At the Singing Frog

Blog moved

2011-11-17T00:38:00.000-05:00

Well, for now I'll keep this blog as it is. Going forward, new posts will be at http://meandmel.com/blog

Sunday Afternoon Walk

2010-12-05T20:31:00.001-05:00

Felt the need to get out of the house on Sunday afternoon. Tom and I took a walk around the neighborhood and out into some fields on the edge of town.

Siamese Bread

2010-12-05T12:24:00.002-05:00

Misce baked some bread, and the loaves ended up joined together like Siamese Twins

Measureable Progress

2010-11-16T23:35:00.002-05:00

On my home machine I've managed to install, configure, and generally get running all libraries that my chosen web-development framework uses. Some dependencies were rather obscure, a few required compilation from source, and one gave me a configuration headache that took two days to solve. Well that's two days at two hours at a time. So realistically it was half a day's worth of work lost simply because I misunderstood the nuances of configuring an Apache webserver which uses named virtual hosts. There is one other problem that I still have to solve, basically how to create a stand alone start and stop script so that a Lisp program can run in the back ground as a service. That should not be overly difficult since my chosen Lisp implementation, SBCL, has truly excellent technical documentation.

A happy day.

Falling into October

2010-10-12T22:04:00.004-04:00

Haven't posted for a while. Work has been keeping me busy, along with other things. After several months away from it, I've re-started my efforts to develop my website. It's not just work that's been keeping me away. For a bit my computer was misbehaving, turns out that a partially corrupted filesystem was to blame. The experience taught me a lesson that I should have already learned a long time ago. That being to have a back up and a rescue disk. I took some effort to recover my system and to not lose any of my data. The system can easily be replaced, but the data isn't easily replaced. The other roadblock keeping me away was my friend's website had to be PCI compliant and the deadline was in the middle of my business travels. From that episode I learned quite a bit about Apache security configuration and how SSL, TSL, and security certificates work from a practical perspective. Now my goal is measured, disciplined, cumulative development of the site. I'll keep this blog posted on my progress.

A Summer Gone By

2010-08-13T23:18:00.002-04:00

Work has kept me very busy, and I've been traveling to a client site repeatedly for the past month. The hours I've worked in the past month are easily double what I would have worked during an ordinary month. As you can imagine, this has left me little time for ordinary chores, being with my family, taking care of my garden, let along blogging. During a brief respite during a stay on a client site, I'm posting this. As I write, as song from my late teens plays on my computer. Times like these make me wonder what the purpose of life is. More specifically it makes me wonder what the purpose of my life is and what exactly I want from it. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that what I most dearly want is to love and to be loved. There are times when I do feel that, even if only in fleeting moments. Traveling on business, while a necessary evil right now so that I can support myself and my family, certainly makes me acutely aware how far away I am from those whom I love, and who love me. A summer has gone by that I can't get back, autumn is coming as the seasons march on. I will change my circumstances so that I will not lose another summer, or any other season, away on business. The price is too high for the time lost is too precious.

Local goings on

2010-06-12T23:45:00.003-04:00

Well the local development environment on my machine is now working as expected. Virtual hosting is set up in much the same way that it is working on the production server. The basic web server set up is there, so now work on the applications can begin. Also now that the virtual sorting is set up, webapps that would run on a team's source control repo server can now run on my workstation. The same apps that a team would use for managing workflow, development planning, source code control, bug tracking etc are now potentially available in the local development environment. This will be a blast.

In other news, the gardens around the house are slowly coming into their own. The golden finches are back, as well as the robins and cardinals. Occasionally a bluejay visits and the crows are ever-present. Soon spring will be over and summer will begin.

The two younger boys and I've been to the pool on every day that the weather and our schedules allow. Karl improved his swimming this year. He's getting stronger and faster. Pretty soon he'll be more a young man than a big boy. Tommy is still all boy, but a few more years will change that.

Misce's been working on her quilts as always and she turned out several lately. They're all well made as always, she's very fastidious about her work. The all look good, and some are even spectacular. Over the years she's made quite a few and at times I really don't know where we will put all of them. As far as quandaries go, that is not a bad one to have.

Back into the swing of things

2010-06-08T23:46:00.002-04:00

Since I last had posted a few things had happened. The kits in the rabbit nest grep up and eventually left the nest. Within a week or two four of them (most likely??) were trapped in our live trap. Three of those we relocated to the State Game Lands. Misce and I planted, mulched, weeded, and trimmed in the garden. The Municipal pool is now open for the season.

Those are all pleasant diversions but the most pleasant of all was a three day two night mini vacation Misce and I took at the end of May. We toured Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water and Kentuck Knob houses in western Pennsylvania. I've always been fascinated with architecture and design and this was a wonderful chance to see a true American master architect's work up close and personal. The encounter was both more and less than what I expected. The houses were far more interesting in real life than any sense that one can get from photos. If you are ever in western Pennsylvania, don't miss the opportunity to see these houses. The most disappointing thing was the height of the ceilings and the tight hallways and doors. It's as if he designed for hobbits. Tall people like Misce and I are clearly out of place in these houses. Overall Misce and I had a wonderful time.

As far as the side projects go, well my rummaging around looking for ideas and deciding what implementation approach I will use is now over. It's time to get some work done get at least a workable demo up and running. I'll update the blog as situation warrants.

Server is settled down

2010-05-19T23:47:00.006-04:00

Had a server OS upgrade (well more like an upheaval, when the auto re-image at the hosting provider continually failed ). Things are running on a more solid and more recent OS Centos 5 (2.6.18 kernel), Apache is now version 2.2.3 My SQL at version 5.0.77 and PHP at 5.1.6. It's certainly not on the bleeding edge, but it certainly is not five years behind the times. Also for now, it has an extra 20 GB from the conversion (the techs had to swap out a hard drive). This machine still has plenty of legs left. I'm definitely looking forward to having setting up my workstation for development of my site. Managed to get a decent domain name roamigo.com "Roam I Go" ... that matches the intent of the site. Started looking into how to best represent geographic data in a database, and also started wondering about database designs as well as database implementations. One intriguing possibility is to use a column store architecture (yes on an online database with continuous submissions !!). MonetDB is a good candidate. One reason for this would be speed of queries and especially joins. Another possible advantage would be the natural data partitioning that a column store database supposedly has. That would come in handy when parallel servers are needed. That of course would only be necessary if/when the site has a lot of growth. Of course ease of maintainability and ease of scaling should be considered when choosing an implementation. Cant wait to really get into all of it.

Finally

2010-05-10T23:38:00.004-04:00

The conversion of the live site for my friend is finally done. Right now the site is working with the latest stable release of the software for it, and it includes all of the earlier custom software as well as the styling changes. What a pain that was to finally get it going. The final conversion took only a bit under an hour. The reason it took that long is in the middle of it I got a bit distracted and forgot a step along the way. I had overlooked the consequences of one of the conversion steps and for ten minutes or so the state of the server puzzled me. It was not acting as I had expected it should and the cause of that baffled me. Remembering a custom configuration parameter that I had set manually earlier in the week, I checked if the normal administration interface had overwritten it when I temporarily disabled the domain to do the conversion. Sure enough, that's exactly what it was. Plesk does not like it when you modify the Apache configuration files yourself.

All in all this process has taught me a few things about problem solving and how to mitigate risk. Unfortunately it also taught me that conversions are very very lengthy if there are only a couple of hours everyday to work on them.

What is left before I can begin development of my hobby site ? Well there is that whole upgrading of the base operating system on the server. The procedure is well documented by the hosting company but it is still fraught with danger. I have to think this one through, and perform it carefully. Of course I'll have to have a viable backup strategy, so that I dont loose any data.

Overall I'm happy with the results, I only wish I had managed to get them done a month earlier. That is in the past now. Time to move on.

Happy Day

2010-05-05T23:44:00.004-04:00

Not only did I get to see my two youngest sons sing in the Spring concert today, but I've also reached a significant milestone in backporting customizations to that friend's site that I've been working on. Looks like the obstacle that has been in my way for the past two months will soon be behind me. Now for the conversion of the live database, and the installation of the latest stable, and customized, software for my friend.

The joy of hearing well played and sung live music, and the joy of completing a task long time coming. This is a day to savor.

Wildlife Report

2010-04-26T20:04:00.004-04:00

Tom and I found this little guy and five of his brothers and sisters in the lawn underneath a picnic table in my back yard. Sooner or later I will have to trap them and relocate them to a place more suited to them.

Partial Success

2010-04-17T00:26:00.003-04:00

Late last night I found a debugging extension to the application server I'm using so that I could continue trouble shooting the conversion of a friend's site. Installed it today, configured it, started using it. In a matter of less than an hour after starting to use it, I found my errors, corrected them and got through the basic conversion. Now all that is left is back porting the customizations I had made in the original.

Proper tools are a wonderful thing

Return From Hiatus

2010-04-11T23:41:00.001-04:00

It's been a bit since I've last posted. I've been keeping myself busy with the garden, some reading, work and of course family life. An odd bit of news, seems like Karl as well as Tommy want to do some programming. I'll have to help them get started. First step was to get a copy of a decent IDE for them to use. Right now they are just writing simple web pages, but they get a kick out of writing them. Tom's taken to writing simple AppleScript routines for his computer. Mostly simple examples, but sooner or later he'll figure out how to do something he considers useful. Of course there is his BlockLand programming that he does. Programming objects in a virtual world to do something during gameplay.

After three weeks staying away from it, I'm back into fixing that conversion. Decided to use version control to help me track my progress in the changes that I'm making. Skills learned at work are helping out once again. Tomorrow I'll work through the full conversion, and try to figure out why the previous attempts faltered.

Second Trial Attempt

2010-03-25T23:26:00.001-04:00

My earlier attempt at conversion of the legacy application was unsuccessful. I did manage to complete the conversion but the results were unsatisfactory. I'm set up to try again this weekend. Perhaps this time around it will be speedier and more successful. We'll just have to give it a try and see.

Broke The Logjam

2010-03-18T23:44:00.002-04:00

Well I've been away from working on that conversion, in fact no work on the site got done at all. Bewilderment while working on a unpleasant and unwanted task has a way of discouraging any attempts at finding solutions. In spite of this I finally managed to break through on an earlier problem. One problem solved inevitably leads to yet another one. The earlier problem had to do with a function call to close a database connection that when invoked would crash the process that called it. There is nothing like seeing the words

child pid 79089 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)

in a log file. Tracing the root cause is tedious and bound to mislead at times. I'm at another roadblock, but this one is minor, and I should be able to either solve it or circumvent it without too much hassle ... I hope. Well right now it's time to catch some shut eye.

Backyard Weekend Visitor

2010-03-01T21:31:00.003-05:00

An orange and white cat occasionally visits our backyard. I suspect she's hunting for food. She certainly doesn't look like a house cat or like some one's pet. The few times that we've seen her in the backyard she certainly hasn't behaved like a pet. This past weekend we came visiting once again, and we caught a photo with telephoto of her against the far hedge on the back edge of the yard.

She looks like she knows we are watching her. Perhaps she will visit again.

Finding bugs ...

2010-02-27T01:39:00.004-05:00

Looks as if I have a talent for finding software bugs, especially in other people's software. I find bugs in mine, and I fix them. Other people's software I just have to report it and wait until those who know that particular implementation inside out can fix it. In the past year I've found a bug in Sun Microsystems GlassFish application server. The server was stable, it just didn't do what the specification said it should. The bug was rather esoteric and had to do with default values when both annotations as well as deployment descriptors are used to configure multiple instances of an enterprise bean class. When we reported that bug it turns out our team at work were the first developers who came across that particular error. Today I just happened to come across an error that causes a segmentation fault in an Apache webserver child process. Still not sure if the error is caused by a misconfiguration or if it is a intrinsic error that must be corrected in the source code. We'll have to see later, right now I need sleep

All Quiet

2010-02-24T23:10:00.003-05:00

No progress on the conversion, had too little time to get anywhere after updating some software on my workstation. Need some extra sleep anyway

Conversion and Backporting

2010-02-23T23:35:00.003-05:00

Well the steps I'm taking now will finally upgrade some of that ancient software. A trial run through the steps should give me a decent idea of how long this will take. Reading through the install and upgrade section in the documentation of the new version does leave me a bit worried. The conversion itself seems a bit lackadaisical and requires a fair bit of human intervention. The best approach might be to go through the whole upgrade on the workstation, take very detailed notes, carefully and methodically add those extensions that I had added to the original. After that attempt is successful, a conversion for a demo version of the site on the server is the next step. Once that is satisfactory, run the conversion for the production version of the site on the server. Of course, disciplined backups, careful and appropriate use of source control as well as viable rollback plan are all absolutely necessary should things somehow go awry.

Inevitable Changes in the Seasons

2010-02-22T23:23:00.003-05:00

As the days get longer it is easy to notice subtle changes that mark the inexorable cycling of the seasons. Soon enough spring will be here with the inevitable spring cleaning. Can't say I'll miss this winter much, a few more weeks I will have had my fill. There will be plenty of work ahead. The gardens will need a fair amount of work to ready for the next growing season. Don't know much yet about what we'll grow this year other than a lot of it will be pretty and some of it will be edible. There's still a bit of time to make up our minds but we shouldn't tarry too long.

Speaking of tarrying, a few days respite from my side project let me breathe easy for a bit. But now I'm anxious to get more done. Did a bit today, a test database conversion, a quick function test of the tagged production copy. All is working well and the situation seems to be fairly well under control. The scheduled backups chug along like clockwork. The production server is stable, has plenty of storage, bandwidth, and cpu capacity left for now, so when the side project goes to beta I should be alright. Next step to finish the prep work is to get the latest version of the shopping cart and back port the custom edits as well as test the migration path. That will start tomorrow. By the time spring comes I hope to have a beta version of the site up and running, even if it is a stripped down rudimentary beginning.

Found long lost modified files

2010-02-17T23:37:00.005-05:00

Well they weren't really lost, I just wasn't sure which of the current 5812 files were ones that changed from the original software that I customized for a friend about three years ago. For the past three weeks or so I've been doing some forensics trying to recreate the sequence of changes, more or less, that I had gone through to customize the package involved. Turns out that just a bit more than one percent of the files we changed, more specifically it was 59 out of 5812. It took about an hour of poking around and some creative convoluted BASH one-liners to identify, isolate, correct and verify those files. Without the shell and without those one-liners the job would have been far more difficult. Now even the changes to those original files are captured in source control. Now I can safely proceed with the upgrading of the package for my friends site and the back-porting of my customizations.

Take this BASH, brother, may it serve you well ... or some other similar silliness

Cleaning out the rubbish

2010-02-16T23:49:00.002-05:00

Just finished clearing out some rubbish from a code repository. Duplicate files in slightly mangled and misnamed directories. Slightly off-topic, when scripting remember that names with spaces in them require careful handling, otherwise the shell will misinterpret your intent. ('doh, facepalm) Now the directory trees in source control and in production match both in shape and in content. Next step, migrate the local copy to latest release, back-porting the customizations I made in the original.

Decisions

2010-02-15T21:52:00.005-05:00

We've had some snowy weather in the past week. I all looks beautiful, until of course you have to shovel it or drive in it. Then it's not so much fun. The younger boys had almost a whole week off from school due to the weather. Even Misce's classes were canceled last Wednesday and Friday. Work is busy, and going fairly well. This is all well and good, but this is not what is most on my mind. In my current side project, I'm still upgrading the server and upgrading some long out of date software that runs on it. All this prep work is preventing me from working on the core problem that I want to solve and working on the main part of the project that I want to implement. The stuff I'm doing is tedious and it is taking me too long. Some of that is due to low motivation. Some of these tasks I really don't want to do but they can't be ignored or side-tracked any longer they need to be done. The update of the relatively ancient shopping cart running in production on the server is the most glaring example. Another part of it is I'm not really sure what approach I should be following during this upgrade and what particular step to take next. The indecision and lack of enthusiasm is slowing me down and costing time. I need to make serious headway on this by the end of the week. The upgrade must happen at the very least on my local development system. That way I can then relatively easily and painlessly upgrade the server and the production copy. The worst part of this is doing this a couple of hours at a time at night. Once again, that's where my trusty project notebook helps with the technical details. Also, this blog helps, even if it is just a way to vent a bit of my frustrations to get them out of my system and get going on the necessary work. By the end of February, I need to be once again be working on the project directly and not on ancillary tasks. It's been too long.

Pacing

2010-02-02T06:34:00.003-05:00

The past three weeks or so kept me busy both at work and on my personal projects. One of the less pleasant tasks I've had to do is update and upgrade the system that I help host. Normally this would be done on an ongoing basis, but I've neglected it for so long that some of the software is now past end of life and is no longer being actively maintained. All this effort is part of my pet project, a modern website for posting events. As I have only have an hour or two each day it is important to accomplish at least a little bit each time I find the opportunity. In the past I've had trouble with doing things this way. I preferred to work in long uninterrupted sessions sometimes long into the night. That's the way I got through my programming projects while at university, but that is difficult to keep up for long periods of time. One of the problems with relatively short sessions of work is the context switch at the beginning. Sometimes it takes as long as half an hour to get organized and get into the flow of things. To help me with this, I've been keeping a work log, so that even if I'm away from my project for several days when I read over the log it gives me a very good idea where I was at the last time. That way I can begin where I left off. Of course the log is very high tech, well not really, it's a simple paper notebook ...

Another Step

2010-01-13T00:12:00.004-05:00

Andy returned from visiting a friend in Belgium. It's good to have him home again. Karl won the school Geography Bee. It's his last year he's eligible. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him. I wrote some backup scripts for the hosted databases. They seem to work correctly, but I'll have to monitor it for a day or two before I take the next steps.

Candid Moments

2010-01-06T19:55:00.004-05:00

Found an interesting photo of Tom when we were getting the Christmas tree last month.

A New Year

2010-01-01T08:52:00.005-05:00

Another year's gone by and another one begins. Here's hoping that this year is better than the last. Not that the previous one was terrible. My personal and family situation was stable a fairly easy. We had an actual vacation that we all enjoyed. Overall the past year was good, but we're all hoping for better.

Minor Misadventures in Meta-programming

2009-11-18T23:51:00.005-05:00

Recently I resumed working through Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp Working thorough the section on binary parsing, an all too common misfortune befell me. I got stuck without any clear idea why. Not quite expert in the use of the macroexpand function I did the usual immediate testing of the example code as I typed it in and loaded it. The results were unexpected, rather than the expanded macro form (i.e. a bunch of generate code), the target code executed. Baffled by the results I began the hunt for the offending code, for I was certain that's where the error was. I searched the examples, scrutinized the meaning of each and every function call in my code, performed many experiments where the meta-programming code was just slightly different than the examples, followed odd hunches on a wild goose chase. All to no avail. Then, while staring blankly at the examples in the book and in the documentation I noticed a minor detail, an apostrophe that I hadn't included in my testing. Ah yes! that blasted apostrophe which tells the reader to treat the following s-expression as a list (i.e. data) rather than as code to execute. Here I thought my error was in the code that I wrote but the error was in how I tried to invoke it. That oversight and my bull headed insistence that the error was in the code I wrote, cost me two days worth of spare time effort. A costly lesson, but a lesson that I am not likely to forget soon.

Moonlight

2009-11-02T21:05:00.006-05:00

Standing outside on my deck, looking into my back yard I marveled at how bright the moonlight is tonight. After acclimating your eyes a bit you might even be able to read by it. Brought out the camera to snap a couple of pictures.

The first one is a twenty second exposure.

The second one is a thirty second exposure.

The railing on the deck served as the adhoc tripod. Perhaps I should add a real one to my kit.

Blue Marsh Lake

2009-10-10T22:47:00.002-04:00

This weekend, we planned to hike, perhaps at the Boyd Big Tree Preserve. The weather and other circumstances didn't cooperate. In the end we went to Blue Marsh Lake, which is not more than half an hour from home by car. The morning was wet and blustery, but by the afternoon it cleared out and eventually warmed up. We, that is Tom, Karl and I, got there by late afternoon.

As you can see, both Tom and Karl were happy to be there.

We found our first sign of wildlife.

We of course had to investigate the lake. We've been there many times before. So it was all familiar ground. None of us could resist throwing stones into the lake.

We weren't alone at the lake. Other people were there sailing on this cool windy day.

So we went on a trail into the woods along the shore.

Our path eventually let us to a hilltop field.

Then it led deeper into some woods filled with tall trees.

We had gone far enough and decided to turn back.

On our way back, someone decided to hide in the field.

From a distance we saw a bird of prey. Perhaps it was vulture.

Just as we were returning to where our car was parked, we came across some rabbits. Tommy couldn't help but chase them.

It was getting late, but the skies above were a treat for the eyes.

On the way home we drove by Ontelaunee Reservoir as the day was ending.

It was good day to be outside, even if we did get out a bit late.

End of Summer

2009-09-20T21:00:00.002-04:00

It's the last weekend of the summer, and I was doing chores, clearing out weeds that have grown all through out the garden. As I was changing the oil in my car, couldn't help but notice how wonderful the weather was. The sun was warm. The air was very clear with a slight breeze that hinted at cooler temperatures on the way. For a bit thoughts of the season changing bounced about in my head. Memories of musings on the end of summer from the year before preoccupied my mind as I was cleaning up from my chores. Then I noticed it. A frog, a real live frog in my back yard. There he was sitting on the roof of the mason bee house on the side of the back yard shed.

Of course I called to everyone else in the family to come and have a look. Misce, Karl and Tom all came out and we all ogled the frog. Tom, Karl and I held him and let him jump about and even let him crawl on our arms and legs. Since we are all shutterbugs, we took many photos always hoping for that special one.

The frog was quite patient with all the attention we gave him, allowing Tom to hold him in his hands.

In the end we released him into the taller grass in the back yard. We hoped he was none the worse for wear.

This little serendipitous visit lit up the rest of the afternoon, and took away the drudgery of the chores. Since the camera was already out, Misce caught on camera some other visitors to our backyard. There was the occasional but very colorful Monarch butterfly, like the one we saw a few days ago.

As well as the ever present busy bees.

The day ended with colorful skies much like those a week ago.

It was a most pleasant day, the kind that you savor as much as you can while they last and fondly remember in less pleasant circumstances.

Hiking at Hamburg Resevoir and Watershed

2009-09-06T20:37:00.028-04:00

This weekend my son Tommy, my friend Andy and I went hiking on familiar ground at the Hamburg reservoir and watershed. It had been a while since I last went there. The most recent prior occasion had been in January two years ago. Whenever I go, either with friends or alone, the serenity of the surroundings give me peace and relieve, even if just for a little while, whatever troubles me.

About half a mile or a bit more from the parking lot the path skirts the reservoir.

Many a hiker, including Tommy, finds this a spot for a momentary stop and reflection.

Further up on the hill along one of the steep trails there is a spring, and during those times of year when rain is plentiful its flow is ample.

At the top the path levels out and follows the ridge, gently meandering.

Along the ridge, the path comes to a clearing. At times helicopters use this clearing, perhaps for evacuating injured hikers.

Continuing on the path, some trees along the way had already started to turn. Their autumn colors glowing in the mid day sun.

Strangely enough atop the ridge there were a few unexpected spots with small stagnant ponds. Maybe well hidden frogs and other amphibians live there.

As the path gets closer to the end of the ridge, the foliage changes. Ferns abound.

At the end of the path the forest cover gives way and reveals astounding view of the surrounding countryside.

Atop the rocks about a thousand feet above the farms and houses below, the Pinnacle astounds. Whenever here, I tarry as long as I can.

On a fortunate day, raptors and other large birds show themselves and circle lazily on thermals and ridge effect updrafts.

We were all happy when we arrived here, and a bit pleased with ourselves for making the hike. It was well worth the effort. Tommy thought so.

So did my friend Andy.

As did I.

The circling birds were more numerous than other times of year. This is the beginning the seasonal migration along the Appalachian ridge for many raptors and large birds. As usual, the most common were the Turkey Vultures.

A few Red Tailed Hawks flew past.

As well as a couple of birds that none of us, or any others at the Pinnacle, could identify.

As enchanting as the spot is, necessity cut our visit short. Along the way out, there is a cairn, piled high by passing hikers.

We returned on a different path. It is more narrow, rocky and uneven than the one we arrived on.

Further along the path the trees thinned a bit and the forest floor was overgrown with grass.

The day's sights gave all of us much to think about. At times each of us was lost in deep thought, even Tommy.

The ridge along this southern side of the small valley is littered with rocks and in one spot there is even a natural boulder field.

Eventually the winding rocky path leads to another overlook named Pulpit Rock. From here there is another spectacular view of the surrounding country side.

This includes a glacial boulder field,

The small town of Lenhartsville is also visible.

A sharp and discerning eye can even glimpse Kutztown University.

Closer among the rocks, potentially dangerous snakes lounged. No one disturbed them, and they harmed no one.

From here the path was more a road, easy to follow and walk on.

Though tired, we picked up our pace. Tommy's tiredness seemed to melt away as he drew on his last reserves of energy.

Finally at the car, the day's effort finally caught up with Tommy and sleep overtook him.

Andy was overjoyed at the sight of the car, knowing he could finally get off his feet and sit.

I was so thirsty I drank what we had left of the water.

The whole circuit was perhaps eight miles long and took us about six hours complete. We all agreed it was time well spent, and we all look forward to the next time we go.

Fruits of Summer's Labor

2009-09-01T23:21:00.007-04:00

Over the summer Misce and I remodeled and painted our kitchen, living room and bedroom. We are quite happy with the results. The rooms are far more inviting and comfortable than before. The living room is now my favorite room to be in.

The garden too turned out well, even though this late in the season it is not as colorful as earlier. There are still some flowers blooming, and it is a very pleasant place to spend time.

Conversations flow easily in relaxed pleasant places, and both the living room and the garden are settings for many a conversation this summer with family and friends. It is one of the everyday pleasures that I look forward to even if the topic of conversation is simply what to have for dinner that day.

Fixing Things Up

2009-06-25T12:12:00.002-04:00

Around the house, we're fixing things up. Well, it's mostly Misce and me. Right now we've finished repainting the kitchen after removing all the wallpaper. There's always things to fix but we're making a concerted push to fix all those little things we've neglected over the years. The kitchen is one of them. All that is left right now is re-staining some wainscoting, painting the trim and cleaning up the cabinets a bit. Surprising how a bit of paint, and a whole lot of elbow grease makes a room look better. When it's done I'll post some photos. In the meanwhile, I'll be starting work on the living room and hallway. Need to keep the momentum if we're to redo the living room and possibly our bedroom before vacation in August.

Relief

2009-05-05T22:09:00.003-04:00

Now that I've finished my last semester and finally graduated, and that the work on the Bakersfield project is slowly winding down, the pace of work and life slows down to a more manageable level. Sleep is that much more restful now that I catch more than four or five hours a night. Right after finishing the last of the classwork and finishing last of the urgent testing and remediation on software at work, which coincidentally finished at the same time, it felt like shell shock. The numbness went deep. Thinking anything coherent at all was difficult. My wife said that I seemed in a daze.

The weather is wet lately but spring continues on. The trees, some in bloom, some with newly budding leaves, bear witness to the season. The garden beds around the house need more attention, but Misce and I already did a fair amount of work. There is plenty left to do still. The new vegetable beds still need digging. The dead branches in the pine tree still must come down. Seems like there are a hundred little chores that spring still has in store. No matter, at this point it is a relief and a pleasure of sorts working outside.

Even at work, programming and testing tasks aren't as urgent. Once again, working brings a joy of its own without the stress of the past several months. Working without worry about tight deadlines, I lost myself a bit in my work today and accomplished a fair deal.

When speaking with my wife or children, I no longer have that nagging feeling that I should gently conclude the conversation as soon as possible to finish work projects or classwork. The pressure of time triage is absent. It is a delicious luxury having that time again. I must spend it wisely to mine and my family's best benefit. I have several ideas already, but I've not decided yet. Unlike earlier, I still have some time before I must decide.

First Signs of Spring

2009-03-10T22:00:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend I did a bit of cleanup outside around the house. In front of the house in a flowerbed facing south, the first crocuses of the season bloomed.

It definitely feels that the seasons are turning. Spring's first tentative days are here, even if it is still winter according to the calendar.

Found Through Undisclosed Sources

2009-03-04T18:37:00.001-05:00

A friend, Andrew Mull, who works at the university I'm attending, somehow stumbled across the following:

From the date on the photo, it appears to be in a Database Management System class I took in spring of 2007 with Dr. Gordon. The center student, in apparent deep thought, is yours truly. So far, that was the one class that I didn't do as well in. I got a "B". That is ironic, since databases are the one thing that I've worked with continuously my whole programming career. Perhaps my hubris, or circumstances around switching jobs mid-semester, had something to do with my performance in that class. No matter, I still learned enough to make that class worthwhile.

Apparently this photo was in a large collection that the university has for the university website. Andrew quickly assured me that the university only picks photos of photogenic students to actually use on the web. He meant of course that no one ever saw the photo on the official university website ... We had a good laugh.

Touch of Melancholy

2009-03-03T20:33:00.006-05:00

Winter is dying down, the days get longer, but the cold winds still blow. We had some snow yesterday. Can't wait for the warmer weather. There is still much to do with work and class. Feels like running a marathon, hiking a half century or cycling a full one. Can't help feeling a little worn down. While programming and listening to music, Robert Plant & Alisson Krauss cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Nothin'" happened to play.

Managed to get the essential programming utilities reinstalled on the new home machine. The install was fairly straight forward. Thought about using the GNU tools via Darwin Port or MacPorts, but decided just use the XCode install from a download disk-image. Yes that means its a ADC (Apple Developer Center) install, not quite Open Source like I'm used to but it is close enough for classwork. The annoying thing about the target machine, which is the final arbiter of program correctness, is that it does not have rsync on it. Since it is not one I have admin rights on, a different way had to be found. That makes file transfers a bit more painful, but no worry. A bit of minor scripting with scp solves the problem nicely. Even did a bit of sanity checking and remote target directory inference based on the present working directory to minimize housekeeping and prevent copy foul ups. Now the environment is a bit more comfortable. That should speed up the development cycle.

An Afternoon at the Museum

2009-02-28T20:13:00.005-05:00

Today, I had a chance to get out of the house and get away from work, school, and chores. The two younger boys, Tom and Karl, and I went to the Reading Public Museum to see the "Born to be Wild" motorcycle exhibit. Here's what was on display.

The exhibit included the two motorcycles from the movie Easy Rider, historical motorcycle as well as fanciful custom choppers, some of the more extreme ones looked completely impractical to ride. The exhibit is worth seeing.

The photos are ones I took. To capture the truest color, I didn't use flash photography inside the museum and the exposures were longer than normal. Since some of them were almost a half second and I did not have a tripod, some pictures were unusable while others were a bit blurry. It's time to get a tripod, and some polarizing filters to minimize reflections from glass. Next time the photos should be clearer.

A pause to take a breath

2009-02-19T22:59:00.007-05:00

It's been a while since I last wrote. Various things, from work, to family, to school, to side projects all seem to eat up my time.

I've been thinking about ideas, and how to catch and hold onto them and eventually bring them to life. At times, perhaps while driving to work, my mind just swims with seemingly novel ideas. When they come, as if by a Muse's bidding, I do my best to hold onto them, to play with them a bit so that each sticks in my mind. It always happens at the most inopportune moment. Then my attention gets redirected to more pressing matters, like keeping the car on the road while driving. The same also happens when I hike. The more relaxed pace allows the luxury of thinking the idea over, relishing it much like one would relish an especially sweet and juicy clementine. It is, for those moments, like stepping out of time. When I cycled, the experience was similar. On several occasions I remember cycling for hours while pondering breathing, rhythm, and the biomechanics of pedaling, for example. My work, quite literally, involves the direct translation of ideas into a choreography of action which some machine will execute. Simply put, I write software. For any, but the most trivial, application this requires a deep immersion in the problem domain as well as an intense focus. In a team setting, it also requires good communication. Clarity, conciseness and completeness are what I strive for while developing software, both in the software artefacts produced as well as any communication and documentation. How does this relate to the earlier points? Well some of my best work on the most challenging pieces I worked on, I achieved while in a waking dream-like state. One could easily imagine a Muse on my shoulder. Those who've programmed, or written novels, or painted, or done any creative work, have experienced similar episodes. As wonderful as it is, it is tiring.

Lately, with all that I'm trying to do and accomplish, it is too much sometimes. I long to hike in the woods with cheery company and to relax. I'm sure the boys and Misce would be up to it when the weather is warmer. Oh to climb a wooded hill topped by some rocky knob! To be among the trees again. When at the top, to see the peaceful countryside below and pause to take a breath. Soon, soon, soon.

Winter Begins

2008-12-21T23:34:00.004-05:00

Well, winter begins today. It's the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. We've had quite a bit of snow, ice and other forms of solid and semi-solid precipitation over the past couple of weeks. I don't mind ordinary rain, or ordinary snow, but the freezing rain and other variations really get to be a pain. This is mostly so because it's more difficult to clean up and driving in it safely is a challenge.

During the afternoon the weather was quite mild and I took a break to walk around the neighborhood a bit and snap some pictures. I'll post the better ones later. Christmas is coming, and we've been busy preparing for the celebrations. Two weeks ago we got a beautiful tree. We got it at the same place we've gotten it for some dozen or so years now. It's become a habit, or more generously a tradition. This year I figured Tommy was old enough to cut the tree part way with a real saw. At first he was apprehensive about using a sharp saw, but he overcame that with a bit of encouragement from me and Misce. It also was the quickest that we had ever gotten a tree. We went to the tree farm and back home in about an hour. Karl and Tommy, the two younger boys, decorated the tree. They did a good job, and Misce helped a bit to even out the placement of the ornaments. I hung the lights.

As far as other preparations go, Misce's been busy with cookie baking and planning for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners. The food, gifts, conversations and a chance to relax are my favorite parts of this holiday. I'm pretty sure Misce, Andy, Karl and Tommy like that too by the sound of their voices and the smiles on their faces. Somewhat sadly, this year might be the last where our little family celebrates together as an intact family. Andy is a senior in High School and next year he'll be off to college. I hope that he will be home for Christmas next year to celebrate it with us, but it will be different since he will be out on his own. Twenty three years ago my parents went through pretty much the same thing. It doesn't seem that long ago.

I'm Dreaming of a White Thanksgiving

2008-11-20T22:50:00.002-05:00

Yes that's a lighthearted pun on a traditional Christmas song. Over the past two weeks we've had a sudden turn of weather from mild to downright cold with frequent localized flurries. It is not an extraordinary circumstance but certainly unusual enough for that wry comment in the title. Over the past decade we've not, as a rule, had any snow prior to December, and frequently not until after Christmas. Something tells me we will have a cold winter this season. I may be wrong, but some news stories related to astronomy and solar observations that I've come across recently hint that the sun is radiating less energy than what it has in the recent past. So much so, the the average global temperatures dropped half a degree Centigrade or a little more than a degree Fahrenheit. That does not sound like a lot, but according to some reports I've come across, we are back down to the average temperatures of the 1930's.

The sun's variability has a far greater apparent effect on the earth's climate than our mass release of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases into the atmosphere. Perhaps we're being humbled a bit by Nature and her Creator (real, hypothetical, imaginary or otherwise). The best we can do is adapt as well as we can to our circumstances, persevere when fate isn't kind and be thankful when it is. Speaking of adapting, I should probably make the house a bit more weather-tight and snug for this winter and insulate where appropriate.

Last of Summer's Days

2008-09-17T23:03:00.003-04:00

Summer is winding down. By informal tradition, summer has already since passed. It is after Labor Day after all. Counting summer from the solstice to the equinox, there are a few days still left. The season is changing. The warm days are still here, but there is much cold dew in the morning as well as a coolness in the air. The evenings and nights are cool. Tonight during a class break just a bit past seven in the evening, I went for a little walk on campus to stretch my legs. The sunset sky with all its varied hues was simply wonderful. A treat for the eyes. The colors strong and true with almost infinite variation and a subtlety that no painter's brush has yet captured. Had I a camera with me I'd have taken a few pictures. Unfortunately I don't think they would have done the scene justice. During those few minutes of peace while watching the setting sky, I thought about my wife and boys and how they would appreciate the scene. I also thought of my friends, both near and far, recent and long established, those who I keep in touch with and those to whom I've not spoken to in too long a while. Change of seasons always have me in a mixed nostalgic and slightly melancholy mood. It is the passing of time witnessed by the changes all around as inexorably the future continuously gives way to the present and the present becomes the past. I say a silent and heartfelt prayer for friends, family and myself that we all may have good fortune and health. If we are all just a little fortunate we'll glimpse a bit of unexpected everyday beauty, and gratefully enjoy the moments of bliss it brings.

Beans, Cucumbers, Peppers, Tomatoes, Oh My!

2008-09-02T11:27:00.005-04:00

This season, in addition to the flower beds we've put into the backyard, we've put in a two beds and about a dozen stand alone pots of various vegetables. We planted cucumbers, beans, peppers and tomatoes earlier in the season. The cucumber vines yielded at least three dozen cucumbers over about a month. That was fairly successful, the cucumbers were a common side dish for a little while. They were quite delicious too. The green beans yielded only two bowlfuls. That was enough for side dishes for two meals. That proved a little bit disappointing but it was enough for a start. Perhaps next time we will be little bit more successful with the green beans. The peppers are an ongoing story. We have both sweet and spicy ones. We've already included some peppers in salads and other dishes. Some of the spicy peppers proved a bit too much, the rest were just wonderful. Next year we'll most likely plant them in the garden beds rather than in stand alone pots. Last, but certainly not least, we planted several varieties of tomatoes both in beds and in pots. Those in pots did not do as well as those in the beds, probably because the beds require less watering and work on our part. The tomatoes started off slow but over the past two weeks we've had a veritable cornucopia of tomatoes. Yesterday I collected the third five-quart bowl of miniature tomatoes from the garden beds. For as many as I've collected, just as many I've had to let go because they either burst or were past their prime. Had I been more conscientious with the gardening we would have had even more. As it stands, everyone has had more than their fill of tomatoes, in salads, soups, and in hand snacks. We had so much we shared our tomato bounty with our neighbors and they enjoyed them too. Our food gardening efforts proved fairly successful, and we got far more edible food out of our two food garden beds and a dozen standalone pots than I would have imagined. The tomatoes and peppers are not done yet, and the bean an cucumber bed we replanted with radishes, broccoli, lettuce and cabbage. We are hoping for a late crop just before frost in mid to late October. Over all the food garden has been a success, both my wife Misce and I are pleased with our efforts and results.

A Trip, a Fall, Bruises and an Infection

2008-08-30T22:30:00.001-04:00

A little bit of misfortune befell Misce and me. On Wednesday, Misce tripped and fell over our new home gym while she was putting something away. She bruised a lot on her arm, hip and leg. The pain must have been excruciating. The same day I came down with a bit of a swelling on my right shin and a slight fever. The next day on Thursday, Misce's arm and leg were still bothering her and the bruises looked horrible. I went to work thinking I had recovered from whatever had given me the fever earlier. Within two hours of coming to work, I returned home with a fairly serious fever. At the advice of my doctor, I ended up at the local hospital's emergency room. The attending physician admitted me to the hospital for an overnight stay and a twenty four hour regimen of intravenous anti-biotics. Seems that I had picked up either a staph or strep infection most likely through a cut on my foot. Walking barefoot in the garden can leave one open to such things I guess. While I was at the hospital, Misce's pain from her bruises got worse. On Friday, just a day after me, she ended up in the emergency room at the behest of her doctor. Turns out that her bruises were either bad muscle contusions or even hair line fractures. The only thing the doctors could do for her was a sling for her arm to immobilize it and a prescription for strong pain killers. Oh what a mess we were, she with a sling and evil looking bruises, me with a nearly systemic infection and a fever. Unfortunately she is still suffering while she recovers, the doctors could not do much more to help. I, on the other hand, just need to complete my prescription of follow on oral anti-biotics. This incident had both of us thankful for modern medicine. That said, my heart still aches for Misce as she is still in pain while she recovers. I'm hoping for better fortune for all of us for at least a little while.

Caveman Television

2008-08-20T22:36:00.002-04:00

In the past week we've fired up our chimenea several times. It's nothing more than a crude cast iron outdoor fireplace or stove of sorts. We put it about six feet away from the two adirondack chairs in the back yard. It stands like a lone sentinel in the middle of our garden bed layout. We've lit the fire just before sunset and let it burn past dusk into the night. We end up by the fire for an hour or two. Watching the flames dance on the burning wood is entrancing. It is also very peaceful and relaxing. In those moments I think about how long humans have been watching fire and for how long it has served us so well. Cultures even have myths about how we first acquired our oldest and most powerful servant, the myth of Prometheus and Zeus comes to mind. When I think about that long legacy of fire use by humans. I feel like I wake a slumbering ancient memory not quite my own whenever I sit by a warm dancing fire. That connected feeling lets me feel a little like what our most ancient of ancestors felt like when they sat around a warm fire in the cold dark of the night. Deep down inside, we moderns are not that much different from the prehistoric people. We are different to be sure, and conspicuously so in some very strinking ways, but at our core we much more similar to our ancient ancestors. The dancing flame delights the eye and entrances the mind, and put the soul at ease while it banishes cold, darkness, and fear. That is true for us as much as it was for our earliest fire using ancestors.

Garden Delight

2008-08-17T18:36:00.002-04:00

This year my wife and I decided to cleanup and transform our backyard. Throughout the spring and part of the summer we worked on our gardens in the backyard. We were so ambitious in our transformation of the backyard, my wife Misce nicknamed it "The Park". We did all the planning and all the work ourselves. I mainly did the layout, digging and building the frames for the beds. She planned what to plant as well doing most of the actual planting. Yes, we both got our hands dirty. Our garden has that signature of two minds and sets of hands working on it. In the spacing and layout of the beds and plantings, you can clearly see my fascination for geometry, symmetry, and visual rhythm. In the mixture and abundance of color, exuberance of blooms, shape of foliage my wife's sense of composition is clearly evident. We, the whole family, like the backyard garden. We managed to transform an ordinary backyard that we liked but didn't think about much into a place we fully enjoy. My wife and I've taken to sitting on a pair of Adirondack chairs at sunset and dusk watching the changing colors of the sky, waiting for humming birds, finches, and what ever else might come or fly by. That time sitting and relaxing in the garden is great for catching up with each other's lives as well as just spending time together. At those times when I feel the calm of our garden, I'm glad that we made the effort to build ourselves this place. The calm feeling, the sights of the garden, and the sights and sounds of the animals it attracts make all the effort we put into it worthwhile. It is our special place.

Keeping Fit and Healthy

2008-07-04T09:59:00.005-04:00

Health and keeping fit is a challenge that well all face, especially so as we age. This past winter I passed one of those mileposts in aging turning forty. In the continuum of aging this in reality is no more significant than thirty-nine or forty-one, but given our common base ten number system the passing of yet another decade is deemed significant. I'm now starting middle age. According to social norms this is when one is less physically active. Also unfortunately, this is also the age when all of us need to watch for the signs of aging and of a deteriorating body. Tests for diabetes, colon cancer, cholesterol, heart function and a whole host of other age related diseases suddenly become the norm. Perhaps one is supposed to resign to the deterioration of the body, and eventually of the mind as one ages, but life and living is too precious and too wonderful to do that without at least a minimal effort to mitigate the effects of aging. While I'm fully aware that I do not have the same physical constitution that I had in my early twenties, when according to the medical literature I was at my physical peak, it does not mean that I am necessarily now going to be unable to enjoy the physicality of life.

It doesn't come easily, I have to work at it. My line of work, developing software, precludes a lot of physical activity. Most of the day I sit at a desk working on problems, typing at a computer, or in meetings with others hashing out design and implementation strategies. This certainly isn't conducive to keeping healthy. My personal fitness strategy involves explicit strength training as well as physical activities that I enjoy.

Four or five times a week I'll go through a simple calisthenics and stretching routine prior to my morning shower. First there is the stretching. This is nothing more than the classic runner's stretches for the hamstring and the thighs, as well as stretches for the arms and back and neck. It usually takes no more than four minutes to complete. Next come the pushups, three dozen of them, in the best possible form that I can do. Form here is important not only because it exercises the muscle and it uses the full and correct range of motion, but also that it prevents injury. For the sake of variety I change the distance that my arms are apart each time I do them. For example, on some days I will have my hands directly below my chest, hands turned in slightly and fingers touching. Other days I will have my hands directly below my shoulders, while on some days I will have my hands out wide. This exercises my chest, shoulder and arm muscles slightly differently with emphasis on different muscle groups. After the pushups, come the situps. I put my feet under the bedroom dresser or some other fixed anchor and do three dozen situps. There are trainers who discourage situps as a calisthenic but I find that it works for me. I do have one significant modification though. I do my situps on a cushion, usually an oversized pillow and I keep my back straight as possible when doing the sit up. The next exercise is a simple squat, to work my legs. Again, I do my three dozen. With this exercise I again focus on form making sure that I do the full range of motion and do it smoothly and completely. The next exercise that I would like to do, but cant quite yet, is a dozen pullups. I don't have a bar to do them on. This is something that will be a minor project for me on some future weekend. All of this takes less time to do than it took me to describe and type. While these exercises will not increase my core strength in any significant way, they certainly help to maintain it. At this point in my life, maintaining health and fitness is my goal, not training for a competition of some sort and this daily calisthenic routine fulfills that goal quite well. This routine is of course in addition to being physically active by indulging in activities that require it.

Along with this focus on daily calisthenics and a generally physically active life, a varied diet plays a part. The best way to describe this diet is omnivorous. Basically I'll eat most anything that will not harm me or permanently offend my taste and olfactory senses. So along with the tried and true fresh veggies, fruits, lean meats, fish, complex carbs my diet occasionally include things such as smoked octopus, pickled herring, soft cheeses, pungent mushrooms and a whole variety of unusual foods. These foods are not only a culinary delight, or sometimes a minor misadventure, they also are a different source of nutrients and minerals. Keeping the diet varied keeps boredom at bay. This does not mean that my diet has no regularity what so ever but rather that my staples and comfort foods are inter mixed with slightly more unusual fare. Another thing I've learned to do is to eat as much as possible with the seasons. For example, I eat a lot of cherries and blueberries when they are in season here in Pennsylvania. Fortunately this is when those foods are at their best and cheapest. Eating with the seasons has heightened my sense of what foods I have an appetite or craving for. Following my father's example, I've learned to pay particular attention to my bodily cravings for different foods. Yes they do happen and they do vary and after getting into the habit of paying attention to them it is easy to distinguish them from a simple hunger for food. When those very food specific cravings do hit me, rather than struggle against them, I indulge them to the point of satiety. The theory is that the food contains some nutrient that my body needs and that my subconscious mind equates the taste of that food with that needed nutrient. At least that is the theory at a 100,000 foot level.

So what is the point of all this physical activity and a varied diet? Well other than the enjoyment of them in and of themselves, they should allow me a full and active life for as long as possible. That is to live and not just be alive.

Bird Sightings

2008-03-28T10:03:00.002-04:00

Over the past month I've had a series of bird sightings that were interesting. Of course I'm not counting the various finches in the backyard feeders. Along with the few hawks, flocks of migrating geese, the gulls blown inland by storms, I saw a woodpecker the other day. The last that I remember seeing any woodpeckers was about three years ago. That time our family was on a walk and we notice the little fellow in a tree that we were passing by. We didn't see him behaving like a woodpecker, hammering away at the tree with his beak. Rather, we first noticed him because of his brilliant red coloring on his head. The bird was unfamiliar and its identity as a woodpecker was only one of several options. Only later when we got home did we find out that that it was a woodpecker. Well this time, I was walking around the block at lunchtime, I heard the woodpecker long before I saw it. It was that distinct staccato which only woodpeckers make. It is surprising what you can observe if you keep your eyes and ears open.

More Weather Observations

2008-02-26T11:35:00.003-05:00

Earlier in the month I posted observations on the weather situation where I live, noting how much warmer and milder it seem so far this year. While that observation still stands, old man winter isn't going out with a whimper. In the past two weeks we've had a lot of ice, sleet, snow and freezing rain, almost as if to just remind us that it is still winter. Spring cant come quickly enough for me, and soon enough the garden beds will need attention. Perhaps this year we'll grow some vegetables along with all the flowers we normally grow. Sometime in April visiting a state park or forest will be good idea. Seeing the first blush of spring in a woodland prior to when the tree's leaves bud out is bound to cheer up everyone. Maybe my brother and his family can be convinced to come along.

Odd Weather

2008-02-07T09:13:00.000-05:00

There's been something bothering me about the weather lately. It is the middle of winter here in the northern hemisphere. I'm in the temperate zone, meaning we have four distinct seasons. This year so far seems different. We've had less than half a dozen snows so far this year. Even frost is relatively rare. Almost all of the times when we should have had a heavy wet snow, we've had cold rain instead. Last night it was about 60 °F at night. Later it rained and we had a thunderstorm. This weather is more like the traditional spring weather, but we're ostensibly in the middle of winter. This winter seems to be non-existant, my heating bills are mercifully low because of the higher than normal temperatures. Its as if we've skipped winter all together. I'm not sure where this will lead in the future. Is this an anomaly and will the normal cold snowy winters return or will the climate change more or less permanently or will climate become unstable and unpredictable from year to year. It's time to keep my eyes open and keep my wits about me. The world is definitely changing.

Preferences

2008-01-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

This is about my recent frustration with learning yet another web development framework. At work, I've been asked to become the expert in JBoss' Rich Faces, which seems to be an elaboration or extension of Java Server Faces. Somehow, these frameworks are supposed to make web application development easier. I suppose that is true for some value of "easy". So far I've had nothing but trouble trying to get the whole thing to work. I'm not sure if it is the configuration files, or the compilation of the web app files, or the use of the JSP tag libraries that has me so wound up the most. I feel like the effort and the difficulty of developing a web app using frameworks is just shuffling the complexity and difficulty into another place. There really does not seem to be less complexity and a higher level of abstraction. Some of the newer frameworks do approach the abstraction of traditional GUI frameworks, but go no further. I'm not really sure what the advantage is. I suspect that any breakthroughs in software design and development productivity (ability to do useful work) will only happen when we have a new theoretical insight into software development.

Swearing off idle web-surfing

2008-01-23T10:48:00.000-05:00

I've finally decided on one of my personal goals for 2008. I've decided to severely limit idle web surfing. Since I'm software developer, cutting out the internet and web in general is impractical if not impossible. That said, I can consciously change my habits to avoid unproductive use and maximize my productive and practical use of the internet. In some ways surfing the web has been akin to pointless channel surfing, an idle use of time trying to stave off boredom. One particular piece that I will focus on is blogging, meaning writing in this particular blog. The more often I force myself to write in this blog, hopefully the better my writing and thinking will be. Perhaps by seeing my own thoughts on the screen it may help me better organize them. Also this spring I'm taking a graduate course in Selected Topics in Computer Science. The topic our professor selected is Knowledge Management. This course is one of the last three I need before earning my Master of Science in Computer Science at Kutztown University. The very first class exercise made me realize how unorganized and downright chaotic my approach to work, learning and my own personal knowledge management has been. I'm not really sure exactly what I will end up learning in course, but perhaps I can come away with a few useful lessons from it.

Lessons from experience

2007-11-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

Recent work projects have once again reinforced that which I've already known but had forgotten. Three simple rules of thumb to keep in mind when working on a project for other people. First, don't commit to implementing incomplete or vague specifications. Second, don't raise expectations higher than what's needed to meet the requirements, or what you can reliably deliver under a given set of constraints. Third, take the responsibility and the initiative to get the job done, don't expect others to do their job or yours or to volunteer help. Simply learning to keep these three principles in mind when working on any project will go a long way toward getting the job done and satisfying its requirements.

Automation is the Key

2007-10-23T22:24:00.000-04:00

I've been working on programming problems at work. They are pretty much run of the mill create, retrieve, update and delete user interfaces. Unlike other interfaces that I've done in the past, these are very focused, mostly dealing with modifying data from a single table. The problem at hand, of how to allow the user to modify such data in a coherent and reasonable way, presented a solution for each individual interface that had much in common similar solutions for each of the other similar tables. This was true to such an extent that I was able to generalize more than three quarters of the interface, the remaining quarter or so followed reasonable conventions and design choices that were directly the result of the structure of data and and its constraints. This set me to thinking about automating that design and implementation process, even if such a process resulted in code that was 95% complete with only minimal manual customization. We already generate 100% of our simple data access layer artifacts. We do this thorough a generator driven by simple declarative data in XML. Since we already do it for the data access layer in a very primitive template driven way, why couldn't we use a design rules and design implementation rules engine driven "expert system" code generator to create useful and coherent user interface from simple declarative data about the data the interface presents and how that data is to be manipulated.

Since I've written a very basic expert system for plant identification in an AI course, and written it in Lisp, this gives me a practical reason for (re)-learning LISP and learning it in greater depth. I'll elaborate on my thoughts on this in later posts

Fish for lunch

2007-09-30T23:00:00.000-04:00

Today I made one of my favorite lunches, a mackerel fish spread on toasted bread. It's quite cheap and really simple to make. Just take a can (15 oz or so) of canned mackerel, drain it, remove the skeleton from the fish. In a bowl mix this fish with about quarter cup of mayonnaise, a couple dashes of old bay seasoning an about two chopped sprigs of green onions. The amount of mayo should vary by preference. I like mine just moist enough so that everything hangs together and no more. Same applies to the amount of spice and onions. Even though this is very simple to make, it is quite tasty. All three of my sons like it, but my wife does not. There is something about the fish smell the does not agree with her. Mackerel, sardines, and herring all fall into that class of fishes that do not appeal to her, but catfish, tilapia and salmon do. For a cheap (15 oz can of mackerel is about a $1) and easy to make (about 10 minute prep time) lunch it is quite healthy. Mackerel is one of the fishes that is high in Omega-3 fatty acids, and high in protein. It also is quite tasty, perhaps because the fish is wild and not farmed. Cant really ask for much more in a quick and cheap lunch, except maybe something that doesn't wrinkle my wife's nose, so I could share with her.

Lunar Eclipse

2007-08-28T09:01:00.000-04:00

Saw the lunar eclipse this morning. What a neat sight eventhough it was nearly obscured by the trees and lampposts in the streetscape. We must have been a sight to see. I, my wife, and our sons all quickly dressed in whatever clothes were handy just after waking and walked on our street until we could glimpse the reddening moon between the trees and lightpoles on our street. No one else was out to see the eclipse. It was a neat sight to see.

Tools

2007-08-17T10:13:00.000-04:00

Having the proper tools when working certainly makes one's job easier. Some of the most difficult tasks when developing software is debugging and load testing. On any significant application this is difficult enough when you're one of the original authors of the application. When faced with debugging or load testing someone else's application it can be excruciatingly difficult. Part of difficulty is certainly visualizing the structure and the behavior of the application at the macro, micro and any level in between. Better tools for quickly and correctly understanding the structure and dependencies in any given application would be a great boon to both individuals and to teams. For example a tool that allows browsing of a software library in totality perhaps presenting the view as a sort of three-dimensional landscape. A workable implementation for Java (will have to find link later)uses a modified treemap algorithm for mapping packages and classes. That implementation displays Java classes as pseudo buildings whose height and width depends on the number of member variables and methods in a city scape of nested elevated platforms which depict the package hierarchy. This gives a quick visual cue about the classes' complexity and to the overall package structure. It does not display inheritance or interface implementation. A good visual metaphor for inheritance and its complexities may be at odds with the cityscape representation for package structure. Will have to revisit this at a later time.

Practice and Persistance

2007-07-24T10:59:00.001-04:00

Sometimes it's only practice and persistence that makes the difference between the hypothetically possible and the actual. Thomas Edison had once remarked that invention is "one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration". It is easy to talk big, and even to come up with workable ideas, but until one tries to implement those ideas, nothing really happens. Now don't get me wrong, inspiration is important, without it our efforts don't bring anything new into the world. I've had plenty of inspirations, and with my recent change in employment I've had the presence of mind to pay attention to that inspiration. Now it is a matter of seeing my inspiration through.

A Kids' Movie

2007-07-01T23:00:00.000-04:00

Went and saw the new Pixar movie Ratatouie with Misce, Karl and Tom. It was a fun movie to watch. The plot was about a rat following his dream to be a real chef. The story was well told for a kids movie, but it was still very enjoyable for adults. The computer generated graphics were simply astounding. The movie still looked like a cartoon, but not like the classical Disney cartoon. It looked more like an elaborately illustrated storybook. All of us enjoyed the movie, and I would recommend it for anyone who is looking for a light hearted feel good story.

Dinner and Conversation

2007-06-29T23:00:00.000-04:00

Had a wonderful dinner with my wife to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We went to a restaurant in downtown Allentown, the Bay Leaf. She was not in a good mood, a bit withdrawn. Her mother's recent death was still on her mind. The usual daily problems also were on her mind. After she had a chance to relax a bit he mood improved and we had a good conversation. The subject stayed mostly close to home. More than any particular thing we talked about, I was really happy that she had a chance to relax and that we had some time together away from everyday worries. It helps us reconnect. I'll make it a point to do that on a more regular basis.

A Happy Sunday

2007-06-24T23:35:00.000-04:00

Finally completed some nagging gardening chores. Finished whittling down a stump from a tree that we had to remove when a freak windstorm twisted and broke off half of it. Eventhough the stump had been in the ground for over a year, some of the roots were still live. I wasn't able to remove all of it, instead I cut and chopped away as much of it as I could. I did manage to somehow break two of my hatchets. Both had cracked handles, so it was not too surprising. After hours of working on the stump I didn't want to spend even more time on in. If I plan on planting a tree there I'll have to dig up the roots again. Now we have a nice little flowerbed where the stump was.

Took the two younger boys to the pool for two hours. Karl went off with his friends while Tom and I played. We invented our own game with the volleyball we had with us and had a fun time. It was a mix between catch, soccer, keep away and water polo depending on whether we were in the pool or out on the grass. We played almost continuously for an hour. It really was a refreshing and fun way to spend a part of the afternoon. Tom is always so boisterous when I take Karl and him swimming.

Karl and I went to check on the local wine berries and the mulberry trees. While there, we picked a sandwich container's worth of mullberries. For both of us it was a relaxed way to spend time together and explore, talk, and pretty much enjoy each other's company. Karl is an amazing boy and I am very much proud of him.

Misce made Karl's birthday cake, and boy what a cake it was. It was a big carrot cake with cream cheese icing by Karl's request. I think in the end each slice ended up having a thousand calories. We all had a piece. Mary Anne, one of our friends, had a piece with us

Programming Languages

2007-06-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

Recently I've started a personal project to learn Lisp. Why Lisp? That is certainly a good question. My experience with Lisp is limited. My only other exposure to Lisp was in an undergraduate class on Artificial Intelligence. In that class we wrote a simplistic expert system for plant identification. The class and the project were interesting, but the thing I remember the most was Lisp's unusual syntax, and the apparent ease and simplicity of writing programs in it. It was the first programming language that I worked with that had automatic memory management. Eventhough I liked Lisp, I did not pursue it further at the time.

At the time it seemed that all the programming jobs were in C or C++. Most of the programming classes that did not explicitly teach a particular programming language were taught in C or C++, much like Java is the default teaching language in many places today. I pursued C/C++, that's where the money and the jobs were. Well in my software development career so far I've seriously used C or C++ only in one project. I've used Korn shell, SQL, PL/SQL, Perl, Cold Fusion, PHP, and of course the latest and greatest kitchen sink of computing languages, Java. In a fit of dissatisfaction with a Java project at my previous employer, I half heartedly searched for criticism of Java. I didn't expect to find any real substantiative criticisms. Boy was I wrong. I came across all sort of criticism, and some of it pretty damning. The worst criticism of Java that I came across, was that it was designed specifically for the mediocre programmer, that it was limited and watered down by design. In effect it was designed to be used by dummies and that this was acknowledged in a round about way by one of the language's designers. The criticism went into a fair amount of detail to support that view. In effect this means that there is a glass ceiling on what I can do using Java. That's when I decided to look for another language to learn, a language that does not have those limits, a language that the language designers themselves use. I thought about pursuing Perl in greater depth, or learning Ruby or Python but I always came upon comparisons between those languages and Lisp. Comparisons in which those languages do not quite measure up to Lisp's power, elegance, utility and so on. With limited time to learn and master any given language, I decided to learn Lisp. I had some experience with it and had liked it. Why learn a language that comes up short? Learning Lisp may not translate directly to my current job, but it might give me more insight into programming and programming techniques in general, and there is always the part about learning something just for the pure joy of it.

Father's Day

2007-06-18T09:41:00.000-04:00

Father's Day is supposed to be a day to celebrate fathers, fatherhood and the their role in the family. My wife and my children celebrated that, in a low key way that I prefer. My boys made a breakfast for me and I got amusing cards from them and from my wife.Since my own father is dead, I could not talk to him or tell him how much I appreciated him, but I did think about him and what he did for me and my family when we were growing up. As I thought about it I wondered what it is that I can do as a father that my own children will appreciate for the rest of their lives. There are the basics of providing shelter, food, and a sense of safety and security. That is a necessary given, they will appreciate it but it is not something necessarily special. Beyond that there is basic moral instruction, and some familial discipline. That also is necessary for development of my children as whole persons and again that is not necessarily special. Of course there is that love and support for them that encourages them to do their best, to not be afraid of failure, to dream and dream big. Without that they will not be able to think and act independently, to be fully independent persons. Since I have only sons, my perspective is perhaps somewhat different than that of a father who has daughters. I want my sons to grow into mature independent accomplished men. Perhaps doing what I can to help further that goal might just be that special thing that all of them will appreciate for the rest of their lives. I pondered that sitting alone in my chair on my backyard deck sipping wine watching the sun set on warm summer's day. That's what I did on Father's day.

A Short and Simple Introduction

2007-06-14T22:03:00.000-04:00

Well this is the first dispatch here At the Singing Frog. This blog will be about whatever strikes my fancy and whatever I want to record and share with others. This may include, but is not restricted to, my experiences, thoughts and reflections on life, work, food, art, music, programming, politics, parenting, philosophy, crafts, gardening and the occasional elusive singing frog. Posting may be irregular and mostly dependant on when my muse inspires me. I invite you, dear reader, to stick around and read and comment if you wish. I hope to make this a worthwhile blog for both you and me.