latest blog

home is where the heart is

I ventured 'home' this weekend to Longview, WA to visit my lovely mom for mother's day and spend some time with family. It's been a great weekend (it usually is when I avoid the L-town bar scene) and I couldn't have asked for better interactions with those who I love.

That said, it's been strange---ever since I moved out in 2009---to realize that life happens here even when I'm not around. People change and grow, and as much as it feels like it, life doesn't stop when I'm not around. I come by every month or so and for the most part, it feels like a continuous expe

...


just when you think you know, you don't

I dont always test my code but when I do its on the production serverAs the natural-born overachieving perfection-seeking pragmatist that I am, I often find myself exceeding the specifications on my Computer Science assignments. Generally, I find them to be either too simple, or not interesting; and in an effort to 'get the education my parents paid for' I make my own rules.

Unfortunately, in UNIX software development, part of the specification is to explicitly NOT stray from the specification...and the assignments are too easy. How could I remain an overachieving bastard while not sacrificing my turn-in grades by modifying the assi

...


noise

Over to the left of the restaurant, a small group of college students are conversing with each other. Judging by their body language, it's fairly clear that only one of them knows everyone else at the table. Maybe the others know a few names.

I can feel the tension, the emotional guards, and the nervousness: "I'm in a group of people, what should I say next?". The control in these situations is often primal and rooted in the ego. The group dynamic is such that low-quality statements are made for the sake of filling the void. Perhaps I feel like what I have to say

...


masenf.com goes live

After a month of waiting and sitting on my design, I finally decided it was time to go live with the new site layout. I'm not doing this because I feel it's particularly good or finished, but mainly because my old theme was making very restless and I wanted a nice clean place to write and share some thoughts and information with the world. 

I'll be improving the site in the coming months and adding more integration features such as commentary. For now, feel free to dm me on twitter or shoot an email.

The new site design is making use of Twitter's bootstrap.js framew



...


cad/cam/cnc: competing in skillsUSA

As a sophomore in high school, I unwittingly took Stuart Smith's CAM class and learned some CAD, CAM, and CNC milling on ProLight and Haas Mills. In fact, I came to learn that my high school just happened to have one of the best CNC labs in the entire country. I went on to take 2nd Place in the Washington state Automated Manufacturing contest in 2007, 1st Place in 2008 and 2009. And 3rd place in the entire Nation in 2008! Who knew? My specialty on the three person Automated Manufacturing team was the CAD designer. The contest is designed to simulate a job process ...


visualization: seeing your music

In the days of modern graphics hardware, fast computers, and enormous digital music libraries, most people have heard of or seen a "visualizer". However, most people using main stream media players such as Windows Media Player and iTunes are missing out on what a true visualizer is. 

Edit (3/26/2012): Granted, this post was written back in 2010. In those days, iTunes was not nearly as cool as it is now. Since my primary computer is now a 2009 MBP, I've found myself using iTunes significantly more. Their new-style visualizer with the colored balls is pretty visu
...