Resolutions for 2009

• Compete in tournaments and/or races

• Refinance the house

• Go to yet another country

• Get more people hired at NASA (anyone interested?)

• Master Django, CSS, JQuery, and get better at zc.buildout

• Stay with NASA another year

• Test for my 3rd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do

• Not break any bones

• Fix up more rooms in the basement

• Take down that one tree in the backyard

• Enjoy my family more

• Go to PyCon, Plone Conference 2009, and DjangoCon

• Become much more active in the open source community
  

2008 Resolutions Summary

Items that are crossed out are completed.

• Start teaching kali on a regular basis.

• Start doing parkour

• Compete in a tournament or race

• More work on debts!

• Go to yet another country

• Get more people hired at NASA (anyone interested?)

• Keep my waist at 32 inches

• Change my tummy from flat to cut

• Master Zope 3, PIL, and Django

• Stay with NASA another year

Recap of 2008

• I went to Chicago for the first time. The architecture was beautiful. The local food was quite good, nearly as good as the Neapolitan fare I had in 2007.

• Cycled through New York City and reconnected with old family relations.
  

• Kept up with the martial arts. Competed twice.
  

• Almost up to 5 years without a broken bone!!!
  

• Worked another year with Python and Plone. Started to work professionally with Django.

• Stayed with NASA. Managed to see my team evolve into a group that doesn't make me want to pull out my non-existent hair.

• Launched our big project at work (http://nasascience.nasa.gov)
  

• Got my son into physical fitness again.
  

• Shaved my head.

• Got our finances more in order.

• Helped shepherd my students forward for the most part. I'm so proud of them.
  

• Didn't lose anyone close to me.

Update:

• Worked with Alex Clark to launch Take Back the Tap.

• Helped support Food and Water Watch.

• Lasted another year (4 years) at NASA.

• Had a painful kidney ailment in the spring that was a combination of bruising and dehydration.
  

I wish we were having a holiday party at the gym

It feels wrong not having one this Friday.

:(

2009 Saturday class schedule is formally confirmed!

My proposed class schedule for Saturday morning classes has been approved. It will go onto the web site shortly. I first blogged about it at the start of this month. The specifics class structure will be:

10:00 AM to 11:00 AM Core Fundamentals (open to all students)
This will be the practice of TKD forms and the individual elements which make up movements in the forms. So we'll go over not just the pattern of the form, but also practice proper stances, how to do the hand techniques correctly, as well as interpretation of what the movements of the forms mean.

10:45 AM to Noon Intermediate Class (open to all students)
This will be about striking and footwork. The first fifteen minutes will be a warm-up led by a black belt student for which the participants of the previous class will be exempt. The majority of the class will involve work against heavy bags, kicking shields, and punching targets with footwork and general strength training mixed in.

Training notes

• Fixed my diet. No more junk food or snacks!
  
• Next week I start my weight lifting regimen in earnest.
• Side kicks looking sharper.
• Round kicks at face level with power.
• Really working to launch all kicks from the balls of my feet.
• Need to get light gloves for bag work. Can't afford sore hands during my day job.
• Six months from about right now!
  

My saturday class plans for 2009

After running the same sort of Saturday class for several years I've decided to stir things up. Much as I like the current way of doing things, I have new goals in 2009 for myself and students. New planned schedule:

10:00 AM to 11:00 AM Forms class (open to all students)
This will be the practice of TKD forms and the individual elements which make up movements in the forms. So we'll go over not just the pattern of the form, but also practice proper stances, how to do the hand techniques correctly, as well as interpretation of what the movements of the forms mean.

10:45 AM to Noon Striking class (open to all students)
This will be about heavy contact striking. The first fifteen minutes will be a warm-up led by a teen/adult black belt student for which forms class participants will be exempt. The majority of the class will involve work against heavy bags, kicking shields, and punching targets with footwork and general strength training mixed in.

Danny's recipe for pumpkin pie

Inspired by Dave Barry

1. Go to a farmer's market and buy the most awesome pumpkin you can find. That means no blemishes, and perfectly round. It also needs to be big enough that you need two people to lift it up to put in your trunk. A good handle thingee on the top is also critically important.
   
2. Take it home and find the largest, sharpest cutting implement that you can find. Swords will do nicely. Slice off the top in a neat pattern by poking the blade through and then use a sawing motion that the sword was never designed for and try to avoid stabbing the floor your pumpkin is sitting on.
3. Pull out all the innards. Separate out the seeds, salt, and bake them since they are yummy that way. Take the rest of the innards, mix with cream, egg yolks, sugar, pumpkin spice, and vanilla and heat it up. Eventually it will turn into a custard that bears a faint resemblance to what you ate last year during the fall.
4. When no one else tries a bite, go in a sulk go to the super market and buy what people are expecting.
   

Second place in my second tournament

So I competed again. The tournament ended up competing with another event 150 miles away so attendance was low. The hosting school had people there, but the ones walking around had no apparent interest in running the event, much less coaching their own kids. I remember haranguing some of them to get involved.

Well, fortunately for them our head coach stepped up to the plate. He got the tournament running, organized it on the fly, and took care of business. Our parents stepped up as well, and thanks to Team OMAA the tournament seemed to end well. Also, our team did well. Some thoughts about our team:

• I was happy to see Bijan vindicate himself in sparring against the kid who got an inappropriate score in forms.
• Taylor did wonderfully in his first sparring match.
• I really thought Leila broke my finger with her jump spin kicks during breaks. The crowd erupted in very loud cheers during her breaks.
  
• Neil was on fire during his breaks.
• It was good to see Kathyrn step up to compete!
• Scott Sawicki FTW!
  

So my effort in competition... the video had problems, and so until I get photos from some of the other folks I've got nothing to show.

I can say that I know I did better, and observations of me by knowing parties seem to back that up. I did make two significant mistakes, and got some advice that will help me in the future. However, the guy who beat me deserved to win, and was a gracious competitor. He did a higher ranked form and did it very well. I'll work harder for next time, and do his form better than he did to boot. So my observations about myself:

• I got my competition uniform hemmed.
  
• My deep stances were deep. I nailed all my stances.
• My first two front stances were solid, which is hard to pull off during that particular combination.
  
• Three of side kicks were good, but one was off.
• My hand techniques were crisp.
• I did not finish where I started (big in Korean and some Japanese forms)
  
• People said my combination sets were good.
  

Steel jewelry is in!

What seems to be getting popular are apparently cheaper metal rings made from steel, tungsten, or titanium. I think this is awesome because I don't want to lose hundreds of dollars on a ring that might slip off my finger, and I don't think anyone else should worry either.

Kudos to Katie, Elizabeth, and Rebbecca for illuminating me.

Why I'm not competing in sparring right now

I keep getting asked this question. I really want to compete in sparring, but various reasons prevent me. Here is the list:

• I work a full time job that goes more than 40 hours a week sometimes.
• I do side consulting.
• I teach martial arts 10+ hours.
• When we do sparring practice, either I'm tasked with coaching or there is no one who is at my level.

On the last bullet, what I worry most about are hand and arm injuries. I can't afford to lose the use of what I type with, since that is what covers our mortgage. On the plus side, with the growing size of our adult class, I should be able to find good opponents.

Cat Vacuuming Society

What? Vacuuming a cat? Why would anyone do such a thing? And who would form a society for it?

Apparently, writers often find all sorts of excuses and side tasks to avoid actually writing. And cleaning felines with an electrical appliance is considered a choice method of avoiding putting words to paper. Hence the name my wife choose for the writing group she formed in January 2001 and continues to this day almost every Thursday night.

This is no mean feat. Most writer's groups, like any other hobby group, last about six months. As of this post, my wife has carried her group forward for nearly 8 years. A few people have stuck around since the beginning with her, others have come and gone, and the momentum of the group has continued it across several large book stores.

The structure of the group has changed over the years. Early on it was highly democratic, with everyone having pretty much the ability to veto anything. Rules crept in since this sort of democracy is crippling. Disruptive individuals entered the mix, forcing the group to adopt rules of order. Periodically people demanded contracts of behavior and delivery of content. And, to my wife's surprise, a lot of people just wanted her to take charge. These transitions were not easy and nearly saw the end of the group. Eventually she assumed a mantle for the group of being what we call in the Open Source world 'Benevolent Dictator for Life'.

And so my wife joined the esteemed ranks of Linus Torvalds (Linux), Guido Van Rossum (Python), Larry Wall (Python), and Yukihiro Matsumoto (Ruby). Her role, like theirs, is to gently guide the group forward, comfortable in her technical skills as a writer and her ability to lead a group of like minded individuals. She listens to opinions and makes calls based on what the group needs. Hence its amazing longevity and body of passionate devotees.

For me, this has been the place my wife disappeared to every Thursday night. For years she did not want me to be there, because she was afraid my presence would disrupt her ability to manage the group. By the time she had the skill and confidence to run the group with me present, I had found my own things to do (specifically martial arts) on Thursday nights. So even after many years and hundreds of CVS sessions, I had never actually been to a single session.

Last night that changed. I went to CVS after I got done teaching a class.

To get there I rode the metro to Clarendon, and walk the 4 blocks to Barnes and Nobles. The night was beautiful, but I was shocked to see the building that house the book store where we met was torn down and in ruins. Alas, life is transient, no?

I found CVS clustered in a circle on the second floor of the Barnes and Nobles. After a bit of fun introducing me to the group, I sat down and watched.

They critiquing someone's interesting horror story. Then discussed the various points of people's plots (known as plot noodling). As someone who until 1996 thought he was meant to be a person writing fiction and to someone familiar with best practices in application design, it came across as a friendly peer review. There was a nice sense of camaraderie, and the quality of what people said was rather distinctive. My wife's gentle hand of dictatorial benevolence was present, and people stayed on focus.

Almost 8 years working with people from all over the region and surviving the worst that creative intelligence could toss at my wife and her group.

Impressive really.

If you are interested in writing, and are in the DC Metropolitan area, check it out at cvswriters.com.

What I want to see in the next four years

Expectations of Barack Obama are outrageously high. And he has inherited the odd mess from his predecessor. Some quick thoughts of things I want him to do.

• Fight earmarks and pork in congress. I'm really worried about this one, and I expect Obama to utterly fail here.
• Leave in a responsible fashion from Iraq. And continue to support their government as needed. We shouldn't repeat the mistakes of our exits from Iran and Vietnam.
• Beef up NASA and/or provide more incentives for the commercial exploration of space. The US space budget is an embarrassing pittance and that needs to change.
• Push alternatives to oil and coal. That does not include use of Ethanol (fertilizer and third world destruction of jungles will soar) but rather methods like solar, wind, and even safe nuclear.
• Cut back on the military in the right way. There are any number of really pricey programs over budget that are already obsolescent. For example, why are we still dumping money into the manned JSF when UAVs are clearly the way to go?!?
• Put money into Education, and make damned sure the money goes to teacher salaries.
• Find a way to get colleges/universities to drop their increasing rates of tuition.
  

The first effort I made in a TKD competition

The final result? I tied for second in the over 35 category.

I had managed to catch a flu bug going into this effort, so had serious second thoughts. If my father had not shown, I'm sure I would have just forfeited. However, since my father was coming, I had no choice but to compete. Therefore I'm glad he came, because it was worth the experience.

My fellow competitors in my age group were a nice bunch of guys. We joked about our age and encouraged each other on. I certainly cheered when they did their forms. I hope to see them again in the future.

A few general things first before my form commentary: During the form my vision narrowed down amazingly. I could not hear a thing besides my own thoughts, which were loud.

And now the specific commentary:

• I need to get my uniform pants hemmed.
  
• My deep stances were shallow.
• My first two front stances had bent knees. Brandon Winegarden fixed this but I did not!
  
• My high side kicks at the beginning had poor extension and sucked.
• The high side kicks in the middle looked good, but the landing on one of them was iffy.
  
• My front kicks were good.
• My hand techniques were crisp.
• I leaned too far forward on the knee strikes.
• The last four stances were stepped through incorrectly. Scott Sawicki pointed this out to me 30 minues and while I thought I corrected it in the form, I obviously did not.
  
• I made a big mistake on the last hand technique and I was facing to the side. This might have cost my first place.
  
• In general my form could have used more energy. Watching the video I look like a robot.

Weekend competition information for me

I'm posting this because a couple family members wanted to see me in a demo or competition. Eventually we'll put the videos online (not because we think we rock, but so we can see what we did right and wrong). I'll be doing just one event, will be up for about 3-10 minutes, and since this is my first event, I'll probably do mediocre at best. I like to think I'm good, but I'll probably be a bit nervous and am likely to make some silly mistakes. Of course, besides competing I'll be coaching so I'll be pretty busy and will only have so much time to be social.

So if you want to sit on bleachers by yourself for hours starting at 9:30 am in order to see me give a go for a few minutes then here is the address:

Saturday, November 1, 2008
Driving Directions to the Tournament
University of the District of Columbia
4200 Connecticut Avenue NW
Physical education BLDG 47
Washington, DC

Quick update

For those who care, here is what is in the Danny news:

• Bought the kid a nice bike as an early birthday present. Money came from his grandparents and us for the bike, and its much better than what I have. Now he easily outpaces me. I am very jealous!
• Jen is off to Calgary over Halloween.
• Saturday I compete in forms for the first time. I'll be doing Koryo, and if I can land the side kicks then I'm certain to win.
• Shaved my head. So far at work for 90 minutes no one has noticed.

The temptation is very strong...

I want a vacation. One away from home, my daily chores, work and anything involving responsibility. A clean break from life. Our finances are in improving shape, so a vacation is in our reach. I don't have expensive tastes, and neither does my family. Preferably I want to go somewhere warm and enjoy the ocean. The sea gives my soul energy. Ideally I want a $1000 vacation for the three of us (me, wife, 16-year old son).

However, upon any sort of reflection, now is not the time. We have so much that needs doing. A quick list of things to do:

• Take down the dying tree in back ($2300)
• Take down a tree growing on the side of our house ($1000)
• Redo the kitchen sink ($1000)
• Install a dishwasher in the kitchen ($1000)
• Electrical work in the basement ($500)
• Replace the upstairs toilette ($300)
• Replace all our 1960s era windows ($5000)
• Fix the back porch roof ($750)
• Pay back a hospital bill ($300)
• Buy me a new bike ($500)
  
• Pay back a bigger bill or three ($infinity)

And that is just after a minute of thought. Bleah. I think if I can consult more and use leave time to get regular salary while doing so things might be better. Hrm...

End of the conference

Today is Wednesday. The last day of the conference ended for me at about 4:30 pm on Sunday. I spent a week of training, networking, presenting, and coding with a great group of very smart people. I also got to eat three times in Ethiopian fare, which is nice after a 14 year break from that notable cuisine.

Doing this sort of thing in your own town is interesting. Except for one night with insomnia, I got enough sleep. On the other hand, the sense of excitement you get by going far away was missing. On the plus side, I managed to get some gym time in. On the other hand, home things were a constant distraction.

Anyway, here is to hoping for the next conference being in a fun country far away!

Start of the Conference

I had trouble sleeping unday, so I too two benedryl to get to sleep. That made me blurry in the morning but sleep is something I need in order to focus. Breakfast was a handful of grapes.

The conference is taking place at the Ronald Reagan building, so I took the Orange line train from East Falls Church to Federal Triangle. Then I wandered the RR building for 10 minutes trying to find my class. Came in, saw my buddy Vern Chapman from the bootcamp this summer, sat down, and got ready.

The class I'm taking is Plone theming. It was well taught but most of the first day is just review stuff for me. I learned a couple new things, but nothing super-critical.

I did spend a good 15 minutes talking productively with Amy Clark, the better half of aclark.net.

I was thinking about going to the gym tonight to work out, but people are going to an Ethiopian restaurant this evening and it might behoove me to do that instead of staying fit. We'll see how I feel in a couple of hours.

362 days ago I was off to Italy

The 2007 Plone Conference was set in Naples, Italy. I captured my adventures under the PloneConf2007 label on this blog. This year the conference is here in Washington, DC. Today, instead of waiting nervously to board a flight across the Atlantic, I'll be tooling around Arlington, Virginia. Much as I like our home, I have to admit a sense of disappointment.

There is something about visiting someplace new, seeing things you've never seen before, and taking your clothes out of suitcases and into hotel drawers that makes me happy. I know my local Plonistas put a lot of work into this effort, and yet my memories and heart remains in Italy.

I am excited about two more days of training under Joel Burton, three more days of Plone conference, and two days of Plone sprinting. Plus the odd bit of socializing mitigated by our own careful house budget.

I'll be taking pictures of Plone friends and some of the places I'll be in. That is if they let me take pictures inside the brobdingnagion Ronald Reagan building.

Our payment obligation?

Like most Americans, we owe some money. We are slowly paying it back, and making some progress. What we try to do is keep current on things and periodically pay things off in one big lump sum, since that gets us around the issues of murderous interest. Even bills without interest, I do a similiar thing, paying small bits of the amount owed, just to show them that we know they are there and we intend to pay them off.

In the case of most of these owed bills, I'll pay them $X amount every time they send me a notice. I do that because the notices come about once per month, and they provide an envelop. We've got a ton of timeless stamps, and I figure I might as well use them up while we are transitioning back to completely electronic banking again.

So imagine my surprise when one debtor, in their letter to me, state that my due payment of $X is due on October 15th 'per my obligation to pay $X per month'?

This is really funny. I owe these people money and that is not in doubt. What is in doubt is that I ever entered an obligation to pay a specific amount each month. I never did that with anyone and yet these people claim that I have agreed to an obligation.

Of course I'll keep paying because its good to clear this thing out, but I find it amusing that they noticed my ongoing constant payments and changed their nastygrams to reflect it.

Vacation this fall, winter, or spring? Or not...

So my staycation sucked. I guess it could have worked, but really I want to be away from home, be pampered, and see water or something else but this area. Our finances aren't bad right now, so we've teased the thought of doing something fun away from home, and bringing our 16 year old son with us.

We've thought of the cruise thing. They are inclusive, in that that include room, board, and lots of food. I like the sea to boot. The problem is that the local cruises out of Baltimore and Norfolk are not cheap. Its cheaper to fly down to Fort Lauderdale and sail out from there. I've found a couple Royal Caribbean cruises that are six days and five nights that seem very affordable. Then tack on the $10/night per person per day fuel surcharge and the cost balloons.

We are also looking at renting places in out of season locales. Go to the beach or non-skiing mountains in winter, find a nice hotel, house, or bread-and-breakfast and you can get incredible deals. Think $500/week for everyone! However, I'm hesitant. I want to be able to hit a pool, run outside barefoot, and feel the wind on my face. I'm afraid this will turn into another staycation experience. Bleah.

Or maybe I ought to just wait until Pycon and bring the family. Then we can stay at the hotel a few extra days and see Chicago properly. I really did like the pizza there, and the architecture was to die for.

Finally, we might just not do a vacation, or send the kid off by himself, perhaps on a school trip? That would be the responsible thing. Our finances are still not in perfect order.

Hrm...

Farewell to Michael Hammer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hammer
http://www.hammerandco.com/about-obituary.asp

I had the pleasure of first meeting his daughter, Jessica Hammer, back in 2004. She credits a lot of herself to her father. Since she is one of the most intelligent, funny, compassionate, Jewish, wonderful people I know, I can simply say that I really wished to have met this man.

There is much I owe to Jessica and her circle of friends and family. I've only met a few of you, and thanks to my own nature, I'm often distant. I miss you guys and pray that there might be something I could do.

Nixed Technorati link off this blog

Why?

I added Technorati back in October 2007 because someone had the bright idea of connecting all Plone Conference 2007 with Technorati links. Seemed like a great idea! Since we already had a flickr tag for the event, why not Technorati?

Well, its been rather pointless.

If I search in Technorati for ploneconf2007 I get one post by the excellent Lennert Regebro. Where are the other posts? Where are my blog posts listed?

Other people question Technorati's design for this and similiar issues. Having done some work with social bookmarking recently for NASA, I can say that tying your blog to Technorati is a pain unless you use their special bloated size in-line HTML scripts.

So why waste my screen real estate on a system that doesn't care about me? At least with the google ads I can, in theory, make money. Not that it has happened yet...

Prayers to Jessica and family

My last gaming convention was DragonCon 2004. The con was fun, but the important thing was meeting a pair of New Yorkers, Jessica and Chris.

Jess is unbelievable. Depending on your inclinations you wish you were her or dated her. Smart like a whip, compassionate, attractive, and very into her Jewish roots. She can quote Hebrew poetry, discuss the nuances of fine literature, teach classes at the collegiate level, play video games, play tabletop games, look good in a bodice, and has a wicked sense of humor to boot. For us geeks, she worked for Clay Shirky! If there is anything not to like about Jess is that I know she watches at least Japanese horror movies.

Chris is her boyfriend of a decade or so, and keeps up with her in what seems every regard (except the horror movies). In a more savage world he would be challenged to sword fights for the right to court Jess.

These are good people. Trust me.

Jess has shared at least once that her father is important, and holds him in respect. She described him recently by comparing herself this:

For those of you who have met my father, or heard my stories about him, you have some idea of what an amazing guy he is. For those of you who don't know him, our family jokes that I am his clone - so if you know me, you do know him, a little bit. He is my hero, my role model, my compass and my guide. I am hoping and praying for his recovery so that I have a chance to share the next thirty years with him.

If he is even a little like this, then her father must be quite the gentleman. He should move down here because we need more smart people to run the country.

Anyway, on Friday, August 22, 2008, Jess' father had a serious accident. He is in the ICU up in Boston. I've extended my prayers and hopes to them that he recovers quickly.

Moving major appliances

On Sunday I did a ton of work around the house.

It started in the morning clearing brush in back of the house. My old clippers are pretty much done so I grabbed one of my kukris and went at it. As a combination hatchet/knife I have to say it worked smashingly well. The kid came out and asked why I wasn't using both at the same time. I laughed, said that only happened in the movies or on the mat, then taught him how to do what I was doing. He liked doing it, but didn't like the bugs. When I was 16 I was more used to bugs and stuff so it was pretty amusing.

Then came in the lifting. The kid was busy so this was all me. Besides moving stuff all around the basement, I took the old water heater out. Alas, not all the water would drain so it weighed about 150 pounds when I took it up the back stairs. That meant I had to dead lift all 150 pounds of it above my head, which tweaked my shoulder a bit.

The old dryer came next. I rolled it up the stairs.

I cleaned up stuff a bit and took a shower to get grunge off of me.

Then it was to the place where we were getting our new washer and dryer. That meant taking both pieces down two flights of stairs and lifting them up into a van. Fortunately I had the kid and this other guy to help there.

We got the pieces home and the kid helped me take the pieces off the van, through the backyard, and down the stairs. I'm proud to say even through that tight back stair nothing got scratched, and most of it was him doing the thinking.

I'm still much stronger than the kid, but if he sticks with this fitness thing we are on he should eclipse me within 6 months, if not sooner. He outweighs me by about 40 pounds and has youth to boot.

There was more labor too but that was the hard stuff worth writing about.

Fitness update

Me

So I started lifting weights again on my birthday after a month-long hiatus. Had to do it because I didn't like my arms feeling rubbery when I did't flex them. I completely changed my routine, focusing mostly on freeweights, starting with as heavy as I can go on something for a full set and then doing secondary and tertiary sets with lighter weights, with the later exercises including auxiliary muscle work. I'm liking the results a lot.

Now that he's started up again, I train in TKD every time the kid trains. Its nice not to be a teacher and just focus on me for a few hours each week. On the plus side, to get a full workout I need to bike from work (12 miles) then train or the class is too easy. This is a good thing especially since...

As of December 2007 I'm eligible to test for my 3rd degree black belt in TKD. I'm not sure I'm going to do it, but I'm thinking about. I plan to make a decision by the end of this month, August 2008.

As for cycling, trying to do it every day except mapbe fridays. My bike has issues, like a seat that won't adjust, so I may have to get a new bike. I've got my eyes open on craiglist for something nearby that is affordable. Next month I do 102 miles in NYC with JSR and my brother.

Kid

He's going to the gym with his mom for treadmill and cycling work. He also rides his bike a lot. And he has decided in TKD he wants to double test in October. He'll have to work hard or that because that he could fail and onl get one belt.

He has a couple pending free personal training sessions he can use. I want him to do these because he ought to be doing weights. But I'm making a point of not pushing him.

Jen

Cycling and treadmilling plus now circuit training. Woot!

Taught my son yesterday

He's been doing a lot more cycling and has started back up with Tae Kwon Do, albeit from the beginning. So far he's gone with me to one of my teacher's classes on monday nights with me. He really enjoys it, although he has trouble with the warm ups, but that will come with time.

So yesterday, on a Tuesday, he came to my teen class. I treated him like any other beginner, which meant a focus for part of the class on falling. My classes have a lot of falling and tumbling, and also get into sparring and a lot of rough contact. It will be months before he will be ready for that stuff in full, but this is the start.

He prefers the other class. That doesn't surprise me, since my class is limited to just 45 minutes and I have to cook in everything I can in that limited amount of time. Also, the falling part is different and a bit uncomfortable for him.

NYC century bike ride

My intention is to go up to New York City with my good friend James and ride for 100 miles. Thats if I can get a good bike rental I think. Otherwise I might go less. We'll stay either with my brother Doug or with my Mom's cousin Roxanne. Will be much fun!

Another reason to dislike P.F. Changs

I dislike them. The quick and dirty:

• Decor that seems to make certain that even mildly busy times are noisy. You are shouting at the people next to you
• Mediocre Chinese-American cuisine made from mediocre ingredients
• Not cheap

So if that isn't enough, here is another reason:

http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/20-Worst-Foods/8_Worst_Chinese_Entree.php

Barack Obama versus John McCain

Lets get down to it, a real comparison between Barack Obama and John McCain. A physical comparison!

Last election year (2004) I called the election by comparing Bush and Kerry, and Bush won out because he was an avid exerciser, lifting weights, running, and cycling. Both lost out to Putin, who because of his Judo and Sambo skills could kick both their butts, and so will remain in charge of Russia forever.

John McCain starts out strong. He served for over 20 years in the US Navy as a combat pilot, being wounded several times and surviving as a prisoner of war. He's got a temper that probably lets him clobber anyone in his path. Unfortunately for this candidate he's 72 years old and therein lies his weakness. So I'll give him the edge in combat experience and willingness to follow through on a proper beatdown, but take him to task on his ability to take punishment and last the distance.

Barack Obama has seen no violence outside that of being a politician from the Chicago area. He does seem fit and trim, and supposedly stays that way through a combination of diet and playing basketball. His lack of combat skills and experience hurt him. So I'll give him the physical edge especially with his youth, but take him to task for his ability to really hurt his opponent.

Again Vladimir Putin of Russia wins on his Judo and Sambo skills, and the plain fact that Vladimir is a cool name. Maybe he should get into American politics?

Hu Jintao of China? Well, he excelled in dancing during high school. He stays trim somehow, but its unclear what his methods might be. He is a completely unknown contender, but his slightly awkward posture suggests no relevant physical skills.

Coming up on my week off!

Training this week has been interesting. I know about 80% of the material

What sucks of course is a last minute work problem that is about 50-75% my own fault which might force me to work over this weekend.

Anyway, the fatigue issue is cured. More body minerals like sodium, calcium, and potassium have been helping. So has this week where I've not been working out so much, about 25% of normal. My body feels rather recovered now.

I cook for a gathering tomorrow night at a friend's house. I'm thinking fried rice with grilled chinese sausage. We'll see.

Monday I lead my first bike ride! I'm going from my gym to the Smithsonian metro. Its going to be a small group, but future rides will be bigger since they'll be scheduled for the weekend.

Working on the fatigue issue

So on tuesday I talked to a doctor who trains with us at the gym. When we talked the whole thing about electrolytes, and I said I thought I was getting enough, he suggested I really up my intake of potassium, calcium, and even sodium. As he put it, 'putting salt on your food might be bad for most people, but with your volume of physical effort 5 - 6 days a week, it might be what you need to do.'

Now I haven't put any salt on my food yet. But I am drinking more electrolyte water. Eating more bananas and looking to buy some more suppliments. I think I feel better but it might be too early to tell.

The other thing he mentioned is that with my kidney issue I might just be anemic. He said that if upping the body salts doesn't work to try upping my iron intake.

He also said I might want to go to the doctor.

Exhausted for no reason

I don't know why, but since Monday evening I've felt very tired. I'm not sure why. I think I'm getting enough sleep, eat well, and exercise tons. Yet my energy low has dropped precipitously. Very odd.

July should be fun

I love summer. Nothing like cycling next to a river across DC for miles to and from work to make you happy. Each day is different. Just last week during a rain shower I saw a rainbow there that was unlike anything I've ever seen.

So July should be fun.

I love Independence Day. Fireworks, grilling, and flags. Whats not to love?

From the 14th to the 18th I've be in NASA funded training learning stuff I want to learn in order to help support NASA more. How fun is that?

From the 21st to the 25th I'll be on vacation. Nothing serious planned, just being at home with my son while the wife is away. We'll cycle, eat junk food, hit the museums, and goof off like only two guys can do. Might see my mom as well, if not my dad.

Good times.

Quick Firefox 3 review

Firefox 3 rocks. Its super fast and as of several days of running it, very stable. All sites show up just fine. I heard there may be a problem on Hotmail, but who uses that garbage anyway when you have gmail?

So please, family and friends who use IE, convert away. No time has been better.

Get FireFox here!

My students take the big test

I teach quite a few teenagers and kids martial arts. Most of it is Tae Kwon Do but I mix in Muay Thai and Kali from time to time. Anyway, seven of my teens are testing this Friday (6/20/2008) for either their apprentice black belt or full black belt. This, for what its worth, is a big deal. Why?

Our school is really rough. It takes 4 - 7 years to get ready to test for black belt here, often leaning to about 6 years. We have high expectations for our students, and at black belt level testing, the students fail about 50% of the time. Compare that to the belt factory schools where you get your black belt in 2 years regardless of your knowledge or skill, but rather based on the fact that you are willing to shell out $750 for a black belt.

Anyway, I'll be there. If you are interested in coming to watch the effort of years of work let me know. Just so you know, this is not a demonstration, and it is not a tournament. This is a grueling test, where for at least the first hour we'll have exhausted the students to see how they perform under duress. So the technique may not look pretty, even if the students can be really impressive when they are fresh.

Cycling in this heat

Riding home it was 96 degrees Fahrenheit and according to weather.com it felt like 101. I've ridden in that before, but yesterday coming home I felt very wiped at the end. So instead of going to the gym I took a shower and languished in our rather chilly basement. So how can I manage this better?

Its not just hydration. I had a carbohydrate heavy breakfast and lunch, which was not ideal. Greens and fish protein seems to work best for me on hot days. So I'm trying to do that today. I'll report later.

New water heater

Late last night we finally finished getting our old water heater replaced. What a difference! Went from 5 minutes of lukewarm water that took many hours to recover to a never-ending stream of scalding goodness. Bonus is that the new water heater is much more energy efficient to boot.

This morning I dragged the kid out of bed and pushed him grumbling into the shower. He was not happy when he woke up and there was resentment in the air. He came out 25 minutes later with a glowing smile on his face and said, "Now I see why you woke me up early."

The simple pleasures are some of the best ones.

Condolences to the Hammers

Over a year ago I started to teach a little boy. He was enthusiastic and his parents were good people. Their kids had discipline, and yet got to be goofy enough that they were well-adjusted. The family just adores Star Wars. Eventually the little boy's sister joined and the fun continued. On the mat they are always smiling, even when I am pushing them or yelling at them.

The kids are great to have in class. The little boy is inventive and energetic. He adds flourishes whenever he can figure out how. I take the little girl and at the age of 4.5 years I have her demonstrate techniques to older kids. She might goof off sometimes but even then she is listening. I've seen the kids overcome fears, meet challenges, get stronger, faster, and learn stuff off and on the mat. They are part of what keeps me coming back to the gym to teach, because it certainly isn't the money. Its the people, and the thought that maybe in some small way my efforts will make a difference in their life.

The parents are not just nice people, but intelligent to boot. They are the sort of people who I wish were around when my son was age six or so. They are the sort of people who are witty but not sarcastic, cheerful but not dangerously so, attendant to details but not petty.

I just found out that the grandmother of the kids just passed away. She had been ill for a long time, so I guess this is a release to her and her family. Yet to lose a parent is something I can't imagine, and losing a best friend was one of the more heart-wrenching experiences of my life.

Anyway, to my knowledge I never met the grandmother, yet I was touched by her. Her daughter, her grandkids, and the man she let her daughter marry are in my life. My prayers are with her and her legacy, the wonderful people who are the Hammers.

Phoenix is down safely!

Don't forget, I work for the people who made this happen!

http://nasascience.nasa.gov/missions/phoenix
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080525m.html

Italia and Escher

When I was a little boy visiting my grandparents I discovered a book of drawings by M.C. Escher on their living room table. They were wonderful patterns and designs, surreal worlds, and a place beyond dreams. I have fond memories of sitting on the artsy 1950s era sofa they had and imagining things beyonds worlds. This was home to me.

Flash forward to October 2007 with my Plone Conference trip to Naples. Periodically I would see places, mostly rows of beautiful houses that were unbelievably familiar. I couldn't place why. It just seemed strangely like home, and yet this Amalfi Coast style was something I had never been in the presence of before. Sure, I had seen pictures, but the pictures didn't quite resonate with me the way that actually being there did.

Well, last week while going through some books I found a book I bought 10 years ago on M.C. Escher. His forward describes the 10 odd years he spent on the Amalfi Coast of Italy.

Then it clicked. His art depicted perhaps not the color or the photographic detail of the architecture, but rather its soul. That may sound strange, but it makes sense to me.

Now I know why after visiting there Italy calls to me so strongly.

That and the food. ;)

Flooding sucks

Rain. Mislabeled breaker that turned off our sump pump. Ankle deep water in my basement.

That was mother's day.

And I forgot to call my mom. She ain't happy.

NYC cycling ride part 1

The night before we decided to wake up at 5:30. That would give us time to get dressed, eat, and take a leisurely pace to get to the ride start, south of Central Park. We woke up at 5:45 because I mis-set the alarm in the room, but JSR had also set his cell phone. Breakfast was bagels with cream cheese and a slurp of watered coffee.

We arrived 45 minutes early. It was damp and chilly. I don't like chilly. I grumbled about the cold while JSR took pictures. It was impressive the number of cyclists there. You can get a small sense of what we were in right here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jsaintrossy/5BoroughsRideNYC/

The ride finally started. Except for the first mile or so it was mostly a walk. Heck, in the first mile I probably did 10 beats on the pedals. Everyone had a great laugh at this. Things did pick up, but not until Central Park, which is where Roxanne started her ride.

More to come...

Best NYC trip ever!

This weekend I went up to NYC with a co-worker (JSR) to enjoy the famous 5 Boros Ride. We stayed with my family, specifically my mother's cousin and her husband, Roxanne and Michael. And all of it was great.

Our hosts were wonderful. They made very certain we knew how to get there, and even me with my bad sense of direction felt I could navigate there if needed. Their condo in Harlem was light and airy, large but cozy. Roxanne made an incredible lasagna for dinner the night before, which has spoiled me for life. More family came to share dinner, including their grown daughter Rose (who seems to have inherited all of the positive Aaron traits and none of the negative ones), her sister Diana and her husband Aria, and their adolescent daughter Jordana. It was Rose' birthday so we indulged in her ice cream cake.

The ride itself deserves its own post. Lets just say it was wonderful. More to come...

I want to get busy!

Normally I'm very physically active. Yet thanks to general fatigue related to my kidney/back problem, whatever it may be, I've been pretty sedate. Well, its catching up to me because sleep is no longer easily forthcoming.

On the plus side, besides feeling like I could sleep another few hours, I feel great. I didn't cycle in to work, but maybe I should have.

More stupid stuff about my health

Over the weekend I took it easy. Not by choice. My energy levels are just plain low thanks to this stupid health issue. My muscles all feel fatigued. Sometimes the area that hurt before aches. I've got a painkiller in case it gets bad. I haven't taken it yet cause it might make me dizzy.

The real concern for me is this weekend. I really, really want to get away. I'll have 10 hours with my work buddy James to work on a side project while we travel. I'll meet my cousin who I haven't seen in about 10-20 years. I might get to see other NYC people I know.

Thats it. You know about as much as I do.

Day after the hospital

I went to our General Practice physician about the lower left kack/kidney pain. After a Q&A and lots of poking and prodding here are the results:

• I definately have a bruised or stress fractured lowest left rib. That actually isn't as bad as it sounds. This sort of thing just happens to me cause I do a lot of contact work. I've got to watch that rib for a week or two and then it should be fine.
• The kidney area pain doesn't add up. I've got some of the symptoms of kidney stones and most of the symptoms of blunt trauma. But not enough of either to be certain. They can trigger the pain again by pressing with force against my kidney though, so the issue is still there.
  

So what does this mean? Well, I have to be careful of taking impact on that area. If it returns when they gave me a muscle relaxant for the pain. And I'm supposed to go back for retests if the pain returns or a week goes by.

How do I feel? Tired from lack of sleep. A bit of nausea. Otherwise am okay. I'll be coming to work tomorrow.

My trip to the hospital

Last night around 10:45 I started to feel an excruciating pain in my lower left back in the approximate area of my kidney scaled around 8 or 9 on the 10 point pain scale. Not to mention periodic fits of nausea. Around 11:30 minutes my son woke up, and at my request called 911 plus a family friend who lives nearby. The EMTs came and took me to Arlington County Hospital which is not far from where we live.

Sometime after midnight the pain faded from a scale of 8 or 9 to about 2 or 3, although the nausea continues to come in slow cycles. I was poked and prodded, CAT scanned and was asked lots of questions. They have hard evidence something is wrong, but the CAT scan is not showing anything. Some suspects include:

• Kidney stones (but these normally show up on CAT scans)
• Blunt trauma to the left lower back (should show up on CAT scans)
• Dehydration (Won't show up on CAT scans but not likely - I drink a lot of water)
• Over-exerscion causing muscle dissolution (Won't show up on CAT scans but I don't think I've been working that hard)
• Pulled/Cramped back muscle (Won't show up on CAT scans)
• Pinched nerve (I'm not feeling any of the loss of mobility this caused on my right side last year)

Since the pain is mostly gone now, they discharged me with a prescription to Skexaline (I think - too tired to go read label).

Anyway, I just got home after being discharged. I've been up all night. I'm going to take a nap, then get my prescription, then log in to work.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

A very serious study on felines by Engineers.

Pesach and tradition

My family calls it Passover, which is odd for us Jews. But as my Uncle Jeff put it so well, 'Our family tradition is a tradition of breaking traditions.' This certainly sums up things about my family when it comes to certain traditional things.

On the other side of things, my family, when it comes to politics and culture, is very traditional when it comes to being involved in the fundamentals of enlightened society. We have a 60+ year tradition of being involved in civil rights, advocating for peace, and trying to be the nice guy. Nice tradition, eh?

On the other hand, being a Libertarian one thing that grates on me when it comes to the socially progressive is how traditionally patronistic they can be to race X or culture Y or religion Z. For example, recently I was annoyed when someone I know advocated for protesting against over consumption of gasoline, except for Hispanic people. His excuse was that to them overly large vehicles were a sign of 'making it'. To me, this is bigotry, albeit not motivated by malice but rather subtle contempt. Hispanic people are more than able to educate themselves, work great jobs, and have the same successes and failures as the rest of us.

Fortunately, I can't imagine my family getting involved in this sort of crap. They offer equal opportunity to everyone regardless of race, religion, creed, or sexual preference. As far as I understand it, a helping hand is given during youth or in emergencies but then people need to stand on their own.

So Pesach was a blast. I met my cousin's little boy (18 months), reconnected with family, ate great food, enjoyed a beautiful day, and felt thanks for another year of being a Jew in a relatively free country.

Jave, may you rest in peace. We miss you little guy

Comments made easier!

A lovely colleague at work, Gamble, told me she didn't comment on my blog because logging in to do so was a pain. Well I just opened up comments for everyone. I'll delete anything nasty or unmentionable, but otherwise comment away!

Status of NASA Science

Last week we were #1 on digg/science and #3 on digg over all:

http://digg.com/space/Brand_New_NASA_Science_Website_Opens

We were slashdotted:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/12/0010230

We are on Wired:

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/04/nasa-science-we.html

Lots of other press too. Our system spiked a bit when we went high up in rankings on digg, but otherwise has run pretty smoothly. The caching is working just fine.

Most of the public comments are positive, some are helpful and are directing us towards bugs/mistakes. Some are snarky, ranging from the idiotic to the really funny.

Our feedback system is ugly but it works. Best question so far: 'When it is daytime on earth, is it daytime on all the other planets too?' Remember, we aren't allowed to ask the age of feedback submitters, so this could be a child or an adults. The fun is in guessing.

Anyway, this will look @#$% good on the resume.

So what did I do on the website?

I've gotten a lot of emails asking for specifics on what I did with http://nasascience.nasa.gov. I'll try and address this on several different levels. First details about the project and effort:

The project had about 20 people on it, with three of us being full time developer/engineers. The rest were system administrators, graphic designers, content editors, and the odd rotating management. The project took over a year.

The project was created using mostly open source tools. Comparable purchasable tools would have cost $200k-$250K to get started, required as much per year in licensing costs, and would have required just as much work. Several large firms and agencies use the same toolset that we do for this precise reason, with examples being Novell, Lufthansa, and the CIA (yes, the CIA can't afford overpriced tools).

My Role
Though the project officially started in Spring 2007, my effort started in Fall 2006. That was when I did a product comparison (with presentation) between a number of purchasable (COTS) and open source (OS) remedies to the issue of content management. I had been an advocate of OS efforts for some time. Apparently I did a good job so for the NASA Science project, they choose one of my OS suggestions.

A quick list of things I did once the project began includes:

• Created over a hundred Plone views from the data. If you know how to view the source HTML, you can see thats my work. The CSS/Javascript/images were done by others. Because of code reuse techniques the amount of code generated is actually quite small.
  
• Added and modified lots of different content types and their relations with other content types. Content types include things like Missions, Programs, Big Questions, and areas of the site you can't see yet. ;)
  
• Wrote a script to map out the Zope 2 database architecture when our tool to handle that broke down. The database architecture is complex, arguably too complex and now that we are done with launch, we will be simplifying it (we hope).
  
• Modified an existing third party Plone package to support handling of incoming RSS feeds that followed no standard but their own.
• Created most of the Zope 3 feedback forms and their handlers on the site. I have to admit I really don't like the form api we used as the results are ugly and the library itself is annoying. You can read my thoughts on that subject here (warning - rather technical).
  
• Added and modified existing relationships between content areas.
  
• Created a Zope 3 captcha engine that eventually got shelved.
  
• Ensured that HTML rendered is section 508 compliant and meets international usability requirements. Which means the visually disabled can use it without issue. I wasn't the 508 overseer, and the one we had sucked. But I certainly adhered to the protocols.
  

There is much other stuff that I did that I'll try to address in future blog posts. If you want the technicalese, you can visit my technical blog at http://pydanny.blogspot.com/.

Some of the open source tools we used include:

• Python Programming Language
  
• Apache Http Server
  
• Plone Content Management System
  
• Zope 2 Application Server
  
• Linux Operating System

Note the lack of Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, and Java? Thats because we believe in true open source and choosing the best tools.

321 LiftOff!!!

http://nasascience.nasa.gov/

Over a year of work by yours truly and other people to boot. And its live! Live I say!

Next time I'll read the label

So Saturday I get to the gym at around 9am. I plan to be there until 3pm. Unfortunately for the world I left my deodorant at home. So I raid someone else's unlocked locker and find a stick. I apply to my underarms and then check the label to see what brand.

The brand is Icy-Hot.

Which heats up on the skin.

I figure I'll be okay. I mean, its nice on sore muscles and stuff, so it should be okay in my armpits. It feels warm but I'm not bad off.
.
.
.
60 seconds I'm in the bathroom frantically rubbing the burning stuff off using wet paper towels and trying not to howl in anguish.

Ramping up the excercise

The goal is to get my pants to fit better. Ha ha.

Its funny, I've heard how tiring Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is, but I found the workout not that hard. And thats after two weeks of not working out and eating too much! My teacher, an old friend, agreed to ramp up the workout. On the other hand, working out in my gym has been really hard since I got back from Chicago.

With that in mind I ramped up my workout and cut back dramatically on my food intake. That means cycling at least 10 miles a day (soon that goes to 20 miles) and an increased weight-lifting regimen. Plus lots more core work. And coaching my son on exercise and doing it all with him.

I've got a leg injury that is hampering me on a lot of things. A lot of basic kicks on that leg hurt to do. Things like front and round kicks are a pain not just to do, but to also hit people/pads with. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that spin kicks don't hurt. How silly is that?

10th Wedding Anniversary

I got back late on Wednesday, real late. Work on Thursday was mostly meetings. Then I found myself in the gym being really tired and out of shape. Fortunately, for me being out of shape is only being able to go for 3 hours instead of the normal 5.

So Friday was our wedding anniversary. We are saving up for a nice vacation so didn't do anything too fancy. Bikes got fixed, and some time was spent cycling. The evening was a steak dinner that was really nice.

Saturday was sleeping in and doing family stuff at home. The evening was a celebration of sorts with friends that went really well.

Sunday we went to Frederick, Maryland. We means myself, Jen, and the kid. Plus one of my martial arts students who is as old as the kid (both 16). What we did was visit my best friend who now teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jutsu. We did that for hours and it was a nice switch. Back in the day we did some ground fighting but not as focused as this. I'm happy to say that I didn't find it that tiring, although I had to stop because my knees are pretty torn up from the mat. Next time I'll wear gi pants. The important thing is that my son loved doing this, and wants to go again and again. Since its been so hard to get him to do anything beyond play video games, this is an awesome development.

Evening was more family time.

Yeah, it was pretty sedate. Working on cooking up something that is a bit more fun.

First side consulting project hits the world!

http://tbtt.fwwatch.org

I didn't work on this as much as I would have liked, since February was really busy at work. Nevertheless, I did play a part, and it got my CSS skills back from the side of the pit and into active practice.

Thank Alex!

Flickr woe

I've uploaded lots of pictures but Flickr is unhappy with me. You see, I need to upgrade to $2/month to be able to show more than 200 pictures. Does anyone care enough for me to display my Chicago trip pictures? Comment if you care.

Finally, good food!

Ate at a place a mile's walk from the conference center. It served Chicago stle pizza, complete with cornbread dusted place. It was packed full of Chicago folks and when we got served we found why.

Good sauce on top, decent quality cheese, and the crust just plain tasted right. On the veggie pizza I ate around the onions since those had over-cooked. But the brocolli was perfect. The sausage/spinach pizza had the normal sort of bland pepperoni but the sausage was real good.

It ended up being about $15 a person, roughly comparable to a pizza meal in Naples, Italy.

They also offered Pizza Beer there, flavored with basil and other things, but none of us had the nerve to try it.

The food of Pycon 2008

Quoting Jon Prescott-Roy:

I was not expecting much in regards to the hotel fare, and I was disappointed.

First day of Pycon 2008 - The Tutorials!

Today I woke up, grabbed a nice, hot shower, then made my way to Pycon 2008 registration in the Crown Plaza Hotel, which is behind the DoubleTree.

Registration took 3 minutes. I grabbed a bite to eat and became friends with a married couple, pythonista Joanna and her husband, a java developer named John whose second job is that of an author (and of the same sort of stuff as my loving wife).

Right before my tutorial started I stumbled into my co-worker Chris. We chatted for 30 seconds and then joined our respective groups.

One thing to note, Internet access in the conference is really shakey.

Alas, I only had two tutorials today, with a 5 hour break between them. Fortunately John, the java guy had nothing to do today so we made our way into downtown Chicago. Which was a lot of fun. I took a bunch of pictures, and will get them on-line tomorrow along with a report as to all the fun we had in just a few hours. I'll post about our adventure next.

I got back, ate pizza-shaped food in the hotel, proving yet again that hotel food in the US sucks, then joined the second tutorial.

Tutorial Report: Numpy

My first day in Chicago

So getting from National Airport next to Washington, DC to the DoubleTree Hotel was an exercise in patience. I won't go into the details but lets just say I arrived about 4 hours later than planned. I couldn't find my co-workers, felt mopey, so spent the small amount of daylight in my room.

Part of it was that when I finally landed in Chicago I didn't feel like I had actually gone anywhere. The hotel park around O'Hare airport is a lot like the hotel parks around Dullas, but without as many trees. Unlike Naples there was a total lack of soul. Chicago depressed me.

After several hours I made my way downstairs looking for food. The hotel has two restaurants. The more prominent one was Gibsons Steakhouse, but it was packed with a 30 minute waiting list and no available menu to peruse. The other was a quiet place with a menu, albeit overpriced. I choose the latter. I didn't expect much, figuring that this way I wouldn't be disappointed.

Nevertheless, I managed to be disappointed.

I went to the sundry store, bought a few necessities, and found sleep waiting.

Another hour of waiting for my flight

Lots of delays going on. My flight hasn't even shown up yet and I'm on standby for other flights as they come.

And I had wanted to be able to look around Chicago today.

On my way to Chicago and Pycon 2008!

After getting through a ditzy United Airlines counter attendant, then literally racing through security, I'm next to Gate 31, my journey to Pycon 2008. I got here about 100 minutes early, which was good because we had a minor work emergency. After struggling with T-Mobile to connect to the Internet, I got on and addressed the issue.

I'll be posting here for the duration, and also on my technical blog. I'll be taking photos, but being stuck next to Chicago O'Hare airport in a Hotel Park, I'm not sure how many will be worth looking at.

I do plan to sample Chicago Pizza and also visit a few museums. The Museum of Science and Industry looks fascinating, and there are a few art things I want to try out as well. The Museum of Natural History has the best T-Rex around so I plan to stop by there as well.

I would like to thank Sharron Sample, who made this all possible. She had the vision to try new things and reach high in the quest to make the NASA presence in the world just that much better. She is trusting myself and the others of my team to deliver the goods, and carry her good name forward.

2 days until

Am I excited about Pycon 2008? Heck yeah!

Do I care about being in Chicago? Erm. Not really. I've never been but I don't like it when its cold and windy. And I doubt staying in a hotel park next to the airport is conducive to doing anything noteworthy in a city. Naples was filthy, but historical. The food was all really good. We walked a lot. Drank cheap but incredible table wine. Sampled pizza and pasta at places in gastronomical history.

Someone give me something fun to do or a good place to eat in Chicago.

Please.

Open source makes the world better

http://radian.org/notebook/astounded-in-arahuay

The OLPC in the wild. Making children in poverty better and brighter. The mix of Linux, Python, and other custom bits make the OLPC a real winner.

Yes the OLPC isn't just cheap, it does some incredible things. For example, get 10 OLPCs together and they combine their network power to increase their broadcasting range. These little machines do tons of awesome things, and are technological masterpieces.

Pycon/Chicago ho!

All things are prepaid or reserved now. I have to pack and make sure I've got my shifts at the gym covered. And maybe ask people for advice on what to do with my little bit of free time there.

I'm wondering if my hotel, the DoubleTree near O'Hare airport has a laundry facility. That would make life so very much easier.

Gary Gygax passed away

He is responsible for a lot of things in my life. From a lot of weirdness to the success of my IT career. I never idolized him, often thought he was a jerk, but he certainly put things into motion that have caused a dramatic effect on my life.

Pycon

• Got my plane tickets purchased.

• Hotel reservations complete. I'll be at a DoubleTree Inn. I wonder if they have laundry I can use?

• Conference registration delayed. Can't pay cause no option to pay is listed! Submitted a ticket but have yet to receive a response!

Pycon

I'm going to Pycon 2008! Hooray! Chicago here I come!

More as things develop.

Memorial Mass for my Uncle

Yesterday I went with my father to a memorial mass at Georgetown University in order to pick up my Uncle Alex's ashes (he'll be interned in Arlington Cemetary in June in a funeral done in the traditional Jewish manner). My uncle had his body used in anatomy classes for medical students. My uncle was very much a teacher and wanted to keep teaching even when his life ended.

I barely knew my uncle. By the time I could understand what he did for a living, I was the black sheep of the family. By the time I repaired my family relationships, I was getting married and had a kid. I'm still not good at doing the whole family (or friend) thing, so I never talked with him or spent much time with him until he died.

So today I asked my Dad a bunch of questions about my Uncle Alex. He was appointed the Delaware US Attorney by JFK. He worked for the New York Times as a libel attorney and checked their sources. He worked for US News and World Report as the same job. He taught law at Duke and Columbia and UMCP. He also consulted to authors for non-fiction books to protect them from possible litigation.

During my uncle's tenure at both news sources, neither paper was in trouble for slander or libel issues. Considering the issues caused by the Jayson Blair scandal of 2003 and the recent questionable and near sourceless article about John McCain, my guess is that the NYT could use a principled resource like my Uncle Alex right about now. When even McCain's opposition camp (Barack's team) calls foul, you wonder where the NYT has gone. Maybe to the same level as the Enquirer?

In any case, I realized I share a few traits with my late Uncle Alex. When I do a white paper or any kind of research I am fanatical about correct sourcing and dead-on accuracy. I wish I was like that in the rest of my life, this insistence on truth, but I'll take whatever positive attribute I can find.

Insomnia again

These days I've got insomnia every day I don't work out for several hours.

Ack.

I hate being this strung out.

Work things

I got asked to send out a request to go to Pycon in Chicago next month. Later on I found the reason why. Lets just say they want me there for a long time. ;)

Pycon is the big Python conference that is held every year. Google and Microsoft are big commercial sponsors. There are chances to learn awesome stuff and do tons of good networking.

The weekend

• Got into some bitter fights over the weekend with the wife and son. I made it clear after his last report card that he had to bring positive evidence from all his classes or each weekend he would be grounded. Also, he needed his chores done. Finally, she needs to stop buying him stuff when they go out, since his report card doesn't deserve it and he's old enough to get/keep a job. I didn't handle things well but we do need to have a solid front, and his grades, while not failing, can certainly improve.

• Our water heater didn't seem to be working well this morning. I checked with the kid about the shower he took last night and he said, "Yeah, it wasn't working so I didn't take one." Sigh. He ought to have told me. Then I could have checked to see if it was a fuse or something easy. Alas, I doubt that is the case, and I bet this will be yet another expense.

• It was a three day weekend so I worked my consulting gig all day on sunday. Then monday I worked some on that, some on the normal job, and did some cycling. It got rainy so I headed home.

• Watched Flags of our Fathers last night. A really awesome film about what war does to people and why symbols are so important. There are some horrifying bits during the war scenes on Iwo Jima. This one goes beyond political preferences, so every voting adult is safe to watch this film.

• Worked with the kid on learning Python, specifically using pygame. The book on it is really good, and he likes it a heck of a lot more than the Visual Basic and MoldFusion he's been exposed to before. Who can blame him?

Me being snarky

I got this in my email bin today:

My name is xyz xyz and I'm with xyz, a National IT consulting firm. At some point you submitted your resume to xyz or I ran across your information on a job board and I was wondering if you could help me out. I am working very hard at finding a Windows System support positions in Newington VA. I see that you did or do have this experience within one of the organizations you've worked for. It seems most professionals usually are working and not reading the job boards for new positions so the only way possible I'll be able to find someone is through good old fashioned networking (well maybe the internet isn't old fashioned but you know what I mean). Could you possibly point me in the right direction by giving me a name of someone who might do this within your organization or someone who is outside of your organization? If you prefer I will keep your referral completely confidential. It would just greatly help me out if I could start talking to some people within the Windows Support Community and see who knows who. If you are currently available and interested, please update the following information for me and let me know the soonest we can talk. If you are not available or interested, let me know and I will update your records in our database - thanks!

My response:

I do python programming on Mac OS X and Linux. I know less about Window now than my 70 year old father. Also, I no longer know anyone who does Windows support. We've all moved over to the *nix world.

Hrm...

The kid has decided not to return to sword class. He and his mom told me 'he felt pressured'. The wife should not have intervened. She has for about 4 years vigorously defended his right to eat badly and not exercise. Its been a hard and nearly impossible battle to get him to do anything physical. I admit when we were biking this summer it was awesome, but that when he wanted to go I was already beat from doing my commute.

Anyway, he hasn't been pressured. I've got his friends in school talking about it and every time I leave to go workout I politely ask him if he wants to go.

Why do I do this?

The kid is 16. He is maybe an inch taller than me. And he outweighs me by 40 pounds and his BMI is probably around 30. That puts him at the edge of obese.

At age 16.

I worry about the long term implications of total lack of excercise combined with obesity. I want him to lose both weight and exercise, but would be delight with just one.

Gym things

• The kid wants to start up sword class again since a group of his friends are joining. But he is apprehensive since its been a while and he is afraid of not looking good in front of his friends. Also, our school is hard, and since his fitness level is not good right now I know that makes this a bit more daunting. Of course, on newbies and returning students we are a bit more gentle, but still...
• One of the senior Hapkido guys, a fully ranked master, turns out has a similiar background to me in kali, eskrima, and arnis. In fact, he trained in Maphilindo Kali just like me! So that means we'll be meeting this saturday to do some stick and knife work.
• Now that my back is recovering and I'm able to build my speed back up again, I've been asked to spar again by several people. Much as I want to do this at full effort again, I'm apprehensive about jumping in. My back is still achey at times and I want a full recovery before I risk anything. I've found that the back issue is worse than a broken bone or sprain since it impairs my mobility, flexibility, and sucks the energy out of me.
  

Baby news

My coworker and friend just had a baby. Story here:

http://gooberfishbowl.blogspot.com/