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Born in the Philippines in 1968. Moved to the United States with my family when I was three years old. Raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. Went to Catholic schools (St. Aedan's, St. Peter's Prep). Graduated college from Rensselaer in December 1990. Moved to Boston. Married Jenn in 1995.

I have two brothers, Ron and Renato. My Mom and Dad still live in New Jersey.

Jenn and I live in Arlington (a suburb of Boston). We have a daughter named Mia.

Yes, I write a blog. I've been writing Rick's Ramblings since 2001.

A Wicked Week in Boston

April 27, 2013

My wife pinged me with an instant message: "A bomb was set off at the Boston Marathon finish line!" What? The Boston Marathon is held on the Massachusetts holiday...

The Daily Dream

March 31, 2013

Every morning, when I first log into the computer, I take a moment to write down what I remember from last night's dream. Some days, I can only write down the vaguest...

My Favorite Oscar Winners

February 24, 2013

The Oscars are tonight. My only stake in the proceedings is whether or not Argo wins Best Picture, as it is the only nominee that I have watched (though I have read...

The Low-Information Diet

January 27, 2013

I have embraced the idea of "a low-information diet", ever since I read about it in Timothy Ferriss' book "The 4-Hour Work Week". Truth be told, however, I've been...

Books and Movies from 2012

December 31, 2012

I read 26 books this year. My 2012 reading list is once again at LibraryThing. The most remarkable title in the entire list is Ulysses, which took me a good three...

A Year of Mining

October 29, 2012

I spent most of this year enthralled by a little game called Minecraft.

Rules I Follow for Social Media

May 26, 2012

No complaining. The book How to Win Friends and Influence People contains the number one principle for dealing with people: "Never criticize, condemn, or complain."...

Books and Movies from 2011

January 27, 2012

Last year, I managed to read 34 books. The full reading list is on LibraryThing. My favorite books were Faith by Jennifer Haigh, Life by Keith Richards (and James...

Winter Solstice

December 20, 2011

The winter solstice is the day with the least amount of light (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere). This means that after the winter solstice, the days gradually...

I work in computers. At least that's how I put it when people ask me what I do. I've been writing a technical BLOG featuring computer code as well as observations about working in a technical field.

A View from a MOOC

November 22, 2012

I just recently finished taking an online course titled "Functional Programming Principles in Scala". The course was offered by Coursera, and it is an example of...

Indie Game: The Movie

June 24, 2012

Indie Game: The Movie (IGTM) is a documentary about independent game developers. When I saw the trailer in July 2011, I saw a shot of a real computer screen filled...

Making Wireless Work on a Dell D600 with Ubuntu

February 5, 2012

I recently inherited an old Dell Latitude D600 laptop, but the wireless wasn't working on it. After some investigation, I learned that it somehow didn't have a wireless...

Getting Twitter User IDs with PHP

November 26, 2011

When using the Twitter API's "Streaming API", you often have to pass in Twitter User IDs as arguments, rather than Twitter usernames (aka "screen name"). I wrote...

Getting PHP Debugging with XDebug Working (on Windows)

November 14, 2011

I've been learning about Drupal Module Development the past few weeks. I'm using the venerable "Definitive Guide to Drupal 7" and a few times in the module development...

Hiding HTML Using Data URIs and base64

May 29, 2011

I've been spending the past few evenings noodling with the HTML5 <canvas> element. I often bring up the HTML Canvas 2D Context Working Draft specification. The spec...

Diving into HTML5

May 20, 2011

Like a lot of programmers, I've begun to wonder what all the fuss is about regarding HTML5. Casting about, I found Mark Pilgrim's fantastic tutorial on HTML5, appropriately...

Finishing Tetris

February 5, 2011

I finished my version of Tetris, and it's now available for you to try on your PC. I set a goal of finishing the game before Super Bowl XLV, and there turned out...

Almost Finished with Tetris

December 29, 2010

My implementation of Tetris is nearly finished! It plays pretty decently, which is the measure of any game. There's no sound right now, but there's a help screen...

Fixing Blank Previews on My Website

October 31, 2010

My vanity website reads various RSS feeds, displaying a preview of their content. I use HTML::TokeParser to break apart the HTML inside the RSS feed. One RSS feed...

I'm a sports nut. I didn't used to be. But now I am. My sports blog is on ESPN's SportsNation.

A Prideful Finish

May 14, 2013

The Boston Bruins found their resolve, their hearts, and their pride in a stirring comeback victory, 5-4 over the Toronto Maple Leafs in overtime. It was the most...

Golf's Great Weekend

April 13, 2013

I think few would argue with me when I declare that this is golf's greatest weekend, the weekend of The Masters. Every fan and most non-fans know about this glorious...

Final Four Predictions

March 21, 2013

I filled out my NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament bracket a few days ago. For the Final Four, I have these teams: Louisville Kansas Ohio State Indiana I do...

Super Bowl XLVII Pick: The Baltimore Ravens

February 1, 2013

The line tonight has San Francisco 49ers as the favorite, giving 3.5 points over the Baltimore Ravens. Go ahead: take the Ravens! Maybe it's because the Ravens put...

Conference Championship Picks

January 17, 2013

And we're almost back to where we were last year: three of the same teams are in the Conference Championship games. They are New England, Baltimore, and San Francisco....

Best Weekend in Football

January 12, 2013

We are now at the best weekend of football. All eight teams have a legtimate chance to get to the Super Bowl, but they have to duke it out in the divisional playoffs....

Hockey's Back

January 9, 2013

Hockey has returned! And thank goodness for that. Ice hockey is my favorite sport, both to watch on TV, and to dream about. The mix of a high-speed skill (ice skating)...

Picks for Wild Card Weekend

January 4, 2013

Cincinnati at Houston (-4.5) - Houston is favored, but take the points. They lost three of their last four regular season games! Minnesota at Green Bay (-7.5) -...

Figuring Out Fantasy Football

December 22, 2012

I need to crow a bit here: my Fantasy Football team is in the Championship Game! However, I am facing a stout opponent. Playing Fantasy this year has been quite...

My Rooting Interests: Baseball ALDS 2012

October 6, 2012

I've confessed before that baseball is my first love in sports. To that end, my heart has a special place for baseball's playoffs. Major League Baseball begins its...

I have plenty of pictures at a bunch of places [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11], [12], but I primarily update Flickr.