What's New at heehorse.com?

The big update of the day is the transition of the Dribble section to the use of Wordpress, a standard and feature-laden blogging tool. Motivation for this switch can be read about here.

Also, previously unmentioned was an upgrade of the photo album section to the use of a flash-based viewer from an HTML multiple page based photo album. This happened in January 2005.

Finally, there's been a visual refresh of the presentation of the pages. I think it looks pretty good, and takes the site from a early 2001 feel to a mid 2000's feel. Woohoo.

Tweaks and fixes include:
- Now the year is added to the time/datestamp on most things.
- Fixed a bug where sample "teaser" images included lo-res thumbs
- Fixed the main Vignette section homepage. Either it was just a fluke on my machine, or for a few months, instead of the homepage, a test page of the flash-based photo album viewer with an unfortunate picture of my friend KS showed up. Whoops.
- Apparently the flash based photo album viewer only worked for some computers, and didn't for most. Whoops. This should now be fixed. In addition, the old HTML based version is now back up to be used optionally, or as an automatic redirect if the page detects that you don't have flash installed. cool, huh?

Fixed a small bug that's been bugging me for a while. Now when it states how many sub-albums are in a parent album (e.g. Travels:2004), it correctly lists the number. Before the numbers it was giving was misleading. Bah.

Just got my old webcam working with my computer, have it automatically upload, so built a page for it, as well as adding it to my front page when it´s timely.


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Purpose

This website is meant to be the online manifestation of my personal life (as opposed to my professional life). Goals of my this site include:

Contribute to the fabric of the internet with meaningful content.

Keep in touch with old friends allow them more insight into my life.

"What does "Heehorse" mean?

Heehorse is a (mostly) obsolete nickname I gained while working at Sapient. What does it mean? Where does it come? I usually respond by saying "It's really dumb and it's not worth your time for me to explain it.". Well, here's my chance to explain:

Before I was rolled onto my project at Sapient, people knew that someone named "Daniel Hui" was joining the team, but disagreed on how to pronounce "Hui". Some thought it was "Hooey", some "Hwei", some "Hi", but there was one particular person who was convinced that my last name was pronounced "Heehorse". Here's why:
Let's call this particular person Drew Krass. Drew, was the oldest person on our project team, but arguably the most immature too. Now, Krass was native Chicago - south side Chicago, and his personality, especially his speech style, would telegraph this. Krass was a huge guy, but had a kind and goofball disposition. So, you can kinda get an idea of the comic type of guy this was. During his college days of drunken stupor, he had been part of a bowling league with his friends, a league that mostly included a bunch of old retirees. Their team they named "Heeouse", as in "In da house", with "house" pronounced in a local south-side Chicago accent. During one league game, their team got into a unresolvable dispute with another team over a foot fault, and decided to take it to arbitration. So, on the day of the arbitration Drew Krass and his fiends start drinking early in the day (I suppose out of habit), by the time of the arbitration that evening, they were sloshed. At the arbitration, the arbiter, like many of the other members of the league, was an elder retiree gentleman. When he came to announcing the start of the arbitration process, he announced "Dispute between [so and so team name] versus Hee...Hee..heee...."... He apparently had no idea how to pronounce "Heeouse"... after a few more stuttering attempts at pronunciation, he finally uttered "hee..hee...HEEHORSE". Drew Krass and his friends fell on the floor laughing.

. That's basically the story. Drew Krass liked the word "Heehorse" because it was part of an old college drunken story, and decided that he would call me "Heehorse" because of that. For some odd reason, this nickname of mine caught on quickly, and soon, Directors, VP's, and even clients were calling me Heehorse. Since I have left Sapient, I have quietly retired the name, but when I see my Sapient friends, I'm still Heehorse to them.

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