June 2005 Archives
 | You scored as Colossus. Colossus is the strongest X-Man physically. His love for his family and his sister Illiana make him strong. Although he can be prone to fits of rage, he has a big heart under that organic steel skin. Powers: Can change his skin into organic steel making him nearly invunerable and exponentially increasing his strength
Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz created with QuizFarm.com |
Rossignol » That Walking Building: "Rossignol Buildings& Fine Nonsense& Art24 Jun 2005 04:38 pm That Walking Building Charity links me to this: ‘The Animaris Rhinoceros Transport is a type of animal with a steel skeleton and a polyester skin. It looks as if there is a thick layer of sand coating the animal. It weighes 2. tons, but can be set into motion by one person. It stands 4.70 meters tall. Because of its height it catches enough wind to start moving.’ Watch the video. I am speechless with joy.
Okay, so this is the TOTAL CHEAT... but whatever.
Today I was back in the office for the first time in roughly three weeks. I normally would work from home on Mondays, but today I had my yearly review (which, of course, went well) so I felt I had to make it in. I spend the greater part of the day just catching up and getting myself back on track. I wasn't entirely successful, and tomorrow will be spent probably doing the same. This evening, however, I got a peek at the artwork from Mike, our artist for the comic, and man -- it is SEXY! We're gonna kill at Comic Con. I just know it.
Anyhow, off to bed. Talk to you tomorrow.
So our neighbors next door, Barbara and Jeff, have a certain infamy on our block, and are often part of discussions that take the form of 'why do they let their house go like that?', 'are they still alive?', 'what are they doing in there?', etc. We often make jokes about finding the bodies one day, and just yestereday we heard chain saws whirring and a truck out front of their house obviously busy doing some sort of yardwork. I made the offhand black humor joke that they were chainsawing through the front door to get to the bodies. Well, as we soon found out, Jeff died last week, and the workmen were a product of Barbara's children (step-children as I found out) trying to help Barbara get the place cleaned up a bit. I felt like total crap, of course, for making the joke earlier, and strangely this hits on a number of different levels. Barb and Jeff in their own weird reclusive and twisted way remind me a lot of my own parents -- they keep to themselves, Barbara is kinda dependent and scattered, Jeff had health problems but was obviously the one in charge. With Jeff gone, I am concerned that Barbara isn't going to be able to properly take care of herself. Her kids live in Southern California, and aren't around to help out on a daily basis. They want to sell the house and move Barb down as soon as possible. I'm not sure Barbara is convinced of this, however, and she feels she's got some obligation to the memory of Jeff (who she affectionately calls 'Daddy') to fix the place up. Julie and I, of course, are looking at the house as an opportunity to purchase a fixer-upper and roll it over to friends or to neighbors we want to live next to us. These are all premature thoughts that we will probably go to hell for, but right now -- Barbara is in shock and is grieving and needs some support. Part of me is really happy to give her attention and support and help out when I can and when it's appropriate (I helped her change the bulb on her fridge and she was brought to tears with thankfulness), but part of me wants to run far far away from this situation lest I be sucked into a role of being the new 'Daddy'. This is mostly a reflection of my fear around my own parents, and my consideration of what might happen if my dad goes before my mom. In reality, however, I know my mom is way more self-reliant than my neighbor, and without my dad she'd be sad and lonely and inconvenienced (she doesn't drive), but she would be able to handle herself.
So, here I am, sitting on the fence between good samaritanism and selfishness -- contemplating the mortal life of a lonely woman, and thus reflection on my own life. I am so fortunate to have loved-ones and family. I am so fortunate right now to not be alone in my walk of life. Barbara is alone in a real sense. She doesn't have friends. She doesnt' have family near by. She sits at home every night mourning the loss of her best friend, her only friend, her partner of thirty years. I want to cook her dinner, but I am faced with the reality of not knowing what her tastes are, and noticing her teeth are in such bad shape that they move while she talks, and I'm not certain she can even really chew anymore. She had talked to me about pulling her teeth and getting dentures before her health insurance runs out.
She's so sad, so needy, so alone. I will make a point of touching base with her every few days, just to make sure she's doing okay.
Okay, so I'm several days behind, but I am DETERMINED to bring myself back to the present before I finish for the evening. Quality will suffer, but hopefully there will be something interesting in the midst of the banal drivel.
Saturday -- what did I do Saturday? Hmm. We got home Thursday, had a lazy Friday... Saturday. Well, Julie didn't leave any details on her blog about it, so I guess I'm kinda clueless. Wait, was that Dri's party? Yeah, that's right. Adrienne's birthday party. We went over to Dri's and hung out (well, I got there like 3 hours late because of the oil change from hell, but that's another story). That evening I can't really remember the details.
It's strange, Weekends just vaporize for me out of my memory. It's like I spend so much of my attention focusing on work during the week that I just give my memory a vacation over the weekend. It's not really what I would prefer -- I'd rather forget work and remember my free time. Hmm. Gotta work on reversing the polarity on that one :).
Actually, let's just remember as much as I can.
What was that again?
Today I decided to stay home after nearly a week of travel, and did not much of anything. I did some email replying and general working on stuff and got Eli out of school early to go see Madagascar with him, and then we all headed out to Stinson Beach. Robin, Julie's good old friend (the last bridesmaid) was out from Vermont, so she joined us for the day, and went out to Stinson with us. We had good home-cooked food from Emily, Julie's mom, and Eli and I walked the beach picking up mussel shells and various beach detrius. We stayed late, then packed the kids into the car and headed home. We tucked ourselves in, and fell asleep.
All in all it was one of those lazy do-nothing days that we should indulge in from time to time (and maybe more frequently than that), but we always end up making ourselves busy on our time off, to get in the life we miss while we work. What we miss are the boring days of do-nothing, when we allow life to just wash over us and happen, and perhaps in those moments come small flickers of inspiration or illumination. And if you're lucky, even contentment.
Today was a pretty simple-easy day, waking up late with Isaac and packing a few things before heading back to the Javitz, then heading back (not in the rain this time), packing up the rest of what needed to be packed, and then waiting for Julie to get back to the Hotel so we can get on the road.
We had a crazy driver on the way back to the airport that was from Poland, loved to hear himself talk, and was a font of local knowledge. He took us through the backroads of Long Island getting us back to JFK to avoid the nasty traffic, and all along the way told us all sorts of interesting tales of local color. He ended up taking us to the wrong terminal first, because he was excited about going to Poland the next day, and he ended up fleecing us for a larger tip than I intended on giving him, because he couldn't find change for a twenty, but all in all, we got to the gate just in time.
Isaac had a harder trip back than he did out to NYC, with lots of crying and fussing along the way. He was super tired, but just wouldn't go to sleep. Finally half-way through he passed out, and gave us a bit of rest. We dragged ourselves out to the curb, rode back on the shuttle to our car, and just made it home before passing out. We got home about 11:30 pm, and we snuck in to Eli's room for a goodnight hug and kiss. We then collapsed into bed, and that is all I have to say about that.
It's good to be home.
So the good news is, today I only had to walk to the Javitz twice. The bad news is, it rained on my on the way home the second time something fierce.
Today was a pretty good day for Isaac and me, save the rain. We got up early in the morning and went a few blocks over to get breakfast from an Irish pub -- it turns out we happen to be smack-dab right in the middle of Irish town. Whowuddathunkit. The two blonde waitresses are very nice and cute with their thick accents, and they completely fall in love with Isaac, which of course I love in many ways. Babies are chick magnets, I'm telling you :). I had the traditional Irish breakfast which consisted of two eggs, hash browns, ham/bacon rashers and about four different types of sausage. Mmmmmm-mmm! With lots of HP sauce, too.
After getting breakfast, Isaac and I took a walk down to 42nd street, hung a right and walked all the way down to 2nd avenue or thereabouts to the Chrystler building. I took lots of photos of the outside and the lobby, but they don't allow the public to go up the building unless they have business. The building is a beautiful tribute to the triumph of mankind, and is so much more powerful a symbol than the ESB, which was awesome but one-note. "I am big" is what the ESB says, but the Chrystler says "Mankind is Powerful". The lobby's ceiling is a gigantic painted mural of Atlas holding up the world, and all the accomplishments of 'modern' man -- the train, the airplane, etc. It's lifted directly from Ayn Rand's mind. I talked for a short bit with the doorman, who told me that the Chrystler used to have ballrooms and restaurants up at the top, until about fourty years ago, but now it's all office space. I can only imagine what it was like for the elite during the heyday of 42nd street.
We went next door to Grand Central Station below the Vanderbilt, and that also was incredible. I've seen it in movies many times, but to be present in it -- it was powerful. A testament to humanity. The Taggarts live there, most definitely.
In glancing around New York, a thought has struck me about how so many buildings still exist that were a testament to the power and ability of their era. New York seems to be about striving for our best and leaving a legacy of our power for the world to see. I hold this up in sharp contrast with the San Francisco Bay Area, and our debacle over the bay bridge. Instead of being united behind leaving a design and legacy of a bridge that challenges our abilities as engineers and architects, they want to cut the budget and build yet another boring bridge. How pathetic, is what I think. Future generations will look at our legacy and see... nothing of interest.
Anyhow, we went to the Javitz, and then came back to the room. My intention was to take us out to the park or do something interesting, but as it turned out Isaac was completely tuckered out so I let him sleep for a few hours. We gathered our things, headed out for a late lunch, then met Julie at the Javitz again for kiddie lunch time. When we were ready to head back, we looked outside and magically it had started to pour. Neither of us had an umbrella, but we bought one at the souvenir stand, and I tucked it over the top of the stroller, and launched out into the fray. It was a wet walk home for me, but luckily it wasn't cold. Isaac stayed nice and dry. We got back and hung out for a while, but Isaac eventually got tired and hungry and fussy, so I stalled him until Julie made it back around 7pm. Later in the evening we went out to a great restaurant called 'Seven' with a good friend and local, Laurence. Much libation and good food were had, and Isaac again charmed the wait staff. He crashed out, we hung out and eventually trundled off home to bed.
All in all, it's been a good and successful second day.
We arrived late last night, but today was the first day in New York City with Isaac. Julie went to the Javitz convention center early in the morning, and Isaac and I, not being the types to laze about in the hotel room, decided we'd go out and find ourselves some adventure.
But before I launch into that, let me just say that I am in the strangest sort of cognitive dissonance, where I'm homesick for my boy (Eli) at the same time I'm excited at spending so much time with my boy (Isaac). All in all, it's a good thing that I get to bond with Isaac like this, but I really wish Eli was here, because he'd totally get a kick out of NYC.
So, we got on our adventuring clothes, and headed out the front of the hotel. I had made tentative plans to go up the Empire State Building, but I was open and if we got there and it was too nuts, we could make other plans. My tether was short on time and distance, since we had about three hours until we had to show up at the Javitz for a feeding, so I didn't want to roam out of the neighboorhood. I walked a street over to 32nd and found some greasy hole-in-the-wall narrow food trough called 'salt and pepper' that served all sorts of fried and buttered and breaded items. I got myself a cup of coffee and a poor man's egg McMuffin (at their prices, do we really need a 'poor man's' version?), and scarfed it in the back of the restaurant under a poster labeled 'Choking Victim' -- it was instructions on performing the Heimlich, but I found it ominously prophetic, so I left quickly. Three steps out the front of the restaurant, I see the sign to a much nicer establishment that serves 'Irish breakfasts' all day long -- note to self, go THERE tomorrow!
So, off we were on our jaunt. I walked up 32nd street to 5th avenue, and then over to 34th and found myself at the base of the Empire State Building. I've been to New York City before, but this is the first time I've actually been at the Empire State, and it is magnificent. I took lots of pictures, but I didn't bring the download cord so you'll have to wait for photos till I get back home. We entered in on the 5th avenue entrance, and proceeded up the elevators to the second floor. (Note to self: baby strollers get you around long lines as if you were handicapped! Rock!) On the second floor, I am not sure what I expected to see, but it wasn't what I did see, which in hindsight is exactly what I should have expected to see. Namely, a large roped off snake of a line (thankfully empty) to a ticket booth which was much like a movie ticket kiosk. There were all sorts of prices for tickets, but it was $14 for adults and free for baby, and for $30 I could get a ticket that avoids all the lines, but as I was informed 'there aren't any lines yet'. While there was a nominal line, I could see that we were probably at %2 capacity, so I took her word and payed my $14, and joined the fray. I was soon confronted with again, something I should have expected but didn't -- a security checkpoint. At said checkpoint I was obliged to pass my bag through the x-ray machine, and take off my belt, but it was no where near the same level of intrusion as the airport. I was, however, taken off-guard, so it took me some time to reassemble and gather all my things (more on this later).
After I made it through checkpoint Charlie, I weaved my way around and through a maze of small-intestine-shaped lines made out of scarlet velvet rope. I was starting to get dizzy, but since I was pushing a stroller, I didn't have much choice but to keep zigging and zagging. Finally, I made it into a hallway that appeared to be in the middle of a reconstruction, and I found it immensely humorous the juxtaposition of gleaming chrome and aluminum with exposed masonry and wiring. It was as if we were entering the bowels of the building. We were ushered into elevators that were remote controlled by external line operators, and as the doors closed, I glanced at the button panel. This one goes to 80.
For having to go 80 floors, the elevators are really damned fast. The numbers jump in powers of ten, and my ears popped all along the way. I know that there are offices all the way up the Empire State, but these elevators have been retrofitted to only go to the eightieth floor. The last ten floors ticked off one at a time, presumably because we slowed down as not to launch ourselves into the ceiling as we hit floor 80, and the doors opened up on.. yet another line. at this point, we snaked into a room, and I got my first glimpse out of the window to see the Chrystler building -- a georgeous monument (and one I should try to go up this week if I can), and though very tall in its own rights, below us. I snapped a quick picture, then posed for the obligator souvenir shot they make you pose for. It's against a painted backdrop of the ESB, which I really don't see the point of on two counts. One, it's a painting, and inside the building, so you're already looking at a fake. Two, if it's the empire state you're seeing in the background, how can you actually be on the ESB? Well, whatever, snap snap, we're on our way.
We weave around another line and a nice Jamaican man wants to sell everyone in the crown a guided tour, which really is just a walkman with some highlights recorded on it so you can 'get the real exper-i-ance, man'. Whatever again. We make it to a second set of elevators, that take us up to the 86th floor -- this is the observatory deck. I was naively expecting that we'd be going up to the top of the needle, but I guess they don't take tours up there anymore. We rode up to the 86th floor, and the elevators emptied into... a gift shop. I should have expected it, once again, but I did not. Another thing I didn't expect, but was pleasantly suprised to find, was that the observation deck was... outside! Not only did we get to look at New York from the sky at 86 floors above the ground, but we also got to breathe the ar at that level, which rocked the free world. It was a nice warm, not too muggy day, with no appreciable wind or breeze at all. It was a bit hazey, but otherwise a perfect ESB day. I got pictures from all four sides, and a few of myself and Isaac. I had a great time up there, and after we had our fill, I got back onto the elevators (again avioding a line because of the baby stroller - yes!), and rode back down to the bottom floor.
Satisfied, I launched on a brisk walk from 5th and 34th to my final destination at 11th and 36th. At about 8th and 34th I realized... Crap! I had forgotten the baby bag at the ESB (btw: I love that Empire State Building and Extra Special Bitter have the same initials. But strangely the Empire State was a Czech style lager-- more on this later). So, I called 411 and got the ESB and asked them about the bag, because I suspected I left it at the security checkpoint. They said if I left it, it would still be there. I told them it might be over an hour until I can collect it, and they assured me this was fine. So, more than halfway to the Javitz, I just kept on walking. Eventually I got to the Jacob Javitz convention center (which I saw from the ESB and said 'shit, I have to walk all the way over THERE?!) and called in to Julie. She met me out in the main hall (I couldn't get onto the exhibit floor because of the stroller and baby) out by the 20-foot-tall Yoo-hoo! drink, and the Meow Mix song context. Ugh. don't ask. Anyhow, we found a good spot to do the feed, and soon I was back on my way in the streets. Whatever adventure plans I might had were now superceded by the need to retrieve the diaper bag, if it still existed. Either I left it at the security point, or it got nabbed on the observation platform. I couldn't remember which.
In any case, I got back to the ESB and went to the security checkpoint, and after answering a lot of questions about the bag, I did indeed get it back. The most excellent comment from the security guard was "We don't lose anything at the Empire State."
After this harrowing adventure, I was hungry and tired and thirsty, so right next to the main entrance inside the ESB was a brewpub called 'The Heartland Brewery', which I found out is a chain in Brooklynn and Manhattan. Anyhow, I went in and had two pints of their 'Indian River Light', which was totally awesome -- it was like a nut-brown but lighter and had both orange and coriander in it, but so faintly as to not really be identifiable as such. It was a damned fine brew. Oh yeah, I also had lunch -- a chicken caesar, which was palatable but not really the best I had ever had. Many patrons cooed over Isaac, because after all, he is damned cute. All but this weird couple right next to me. They were too young and hip to care about babies. Damned them. heh.
Anyhow, after a brief stop at the room to change Isaac and pick up a spare shirt for Julie, off I was back to the convention center. Stop two, feeding two, and off again I was into the fray. All through the morning, Isaac was wonderful. Even as we passed a full siren blaring get-out-of-my-way interchange between two cops, a fire engine and an ambulance and the mad throngs of NYC drivers, Isaac was nonplussed. Fageddaboudit!
This was not to be the case in the afternoon. Upon getting back to the hotel room around 3pm, Isaac entered into a fuss that was closer to hysterics. It sounded as if I was gouging him in the eye with an ice pick, and nothing I could do would distract him for very long. He passed out and napped for about 10 minutes, but woke up again and screamed bloody murder. Eventually, I packed him up in the stroller again for the last trip to Javitz of the day (I found out on google it's one mile each way from the hotel to the Javitz, so today, including the empire state, I've walked about 7-8 miles), and of course once on the road, he quieted down and eventually passed out. Navigating the streets was a different animal at 5:30pm -- everyone was totally crazy. At one point I nearly got hit by a racing bus that ran a red light even as pedestrians were walking across. At another point, the mass of pedestrians on the opposite side shot the gun on a turn lane, and screwed up traffic so bad that cars were turning against the light just to make up for the fact that they couldn't turn when they were supposed to. Utter mayhem. By the time I got to Javitz, I was fried. Julie came out after a while, fed the boy, and she, myself, Isaac and her co-worker Heather made the long haul back to the hotel room.
Julie and Heather both had their own respective dinners to attend. I was left with the need to eat, and the only place to eat was the downstairs restaurant that served grossly overpriced food. I had had one of their new york steaks the night before, and while very price, was decent, so I went downstairs to the actual restaurant to trim off a few dollars from the room service bill. I ordered the salmon bisque (yummy) and the Barbecued Ahi (which was supposed to be served medium rare, but was medium, and which was NOT fresh despite what the waiter had told me) which I wasn't all that fond of (however the black bean risotto that it was served with was quite nice), but since I had about 20 minutes to order and consume, I wasn't going to send it back to the kitchen for something else. Note to self -- dont' believe the waiter when they say that fish is fresh. I'm spoiled by good fish, and just coming from Hawaii, I'm doubly spoiled.
So, I scarfed, made it back up, and julie ran off to her dinner, just in time for Isaac to have another hard hour as he tried to negotiate sleep. he finally went down at 9:30pm, and I got a chance to play some Civ III and to read some email. I have been blogging and reading blogs and IM'ing all evening long, but since it is now 1:30 AM NY time, I'm going to crash. I'll chat with you all later with further details as the week progresses, and eventually backdate the last week posts to keep my 'at least a post PER day' record. I will also eventually answer everyone's emails. I have to stop playing Civ III, because it saps my creative time away. Damn nasty game, we hates it forever.
Okay, it's been a week since I've submitted a post -- I'll go back and backfill because last week was kind of interesting, but now I'm posting from New York City, on the 21st floor of the Affina with my baby boy Isaac, as we get ready for the day and try to figure out how to fill the three-hour slots between feedings while his mommy does her work thang.
While it's gonna be a big pain in the butt schlepping from place to place, I'm actually looking forward to being with Isaac all week long with nothing to do but be with him. I think we'll try to go see the Empire State building, since it's right here. We'll see how it goes.
Today is father's day, and we had a pretty lazy day. I tried to rest as much as I could and hang out with Eli as much as I could before heading out to NYC tomorrow. Of course, it's the end of the day and I never called my own dad. Ugh. Not much to say, other than I really love being a daddy.
Today is my tenth anniversary with the most wondeful and understanding, loving, caring, and patient women in the world, and I of course am spending it in the air, travelling home. Actually, at this point I've made it home, but damn, what a brutal flight. landed around 9pm, got on the 9:30 airporter, got home and in bed by 11pm. Luckily Julie and I celebrated our anniversary before I left on the trip.
I love you honey. Here's to ten years of our great adventure.
So today two major things happened -- one was that D'Arcy and I gave a very successful session on distance collaboration (with an assist by King from Calgary). We had about 25 people show up to our session and stay through the entire talk! We demonstrated a lot of different software and talked about techniques, but mostly we talked about the importance of maintaining and supporting the relationships that the technology supports in distance collaboration.
The second thing is I attended a photoshop cs2 session and won a copy! Woot!
That's it. Tonight we had dinner with Scott Morris of Apple at a very nice but expensive Chinese restaurant across the way from the hotel, Shanghai Express. Mmm yummy Peking duck!
We headed up to the bar at the top of the hotel again, where Scott's wife got hit on by the bartender, and where we had very good conversation for a while until we all hit the wall and had to go back to our rooms and pass out.
Today's my last day at the conference, and I fly home tomorrow.
Today we presented on pachyderm, and most of the day was spent either in preparation for the presentation, or in giving it. I was hung over for the greater part of the day, and I mostly just tried to keep it together. I think the presentation went over moderately well, and while there wasn't a standing ovation, there was some interest in the project.
Later in the evening, we went out to a Luau held by the University of Hawaii, at a local community college. It was a very beautiful campus, that is for sure. The food was pretty good, and the entertainment was family-style. At one point a bunch of hula dancers in their fifties through eighties came out and gave us some traditional dance followed with an interpretive dance set to 'God Bless America' or something just as patriotic. This turned off a good deal of the mostly liberal education staff in the audience, but I just felt bad that we are so cynical that we can't just take a patriotic statement at face value anymore. Everything is so laden with meaning and agenda, that just saying 'I love being an American' is somehow a political endorsement for the war in Iraq and anti-abortion rallies.
Anyhow, we went back and ended up at Sarento's up at the top of the Ilikai tower, riding the glass elevator up to the top, where we had a rousing political conversation with a fellow attendee.
A few bits of trivia:
The harbor in back of the Ilikai tower is where they filmed the harbor for 'Gilligan's Island'. The Coconut island, where they filmed the wide shots for the show is... get this... three hours away.
The glass elevator at the Ilikai is the first of its kind, built in the sixties, and the opening scene of Hawaii Five-O has footage shot there. Book 'em, Dan-o.
That's going to be a new tag line for my blog.
Why do I try so hard to fill in those little marks on the calendar, even as my memory fades and the details get lost? It has to do with the commitment, and with the fact that I know myself, and if I don't hold myself to the 'post per day' rule, I will soon stop blogging. So, bear with me and my incessant backdating. You might actually read something interesting along the way.
Let's see, this is Wednesday -- the first full day in Honolulu, and the conference doesn't start until the evening. Right. I pretty much spent the day with D'Arcy and his wonderful family (his wife Janice, his father-in-law George, and their really cute son Evan, who was not sure what to make of me at first, but by the end of the day, we were fast friends). We went out to a street fair and did some shopping, then ended up at the bay nearby the hotel, where we proceeded to play in tepid water and get ourselves burned to a crisp. I put on spf 30 (thanks to Janice who lent it to me), but I couldn't reach my mid-back, and I paid for it later. I'm still peeling, and it's a week later. Evan and I played splash fights and sifted through sand. He's two, so it's that perfect exploratory age. I was, of course, using the cute little tyke to assuage my guilt for being away from my own boys.
That evening, we had a big gathering, and much fun was had by all. I even won a tote bag from a raffle (which is hilarious, because just the week previous I was bitching to D'Arcy and King that I have way too many trade show bags).
Later that evening, I threw a bit of an impromptu party back in my room making mai tai's for about eight to twelve friends (old and new). My sister made it out along with Quinn, as they just happened to be in the neighborhood for a wedding. I woke up the next day with a hangover, but I discovered I was not the worst off of the pack. And that's all I'm going to say about that :).
So, yeah -- fun day, lots of play time. The rest of the week was much more business.
Five hour flights suck ass. However, drinking two very strong mai tai's in a row goes a long way to help you forget. So I'm here, in Hawaii. Honolulu. It's 2 AM California time, but only 11 pm here. I should get some sleep, and I will soon, thanks to my good ol' buddy rum. But I thought I'd just drop a note to say, hey I'm blogging, and I'm at the NMC conference. I am all by myself here (other than the people I know, of course, who are attending the conference) and I'm a bit lonely already. I miss my wife, my family. It was nice to land and get a message at the desk from D'Arcy -- thanks man, it goes a long way to have some contact. I went down to the bar half-hoping someone would be up and hanging out, but alas, no one I knew. I'm sure the next few nights will be more exciting.
Okay, gonna sign out. Thanks for listening. Expect a podcast soon -- I just got a headset/mic from work and I'll try it out when I have more bandwidth and more sleep.
This is a pretty cool looking resource for keeping up-to-date on open source projects.
Alex Bosworth's Weblog: Swik: "
A common complain about Open Source is that it's hard to find out how to make it work. I don't really think this makes sense: if Open Source has any strength, it's strength in numbers, and if there are many other people figuring out how to use software, they should be able to pass that knowledge along to everyone else.
Unfortunately, life is not always that easy for users of Open Source yet. That's why SourceLabs is developing Swik, a web service for letting information about Open Source software flow from user to user, in a free and open way.
Swik is a wiki for any open source project. It's a set of CreativeCommons pages that lets anyone share tips, links, definitions or instructions.
You can also stay up to date through Swik, you can subscribe any project to a set of RSS feeds and create a view of the news for a project, or subscribe"
Isn't that sad?
Okay, so it's been over a week and I'm doing that backdating game, but why stop now.
The last day of WWDC, I was left with a confusion to whether Apple was the inspiration of Isaac Newton, or the forbidden fruit which when truly tasted gave the knowledge of good and evil, and showed you that you weren't wearing any clothes. So many good things came out of the conference, such as the very carefully managed switch to Intel, the new improvements in development tools and core libraries -- Apple has really been kicking some ass. The number of engineers they had on staff (500 for 3800 attendees) was phenomenal, and such amazing foresight was shown on managing what was potentially a very explosive and unpopular move. But on the other side of the fence, there's been a withdrawl of WebObjects from all other platforms other than Mac OS X, and there is no real clear path for support of their legacy non-platform users. Words were exchanged and assurances were implied, but at the end of the day Apple did not show the same care and foresight in managing their WebObjects transition as they did the Intel transition. In our particular case we're in negotiations for some sort of arrangement for deployment licenses on non OS X platforms, but if I were an enterprise that had heavily invested in WebObject on other platforms, and had millions of dollars in hardware, I would be furious.
It just seems to me that this is very much a 'Microsofty' maneuver, and for a company whose motto is 'Think Different', they are doing some very unoriginal thinking around this product. I hope they get it worked out.
Okay, so today we got Pachyderm to run on a linux box, which is a tremendous breakthrough. It was really nice to see it running on our pathetic little dev machine (400 mhz processor, 2 gigs of hard disk, running red hat 7.x). Now we only have to tackle the hurdle of getting licenses for WebObjects available for the project, which we are actively working to get to happen. I'm still angry about the general lack of will to handle this problem ahead of time, but I think we're moving closer to a solution at least on this project.
On other news, we went to the Apple campus for the WWDC beer bash, and though we knew there'd be a band playing, we had no idea we'd be treated to a Wallflowers concert. D'Arcy has a nice blog on this, complete with requisite pictures and video clips.
Other than the concert, and good food, beer, awesome mounds of cherries, etc. It was totally nostalgic for me to be on the campus of a big computer company like Apple. It brought me right back to the old Excite@Home days, and made me sigh and smile. However, in reality -- I don't miss the long hours, the high pressure, and the feelings of ineptitude I had back then, and I much prefer my nice comfortable CSU job, thank you very much. I still am challenged, but I get to go home to my family at the end of the day, and no one threatens to fire me if we don't meet our quarterly numbers.
So... yeah... Apple. Cultish following. Good Aesthetic. Awesome music taste. I'm having fun.
For all of Apple's exclaimations of adopting open source standards and ideologies on Monday, the behavior and policy around the WebObjects product has me a bit disturbed, and my willingness to fully embrace Apple as a company has been severely curtailed. Especially considering the time and energy and forethought the company had behind the transition from Motorola to Intel, and the support promised to their customers, any customer of WebObjects 5.2.x or before is left out in the cold if they develop or deploy on any platform other than OS X. I understand a company's need to refocus policy, to cut costs, to reconfigure their business plan -- but effectively they have cut adrift any user of WebObjects who needs to deploy into a spac that isn't Apple. Their official response is -- buy and XServe. That's just not acceptable. There is a path for compiling a WebObjects application and deploying on a different application server, such as Tomcat or JBoss, but in order to do such a deployment, you need to compile a deployment key into the application. In order to obtain that key, you HAVE to buy an XServe, because they aren't selling them otherwise. So, if you have spent the last two years developing a product on the WebObjects platform and your requirements are that you are deployable into Windows, Solaris and Linux operating systems, your options are to stay with a dead platform with 5.2.4, buy an XServe for the license just so you can run on a windows box, or break the law and use a pirated key.
We're in negotiation with Apple reps right now to try to figure out a solution, but on first blush this is grossly irresponsible and even if we personally obtain a special-case solution, it still leaves lots of corporate customers out to dry. I think the potential for ill-will in the marketplace is great, and Apple needs to make good on this to all its loyal WebObjects users. To fail to do so would be to show that they are just as manipulative and self-oriented as Redmond.
I am starting to miss my land of Open Source advocates. I thought I found a new home here, guys. Please pull it together and show me that you're everything you promised to be. Do I need to install linux on my laptop?
So today we heard Really Concerning News (tm) that has us scrambling to find a solution over the next week or so. Basically we have to get Pachyderm running on an application server which is not WebObjects (preferrably JBoss and Tomcat). From looking at D'Arcy's attempt, we're already pretty dang close, but of course the devil is always in the details. tomorrow morning we're going in to the lab and getting Apple engineer help to get this all up and running smoothly.
On another note, tomorrow evening I'm definitely heading home early from the conference because my family is missing me, and my wife desperately needs my help. She's been taking one for the team this week, and with the harsh reality of me being gone next week as well necessitates me finding something really nice and expensive for a gift for her. Oh, and did I mention our 10 year anniversary is the 18th, the day I'm flying back from my conference in Hawaii?
Sigh. Last year it seemed so cool that NMC was in Hawaii and I'd be going (and at that time, had supposed i'd be bringing Julie as well.) Now, well I feel like a heel for being away and in paradise without my love and partner of ten years.
This started off as a WWDC rant, but really I guess I've mostly been preoccupied with Julie and my family and trying to give them what they need while at the same time doing what I need to do to make the contacts and foster the relationships I need to make and foster, and to make sure our project doesn't die in the water due to poor support decisions made on Apple's part.
What does someone get for a 10-year anniversary?
Okay, so of course the news today announced was that Apple was transitioning to Intel based processors for their Macintosh line of computers. But, before I get into that, I want to share with you the brief observation I made at the beginning of the day, because it is actually germaine to the entire conversation. That is -- Apple is not a company that creates computers -- it is really a philosophy and a way of life, and it's a sea change in our culture. Those who participate in the Apple meme are participating in something altogether different from the average computer user. It's an aesthetic that is pervasive and goes beyond sleek cases -- it's about changing your relationship to computing.
That being said, the big announcement today was Apple's decision to go to Intel as their processor, ditching the Power PC chip they've touted for over a decade. Some rabid die-hard fans took this as bad news, as if somehow they had been betrayed after years of hype about how the Intel processor didn't stand up to the PPC chip. To me, I see this as a good business decision based on sound criterion, and it shows a flexibility and a dedication towards progress that only strengthens Apple as a company in my mind. Steve Jobs is an excellent salesman and not only were his reasons sound (power consumption on the PPC is like 5x what it is on the Pentium), but Apple has worked very hard to make this a seamless transition in many ways.
First off, it appears that Jobs had a secret mandate for all versions of OS X that they would be processor-independant, and would compile on Intel as well as on PPC. This goes back to 10.0, and shows a prescience that is to be commended. They were still commited to PPC five years ago, but they knew that things could change in the future, and they had to be ready. The fact that not only Tiger is intel-ready, but all previous versions gives me confidence that the hardware platform and the OS are gonna be just fine. He demonstrated Pentium 4 3.4 ghz macs on stage and things worked flawlessly.
Second, the Apple team has incorporated into their IDE a very painless methodology for transforming Apple source code written for the PPC into what they are calling 'universal binaries' which are compiled for Intel as well as PPC. XCode allows most code bases to be compiled for dual-platforms with a simple click of a checkbox (and if that isn't enough, there is the promise of only needing to use 'minor tweaks' to get it in line.) basically, if you use Apple Cocoa frameworks and classes, the process is automatic.
Third, Apple has created a product for the intel Mac called 'rosetta' which will just run PPC binaries natively w/o the need to launch a whole separate environment (unlike the 'classic' mode which has to launch a separate emulator to run old code). So, old apps won't become useless on the new platform.
machines should roll out gradually over the next two years, and Apple has no plan to stop supporting their PPC line. that being said, their stock was down $.42 today and I'm certain they're going to take a short-term hit on sales for the next year until intel macs come out (who wants to buy into old hardware?). So, with the gradual roll-out, the ease of porting code, and the fact that Apple is giving their developers communtiy a year to react and to adjust means that users should be completely unaffected by this transition, and it will appear transparent to the average Mac owner.
Overall, I've been very impressed by this turn of events and it shows that Apple knows what their doing. This transition promises to be as important as the move to PPC in teh first place, or as the move from os 9 to os x. Apple is a company that's here for the long haul -- they've tasted success recently, and they're leveraging that success to get them to the next level. They are a philosophically driven company, and it appears that their memes are finally paying off.
Tonight I had a wonderful time with Rebecca and her family. In brief, there is serious frienship potential here. Her kids are wonderful, her husband is really cool, and she of course rocks.
Looking forward to repeated applications.
Today we went up to Nevada City to spend the day with Julie's brother and family and celebrate my nephew Jonah's 7th birthday, and while this can be an ambivalent event for me, I have to say seeing the boys together (Eli and Jonah) was totally awesome. They are finally old enough that they can run off together and be completely self-absorbed and entertained, and we don't have to worry (much) about what they are doing, exactly or whether or not they're safe.
Of course, in ten years, all bets are off. :)
Too much to do today and I fear I will have to work the weekend. Urgh.
Tonight we met again with our artist for the comic, and what we're going to try to focus on is 3-4 paneled story pages, 4 character art / sketch pages, a synopsis and extra material wrapped up in a mini, along with 3 finished scripts. I know it's not a full comic, but we just couldn't make that happen. We'll see if we can pull this off by comic-con. What I really NEED right now is someone who can ink, because our artist is confident in his drawing, but not so much in his inking and he wants this to be as spectacular as we do. Anyone know any freelance inkers that are looking for some quick work between now and mid-july?
