Geeky Yet Waterproof

On Tuesday, July 15th 2008, I officially released the software I’ve been working on by myself for almost two full years. It’s called Sleep Blaster. And what is it? The first-ever Mac alarm clock that really turns off when you yell at it. That’s right. It uses either iTunes or computerized dynamite (you heard me) to wake you up. It will play the sound for a few seconds, then pause to listen for a few seconds, then play the sound for a few seconds, etc. If it hears you shout during the pause, it will stop the alarm!
And it doesn’t just wake you up — it can also put you to sleep either by playing iTunes for a set amount of time, or with its built-in ocean wave generator! (Which, by the way, isn’t a flat recording of ocean waves, but an algorithm for simulating the sound thereof.)
But there’s more still. How many times have you set your alarm for 8am, and at precisely 8pm, your alarm rings? If you’re like me, the answer is “a lot”. But with the advent of Sleep Blaster: no more. Sleep Blaster comes with a revolutionary Stupidity Prevention System (SPS), which warns you if it thinks you’re setting the alarm for an unlikely hour.

So, all this for $8 — roughly the price of a hamburger and fries. And how did the launch go? Well, the first day was pretty unexciting — as I expected. How are you supposed to get the word out to people? Apparently, by submitting it to the Apple downloads page. Because on the second day, it racked in FOURTY FIVE (45) downloads, and its first joyful purchase. And by the third day, I received my 2nd payment of $8, and the downloads count climbed to… 100? Nope. 200? Still nope. 515 downloads.

So as you can imagine, I’m pretty excited right now. If all works as according to my almighty plan, I’ll get enough sales from this to call it a Real Job™. And it will be one I enjoy mightily.

If you have a Mac running Leopard, you can download Sleep Blaster from the website.

Yes, I know. I haven’t blogged in two weeks. My entries are always late. I’ve become a lazy bum when it comes to blogging, and I’ve lost all my mad writing skillz.

But at least I’m blogging!

As you may be aware, last Friday was the 4th of July here in the USA. We had some Bearcat people over and went swimming/boating in the lake, then made a campfire and roasted s’mores. After a while we went inside and everyone participated in a ping-pong tournament, while Sammi and I jammed on my Les Paul.
It was a smaller party than we usually have here, but nice and relaxed.

—-

The next day I had to get up brutally early (for a 5th of July morning), because I had track racing state championships that day. So we headed to Alpenrose velodrome in Portland, and as soon as we got there it started pouring rain! Now, because the track is so steep, it’s impossible to ride around the banks without imitating an amateur skier, so they had to postpone everything until the track was dry.
Two hours and 500 towels later (not really) Alpenrose was dry, and people started zooming around the track. We soon discovered that my 17-18 year-old age category consisted of myself and Richie Suditu, an unfairly fast 18 year-old national-caliber racer.
We both did two matched sprints at the beginning. This happened to be the very first time I did a matched sprint at an actual race (yes, at the state championships). Of course Richie beat me both times, but the second one was by less than the first. Matched sprints are about 90% strategy and 10% legs, and I used better strategy my second try.
Our other races were a 1k time trial and a 20-lap points race. The points race was interesting — every 5th lap there would be a sprint, and the first four finishers would get points. The race basically consisted of myself, a couple unattached guys, and four riders from team BBC. Three of the BBC guys worked together for the whole race and I hung with them most of the time, drafting here, bridging a gap there… I came in 4th in each of the sprint laps, and I finished 4th at the end of the race.

I ended up getting a silver medal for the overall, because Richie and I were the only 17-18 year-olds (even though I am, in fact, 16). This (state championships) was a fun little break from swimming, and an opportunity to try out my new track racing skills.