cryptic

me: any idea
me: Invalid xml declaration.
me: Line: 2 Character: 3
me: extra return character
lou: cryptic motherfucker

Happy Birthday TickerHound!

It's been a year since we officially launched TickerHound!
It's been a year of sleepless nights, antisocial weekends and caffeine induced coding sessions.
It was/still is a hell of a ride and I love (almost) every single moment of it. This is by no means the end - far from it! Like Wayne said: "we're just getting started!"

Here are some memories, lessons, highlights:

• Outsourced Indian firm: getting the project back from them with most of the code - a couple thousand lines or so - in ONE file. We had to take it apart and pretty much redo the whole thing from the ground up.
• The Crash: the site crashed 15 minutes into the launch. We should have cached like I suggested; I should have stepped up and made us cache. We've gone a LONG way since then. We're now on an auto-scaling architecture at RightScale, leveraging Amazon Web Services (EC2/S3/SQS).
  
• Workspace: our apartments to Starbucks to SunShine Suites. Upgrades at SunShine: the small dark cubicle space (4th floor) to the slightly bigger, brighter but noisier and smellier cubicle space (6th floor) and finally to the nice 3 cubicle space by the window.
• Hired Help: I want to thank everyone who's pitched in and contributed. Good or bad, we wouldn't be here without you.
• Lou: Our third official hire. With him on board, we took TickerHound to the next level. The first time Lou was meeting us, he was late. He was late because he missed the bus. He missed the bus because he passed out on top of a sugar silo in Montreal the night before.
• TickerHound Members: we definitely wouldn't be here without you. You ARE TickerHound. Thank You!
• Software: I no longer get laughed at by the tech community for using DreamWeaver. I'm usually using Eclipse and sometimes VI.
• Hardware: I still get laughed at for having my variety of gadgets: curved keyboard, logitech revolution mice, laptop coolers, headphones, monitors. At the center of it all: my MacBook Pro - still trucking!
• Wayne: Thanks for fishing me out of the menial 9-5 job (no disrespect to my last job, nine to five business casual is just not my thing). It's the most fun I've had working. There's no other way to do it. "It's your world squirrel - I'm just trying to get a nut"

m'sk m'sk m'ks

Florida in December

TickerHound (Wayne, Lou and me) are in South Florida for two weeks to do meetings.


We got a pimping condo: big kitchen, hot tub, hd flat screen, high speed internet... the works. The TickerHound mobile (rental car)... not so much. It's a Dodge Magnum (I didn't want to drive the Celine Dion car; Pacifica).


I'm not really complaining considering I took this picture when it was about 20 degrees in New York (yes, I did check the weather, just so I can rub it in my friends' faces)


Dinner impossible night: I had to make food for 5 people but only had enough material for 3. Starter: Almond Crusted Goat Cheese on Salad of Arugula. Main: Rigatoni with Meat Sauce


Used everything on hand. Added an appetizer and used white bread crumbs and cheap wine to stretch the sauce.


Lou and I grabbed our cameras and drove down to South Beach for a day trip.


Seriously, the following conversation occured right before me seeing that...
Me: This beach is frickin empty! Where are the topless chicks?
Lou: I don't know what they're doing over there but we should be part of that action.


One more with boobies


Obligatory shot of palm tree and coconuts


This guy loves the water.


We sat at a cafe type thing along Ocean Ave. and sucked down giant fruity frozen drinks while waiting Chris to drive down for dinner.

We had dinner at Nemo (sorry, didn't bring the camera with me so no pictures). Nemo had one of the best Chilean Sea Bass I've ever had: crisp on the outside, perfectly cooked all over, great sauce. After dinner Chris took us to The Florida Room in the basement of the Delano hotel to check out the live band. The Fox Brothers Band was playing some wicked latin jazz.