times, but it bears repeating: thank you so much blackmagic and inflammatio for being such excellent hosts over the past couple of months… I totally had a blast hangin’ with you two, and the good times have only begun since I’m like right next door and all :)

In other news, I got phoned by Arnold the other day while at work. I picked it up and there was that thick austrian accent that I recognized immediately from the various Arnold prank calls I’ve heard. I accidentally let on that I knew what was going on… would have been more fun to play along. He still kept grilling me for a few minutes… “Who is your daddy and what does he do?!”… or “Tell me what you want?” or “My name is John Kimble… I’m a cop you idiot!”… heh.

fin