Bebe Salon

I’ve been to this place to get haircuts several times now and thought they deserved a quick mention. Bebe Salon in Hillsboro has probably got the best prices on haircuts and nails in Hillsboro (yes, men do get their nails done from time to time…or probably SHOULD!!!).

Bebe Salon in Hillsboro

Malee is the former owner and still works there. She’s a very nice lady who really knows her stuff with hair…never had her do my nails yet though.

Mr. and Mrs Trinh own the place now and they do a really nice job keeping the place clean. Lot’s of hair salons smell like product all the time, but when you visit this place you’ll notice that they really take care of their work environment. It’s a very pleasant place to be and you don’t feel like your being rushed out the door. The girls who do nails do a right-good job of it and their shiatsu chairs are excellent! Also I should mention, there is a gal there who does really good massage.

Currently they charge $10 for a haircut

and $20/pedi or $25/fullset

Here is the address:

Bebe Salon

1991 NE Cornell Rd. Suite #120, Hillsboro, Oregon. 97124

503-693-9934 email is: bebe.salon (at) gmail (dot) com

I couldn’t find a website for them. If they tell me about one the next time I visit I’ll update this post with it.

Great places to work – part 1

(This is a little bit of a retrospective as I’ve left this position about three months ago but still wanted to write about it a little. Just trying to catch up.)

I’ve spent most of my adult life in the Hillsboro, Oregon area and I still find it amazing how many great tech companies exist in Washington County (including Beaverton, Tigard, Hillsboro, and West Portland). We have an area known as the tech corridor which is mainly the area stretching from Hillsboro to Portland’s West Hills area along Highway 26. I’ve talked a couple of tech friends into moving to Portland just for the great weather (all 364 days of rain), good economy, and lot’s of great jobs. (so much for the good old days!)

Anyway, this post is not really about that. It’s more about one of my experiences in working on contract at the other big blue company. The one I used to dream of working at since I was about 15 years old.

I’ve spent over three years on six different contracts at Intel and I’ve come up with a few observations about the company.

First, having a degree and having been given a good job at a great company does NOT make you wise, intelligent, or a good person to work with. Many poor managers give great jobs to equally poor employees. This becomes a bad situation when it picks up momentum. For the most part I’ve been blessed by working on great projects with at least a few really good techs, managers, and others. My final project was working for the mobile platforms group in Beaverton at the Cornell Oaks site.

Cornell Oaks

To be fair, Jones Farm, Ronler and even Hawthorne are better campuses, with good facilities and cafeterias, but the reason I liked Cornell Oaks was the people. I was hired as a validation tech(again) and got assigned to a nice young guy named Andre who worked in Linux validation. SCORE!!!! Finally after all of my days (about 5 years) of working as a software tester I got to work on the OS that I really am interested in. I’ve supported Micro$oft products since DOS 5 and worked with their products since 1980 (or just before that).

So anyway, here I am working with Linux on laptops. One out of two ain’t bad as most of my background is in servers or high end workstations. In the 5 months that I was in this position I don’t think that I met even one person that I would classify as unpleasant…even though there are a few who tried to be at first. A couple of my closest coworkers were originally the toughest people to get along with and by the time I left, the decision to leave them was almost overpowered by the fact that I enjoyed working with them so much (and my projects).

You see, I have a basic philosophy when it comes to my job…though I’m sure it’s not unique…and that is that if you work hard, give all your attention to what is asked of you, be pleasant to work with, and only get close to equally diligent coworkers, your efforts WILL be noticed. Within just a couple of months my lead and a couple of others were working hard to get me a permanent position.

The short story is that another company that I was interested in working for in Raleigh Hills gave me a call almost 10 months after I first applied with them and asked me to re-interview. I got that job. That will be a different post.

So I thought I’d post a couple of pics of my last day at the laptop lab to show my farewell luncheon and my bench before and after the guys decorated.

To the left is Andre the great, master of all that is Linux, dean of distros, scripter of Bash, master of computer chaos. (and a generally all around great guy in spite of what you might think after meeting him.

Next we have a pic of myself that my friend Don took, Alicia and Tim are in the background. I never did get a good shot of Tim but I’m pretty sure he is a little camera shy anyway.

Me, Alicia, and Tim. (front to back)

Alicia is one of the most talented and productive persons I’ve ever met at Intel (in fact, all of these people that I’m talking about are) and is the lead of one of the Windoze testing groups. She runs a tight ship and knows her stuff. Very nice gal to work with.

Tim was my lead and even though he tried to convince me that he was a hard-nosed person it turned out that he and I got along better than almost anyone I’ve ever worked with during my time with Intel.

I worked for Andre for most of this last contract but got to do two last projects for Tim that were truly interesting. One in documentation (one of my strongest areas) and the other in alternative computing technologies (Mac testing research). I became a Mac lover working for Intel, go figure. And after all those years of Mac bashing.

Next we have Chris. Chris is unique. ‘Nuff said. Actually a great guy to work with. Andre is with him in this pic.

Chris and Andre (Chris does not have a drinking problem...yet!)

Next in the list of people at my farewell dinner is Don. I worked with him (near him?) for several months of a previous contract in the wifi group. Very smart dude, very versatile too. LOL!

Don the crazy man

Only funny thing is, I cannot remember the name of the pub we went to for lunch. Oh well.

lastly two shots of my bench before and after it got decorated. Bare in mind that my job was almost all related to Linux/Unix type stuff and the guys all knew that Andre and I both despised the M$ products. So they decorated my bench to look like a Vista Desktop…even replaced my keyboard and mouse with M$ products and put a M$ webcam on my shelf. What a bunch of yucksters! They loved me, they really loved me!!

Desk Before

Desk after the Vista (downgrade)

Notice the Vista icons on the left side of the desk, Bill$ pic on my chair, the little explorer icon hanging from my shelf, the M$ keyboard and mouse…the BSOD on the main screen…and the Linux=Communism on my left screen. This is one of the best desk setups I’ve ever had…corner desk, second floor, two window view over a clean parking lot and a nice greenspace…very peaceful. I’m not even sure that my new job has a better view. Oh, and three 20″ LCD’s, one of which was hooked up to a Mac Pro quad core box. Smoooookin’!!

And that’s it, thanks for reading. More later.

Jon

HAMs in Oregon

I just saw this on KATU’s website. I thot I’d post a link to it.

———-

Ore. ham radio operators stand by to help

Story Published: Sep 8, 2008 at 2:06 PM PDT

Story Updated: Sep 8, 2008 at 2:07 PM PDT

By KATU Web Staff

HILLSBORO, Ore. – In a world filled with electronic wonder-gizmos like the iPhone, instant communication through IMs and email, and 24-hour news on TV, ham radio seems like an anachronism.But when disaster strikes, we are all quickly reminded of the fragility of our technological cocoon.

Cell phone towers can fall, making handsets into expensive flashlights. Power outages can wipe out Internet access and make the TV go dark. Most people no longer even have wired home phones. No juice usually means your cordless is worthless.

It’s at those moments that amateur short-wave radio, better known as ham radio, comes to the rescue.

Portable, self-contained and capable of sending and receiving signals from most anywhere on Earth, ham radio has become a major player in many urban disaster plans after test or real disasters exposed the weakness of wired and cellular phone sytems.

In Oregon, ham radio operators played a key role in directing aid logistics in hard-hit Tillamook County as floods ravaged the area last December.

Oregon hams also helped out aid efforts during and after Hurricane Katrina. It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as the message for help gets through to those who can render assistance…..

Read the entire story at: http://www.katu.com/news/28006924.html

Ghandi Lives

I saw this and wanted to share it as a thought for the day.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi.

I may not be into hugging trees, and this may sound a little obvious, but I still think it applies to all of us.

Okay, reflective moment over.

Canon PowerShot A-580

Just thot I’d also post a little about a camera I picked up a couple of months ago.  The Canon PowerShot A-580.  It’s a nice, affordable, 8MP camera that takes very nice pictures in all conditions I’ve put it thru.

Most of my pics on my blogs will be using this camera.  I purchased it for other uses but once the pics have been scaled down they look fairly good online.  My cost was $129 with a 2GB memory card but it seems that they go for a little bit higher most of the time.  It seems decently solid and has a nice battery life, particularly if your not flash crazy.  I find the color a little bit off when using the flash indoors anyway and the coverage of the flash is not anything like a nice pro flash with diffuser.  Basically I just recommend turning the flash off indoors unless the lighting is ‘really’ low (candlelight) or unless your trying to capture fast movement indoors in reasonable light.

Here is a link to a site with a bit of a breakdown on this camera.  http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A580/A580A.HTM