I took my camera to work yesterday, with the half-assed idea I’d take pictures at the Chicago Cubs game I was going to later that night (they lost!).

I ended up just leaving my camera in the car, so I have no lovely photos of their loss or my drinking of much beer.

I *did* take some pictures of my work area earlier in the day. Several people have privately urged me to share photos of my workplace. Okay, no one has actually done this. But here they are!

First something to grab your attention!

If I turn around from my ‘puter, this is what I see. A guy on my team recently retired, and I moved into his “cube” with the spectacular view. I like me a starin’ window.

Old Man Programmer didn’t just leave me with the view. He also left me with this crazy-assed plant that I almost killed (plants need water, apparently).

I have a reasonably-sized section of wall dedicated to all things artistic:

On the wall I have some pics from the kiddies, as well as my previously mentioned yellowed clipping of a post-pretzel-choking Dubya.

Just below him are my cherished foreign monkey (well, chimpanzee, actually) postcards. If you ask really nicely, I’ll scan them so you can see them in their “hilarious” glory.

My bookcase (partial view)

Here’s some books I rarely look at, along with some various doodads.

Doodads
The red buddha on the left was given to me by a coworker coming back from a trip to China. The Beast and Hulk action figures were presents given to my superhero-lovin’ daughter. They turned out to be die cast, and really heavy, so I, being the anxious daddy that I am, took them to work. The snowglobe I got in Rome. It’s gradually losing water, I think probably just due to evaporation. Nestled behind the globe is Duke, the completely unnecessary and slightly disturbing mascot of Java. If you look at the bottom left of the picture, you can just make out the plastic wrestler dude that sits atop my PC, guarding it with fists raised. Lastly, I can’t remember where that lion toy came from. It’s a bonafide mystery.

Books
A lot of the books I got for free. Some I got at the various JavaOne conferences I have attended. My brother used to work for a publishing company, and he would be able to get some free programming books as well, which he’d give to me. That Idiot’s Guide To Linux is one of them. On principle, I would never spend money on a book that insults my intelligence in its title.

My favorite book out of these is Joshua Bloch’s Effective Java:

I saw Bloch give a lecture at JavaOne, basically taking samples out of his book. I liked the lecture so much I bought it.

His next book was done with Neal Gafter, called Java Puzzlers:

I didn’t like Java Puzzlers so much. It felt more like a “I know squirrelly things about Java that you don’t know, and would never be able to figure out” book. But, I did get them to autograph the book for me when I was at my last JavaOne:

I had specifically asked one of them to write “Keep On Rockin'” and the other to write “Keep On Rollin'”. I thought it was funny. They didn’t seem to think so, but obliged me.

They no longer work for Sun Microsystems — they’re bigshots at Google now. May they rock and roll and understand my sense of humor far into the future!