Greg Ferguson's BLOG

San Diego is a great sports city. The people of San Diego are die-hard fans. The Chargers and the Padres enjoy some of the most loyal fans in all of professional sports. Last year the people of San Diego received a gift from the city, a new ballpark. Now the Chargers are still waiting for their new stadium, but I’m not here to talk about that.

I recently got a chance to visit Petco Park with Stefanie. We have a few photographs to share our experience.

When in Rome do as the Roman’s do. When trying to get to the stadium there are two modes of transportation. You can navigate the maze of one way streets and overpriced parking. Or you can take the trolley into the city. Stef and I opted for the trolley, and for $4.50 a piece you can ride the trolley into and out of the city.

Petco Park is more spacious than other ballparks that I have been to. The pavilion above the seats where concessions are sold makes the ballpark seem magnificent. The seats at Petco park are also very close to home plate. There isn’t a half mile between home plate and the backstop like at Dodger Stadium before they made the renovations.

When Petco Park was being conceived the designers believed that balls would not have a hard time leaving the stadium because the ballpark faces away from the ocean (winds would come from the ocean and blow balls out). After the stadium was complete they soon found out that it was one of the hardest ballparks to hit one out at. Here is the reason why…

Too much fog. Believe it or not I did see one home run hit at the game, even with the fog. Now, some people may have heard of the San Diego Chicken. I didn’t see the San Diego Chicken while I was at the game. But I did see what I believe is the chicken’s replacement. The San Diego Padre (Friar)? Here is a picture of the Friar dancing on top of the dugout. I think the chicken was better.

Overall the stadium was a great place to visit. I recommend it to anyone who has a chance of going. I leave you with a picture from the outfield.

I wrote two papers this quarter that may be of interest of someone, sometime, somewhere. The first is a look at the object model of php 5. It can be found here. The second is a more in depth look at relational database theory. It can be found here. Although the papers were written for a technical writting class and had to meet certain criteria, time and attention were put into these works and could prove to be a good read for someone.

Quote from Seinfeld:

JERRY: The other thing I love is when you’re in the middle of a dream, and the alarm goes off. You incorporate the sound of the alarm into the dream, so you can keep sleeping. And you’ll make any adjustment in the dream to do it.

I experienced this today. A car that couldn’t start was right outside of my window. And the people were trying to start this car for what seemed like an hour. In my dream I went outside and was talking to these people to see what the problem was. I talked to a tripple A mechanic and Irvine police. And then finally the car started and it was time for me to wake up. Very interesting to say the least.

Today we all witnessed the fall of one Shaquille O’Neal. I have been waiting for this day ever since he came out with disparaging comments against the Lakers organization and their fans. Before those comments were made I couldn’t help but root for the man who brought three championships to LA. But watching tonight I couldn’t help but grin when his awkward looking free throw attempts rattled in and out like they have so many times before. Shaq is a child. A child cannot help but make unintelligent remarks. Yes, he made unintelligent comments while he was here in LA, but never have his comments been aimed at the Laker fans.

Kobe can now breathe easy, something he hasn’t been able to do in a long time. All of the Laker miscues this season have been placed squarely on the shoulder of Mr. Bryant. Kobe can now get back to doing what he does best, playing ball.

I couldn’t take it anymore. iTunes is now gone from my PC, replaced by an old friend, Winamp.

When I bought my iPod there was very little choice of application that could sync with my iPod. I quickly found that Windows Media Player didn’t support the iPod. I knew that other applications existed but I was resistant to try a third party solution. So I did it, I installed iTunes.

I have been using iTunes for months now. I am generally pleased with its performance. I rarely sync with my iPod, only when I purchase a new CD. My frustration started with some quirky iTunes behavior. Whenever I would attach my iPod the settings on the iPod would get set back to the default. And the only setting I wanted it to save was to turn off the click wheel sound. Is that too much to ask? Also, I became frustrated with the fact that iTunes refuses to minimize into the system tray.
Note to Apple: If you are going to make an application that runs on Windows, use common Windows features. I am not a Mac user, I don’t have a neat little dashboard to keep all of my minimized windows. I need the real estate on my taskbar for when I have too many windows open at the same time.
In summation, although iTunes runs on windows it does not run like a typical Windows application. God knows how many iPods have been sold to Windows users. Probably more than were sold to Mac users.

Prior to purchasing my iPod I was happily using Windows Media Player. Because of a lack of iPod support, I am forced to look at other alternatives. Get over yourself Gates, you can’t stop the iPod. I found myself back where I started, with my old buddy Winamp. Winamp includes support for the iPod via a plugin called ml_ipod, developed at http://mlipod.sf.net. After some general usage I will report how well this combination works for me.