Random Stuff

Links to random  stuff. -- Brian Wilson

 


(Read a personal description of Backblaze here.)

 2015 Scotland Will MacDonald Birthday in Duns Castle - An amazingly fun 50th birthday party in a Scottish Castle.

2015 Scotland Edinburgh and Loch Ness and Balvanie Distillery Tour - A few days in Scotland checking things off a bucket list.  My favorite single malt Scotch Whiskey is Balvanie Doublewood 12 year.

2015 Casey Jones Wedding - A few pictures from Casey Jones marries Elsie Munar.

2015 Omar Steinberg Wedding in Oregon - A few pictures from a 16 hour trip to Oregon to celebrate with Omar.

2015 London Weekend - A few pictures of the house we rent in Portola Valley.

2015 Portola Valley Housewarming Party - A few pictures of the house we rent in Portola Valley.

2015 Portola Valley House - A few pictures of the house we rent in Portola Valley.

2015 Backblaze Company Sailing Trip - A pleasant day out boating in San Francisco Bay.

2015 San Mateo Pothole - an AMAZINGLY deep and dangerous road hazard in San Mateo.

2015 Austin Texas Weekend Trip to Visit Brennen and Britta - A quick trip to visit Brennen and Britta in Austin Texas.

2015 Day Trip to Vancouver Canada to Pick Up Singapura Kittens - Smuggling 3 pounds of pure uncut Canadian kittens into the USA.

2015 Ski Whitefish Montana Big Mountain - The annual ski trip, this time to "Big Mountain" now called "Whitefish Resort" in Whitefish Montana with myself and 5 other friends.

2015 Mike Moxness Memorial Service in Los Angeles - a day trip (not overnight) to say goodbye to an old friend.

2015 Palos Verdes Los Angeles Weekend - an overnight trip down to where Katherine grew up in Palos Verdes in Los Angeles, CA.

2014 Palos Verdes Los Angeles Weekend - a one day trip down to where Katherine grew up in Palos Verdes in Los Angeles, CA.

2014 Thanksgiving Weekend - A small thanksgiving on the deck in Pacifica.

2014 Randy Wilson 50th Birthday Party in Santa Barbara - My brother Randy celebrates his birthday in Santa Barbara.

2014 Chartered Airplane Flight on GaryAir's Piper Matrix PA-46R-350T - Trip from Half Moon Bay airport to Santa Barbara Airport on a chartered plane.

2014 Aurora Borealis at Chena Hot Springs near Fairbanks Alaska - Quick 3 day trip to see the Aurora Borealis in Alaska, took pictures!

2014 Dinner at Benu in San Francisco - A 17 course dinner in San Francisco.

2014 Carmel Valley Weekend - A quick getaway with the dog to see Katherine's family for her birthday

2014 Pacifica 4th of July - A BBQ at the beach house in Pacifica, a very relaxed small party this year.

2014 Hawaii Kauai Trip - a 3 day trip for Kendall's birthday in Kauai (Hawaii) - hey, any excuse?

2014 Papillon Puppy Party - A second birthday party for Belle the Papillon dog.

2014 Devil's Slide Recreational Trail - A walk along the old California Highway 1 which is now a walking trail.

2014 Virginia Wilson's 80th Birthday - A trip to Corvallis Oregon to celebrate Virginia's 80th birthday.

2014 Errol - Pictures of an unfortunate SWAP team shooting of a mentally ill man in my neighborhood.

2014 Ski Whistler Blackcomb - The annual ski trip, this time to Whistler Blackcomb in Canada with myself and 7 other friends.

2013 Maldives and Singapore Trip - A two week "bucket list" type of trip to the Maldives for snorkeling, with a quick stop in Singapore.

2013 Deer Hunting at Fort Peck, Montana - A 3 day deer hunting trip to Fort Peck, Montana with cousins Bruce and Chip, Steve Sanders, plus Kip and Karen.

2013 Corvallis September Visit - a 34 hour trip to help move Virginia into the Corvallis Caring Place.

2013 Santa Barbara and Resort Bacara - a quick weekend getaway

2013 America's Cup Backblaze Boating - our company took a day to go sailing and watch the America's Cup that was going on in our local bay.

2013 A Love Letter to Surf Air - Surf Air is one of my very favorite companies to do business with, I love flying again.

2013 Jetski and Delta Boating Day - A day up in the Sacramento Delta boating and Jetskiing

2013 Pacifica 4th of July - A BBQ at the beach house in Pacifica, a very relaxed small party this year.

2013 Virginia Wilson's 79th Birthday - A day excursion from San Francisco to Corvallis Oregon to celebrate Virginia's 79th birthday.

2013 Ski Vail - I did not actually go, but this is the annual trip I wanted a place holder to document where my buddies went.

2013 Mavericks Surf Contest - We went out on a boat to watch the big wave surfing competition near Half Moon Bay, California.

2012 Weatherproof Dropcam - how to build a weatherproof enclosure for your Dropcam.

2012 Sweat Lodge on Dock - for the Mayan Apocolypse on 12/21/2012 some friends built a sweat lodge on the docks

2012 Howard Wilson's 80th Birthday - a few pictures from Howard's 80th birthday family gathering in Corvallis Oregon.

2012 Thanksgiving Weekend - a couple pictures from Thanksgiving, plus a road trip to Palmdale, California.

2012 Hawaii Kauai Trip - a 3 day trip to scout out what the island of Kauai is like in Hawaii.

2012 Corvallis October Visit - a 29 hour trip to help move Virginia into Regency Court.

2012 Palos Verdes Los Angeles Weekend - a two day trip down to where Katherine grew up in Palos Verdes in Los Angeles, CA.

2012 Pacifica 4th of July - A BBQ at the beach house in Pacifica.

2012 Caribbean British Virgin Islands  - A week vacation in the British Virgin Islands found in the Caribbean. 

2012 Ski Taos New Mexico - An annual ski trip with friends.

2012 ASUS Zenbook UX31 Disassembly - Teardown of ASUS UX31 Zenbook with instructions and pictures.

2011 Chaotic Thanksgiving in Pacifica - A strange thanksgiving, consisting of guests from different social groups arriving in stages.

2011 Deer Hunting at Fort Peck, Montana - A week long deer hunting trip to Fort Peck, Montana with cousins Bruce and Chip, Steve Sanders and his son Tony, plus Kip and Karen.

2011 One Weekend in Pacifica with a Telephoto Lens - I rented a massive telephoto lens and took pictures one weekend in Pacifica, CA.  Pictures of seals, surfers, paragliders, dolphins, etc.

2011 Manhattan New York Trip - A trip to testify in Federal Court, but ended up *NOT* testifying so just ate pizza and saw the Empire State Building instead

2011 Palm Tree Dock Party - A small party with an interesting hand built fake palm tree on the dock.

2011 Machu Picchu Peru and Cusco Peru - A "bucket list" trip to see the ruins at Machu Picchu, Peru.

2011 Pacifica 4th of July - A BBQ at the beach house in Pacifica.

2011 Peninsula Debutante Ball - I attended a formal debutante ball to present Melanie Galindo to polite society.

2011 Low Profile Gaming Graphics Card - How I modified my Dell 980 Small Form Factor to accept a graphics card upgrade.

2011 Melanie Graduation - Melanie Galindo graduates from high school.

2011 Napa Wine Tasting - A few friend rented a limo to go taste wines for an afternoon in Napa.

2011 Ski Park City Utah - Yearly ski trip with friends, this time to Salt Lake City surrounding area.

2010 Echt Wilson Family Visits Pacifica - Randy, Ramey, Ari, Eli visit Pacifica and stay in the guest cottage

2010 Google Holiday Party - Pavni and I went to Academy of Science that was rented out for the Google Holiday Party

2010 Thanksgiving in Pacifica - A few friends had Thanksgiving in Pacifica

2010 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta - Pictures of a trip to the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque.

2010 Europe Motorcycle Trip - Pictures from a motorcycle trip through Corsica.

2010 Howard and Virginia Wilson 50th Wedding Anniversary - Pictures from a family celebration.

2010 Beach Cottage Emu And Llama - Ari and Eli come to Pacifica to feed the Emu grapes, and the Llamas carrots.

2010 Ski Sun Valley - I wasn't there, but this was the annual ski trip, necessary for documentation!

2010 Beach Housewarming Party - A party to warm up my new rental at the beach.

2010_Configuring VPN to Netgear FVS336G to work with Windows 7 64bit - Instructions on configuring a Netgear VPN with Windows Seven 64 bit.

2009 Deer Hunting at Fort Peck, Montana - A week long deer hunting trip to Fort Peck, Montana with cousins Bruce and Chip and others.

2010 Pacifica Dock Tent Party - a 3 day Burning Man style party thrown by Jim, I think this might be to celebrate "finishing" the dock houses?

2010 Brian's Beach House - Some pictures and description of where I rent in Pacifica, CA.

Pacifica Boat Docks Historical Pictures - Not my pictures, collected from others and scanned, or borrowed from the web.

Interesting Cat Trees - a collection of pictures of nice looking or strange or wonderful ideas for cat trees.

Rick Samish (cabinet maker) Projects - just a personal collection of pictures of custom cabinets made by Rick, very boring unless you are me or Rick

2009 Chip and Robin Montana Property - Chip and Robin's new property near Livingston, Montana.

2009_Corvallis_Wildlife - Pictures and movies of deer and other animals near my parents home in Corvallis, Oregon.

2009 Backblaze Storage Pod Party - A party celebrating the successful press event of releasing our Backblaze Storage Pod designs for free.

2009 Eli's Coming of_Age - Eli Echt-Wilson (my nephew) and his 13th birthday party (Bar Mitzvah inspired coming of age celebration).

2009 Sailboating on San Francisco Bay - Six of us rented a sailboat went for a sailboat ride on San Francisco Bay.

2009 Backblaze VIP Party - A reception for 11 very important people to Backblaze that are outside the partnership.

2009 Backblaze Macintosh Launch Party - A celebration marking the full public availability (no invite codes needed!) Macintosh product!

2009 Ski Lake Tahoe, Squaw Valley, Mt Rose - Annual ski trip with friends Brady Nilsen, Mike Chow, Paul Wieneke, and Brian Wohletz

2008 Backblaze Holiday Party - A celebration of an eventful year of 2008 at Backblaze, including Windows client and Macintosh client.

2008 Behind the Scenes at Backblaze Photo Shoot of Cara Panebianco - An inside look at a video shoot of the "Face of Backblaze".

Brian's Ten Rules for Writing Cross Platform 'C' Code - Hints on how to design and write 'C' software that runs on both Windows and Macintosh.

2008 Katie 18th Birthday - A trip to Clarkston, Washington to see my niece Katie Hoffmann turn 18.

2008 Backblaze Launch 1.0 Party - Backblaze declares 1.0 and launches the company open for business without a beta code.

2008 Smartcar and Gocar - Just for fun we rented a Smart Car (smallest car sold in the USA) and took a Gocar tour (3 wheeled street legal Go-Kart).

2008 Kitty Cat and Puppy Dog - A friend's kitty cat and puppy dog pictures because my friend doesn't have a website of her own.

2008 Sailboating on San Francisco Bay - Six of us rented a sailboat with a captain and went for a sailboat ride on San Francisco Bay

2008 Papua New Guinea Trip (including: 1. Cairns, 2. Goroka Market, 3. Goroka Tour, 4. Madang) - an 11 person family reunion to where we lived in Goroka and Madang, Papua New Guinea in 1972 and 1973.  Click Papua New Guinea 1972 for some scanned in family photo albums from that period of our lives.

2008 Backblaze Online Backup - an explanation of my recent project, and Online Backup Company with 4 partners and myself.

reddit.com Case Study - My silly personal vacation photo website got featured on "reddit.com", rose into the top 10, an analysis of what happened.

Unlocking Garmin GPS Maps - Garmin makes the worst installer I've ever had the displeasure to use, and here are screenshots proving it is terrible.

2008 Breckenridge, Vail, Copper Ski Trip - pictures and movies from a ski trip to Breckenridge Colorado and surrounding areas.

2008 Telluride Ski Trip - pictures and movies from a ski trip to Telluride.

2007 Squirrel Obstacle Course - A very important engineering undertaking, teaching Squirrels about Peanuts and how to find them.

2007_Backblaze_Office_Warming_Party - Pictures from the Backblaze World Wide Headquarters Grand Opening Party.

2007 Ari's Coming of_Age - Ari Echt-Wilson (my niece) and her 13th Birthday party (Bat Mitzvah inspired coming of age celebration).

2007 Stuart's 40th Birthday in London - Pictures from Stuart Cheshire's 40th birthday party in London, England.

2007 Family Reunion in Newport Oregon - Pictures from a family reunion in Newport Oregon with my brother, sister, parents and family.

2007 Notes On libCURL, OpenSSL, ZLIB, and SH2 - Some technical notes on the relationship between these libraries.

2007_Europe_Motorcycle_Trip - a motorcycle trip through Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany.

2007 Notes On OpenSSL - Some technical notes on how to build OpenSSL on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and the Macintosh.

2007 Monterey Horse Show - I visited my friend Christina and watched her daughter Melanie ride at the Monterey Springfest Horse Show

Backblaze - This is the new company I started recently.  See it here: http://www.Backblaze.com  Also, Click here to read some Backblaze press articles I stashed away for posterity.

2007 Chamonix Ski Trip - a week long ski trip with friends to Chamonix, France

2007 Skiing Bear Valley, California - a one day trip to ski at Bear Valley, California.

2007 Small Business Network Setup - Random documents on how I setup a small in-home network to support development on a small software

Brian's TZ170W Configuration Notes - How I used a SonicWall TZ170W to setup my network.

Installing RedHat Linux on Dell Optiplex 745 - How to install RedHat Enterprise Linux on a Dell Optiplex 745

Setting Up Subversion on Windows 2003 Server - The steps I took to install Subversion (Source Code Control System) on a Windows 2003 Server.

2007 Mini Ski Epic - A 3 week driving ski trip in 2007.

World of Warcraft Newbie Fast Track Guide - How I played World of Warcraft (WoW) for 2 weeks and went from level 1 to level 26.

2006_Montana_Hunting - hunting deer in Custer National Forest, and hunting Elk in the Montana Bitterroots.

2006_Europe_Motorcycle_Trip - a motorcycle trip through Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany.

2006_Oregon_Motorcycle_Trip - a motorcycle trip from California to Oregon

Amsterdam_Bicycles - a web page about Amsterdam Bicycles and Amsterdam Bicyclists and comparing them with San Francisco Bicyclists

Convert_WMV_to_MP4_H_264 - a web page documenting how to convert Windows Media Video (WMV) to MP4 video (also known as H.264, also known as AVC, also known as MPEG-4).

2006 Canada Motorcycle Trip - a motorcycle trip from San Francisco up through Canada and the Northern United States.

1980 Suzuki GS1000L vs. 2006 Honda ST1300 ABS - the only two motorcycles I've ever owned.

Backyard BBQ with Firepit 2006 - pictures from the "final payout" celebration of MailFrontier.

Telluride 2006 - pictures and movies from a trip to Telluride.

Mammoth Ski Trip 2006 - Pictures from a ski trip to Mammoth, California.

Grandma's Memorial Service - Pictures from Erma Louise Wilson's memorial service.

Burning Man 2005 - Pictures and videos from an RV trip to Burning Man.

Amsterdam & London 2005 - Pictures from a quick trip to Amsterdam and London to visit Nilay, Pavni, and Stuart.

Pimped Sentra - I put a Pioneer AVIC-N2 GPS and iPod in my Sentra.

Chip Visit 2005 - My cousin Chip drops by, we visit Sausalito, Monterey and Big Sur.

Telluride 2005 - pictures and movies from a trip to Telluride.

Big Sky and Moonlight Basin, Montana 2005 - pictures from a ski trip to Big Sky Montana

Rant on Why STL is Bad - (for Programmers Only) Why the Standard Template Library makes C++ coding harder, not easier.

Lake Tahoe New Year's Eve Dec 2004 - pictures from New Year's Eve, December 2004, and a powder ski day.

Sailboating in San Francisco Bay 2004, pictures and panoramas a day sailing in San Francisco Bay and Sausalito.

Europe Motorcycle Trip of 2004, pictures and panoramas of my motorcycle trip through Europe.

Lake Tahoe 2004 - pictures from a ski trip to Telluride.

Telluride 2004 - pictures from a trip to Telluride.

Tiffany - Pictures of Billy's Maltese Tiffany.

Billy's Cube Full of Balloons - to pass the time, just something to do while Billy was away on vacation.

Eli Plays Tennis in Palm Springs 2003 - small camera video of Eli playing in a tennis tournament.

Fort Peck Deer Hunting 2003 - pictures from hunting deer in Fort Peck Reservoir, Montana.

Elk Hunting 2003 - pictures from hunting Elk in Montana.

Telluride 2003 - pictures from a trip to Telluride.

Jackson Hole 2003 - pictures from a ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with some friends.

Firing Uncle Ralph's Cannon - this black powder cannon fires juice cans filled with concrete

Capitola Wharf - a panoramic picture from the end of the wharf

Elk Barbeque 2002, pictures of the Elk barbeque party. 

Telluride 2002, pictures from a visit to Telluride.

Steamboat, Winter Park 2002, pictures from a ski trip in March 2002.

Boat Page, pictures of Brian's boat and pictures of the three stages (stage1, stage2, stage3) of bringing the boat up from LA.

Last Boat Day 2001, pictures from the last trip out on my boat before putting it up for sale.

Boat Day with Friends 2001, pictures from a random day on my boat with 10 friends.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving 2001, a bunch of us carve some pumpkins.

Europe Motorcycle Trip of 2001, pictures and QuickTime video of my motorcycle trip through Europe.

Blue Angels Boat Day, pictures from a day on the San Francisco Bay on my boat with a few of my boat neighbors, watching the Blue Angels.

Boat Eviction, they are filling my marina in with dirt and building 1,300 condos.  I am evicted.

My Micro RS4 remote control car, this is a boring page, please don't read it.

Heavenly ski day 2001, some pictures from a day on the ski hill at Heavenly Lake Tahoe.

Sentra 2002, pictures of the best snow car ever made since the 1990 Sentra.

Montana Elk Hunt 2001, some pictures from cousin Chip, Bruce and my elk hunting trip.

CODEBLAZE is the company I formed to do consulting work.

MailFrontier is the company I founded with Pavni Diwanji to make the world a better place. We stop all junk email (Spam) from entering your mailbox.   Click here to see some articles about our company and product launch on 8/26/02 and then the following years.  Click here to see some pictures of a company offsite in early 2003.  Click here to see pictures of our booth at the RSA conference in February, 2004.  Click here to see our TV ad.  Click here for some employee webpages.  Click here to see a few random pictures from our history.  Click here for MailFrontier_Quotes Click here for a company timeline.

Albuquerque visit 2001, includes ski pictures of niece Ari and nephew Eli, 4 and 6 years old.

Japan visit 2001, pictures from my trip to Japan visiting Jason Knight.

Telluride visit 2001, pictures from my Telluride trip of 2001 including pictures of Lise & Lance's house.

Banff Trips, 2001, pictures from our ski trips to Banff (Lake Louise), Canada.

Glider in Telluride, pictures of my glider flight in Telluride.

Whistler Trip 2000, pictures from a trip to ski Whistler in the winter of 2000.

Snoring, how I had my snoring fixed.

Raccoon and sod, how I caught a raccoon that was tearing up my yard.

Friends, I have two married friends johnsmith@mailfrontier.com and janesmith@mailfrontier.com who have helped me greatly with my business.  Are you paying attention?  Why do you think I put these here?  you found this and figured it out.  You can also check out my ski-epic members page if you need more hints.

Papua New Guinea 1972 - Pictures from when our family lived in Goroka, Papua New Guinea in 1972, scanned in for posterity.

Newport, Oregon Crabin' Cabin (1972 - 1995) - Old Classic Photo Albums, scanned in for posterity.

Grandma's Quilt, this is a quilt my family made for my grandmother.  Each grandchild did one square, and then we sewed them together and gave it to her for her 90'th birthday.

Casey Jones is an artist working at MailFrontier, and Steve Chen is an engineer that works there also.  Scott Eikenberry works at MailFrontier also.

Sarah Parks on her first motorcycle trip.  I convinced Sarah to come on another motorcycle trip, click here to see pictures from that trip.  Click here to see Sarah on another Motorcycle Ride, 2006. You can see Sarah's homepage here.

Continuum Downloads - Continuum 1.04 is the very last version of a game my brother Randy and I wrote long ago for the Macintosh.

Family Photographs - Some scanned in photos.

Java Critique - In 1996, I fooled around a bit with the Java programming language, which I decided in 1996 just wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Click here to read my critique of the language.

Explanation of 56K modems - I was curious how 56Kbit modems worked and why they are asymetric (56 Kbit downstream but only 28.8Kbit upstream) so I bought my buddy Nelson a beer and he explained it VERY clearly. Click here to read my summary of that explanation.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 1997 - The "Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta" is an AMAZING hot air balloon festival that happens each year. I think these pictures are from 1997 (plus or minus a year).

Deer Hunting 1995 - In October of 1995 I went on my very first hunting trip with some cousins of mine in Montana. It was quite a different experience for me, and I had a lot of fun. We were hunting for elk and deer, and we bagged two deer. Click here to view a picture of me with the two deer.

1994 Europe Motorcycle Trip - pictures scanned in from my first motorcycle trip, this was one with Jörg Haake.

Here are some ski-epic sound and music files (includes Conan saying "Crush Your Enemies").

 


(Read a personal description of Backblaze here.)

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