As of late this blog has lost a measure of "geekiness". To correct this, I have decided to summarize my work for the last two days using primarily acronyms.

I have integrated JARs and SERVLETs into my application's WAR file to create SWFs from JSPs that create XML streams (using OpenLaszlo). The final goal is to provide an AJAX interface into the MySQL DB to do basic GIS (like reverse geocoding and the like).

There, I feel better now. :-)

This blog has definitely taken on the flavour of a book club...

This evening I finished Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

I enjoyed the novel thoroughly. I was struck, however, by how different my fundamental assumptions about life were from those of the main character.

Perhaps it is upbringing or maybe differences in culture and time setting ... whatever the underlying reason, the lack of character displayed at the end of the story I found very difficult to swallow. In the end, she did achieve what she had always (day)dreamed about, but there was a very callous back stabbing involved.

I do not intend to come across as a young know-it-all who has all of the answers. But character is very important to me. I want to see my children become strong oaks that do not bend to every wind of change.

I recommend this story.

If you read it, look past the happy ending to ask the question: "Does the end justify the means - regardless of past pain?"

It's been more than a week since I last posted.

My apologies to my faithful readers (all three of you). I have been very busy and this blog ended up on the back burner. So, this evening I will have to give you just a quick post.

As a diversion from my heavier reading (see previous post), I just finished The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert. I am a Dune fan so this book appealed to me.

In summary, Mr. Herbert had an imagination that exceeded the number of pages contained in this book. The story gave glimpses into a very rich universe with subtle inter-workings of politics, religion and limited resources. The plot was complex and intriguing, but it was very easy to loose track of the various threads with all of the references to organizations and species that were never fully explained.

I suspect that a re-reading of this book would clear some of my unanswered questions up. I would not, however, recommend this book to someone who had not read the entire Dune series at least twice (and probably The Lord of the Rings).

In short, I enjoyed the book thoroughly but there are very few people I would recommend it to.

My two young men draw the strangest things from my lips. This evening, however, I had the joy of hearing something completely absurd pour forth from Lindsay instead.

A little back story is in order.

Our preschooler has become obsessed with Star Wars over the last several months (even rivalling his preoccupation with Star Trek), and has repeatedly asked to watch Clone Wars. Clone Wars is a series created by LucasFilm and The Cartoon Network that fits (time-line-wise) between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith".

This cartoon series is really not for those under the age of about seven. Things get edited fairly heavily - as in he can only really watch about four episodes. I thought the other day that we should broaden his horizons a little and rented "The Phantom Menace".

My more sci-fi oriented friends may scoff at paying money for this movie (it did receive poor reviews), but my eldest son has talked of nothing else. From pod racing and light sabre battles to "bad robots", conversation in this house has revolved around the world of Star Wars.

I'm sure that you will appreciate my amusement when this evening Lindsay reprimanded a certain hooting youngster, bouncing on his bed with his "nank" held high above his head with:

"Go to SLEEP! You can be a Tusken Raider tomorrow."

As my blogger profile shows, reading is one of my "other interests" (I have many, the profile only shows a subset).

If you chose to look back through some of the past posts on this blog, you will note that not one of them is with regards to reading. I feel that this oversight needs to be corrected.

Generally, I have two or three books on the go at any given moment with another one or two waiting in the wings. My current book list is as follows:

1. The Art of Computer Programming, by Donald Knuth
2. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Author Connan Doyle
3. Head First Design Patterns, by a whole slew of different authors

I could go through and review each of these books, but I suspect that such a diatribe would bore you to tears. Instead, let me make a few comments about the first book in the list.

This book (actually 3, with several more in the works) was originally published in the 1960s and is still considered the bible of computer science. It has received some criticism for Dr. Knuth's choice of language for example algorithms (assembler, for a fictitious computer...), but it has stood the test of time and people continue to cite it.

When I read it, I feel very dumb.

To give you an idea of the tone of the book, let me give you a sample exercise from the preface.

4. [HM45] Prove that when n is an integer, n > 2, the equation x^n + y^n = z^n has no solution in positive integers x,y,z.

The ^ denotes exponent. So the equation reads "x raised to the power of n plus y raised to the power of n equals z raised to the power of n". The HM45 indicates that the problem is solvable, but will require "higher mathematics" beyond simple calculus. It may just take you the rest of your life.

So, exercise number four of this book is Fermat's Last Theorem, a problem that was posed in 1637 and was not solved until 1995. More than one extremely brilliant and educated research mathematician has dedicated his entire career to this one problem without seeing it solved.

I chose to skip the exercise and begin reading Chapter One.

I had a good post planned for tonight, but circumstances changed and, as a result, I must be brief. (See the previous post about starting posts with the word "I"...)

My second web server crashed this evening.

This is actually less scary than it sounds. When you've dealt with server issues before, it's really no big deal. Having said that, it is a problem that has to be handled immediately. Otherwise the phone begins to ring with that special ring that indicates grumpy customers.

The fix involved two things:

1. A reboot of the crashed server
2. A quick change in the BIND/DNS configuration

Neither of these things are a big deal normally, but with the DNS configuration out of whack I could not access my server. So, I had no way to reset it remotely.

So, I put in a trouble ticket to The Planet (the guys who have the vault with the servers in it) and 9 minutes later things were back up and running.

Wow.

That is stellar support.

Yay for them.

Blogs are inherently self centered.

I only state that because every time I sit down to write an entry, I try to think of an opening sentence that doesn't start with the pronoun "I". This is more difficult than it sounds (try counting the number of times the letter "I" appears in the last sentence).

One other unrelated note: I apologize for my lack of links in my last post. For those of you who haven't yet noticed, the links are often jokes relating to the text.

To say "sorry", each word in this sentence links to a different location.

Happy Surfing.

As of this week, my boys are beginning to share a bedroom.

As a result, Dad the heavy disciplinarian (similar to Conan the Librarian) has to make repeated appearances.

One particularly memorable appearance:

I burst into the aforementioned shared bedroom and had to force back a rising belly laugh when our preschooler turned his shocked (and very guilty) face towards me while scaling the side of our toddler's crib. It was absolutely priceless. He was swinging his left leg over the side like he would if he was mounting a bike and halfway through the act was completely busted.

Quote from the perpetrator: "No, no ... it was an accident!!!"

Me: "Right ..."

On a slightly different note, it is hilarious to watch a one year old "rock out" to tunes from the folk band Great Big Sea.

This evening, he placed his hands on the side of the table and proceeded to "head bang" until he was very dizzy. Once in this state, he tried to climb over the arm of the love seat.

Picture the scene:

Sprawled toddler lying on the couch with eyes rolling in his head with "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?" blasting out of our stereo speakers.

I laughed very hard.