Musings of Zack's Dad

Ubuntu Apache Dev Web Server Install

2012-01-08T15:06:00.001-06:00

I'm investigating Yii, a PHP web framework, for some friends. We want to do a web project and they know at least some PHP. Since I don't want to do all the programming myself, PHP seems like a good option.

The first step is installing the Apache HTTP Server. While I have that self-same web server already installed on my machine as a service, I decided I wanted a development copy I could mess up and not hose my machine's install.

Going to the Apache download site, I see 2.2 is the latest stable version. I navigate to that page and find the Unix tarball to download. Once downloaded, I extract the file any old place.

Step 1 - run 'configure' with your final install directory for Apache.

./configure --prefix=[Apache Install Dir] --enable-so

Lots of output follows. I recommend giving a full path vs. a relative path to the install directory. You can probably use either but you never know.

Step 2 - Now it's time to run 'make'.

make

Lots more output follows.

Now run 'make install'. This actually creates the server instance software in you install directory you picked in step 1.

make install

Now navigate to your Apache install directory. Since this is a development web server, we're going to change the default listing port to 8080. I do this so it won't interfere with an installed web server running on the default port of 80.

cd [Apache Install Dir]/Apache2.2/conf

Use your favorite editor, and open httpd.conf. Find the line

Listen 80

Change it to

Listen 8080

You can substitute 8080 with any other open port. If you need to see if a port is open you can run

netstat -a

and look through the results to make sure your port isn't in use.

Now change directory to the Apache bin directory and run apachectl start. This starts your web server.

cd [Apache Install Dir]/Apache2.2/bin
./apachectl start

Now open a web browser and try

http://localhost:8080/

You should bet a message that says

It Works

If you get this pat yourself on the back and go get a cup of coffee smiling that you've successfully geeked for the day. If not, do what we professionals do, consult the all knowing Google search.

Coming up next, configuring Apache to run PHP.

Expanding A Disk in Oracle's VirtualBox

2012-01-07T06:54:00.003-06:00

I run Ubuntu Linux at home. I love Linux. It's fast, has a smaller footprint than other O/Ss, and it's free. The rest of the world, however, lives on MicroSoft Windows or Apple OSX. I don't mind this. I like being different and enjoy the time I don't spend on virus issues and the money I save on hardware.

Still, ever so often you need a Windows operating system. Normally I can do these small tasks using other resources, but recently I've been hit over and over again with the need to have Windows at home.

If you run Linux you have a few options. You can use Wine to run windows applications within your Linux O/S or you can use a Virtual Machine server to host a Windows O/S within your Linux system. I decided to go this route.

I was once a VMWare fan. I guess I still am but Oracle has a free product called VirtualBox that was recommended by my next door neighbor, the Linux Kernel Commando. The primary advantage to VirtualBox is its ability to access the USB port. VMWare doesn't do that, at least the free version doesn't.

VirtualBox is easy to download, install, and setup as was the Extension Pack which added the USB 2.0 support. Everything was wonderful once I had Google Chrome installed in my new Windows 7 instance. I used it rarely, but it was always there when I needed it. The only issue was when it cranked up, Windows would download the latest MicroSoft patches. I think the VM spent more time patching than running.

Then came my decision to purchase MicroSoft Office 2010. I had 20 GB allocated to my Window's VM and needed more. VirtualBox doesn't have a nice little switch to extend a disk from their console (hint: THEY SHOULD). You have to go to the command prompt and do it. The pig that is Microsoft Office needs over 40 GB to install. After futzing around, making new drives, and generally getting frustrated, I found the magic command to extend a virtual disk.

Before running this, make sure you have a good snapshot of your current VM image. I did a full clone as well just in case. Here's a screen print of my current VirtualBox console (after the expansion). Note the happy little Snapshots(1) button in the upper right. That's where you go to make the snapshot.

The command to expand the disk to 80 GB is

VBoxManage modifyhd [virtual disk filename] --resize [size in MB]

You find the path to the file from the Storage link on the console above. You can find this and other VirtualBox commands in the Manual.

I was then able to go in and install MicroSoft Office with no problems although I wonder how much more time my little VM will spend patching itself.

Microsoft Office

2012-01-06T15:53:00.001-06:00

I write as a hobby. What's more I also do some small office programming. I'm finally ready to throw in the towel and purchase Microsoft Office. Sadly, I have no choice.

I've use Open Office for years and I love it. It does almost everything I need for word processing, spread sheets, and presentations. But there is a last 1% that I need that I can't get from Open Office, precise formatting of Microsoft Office exports.

I consider this a sad day but I will save time and money in the end by paying the giant from Redmond his due.

Dyson DC25 Ball All-Floors Upright Vacuum Cleaner

2011-12-14T17:56:00.001-06:00

Here's one I'm considering for my wife. After all, don't we all score points by purchasing them household cleaning gadgets?

Well, much like the camera from the previous post, she's dropped hints she really wants one of these. We have three dog and two cats. The Chow/Sheltie mix sheds a lot of fur during the Spring and Summer. We've considered investigating a Chow/Sheltie fur clothing line. On top of that, the Pit has big feet and drags a lot of dirt. We (meaning she) spends a lot of time cleaning the floors. We also spend a lot of money on vacuum cleaner bags

The Dyson DC25 comes highly recommended (average of 4 stars with over 500 reviews listed on Amazon) for its features and durability. It has a ball at the junction of the upright handle and vacuum head which makes for easy maneuvering. It is bagless and so we won't be out any money on bags.

Here's a list of product features from the product's web page.

Upright vacuum cleaner with Dyson Ball technology for smooth steering
Root Cyclone technology ensures no clogging or loss of suction
Effective for all floor types; motorized brushbar; Telescope Reach wand
HEPA filter; certified asthma friendly; hygienic dust bin; on-board tools
Measures 12-1/5 by 15-2/5 by 42-2/5 inches; 5-year parts-and-labor warranty

My only decission now is whether to buy the standard vacuum or the version made specifically for animal-friendly homes.

Canon Powershot SX 150

2011-12-10T08:22:00.001-06:00

The Christmas season is upon us so I thought I would show a few of the gifts I'm considering for others.

The Canon Powershot SX 150 is a special request from my mother-in-law. She's older and likes the form factor. The camera has good reviews so it seems like a good gift for this year. The camera has a 12x optical zoom with a stabilizer that makes it a good choice for shaky hands. It also has a large 3" display which helps those with poor vision.

It is powered by AA batteries. I consider this a plus although others may want a built-in battery. You can find AAs in any store. Since my mother-in-law doesn't have a computer, charging from a USB-style connector is a drawback. On the flip side, it apparently eats low quality batteries so buyer beware. You might consider a package of rechargeables along with a charger.

Below is more information from the Amazon product page:

12x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom and 28mm lens with Optical Image Stabilizer reduces camera shake so you achieve brilliant images whether you are up close or far away. 14.1 Megapixel image sensor and Canon DIGIC 4 Image Processor delivers stunning quality images. Improved Smart AUTO intelligently selects the proper settings for the camera based on 32 predefined shooting situations. Capture breathtaking 720p HD video in stereo sound with the dedicated movie button and zoom while shooting. Intelligent IS automatically chooses from six different modes to optimize image stabilization for the shooting condition. Large 3.0-inch wide LCD enables easy viewing. Movie Digest Mode records a short video clip right before shooting a photo and then combines one day’s worth of clips into a video. AA battery power provides added convenience.

The table below details the modes of operation.

Smart AUTO	The camera automatically selects the best shooting settings for optimal quality based on subjects and environmental factors to provide point-and-shoot simplicity.
Kids & Pets	Reduced focusing time freezes fast-moving subjects, so you won't miss those special shots.
Portrait	The camera sets a large aperture, focusing the subject and artistically blurring the background to make your subject “pop.”
Manual	You have complete contrl of exposure, selecting both aperture and shutter speed manually.
Low Light	For high quality image capture in an amazing range of dimly-lit situations.
Toy Camera Effect	Simulates photos taken with "toy" or pinhole cameras, darkening the image at the edges to create a vignette effect.
Poster Effect	Poster Effect combines several similar shades into one color, turning subtle gradations into eye-catching, scene-popping contrasts.
Beach	Beach Get clear shots of people at a sunny beach without darkened faces.
Fireworks	Grab brilliant images of skyrocketing fireworks.
Aperture-Priority	You set the aperture, controlling depth-of-field. The camera automatically selects the shutter speed.
Program	Access advanced exposure compensation features while shooting mostly automatically.
Fisheye Effect	Add a classic photo distortion without a fisheye lens.
Shutter-priority	You select the shutter speed to stop or blur action, and the camera finds the appropriate aperture. With slow exposure times, Canon's noise reduction system activates to ensure low image noise.
Monochrome	Choose from three single-tone effects: Black-and-White, Sepia, or Blue.
Color Accent	Choose to retain a single color in your image while other colors turn monochrome.
Foliage	Capture brilliant shots of autumn foliage, greenery and blossoms.
Landscape	Increases depth-of-field for sharp and sweeping landscape shots.
Movie Digest	Records a video clip before capturing a still image and then combines one day’s worth of clips into a video.
Smart Shutter	The camera automatically takes the photo when people smile, wink, or get into frame.
Discreet Mode	Disables flash, AF assist beam, and all camera sounds with one mode dial setting — so you can capture images in quiet areas.
Miniature Effect for Movies & Stills	Emphasizes perspectives for a miniature effect by blurring upper and bottom portions of the image.
Super Vivid Super	Vivid intensifies existing hues, saturating the scene with bright colors.
Color Swap	Select a color and replace it with a color you specify for special effects.
Snow	Shoot clear snow scenes without darkened subjects or an unnatural bluish tint.
iFrame Movie	The Apple® movie format, iFrame, makes it easier and quicker to import and upload videos while retaining high image quality.
Movie	Record video in stereo sound. Unwanted scenes can be deleted in playback mode.
Easy Mode	In Easy mode, shooting is simple and relaxed—the camera handles all the settings automatically.

CRT19N GPRS/GSM/GPS Watch Tracker

2011-10-09T11:49:00.000-06:00

Recently I purchased a CRT19N GPRS/GSM/GPS Watch Tracker from Daily Steals. Overall I'm pretty happy with the product, This device has a built in cell phone and can call two pre-programmed numbers. You can also send an SMS text to it and receive back a latitude and longitude along with a link for google maps. You have to purchase your own SIM card for the device along with a plan.

The device has one bug, however. You can't set the timezone and it comes preprogrammed for Beijing time so it's useless as a watch.

Screencasts in Ubuntu

2011-03-05T15:38:00.001-06:00

This one took me a while but I finally found a software stack that works well for screen casts in Ubuntu 10.10 and YouTube. recordmydesktop is great for capturing the full screen, a single screen, or a small portion of your display. The other product is Winff for converting the ogv file to an avi. This was actually the most painful part of the process as many products came and went but still exist in the wild world of the Internet. The stack works really well. Just record, convert, and upload the YouTube.

Both are available from the Ubuntu repository via the Package Manager.

Below is a screen cast of me actually type this blog. It records audio from any microphone you have configure and thus you'll here me typing in the first part of the video.

And here's a screen cast of using WinFF to convert OGV to an AVI file. You can view this file below.

Good luck and may the Force be with you.

Problems with ATT Uverse and Ubuntu

2011-02-15T22:55:00.001-06:00

I recently switched from Time Warner Cable to ATT U-verse. I'm very happy with the picture quality on my TV but the Internet connection on my Ubuntu 10.10 system was very slow even though speed tests said I was getting the band width I paid for. The problem turned out to be the DNS. For whatever reason the DNS lookup was very slow using the new service. I switched to Google public DNS and everything worked fine.

To fix the problem I went to System->Preferences->Network Connections and selected Auto eth0 from the list and then the Edit button. A window will pop up wiht 4 tabs. Select the IPv4 Settings tab. A drop down list will show Automatic DHCP. Change the drop down to Automatic (DHCP) addresses only and add your favorite DNS addresses to DNS Servers. I used 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 for the addresses.

Your final window should look something like this.

This fixed my problem instantly.

Political Zen

2010-11-03T08:55:00.000-06:00

To all my liberal friends: divided government is good. It encourages debate and compromise on issues that should not be decided along party lines. There is a role for government but we cannot kill the private sector in order to redistribute wealth or grant government control to every sector of every life. Ignore people who hate others or call them idiot's because they disagree with a point of view. These people are political poison.

You are not the center of the nation.

To all my conservative friends: you did not take the senate due to purest ideology thrown behind less-than-electable candidates. There is a role for government in our lives to help others. We need your voice to help determine the most cost effective way to do that but to make a positive change you have to be open to change. Don't shut out liberal ideas just because a loud person on the radio or web says to.

You are not the center of the nation.

To the sane center: hold the new guys responsible for their actions. Make them return sanity to the national government through tactics used by the looney left and purest right. Pay attention. Get involved. Write emails. Try to tap down the fringe in either direction and disavow the talking heads and loud people.

Pay more attention to the body politic and listen to different view points but always use common sense about human nature to shape your decisions. Ignore numbers thrown at you by either side. They are lies wrapped in statistics. Use what you see around you to make your decisions.

If an elite takes a point of view, first ask yourself "what's in it for them." The political elites will use you to further their own ends. The media elites seek to influence you to make advertising dollars and exert a slightly twisted control over the political process.

DO NOT get caught up in a cult of personality. That leads to the suspension of critical thought and the shutting out of other view points.

When the presidential election comes around, cross party lines vote against the extreme elements of either party that seem to be doing well.

Thus endeth my political thought for the day.

Cheers,
Keith

Google And Linux

2010-05-28T20:09:00.001-06:00

I am happy to report that Google now supports Linux for the Chrome browser. It was a painless install but I had to close Firefox in order for Chrome to import my settings. Now I'm off to see if the Goggle Web Toolkit actually works with Linux now.

JSF 1.2 – Eclipse 3.5.2 – JBOSS 5.1

2010-05-09T18:16:00.004-06:00

My philosophy has always been "programming should be easy." I confess that for me it always has been easy. Picking up new languages isn't hard. For me concepts flow and paradigms shift without much difficulty. I use Eclipse as my IDE of choice due to the variety of languages I use. With Eclipse I can quickly move back and forth between Perl, PHP, Groovy, Ruby, Java, C, SQL and HTML without ever leaving Eclipse. I love it.

So enter my decision to take up Java Enterprise Web applications. I've used Java for a number of years now so figured there wouldn't be that big a transition to JEE Web apps. And while I still hope that is the case, my first attempt at getting a simple app up and running took far longer than it should have.

First, a little background on the project: I've had this standard project I do in any new language or frame work which constructs a star sector 20 light years across. Its a great object oriented exercise due to the implicit inheritances and mutation of the star systems, stars, planets, moons and asteroids.

Since any good project starts with a good database design, I started on the database and Data Transfer Objects incorporating a DAO factory for the pattern. All that went really well.

Once I had star systems generating properly, it was time to put up a web page to display the information. It was then I hit molasses.

I settled on a JSF/Richfaces display layer utilizing JBOSS as the JEE container. The boring details are JSF 1.2, JBOSS 5.1 and Eclipse 3.5.1.

Rather than give you all the false starts, I'm going to detail what actually worked. I'll leave the complaining for another blog.

There really isn't any configuration required for Eclipse or JBOSS so after you've installed JBOSS and Eclipse, bring up Eclipse and switch to the JEE perspective. Down at the bottom there will be a Servers tab. Right click New and set up your JBOSS Server.

Next, go to File->New->Dynamic Web Project. You'll need to give it a name like Eclipse35Jboss51JSF, select JBOSS 5.0 as the target runtime, Dynamic Web Module Version 2.5, and Configuration of JavaServer Faces 1.2. (see screen below). Click Finish to create the project.

Now comes the odd part for me. I've just added the JSF libraries to my build
path but since JBOSS 5.1 has these included you now need to make sure they don't make it into your WAR. Right click on the project name -> Properties -> Project Facets -> Java Server Faces and toggle the "Include libraries with this application" check box (see below)

Now go back to your project. You'll be creating two files (index.html and index.jsp).

Right click on the WebContent folder->New->HTML. For some reason the remains obscure, if you reference the faces file directly it doesn't work. Its almost as though you need to give JBOSS a little time to compile the servlet. Mare your HTML file look something like this

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content= "0; URL=index.faces"/>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Starting Web App</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The application will be with you shortly. :-)</p>

</body>
</html>

Basically you just add the redirect, change the title, and put a wee bit of content in the page.

Now create your jsf file named index.jsp. WebContent->New->JSP

After filling in the file name hit NEXT>
Eclispe does some nice things for (and sometimes to) you. In this case you can let it fill in the JSF tags for you. On the next screen you'll get a list of templates. Select the first one. (see below)

Now you can add some JSF content to your page.

You can add this code snippet between the and

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="f" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="h" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>New Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
<h:form id="searchForm">

<h:outputText id="ot1" value="Search Text: "/>
<h:inputText id="it1"/> <br />
<h:commandButton id="cb1" value="Go"/> <br />
<h:commandLink id="cl1" value="About Page"/>

</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>

Now save everything and deploy it to JBOSS by right clicking on the project name->Run As->Run On Server then selecting JBOSS 5.0 and finish. If you did everything correctly you should get something like.

Good luck and let me know if it worked.

I'll be posting project updates as the weeks roll on.

ADHD and Diet

2010-01-10T10:10:00.001-06:00

More stuff from the New Ideas website. I'm going to cut and paste the contents of an article on diet here for easy reference (and because you never know when I like will change).

http://newideas.net/adhd/adhd-diet

Finding Out if it is ADD ADHD or Food Allergies

What NOT to eat for TWO WEEKS: the first step in this ADHD Diet

First, let's find out if there are food allergies causing the ADHD symptoms or behaviors. Eliminate these foods for two weeks, then get ready to add them back in to the ADHD diet...

NO DAIRY PRODUCTS, especially cow's milk. This is the single most important restriction. The American Pediatric Association estimates that a significant percentage of all children are allergic to milk. Instead try Almond milk, Rice milk, or Better Than Milk. And drink lots of water instead of milk for two weeks.
NO YELLOW FOODS. Especially Corn or Squash. Bananas are white, but don't eat the peel. About 1/1000 people have problems with the stuff that makes these foods yellow in color.
NO JUNK FOODS. If it comes in a cellophane wrapper, don't eat it. Stop eating junk food and your brain will work better. Junk foods tend to be very high in sugars and carbohydrates, and our brains get fuzzy and our kids get more hyperactive when sugars and carbohydrates are eaten together.
NO FRUIT JUICES. They have too much sugar. One small glass of apple juice has the sugar content of eight apples. Later on you can have juice, but for now if you have to have any juice just dilute it with water 50/50.
CUT SUGAR INTAKE BY 90%. If you can, cut it down to zero. Sugar is in just about everything, but give it a try. Do your best to reduce your sugar intake without going crazy.
CUT CHOCOLATE BY 90%. No more than a single piece, once a week.
NO NUTRASWEET. None. Period. Never. It's bad for you. It is bad for your brain.
NO PROCESSED MEATS and NO MSG. Only get meats with labels that say, “Turkey and Water,” etc. If the meat has chemicals listed that you can't pronounce, don't buy it and don't eat it.
CUT FRIED FOODS BY 90%.
AVOID FOOD COLORINGS WHENEVER POSSIBLE. See if your child is sensitive to any particular colors, such as Reds, Yellows, etc. For now, though, avoid all if possible.
AVOID FISH. We hate to say this, as there used to be so many benefits to eating fish, especially the Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) or Omega Oils. But the problem these days is that the mercury levels in most fish is simply too high to be either safe or healthy. Mercury is the second most toxic metal on earth, and is a terrible neuro-toxin. Until we clean up the oceans and the rivers of mercury, just don't eat it. Sorry.

SUMMARY: Just eat foods that God made for a while. Eat like people did in the 1940's, or the 1840's. Go to a used book store and get some good old cook books for recipe ideas. There really are about 10,000 meals that you CAN eat. Just not much in the way of “fast foods” or “convenience” foods.

After the First Two Weeks of the ADHD Diet

AFTER TWO WEEKS begin adding the restricted foods back into your diet, one food every other day. Eat A LOT of that food every day for four days. If you have a problem with one of the foods, you will see some kind of a “reaction” within four days. The reaction can vary from big red splotches on the body to ears turning bright red to explosive temper outbursts. If there's a problem, you'll know. If there's no problem, enjoy the food.

ADD/ADHD Links

2009-11-30T07:57:00.007-06:00

Zack has Attention Deficit Disorder. They're not sure yet whether its ADD or ADHD but its a chanllenge something he'll have for the rest of his life. Here are a few resource links if anyone is interested.

http://christianadhd.com/parenttools.php

http://www.greatschools.net/LD.topic?content=1541

http://w3.addresources.org/bookstore

http://directory.additudemag.com/

http://www.newideas.net/

New Links
http://www.additudemag.com/

01/10/2010
http://www.magictherapy.com/resources.html

Here's an excellant page discribing the types of adhd
http://newideas.net/adhd/different-types-adhd
which describes the condition in terms of Winnie the Pooh characters

"Inattentive": Just like Winnie the Pooh
"Classic Hyperactive": Tiggers like to bounce...
"Over-Focused": Rabbit tends his garden
"With Anxiety": Piglet is nervous and worries...
"With Depression": Eeyore says, "Thanks for noticing me..."

Nightmares

2009-10-22T07:14:00.004-06:00

I wrote this poem about 15 years ago. I gave a set of writings to my friend to save on 3.5 floppies, which he recently discovered. Since he thought enough of it to mail back to me I thought I'd share it with you.

Nightmare's Scream

You lay there in your coffin,

Tasting your own blood,

Cold waters rise around you,

dirt turns into mud.

You scream aloud but no one hears,

6 ft. under eyes filled with tears.

All alone in the night,

your dreams encased in horrid fright.

Why confined, and why alone,

Why buried beneath rock and stone?

Because you’re lonely, because you fear,

the wasting of your precious years.

You yearn for freedom and repost,

from boredom’s clutches and regret’s pale ghost

Of Snarks and Bandersnatch aka Google Wave Gadgets and Bots

2009-10-18T13:25:00.000-06:00

My friend, Kristian, sent an invitation to Google Wave. Its a neat bit of tech for collaborators who need a convenient way to communicate, store the conversation in a searchable format, and add cool widgets to the communication. Being a code hack, the widget aspect caught my eye first.

Widgets come in two forms, Robots and Gadgets. Robots are participants in the wave. You add them much like any participant. They feed off the conversation and activities of other wave participants and produce output based on other's blips (an entered conversation in a wave). They can either modify user entered blips or respond with one of their own.

Gadgets are interactive bits of web stuff which wave participants interact with in some manner. They are things like white boards to be placed directly inside the wave which allow participants to draw stuff for all to see. Another example is a google map which allows folks to discuss locations or directions. There are even gaming gadgets that let people roll dice and draw cards.

I'm interested in such things so I decided to set my environment up and create a robot and an ap for Google Wave. Here are the steps.

Get a gmail account. While not technically needed I highly recomend it as it will be your gateway to all things google.
Get signed up for Google App Engine. You code has to go somewhere accessible by wave. There are other places to store it but this is my recommended site for housing these aps.
Consider signing up for Google Sites. Its a great way to get a web presence, if you don't already have one, and its a very convenient place to test gadgets. You easily add Gadgets to your site via the Google site editor.
Consider downloading the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Eclipse has plug-ins for most of today's computer languages. Eclipse comes packaged many different ways. I use the J2EE version but Eclipse for Java should be sufficient for your needs.
Once you have Eclipse downloaded you have a decission to make. Do you want to use Java or Python for your Google development?
If you wish to use Java, install the Google Plug-in for Eclipse. If you're not a programmer I recommend not going the Java route. The upside is that Java has simpler integration with the Google App Engine through eclipse. The downside is that Java is harder to learn.
If you wish to use Python, you'll want to download the Eclipse plug-in for Python from pydev.org. Python is easier to learn, its creator works for google and, as far as I can tell, Google always supports it first. On the downside, its a little harder to deploy a python app since it involves some command line work.
You'll also need to download the Google App Engine Software Development Kit for either Java or Python.

After you have all of the above set up, work through the tutorials for either robots in Python or robots in Java or learn how to develop a gadget for wave.

Happy Waving,
Zack's Dad.

The Great Ubuntu Reinstall of 09

2009-10-18T08:59:00.000-06:00

Well, as the old proverb says "all good thing to come to an end" and so it is with my association with 32 bit operating systems. True, its been a fun, with lots of productive work and fun filled hours, but as we said good bye to horse-drawn carraiges, I must now say good-bye to Ubuntu 7.10, and old pentium 4. RIP.

Hello AMD Phenom quad core, Ubuntu 9.10 (beta release), and a new 1.5TB SATA drive, let the good times roll. Well, the rolling hasn't actually started yet but I'm sure some form of rolling will soon begin, at least I really hope it does.

I started my journey in Geek Mecca, Frys Electronics. Since Intel rolled out some brand-spanking new technology, AMD slashed the prices of their existing hardware. The quad core with mother board was bit north of $100. Of course, that's not the end of it. You can't have a smoking hot processor with stale old drives so I purchased a new hard drive and RW DVD as well. Then you need memmory with fast access rates. All in all I spend about $350 for the new system including my nemisis, the CPU fan.

I setup my workbench at home and removed my old mother board, CPU, and fan. I planned to reuse my old drives so I left them in the box. As I lowered my new mother board/CPU into its new home in my old box, I began mentally salivating as I thought of the speed of my new computer in old clothing.

The new board went in fine but I hit a snag as I tried to put my old Intel fan on the hardware. It didn't fit. Cursing, I drove back to Fries to buy a new fan. It didn't fit either. Cursing more, I called Fries. "It should work fine, sir" they said. I didn't see how unless I took a drill to my new motherboard.

I called my friend Derek to ask his advice. "You know," he said, "they'll install that system for about 60 bucks." After having spent 6 hours, including travel time, this seemed like a deal to me.

I took the computer to Frys service department and was again told the fan should fit. I told them to go ahead and mount it and run it through POST (power on system test). I had to wait a few days but it was worth the effort.

When I got the system back it had a different fan on it. At last, my new system was home.

Since I'm using a beta release of 9.10 a few things aren't working quite right. My Eclipse development environment is running a little odd. For some reasons the buttons don't always work. I've tracked down the issue to a problem with the gtk version but for now I can always just select the button and hit "Enter".

There is other oddness revolving around VM ware. I haven't tracked that one down yet but everything else seems to work. I'm very impressed with the speed of both my new system and Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10).

I hope to have VMWare working soon and with it my old Windoze VMs for when you absolutely, positively have to have a windows environment. After that, I'll be cooking with nuclear fusion.

Artifacts

2009-09-02T08:04:00.002-06:00

Orange and yellow clouds gathered, darkening in preparation of a Saturnian Summer storm. The birdman flew away from the pursuing tempest, grateful for the tailwind and the clouds that hid him. Lightning flashed between nearby clouds, causing the birdman's hair to stand on end. Then the rain came.

Streams of water flowed past his brow and into his beard. The tailwind became erratic, tossing him about like a child's doll. His wet, blue tunic clung to his thin body proving little protection from the fierce weather. He had to find shelter soon or he and his precious cargo would fall into the clouds below to be lost forever in Saturn's dense, lower atmosphere. He tightened his grasp on the leather satchel that slickened in the rain.

The clouds before him parted briefly to reveal a small skyland nearby. Rain water fell from its edges as wind tore at the leaves of a large grove of Nest trees. The birdman's wings beat harder as he changed course towards the skyland's leafy refuge. "Too much time spent studying at a desk and not enough time flying," he said to himself.

He picked a large Nest tree, flared his wings to stop, but a gust of wind slammed him against a large branch. His feet talons dug deep into the soft bark as his hands grabbed nearby branches. The satchel smashed against a branch opening the top and spilling its contents to the ground below.

The birdman swooped to the ground rapidly gathering the few possessions his harried departure allowed. He shoved a small set of archaeologist's tools and a half finished text on the migration patterns of air whales into the satchel. A magnifying glass was next. He looked about desperately. "Where is it? Where is it?" he shouted to the wind. Lightening flashed showing his most prized possession. Indeed, it was the reason for his current predicament. He grabbed the stone and held it to his chest as he flapped back to a mid-tree perch finding an indention in the trunk which protected him somewhat from the elements. He squatted, folding his large brown wings around his body, panting heavily from the long flight. Lightening flashed all around him as the storm's fury struck the skyland.

He ran his fingers over the ancient carvings on the cold black stone. It was heavier that it ought to be and colder. The raindrops that fell upon it flowed away quickly leaving a dry surface. The stone reflected the lightening for an instant longer than it should. Even in this storm, even with the day's events, even though he doubted he'd live through the day, the birdman smiled. The stone had that effect on people. He looked into the stone deeper. The gaunt image of his face appeared within the stone. In his sunken, yellows eyes he saw hopelessness and defeat. His smile faded as he returned to reality.

His left bracer beeped, the radio phone received an incoming signal. Someone used his priesthood's private frequency. He turned on the device. The person on the screen could have been a birdman except for the lack of wings and horrible foot coverings. A flat human voice came from the small speaker in his bracer. The human used heavily accented Solar Common, the trade language of the Solar System. "Monk Skawk, this is Commander Hans Stryker of the Nazi Rocket Force. You would be wise to respond. We know what you possess. If you return to the monastery with it in your possession, we'll spare the lives of your remaining brothers and sisters."

Skawk, unfurled his wings aching to take to the air, to do something. The rain and wind struck his torso. The birdman forced himself back into a crouch inside the tree. He watched the screen, trying to decide what to do.

Commander Stryker adjusted the swastika armband on the black uniform and repeated the original message. The Nazi shook his head and shouted something in human speak. "I do hope you are there," said Stryker. "It would be a shame if more of your people died today."

The Nazi gestured to someone off camera. Two jackbooted humans brought Abbot Rahk into view. "A pity, really. The Abbot was most informative regarding the key stone."

The Abbot lowered his head. The old birdman looked unharmed but gave the appearance of being utterly defeated. Commander Stryker continued, "Of course, he had to watch several of your fellow monks die before he provided the information we seek. I assume you'll have the same sort of misguided devotion to the secrets of your order so I think a demonstration is needed."

Stryker pulled his service raygun and pointed it at the Abbot's head. Skawk reached for the transmit button but Stryker didn't wait for the birdman's reply. The raygun fired. The Abbot fell backwards. Skawk heard the high pitched war scream of a bird woman followed by a lower, guttural scream from a human. Skawk heard fighting followed by a wet thud. Stryker shouted to his men again then translated for Skawk. "I told my men not to kill her, but if you do not respond I'll have no choice. She will die."

Stryker reached off camera and pulled Sister Tweets into view. Her pure white wings were damaged, her tunic torn revealing most of her torso, but her fierce blue eyes held their usual intense fire. Blood ran from her lips and nose. "You birdmen are a feisty lot," said Stryker. "This female put up quite a fight during your escape. I suspect she cares for you greatly. Still, it is interesting that you left a female behind to fight for you while you fled. You are a master archaeologist Monk Skawk, but you are not much of a man." Stryker squeezed Sister Tweet's face with his hand turning it first this way then that. "Not a wholly unattractive member of your subhuman race. Still, if you will not comply, then I have no choice."

Stryker held his gun to Tweets' head. Skawk keyed the transmit button "No!"

"Ah, so you are there," said Stryker. His pseudo pleasant voice changed instantly to a low growl. "Show me the stone, or I kill her now."

Skawk held up the key stone to the small camera in the gauntlet. "Just let her go," said Skawk barely audible above the wind and rain.

Stryker sneered and shoved Tweets off camera. "She will live, and so shall you. Simply return here with the stone and you can go back to your studies and pious prayers."

"The storm," stated Skawk feeling no other explanation was needed.

Stryker smiled. "I can be a reasonable man," he said returning to a more conversation tone. "I'll bring our ship to find you. Once we have the key stone, we'll leave you and whatever remains of your monastery, but if there is any trick or deception, this flying rock with everyone and everything on it will be destroyed. Do I make myself clear?"

Skawk nodded in agreement.

"Very well, leave this channel open. The ship will follow the signal to your location. Stryker out."

Skawk raised his head and let out a forlorn scream. He knew the Nazis. Their attempt to occupy Saturn forty years ago failed during the Solar War. Skawk's father fought alongside the Solar Alliance to keep Saturn free of Nazi domination. Other planets weren't so lucky, but the Nazi menace never died. Earth disappeared into a black hole, but the Space Rocket Force of the Fourth Reich continued their reign of terror.

Skawk knew the Nazis would kill him and everyone else at the Monastery. The vision of Tweets being pawed by the wingless monkeys was more than he could bear, but he was weaponless. His radiophone was being jammed, and even if it wasn't, the storm made communication over long distances impossible. The birdman hung his head and closed his eyes. His order taught that clear thought solved all problems. The storm raged on but Skawk managed to clear his head somewhat. "Skylord give me strength," he prayed.

Skawk opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He actually laughed when he spied a Numnum tree bent to the ground. He ignored the rain and flew down to examine the small fruit tree. Sap still flowed from the break in the trunk. Perhaps he had allies on this skyland after all. But only they didn't kill him first. Skawk flew off into the rain to survey the skyland and prepare for the invaders arrival.

Commander Stryker strode the bridge of the Rocketship Achilles. The converted passenger ship served its purpose well after the passenger deck was refitted with holding cells and its cargo bay filled with the books and artifacts needed for his research. He adjusted his SS hat to the proper jaunty angle and made sure every part of his uniform was in order. "Status!" he shouted. The crew responded best when yelled at.

"Sir, we are thirty minutes from the monk's triangulated location. There appears to be a sizable floating island, but the storm is making it difficult to be sure," said the helmsman.

"How long until the storm clears?" asked Stryker, not yelling this time. Questions always seemed odd when yelled.

"The winds are subsiding now, Sir, but the rain will continue for another four hours. Given Saturn's short day it will be midnight before it clears," said the helmsman. "Visibility will be low. We won't be able to see him until the last minute."

Commander Stryker laughed. "He won't attempt any tricks, Hans. These Birdmen are proverbial chickens. In case he does try anything I brought along some insurance. Isn't that right, my dear?"

Tweets glared at the Nazi. Stryker was sure she would have spit at him were it not for the gag. "Binding your race is not easy, Fräulein Vogel," said the Nazi conversationally. "The wings, the taloned feet. A bag along with some interesting rope work seems the only solution. A shame, really. You have such a nice figure." The female returned a satisfactory glare of hatred. He could see she wanted to kill him and yet could not. He found such situations very gratifying.

"Do you know why you have the form of a human?" he asked rhetorically. "We Nazis have uncovered the cause. Of course, it's not just your race. Its all of the sub-races throughout the system." Stryker couldn't resist. He removed the gag and waited for the vitriol. Tweets didn't disappoint.

"Human filth! Let me go!"

"No, not yet," said Stryker. "You may be freed but first I have a story to tell you. One that's over five thousand years old." Stryker pushed Tweets into a chair at an empty engineering station. She fell backwards and glared. "Have you ever wondered why there are so many intelligent bipeds in the system?"

"Because the Skylord created us in his image," said Tweets. "It is the only explanation."

"Wrong!" shouted Stryker. "You and the rest of the sub-races were created from man. Humans are the ancestors of you all."

"Lies," said Tweets. "Its all Nazi lies."

"No," said Stryker, "Not lies, history. You see, Earth was discovered long ago by an advanced race who became fascinated with humanity. For reasons of their own, they did not colonize Earth but chose Mars in stead. Then they began genetic experiments altering humans into different forms while they modified the other planets and moons to support life. Our solar system became one giant breeding facility."

"Lies," shouted Tweets again.

"Lies, eh?" continued Stryker. "Then tell me, of all the intelligent life forms in our Solar system, which one is biologically the most different? Which has two more eyes and one more brain than every other sapient creature in the system?"

Tweets glared at him. "That doesn't mean the Librarians of Mars made us! They are no more technologically advanced than the rest of us."

"Ah, but they were," exclaimed Stryker. "Unfortunately a great galactic war occurred. We are not clear on the details, but trillions died. The galactic civilization vanished. Something affected the technology of all the worlds at once. Something took the entire galaxy back to the stone age in an instant."

"That's impossible," said Tweets.

"Not true, for their greatest invention was a system of star-spanning gates that allowed travel across the galaxy in an instant. The technological disease, for that is the best term for it, was spread by this method and activated remotely. Sadly, it was a weapon that never needed to be used. But its creator was banished into another realm, and once she left, the virus destroyed everything. You can't blame her, really."

"Her?" asked Tweets. "The destroyer of galactic civilization was one person? This story is ridiculous. I think the destruction of Earth has done serious damage to your people's grasp on reality."

Stryker smiled. "Earth has not been destroyed, and we of the Fourth Reich will see its return." He kicked Tweet's chair which spun around once. He stopped the spin and leaned in close to the bird woman. Even in a sack she was attractive. "And once we return Earth to our dimension, this system and everything in it will bow to the Master Race." Stryker grabbed her face again and brought it close to his. "And those that serve us well will gain special favor."

Tweets leaned her head back and head butted the Nazi smashing his nose. Blood seeped through Stryker's fingers as he tried to stop the bleeding. He looked around the bridge daring anyone to laugh. Stryker kicked the bird woman in the gut and kept kicking once she hit the ground. "Take her below with the rest of the prisoners! If she misbehaves, have Dr. Standing arrange something special for her."

The guards quickly collected the prone bird woman and retreated from the bridge. "Damned birdmen. Once Earth is returned, I want to wipe out the entire race."

Stryker looked down at his black SS coat. Blood stained the front. It was barely visible on the black cloth, but Stryker knew it was there. "I'll be in my cabin. Call me when we reach our destination."

"Jawohl," said the bridge crew as one. Stryker pretended not to hear the soft snickers as he left the bridge. The Reich's discipline was going to hell.

Skawk squatted quietly near the edge of the skyland, meditating with his wings wrapped around him. A few large raindrops fell, but the storm was almost over. A foggy mist took its place. Such was the nature of Saturn's storms. Night was fast approaching on the planet which spun rapidly on its axis. The phosphorescent floating plankton were already glowing giving a yellowish tint to the surroundings. Somewhere off in the distance, a lone air whale sang its mournful song. Skawk heard an answering song and could tell by the whale song the two were an unpaired male and female. He hoped their meeting went well. Their population dwindled greatly during The Great Solar War.

The birdman heard the Nazi engine long before he saw the ship. Its black and red bullet-shaped fuselage appeared out of the mist moving slowly toward his small skyland. Thrusters vented exhaust downward and sidewards rotating the ship until the Nazi swastika showed on each of the ship's four tail fins. Landing skids extended from beneath the ship's nose and just fore of its engines. It landed in a cloud of mud that kicked up from the soaked ground of the skyland. The engine noise faded and the hatch of the Nazi ship opened. Skawk heard territorial challenge squawks from the skyland's other inhabitants. He prayed to the Skylord that the Nazis didn't have a naturalist on board who knew the squawk's meaning.

A gangway extended from the open hatch to the ground. Two Nazi soldiers appeared and stood on a small ribbon of decking that wrapped around the ship at hatch level. They activated their jet packs and circled the area once then returned to the hatchway. The squawks grew louder. Skawk flexed his wings once, grateful he needed no such device to fly.

Commander Stryker appeared holding Tweet's hair in his hands pulling her forward out of the hatch. Two additional soldiers joined him on the causeway. Skawk's blood boiled seeing her condition. Rope bound Tweets' hands and feet, and more crisscrossed a bag which covered her body. Her face was bloodied and bruised.

Stryker waved Skawk forward as he walked down the gangway to the ground. Skawk spoke out in High Speak, the language of his people. "Can you fly?"

"Yes," yelled Tweets.

Stryker held his raygun to Tweets' temple. "If you communicate with her again in that sing song you call a language, I'll kill her," said Stryker in Solar Common. "Let me see the stone."

Skawk held up the keystone. Stryker motioned to one of the guards to retrieve it.

"Release Tweets!" yelled Skawk.

"You are in no position to bargain, monk," said Stryker.

Skawk prepared to throw the stone over the skyland's edge.

"Stop!" yelled Stryker. "Very well. She will come with Karsten."

A guard took Tweets and escorted her toward Skawk.

The territorial challenges got louder and closer. Skawk heard the pounding of large fists on the ground.

"What the hell is that?" yelled Stryker.

"A local group of animals," responded Skawk.

Stryker motioned to his men waving his raygun towards the trees. The soldiers with rocket packs flew towards the noise as Tweets and her guard reached Skawk. The birdman held up the stone of Karsten's inspection.

"Is it black with etching?" asked Stryker.

"Ya, Commander," said Hans.

"Very well. Bring it and the birds back," said Stryker.

Karsten raised his pistol and smiled at the bird man. "If you try anything, birdman, I kill the girl."

Everyone turned the direction of a scream from the trees followed by a single ray gun blast. A lone Nazi emerged followed by a troop of large winged gorillas. The largest ape grabbed the remaining Nazi by the foot and smashed him into the ground. Other apes piled onto the rocket soldier punching, biting, and rending the poor soul until he moved no more.

Stryker ordered something in his native language, and the other humans opened fire upon the gorillas.

"Get down," said Skawk in High Speak. "Whatever you do, don't respond to the apes. Keep your face down, and don't make eye contact."

The two bird people knelt as Karsten fired over and over again. Several apes attacked grabbing the Nazi and flinging him over the edge of the skyland. Skawk saw several hands and feet land in front of him. One of the apes smashed its fists into the ground and pounded its chest. Skawk felt Tweets start to move.

"Don't," he hissed.

After several more ground smashes the apes flew off to attack the humans. Skawk looked up. Ten humans ran out of the hatch with rifles and began firing. The apes responded as apes do, with devastating attacks.

Skawk cut the ropes holding Tweets with his feet talons. "We fly now," he said. "There are some caves on the underside where we can hide.

"No!" demanded Tweets throwing the bag off and flexing her wings. "We've got to rescue the other prisoners."

"Tweets," said Skawk trying to drag her to the edge. "We have to escape."

"No, there are people trapped inside, and one of them is very important."

"I'm no hero," said Skawk, "I'm just a simple monk who studies plants, animals, and artifacts. Abbot Rahk always said I didn't live in this world and that was good since the world had little use for me."

"Abbot Rahk is dead because he didn't listen to you. He was wrong about you, and he was wrong about the approaching Nazis. You were the only one who knew what they were after. True, you are not a warrior, but you are far from a coward. I've seen you risk your life time and time again to collect rare bits of archeology or study some newly discovered species. What's worse you spent over a cycle with those terrors," Tweets said pointing to the apes.

"They didn't have rayguns!" said Skawk.

One of the apes ripped a raygun rifle from a soldier's hands and beat the human to death with it. Tweets looked at Skawk. "And you think rayguns are more dangerous than apes?"

Skawk just shook his head.

"They have a Martian Librarian on board. One that's an archaeologist," said Tweets.

Skawk hesitated as the battle between winged Saturnian apes and Nazis raged. "We've no way in," he said trying to convince himself it wasn't worth rescuing one of the famed Librarians of Mars.

"There's a hatch on the other side near the skyland's edge," said Tweets. "The Nazis will never see us if we fly off this edge and come up on the other side."

"That's insane," said Skawk.

Later Skawk would wonder why the world stopped when she kissed him. He remembered opening his eyes as their lips parted and staring deeply into her beautiful blue eyes. Of the flight to the Nazi ship and their entrance through the ship's other hatch, he remembered nothing.

After the kiss his first memory was entering the Nazi ship. It smelled of oiled metal and human sweat. Skawk didn't gag but wanted to.

A corridor ran between the two exterior hatches with another corridor running the length of the ship bisecting it. A floor hatch was at the junction of the two corridors. "The prisoners are down there," said Tweets.

As Skawk bent to open the hatch to the lower deck, a human voice yelled something Skawk didn't understand. A raygun fired. Skawk flinched. He watched the Nazi fall to his knees and then to the deck. A burn mark shown on the human's chest. Skawk apparently blanked out Tweets retrieval of Karsten's raygun as well.

Tweets looked down all four corridors. "Open the hatch."

Skawk did as instructed, flinging the hatchway open. A Nazi guard looked up from below only to have his face melted by Tweets' raygun. The two birdmen jumped below, landing lightly next to the fallen guard. A Nazi with a white lab smock looked up from the front of the ship and raised his hands in surrender. Tweets leveled her raygun at him.

"The Librarian is to the right," she said.

There were two cell-lined corridors leading toward the aft of the ship. Skawk took the one to the right. Some cells were empty. Others held books and relics. A few contained various creatures from the eight remaining planets and uncounted moons of the Sol system. Skawk released each being telling them to head forward and out the hatch.

Midway down the cell row, a Martian Librarian looked up from a book. Its blue skin had a sweaty sheen to it. The fleshy brows over all four yellow eyes focused on Skawk. The Librarian raised a shortened trunk over his mouth to speak. "Ah, you're hear just as Tweets said. She stated emphatically you'd have a plan for our rescue.

Skawk hit the cells release switch. "Come on. We'll leave from the front hatch.

"Not without my body guard. His family has been in my employ for generations." Without waiting for permission the Librarian ambled two cells away and released a Lionman. "See Garl, the bird woman was correct."

The lionman eyed Skawk as if deciding whether he'd taste good. Skawk had retreated two steps before he realized he was moving.

Tweets ran down the corridor. "The damn doctor released a death bot," she yelled firing backwards. Skawk heard screams from several beings at once. "Is there a back way out?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said the Librarian.

"Well I do, laddy," said the occupant of the next cell. The stunted humanoid form of a Mercurian Dwarf looked up at them through bushy blond eyebrows. You couldn't see his lips move through his even thicker blond beard. "There's an access hatch near the lower engine room. Release me and I'll show you where it is.

Skawk hit the release switch.

"You trust him?" growled the lionman.

"I don't know that we have a choice," said Skawk.

The dwarf ran toward the rear of the ship followed by the others. A Nazi engineer looked up at the dwarf. The engineer hovered over an open engine panel. "Scutter, get back to your cell!.

The last thing the Nazi engineer saw was the gaping maw of an enraged lionman. The Librarian wiped a bit of Nazi good from his silver tunic. "A bit less splatter next time, Garl, if you please," said the Librarian.

The dwarf pulled a large lever on the wall. All the cell doors opened at once. The remaining prisoners lept out and started to run in all directions down both cell rows. The dwarf shooed the Librarian, Lionman, and two bird people into the engine room and slammed the door shut, securing it behind him. "That'll give the death bot a bit to chew on," he said chuckling.

"But the other prisoners," started Skawk.

"Will fend for themselves and cover our escape,' said the dwarf. He stepped over the prone human engineer and opened a panel near the back of the engine room. "Through here. At the end of this tube is a panel with four levers. Turn them each to the right. A hatch will pop and you'll be free.

"You first," said the Lionman. "Never to trust Mercurian Dwarfs."

"Look, Kitty," said the dwarf looking put out, "If you want out then that's the way. I need to do a few things first to give the Nazis a surprise when they fire up the engines."

Tweets pushed Skawk towards the tube entrance. Skawk complied entering the tube. He heard the librarian complain as it followed. Birdmen were used to open spaces. The confined quarters pinned his wings to his sides. It seemed like an eternity until he reached the end. Skawk found the four levers and turned them as instructed. The hatch popped outwards, and he breathed the blessed fresh air of Saturn.

Skawk hopped to the ground. The battle was almost over. The apes had lost. Nazi and gorilla bodies were lying everywhere.

Skawk helped the Librarian down and looked into the corridor. It was barely a birdman's height in length. Tweets came next, followed by the lionman, and finally the dwarf who emerged snickering.

The five hid behind the rocket's tailfins running the last bit into the trees. They took up a position which allowed them to view the battle field.

Stryker stalked around shouting orders. Some humans collected the wounded while others made sure the apes were dead.

The Librarian wagged its stunted trunk up and down. "I believe you angered the commander mightily. He just swore the destruction of your family, anyone who knows your family and anyone who might know your family."

"To have such a powerful enemy is a high honor indeed," growled the Lionman.

"Ach, piss on 'im," said the dwarf. "That bastard made me tune their engines to outrun anything the Alliance possessed. They held a gun to me head while he tested it. I hope he has the opportunity to choke on his own vomit, or better yet me fist. But he'll have plenty of regrets as soon as he takes off," the dwarf said with an evil grin on his face.

The Nazis loaded the wounded onto their ship. Stryker stood there yelling for a bit then entered as well. The gangway retracted, and the engines started. Stryker's voice erupted from a speaker somewhere on the outside of the ship. "I do hope you enjoyed that, monk. I'm about to level this entire rock. Every missile I have will strike this skyland until it breaks apart and crashes into the atmosphere below. And when I do flush you from the trees, the last thing you'll feel is the might of Nazi technology burning you into nothingness.

The rocketship vented exhaust downward lifting the craft into the air. The main engine engaged, pushing the ship away from the skyland. The Nazi raygun cannons began lashing rays of death into the forest around them. Skawk and Tweets started to retreat, but the dwarf stopped them. "Wait for it," said the dwarf slowly.

And then the ship was gone. It just dropped from view.

The dwarf howled in delight. "Die you stinkin' bastard. Die in the depths of Saturn!"

Skawk heard a distant explosion followed by another closer explosion.

The dwarf looked confused. "It wasn't supposed to explode. It was supposed to drop and be crushed by Saturn's atmosphere."

Skawk heard another closer explosion. The rocket ship flew past the skyland, then slowed. Then it began to drop. The rear of the ship exploded sending the ship higher into the atmosphere.

"Gah, you didn't kill him you stupid cat," shouted the dwarf.

The Lionmon growled. "Careful, dwarf. I may decide on a short snack before bedtime."

The dwarf stomped about cursing. "Ach, of all the dense, dimwitted companions, I get the one Lionman from all of Mars that doesn't finish off a kill. Gerhard may be a lot of things, but stupid he ain't. That Nazi rigged the core to short burst them all the way to orbit. Course, they'll never make planet fall again without a space station, but damn. A perfectly good act of revenge ruined!"

Tweets grabbed the Libarian by the truck. "From you, I need answers."

The lion stopped his argument with the dwarf and growled. "Release him. My gratitude for release goes only so far."

Tweets released the birdman. Somehow Skawk found himself between Tweets and the Lionman. It was a completely un-Skawk like thing to do.

"The Nazis said you created the other Solar races from humans. He said you colonized this system through some sort of galactic gate machinery and that you civilization was destroyed by one person. Is this true?" Tweets stood before the Librarian defiantly beautiful even with a bloodied face.

The Librarian took a step back and adjusted his silver tunic. The being's blue skin darkened slightly, and its trunk made an agitated flip upwards. "What my race has and hasn't done is none of your concern, birdwoman. And now, the reason for my rescue. I believe you have something you need my opinion on."

Skawk gave him the stone he showed the Nazis an eternity ago. Tweets made a protest, but Skawk stopper with with a raised hand.

The Librarian pulled some glasses from his tunic and placed them over his lower set of eyes. "A fake," he said making a tisking noise with his trunk. "And not a very good one at that. Were it real I would be concerned, but it is not. Sad really, I would love to see a real keystone. Their value is greater than that of this entire planet."

"I've called for help," said Skawk. "Now that the storm as passed and the Nazi jamming gone, I was able to get a distress call out. We should be rescued by morning."

"Excellent," said the Librarian. "Garl, if you would attend me into the forest."

The two aliens parted leaving the dwarf and two bird people.

"The bird lass irritated the arrogant, four-eyed twit," said Scutter the dwarf. "And it was more than just pulling his trunk. I dunna think he liked what you said. And speaking of trunks, I've gotta go drain mine." With that the dwarf walked off into the woods as well.

Tweets took Skawk's hand. "I have to say you're taking the news of your keystone being a fake very well," she said. "You've studied that thing for cycles yet you took the fact that your cycles of work on the thing were wasted without so much as a whimper? You have changed!"

"My keystone isn't fake," he said pulling the real stone from a fold in his tunic. "But since he wouldn't answer your question, I saw no need to reward him by sharing it. I made the fake while waiting for you to arrive with the rock sculting gear in my archaeologist tool kit. Of course, I had to acid wash it to get the proper look, but all in all, it worked fairly well."

Tweets laughed. "See, you are a hero."

"Only in a passive-aggressive sort of way, and we're still not out of this mess," protested Skawk. "The Nazis could return."

The clouds of Saturn parted showing the planets beautiful rings. Some of the planets 87 moons skitted across the sky.

"We're really going to have to work on your outlook on life," said Tweets. "Its unbecoming of my future husband."

"Husband!" said Skawk. "Who said anything about getting married?”

A mock argument ensued ended by a long kiss. The two kissed until the dwarf returned, let out a disgusted sigh, and stalked back into the forest. The two bird people laughed, looked into the beautiful Saturn night, and took flight.

Skipping Stones

2009-09-02T07:52:00.002-06:00

Skipping Stones

R. K. Athey

Prologue

With sight that was not sight, an ancient being looked upon the third planet of a distant yellow sun. Its billions of inhabitants scurried through their day-to-day existence unaware of the drama unfolding heavenward. Tension gripped its populace as regional conflicts threatened to escalate into that planet's third world war.

Her thoughts shifted to the system's fourth planet. As if descending from orbit, she viewed the cold, red planet's surface and the remains of an unmanned vehicle sent from the third planet. The craft lay dormant covered in red dust. She marveled at the vast effort that delivered so little return. "Primitive," she said thinking of the beings who hurled the robot from the third planet. "But with a capacity to adapt."

The nearly airless planet was a venue of her creation. The actors approached. She watched the drama unfold.

Chapter 1#

Lt. Commander Christian Anderson studied the radar display searching for orbital debris as the Edgar Rice Burroughs orbited Mars. The winged, pregnant dumbbell, called HERB by its crew and support staff, was comprised of three modules. Edgar's living and engine sections formed the heads of the dumbbell, connected by a long shaft, called the spine. The French-built Burroughs drilling platform and the Rice lander formed asymmetric twins hung from Edgar's spine, ready to be birthed in a few days time. The dumbbell's wings were recently deployed solar cells, used for aero braking and as a backup to HERB's controversial reactor.

With all orbital hazards mapped long ago, Anderson's task was nearly useless. Procedures dictated such activities and, thanks to Col. Thomas "Hardass" Hargrove's edict, HERB's crew followed all procedures to the letter.

Preaching regulations as ardent as any Bible-thumping reverend, Hardass demanded behavior of the book, by the book, and for the book. Before Anderson's last sleep cycle, Hardass called him to the engineering module for a reactor-side sermon. The scripture was from Regulations, Chapter 36, verses 1 through 45: Sexual Harassment. His sin: hitting on Dr. Zoe D'Arcy, the French mission specialist.

True, he'd once transgressed. A NASA Christmas party, a sexy red silk dress, a sprig of mistletoe, and a few shots of courage was a formula for a tabloid sensation seen around the world. To her credit, it was the most polite shoot down he'd ever experienced having, at least in his mind, the door open for something after they returned. That was the end of it, or so he thought.

The following week tabloids and yellow journals the world over sported their picture and stories of a torrid love affair. NASA, fearing their Western Alliance Mars mission had turned into a love cruise, floated rumors of his removal.

Zoe, a woman of beauty, brains, and a stubborn streak as wide as the Seine River, wielded her considerable influence with the European government. The government informed NASA it would be greatly displeased at his removal for such a "trivial matter."

Until now, the only fallout of the tabloid boondoggle was Hardass' occasional sermons on the evils of space sex and its affect on mission performance. Zoe and he worked well as a team. They alone were to descend to Mars and set up Burroughs, and Anderson contented himself with being the friend of a beautiful woman.

So what had Zoe said to set off Hardass? Believing the best way to handle problems is by frontal assault, Anderson planned his next encounter with the French physicist. Command school taught methods for resolving conflict. He rehearsed these, being the soul of reason, stressing teamwork and trust.

Dmitri Karmolov, physician, physiologist, and torturer, floated into the control cabin and interrupted his thoughts. The Russian, in his slow, thick accent said, "Zoe is in her last few minutes of aerobic exercise. You are expected for anaerobics in 20 minutes."

"Hey, Dmitri. Has Zoe mentioned anything about my behavior lately? Anything that would set Hardass off?"

The burly, fatalistic Russian viewed him as he would a biological specimen. "Who can know what will set Colonel Hargrove off? If there is one thing I have learned from my military career, it's that disciplinary actions are like lightning. Sometime you deserve them, sometime you don't. But they strike where they will, not where you will. If I had learned this lesson earlier and not complained as much then, maybe I would have advance beyond the rank of major."

Anderson could think of a great number of faults that kept Dmitri from going past the rank of major, but knowledge of the human body's response to low gravity and the conditioning needed to stop its ill effects wasn't one of them. He literally wrote the book on the subject.

The Russian bear tapped his watch. "Twenty minutes, Commander. I promise after this workout you won't worry about anything that might upset our beloved Colonel." Dmitri's answer to any problem was more weight and more reps.

Dr. Zoe D'Arcy entered the control room dressed in shorts and t-shirt, still sweating. The damp garments clung to her skin showing every curve of her athletic body. The delightful eyeful usually brought arousal despite Zoe's constant reminders Anderson was her "good friend." Today was different.

"Good morning, gentlemen." How Zoe remained cheerful after one of Dmitri's sessions was beyond comprehension. "Be careful, Commander. Dmitri's in a particularly evil mood today."

The Russian excused himself, "Yes, yes. I've got to reset the rack and thumbscrews before Christian arrives. I believe he has something to ask you, Zoe." With that, he left.

Damn the Russian.

Her smile faded. "Is something wrong, Commander?"

He looked into her dark, beautiful eyes. His speech, concerning teamwork and trust, vanished. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. A slight smile grew on her face.

"Thanks for sicking Hardass on me," so much for command school conflict resolution. She looked confused. "'Unwanted sexual advances' ring a bell?"

"Oh, that. Do not worry, mon ami. Colonel Hargrove overheard part of a conversation and misunderstood."

"Misunderstood, my ass. When have I ever acted inappropriately toward you?"

"Does the phrase 'hottest body to hit space in the Sun' ring a bell?" she said imitating his Texas drawl.

"Oh." Damn that tabloid reporter. "But that was six months ago. Back when I thought I.... You can't blame me for that!"

"I can blame you for a great deal," she said crossing her arms in mock outrage, which quickly softened back to her usual grin, "but unwanted advances are not one of them. That was all a mistake."

He refused to let that smile break his anger.

"Then you've got to let Hardass know it's a mistake. If he blue sheets me I can kiss my next promotion goodbye."

"I can't."

"For the love of Christ, why?"

"It's a secret."

"I'll never understand women. Never. Not in a million years."

"That is as it should be, Commander."

Looking satisfied, she brought up a terrain map showing probable locations of underground liquid carbon dioxide and water. "I think we should drill a bit to the North of our original site. The topology indicates a thinner crust there."

"This is my life you're screwing with, Zoe."

She abandoned her console and looked at him. "They would hurt you for this?"

"Oh they'll welcome me home, throw a parade, talk about how brave I am, but I'll never see space again and never reach full commander."

"You may never understand women, Christian, but I'll never understand America's sexual repression." She thought for a moment more, chewing her lip. "Ok. I promised I wouldn't tell but that was before I knew it would hurt your career." Schoolgirl excitement spread across her face. "Besides, some secrets are too good not to share."

A burst of static from the radio and a warning ping from the radar interrupted her explanation.

"What the hell?" He stared at the console not believing the contact streaking across the screen.

"What is it, Commander?"

"Something at 900,000 kilometers, closing fast at seventy-five thousand kilometers per second. That's one quarter the speed of light!" His hand went to the intercom, but the contact disappeared before he could call Col. Hargrove to the command cabin.

As he adjusted the radar settings, another contact appeared on the opposite side of the HERB with the same course, speed, and radar cross-section. It stayed for a few seconds then disappeared. The radio emitted a short burst of static as the blip appeared and disappeared.

Zoe leaned over to view the screen. "A glitch, no?"

"Maybe. Do me a favor, and check the diagnostic server. Cole has it running a full system diagnostic. If something's wrong it should show up there."

Anderson replayed the radar loop. Each contact lasted three seconds with a three second interval between appearances. The speaker emitted regular, static bursts, their volume fading, then gone.

"Nothing from the diagnostic server regarding the radar. Dmitri's rats are still misbehaving, however." Much to the crew's amusement, zero gee struck Major Karmolov's rodent experiment like Viagra; they copulated energetically and constantly. Even Hardass thought it was funny.

"Look at this, Commander. The scanners detected a broadband EM spike coincidental with the first radar contact. It appears every six seconds, in the first contact's direction, and every eighteen seconds in the second contact's direction. The distance between contacts is approximately 12 light seconds. I do not think the radar's malfunctioning. Something's out there."

"So what are you saying? Bug-eyed Martians are coming to pay us a visit because they're displeased with our drilling site? Traveling in teleporting ships at one quarter the speed of light?" Anderson asked.

One perfect eyebrow arched upward in challenge. "No, Commander. What I'm saying is that something traveling four times the speed of light, in a line that crosses over our ship, briefly slows down enough to be detected. And according to this," she said pointing at the reading, "they are arcing back toward us."

Anderson worked it through in his head. Impossible as it seemed, her theory accounted for the readings. He was still struggling to find another, more reasonable, answer when the radar registered an object emerging from the planet's shadow.

He and Zoe struck the bulkhead as HERB spun on its axis. Anderson, by fate or design, landed squarely on top of her. "Didn't Colonel Hargrove warn you against such advances, Commander," she said straight-faced but with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Anderson grimaced. Zoe often joked to defuse tense situations, just when he thought humor most out of place.

He saw Mars come into view from the same side of the craft he was pinned to. It had a green tint now. Years of sub-orbital fighter pilot experience screamed at the wrongness. He should be pinned against the wall opposite the spin.

"That's..." he said.

"...on the wrong side," she finished.

A ship, unlike any from Earth, came into view. It was an inverted flying wing with a forked tail section. Sunlight glinted off alien characters painted on its surface.

The source of Mars' green tint was a field extending from the alien ship that surrounded HERB. Their ship stopped spinning as the field disappeared. Freefall returned.

"They control gravity!" Zoe said and then drifted into French.

Lt. Col. Marsha Cole flew into the control room shouting profanities that would make a forty-year veteran sailor blush. Dmitri followed HERB's lanky engineer. Both were in a state of dishevel. Cole's colorful expletive describing the new ship came at the same time as Dmitri's "Bush Moi."

Colonel Hargrove flew into the control cabin spouting profanities, though not as artistically, or profusely, as Cole. His flat top hair was unruffled but his ever-present, unlit cigar was bent to the point of breaking.

"What the hell is going on Anderson? If you fired maneuvering thrusters without my authorization, I'll bust you back to E1 so fast you'll..." Hardass' voice trailed off as he saw the vessel. "What the hell is that?"

"Hell if I know, sir but we think it's capable of traveling faster than light."

Lt. Commander Christian Anderson knew the Marine Colonel had seen much in life. Raised on a small Kansas farm, getting an appointment to Annapolis, being a war hero, then becoming an astronaut, he was a small man's success story. His "by-the-book" style, while unimaginative, made him popular with his superiors.

To his credit, Hardass didn't stay stunned long. "Readings. I want readings from every scanner we have. Designate the unknown as contact Alpha.

"Anderson, get down to Rice and use the high-resolution terrain mapper to get a contour image. Cole, you and Dmitri analyze Alpha's design. Determine if it's inhabited and if so, by what. D'Arcy..."

"I'll use Burroughs spectrum analyzers to determine the ship's material composition."

"Very well. Let's get moving people. I'm on the radio to Earth."

Christian Anderson and Zoe D'Arcy flung themselves through pressure doors, down the spine, and into the Rice lander. Both strapped in. Working as a team, they brought systems from standby to full power. Hardass' image appeared on the communications console. "Mars is blocking Earth so I can't send a signal out. I've tried radioing that thing with a 'Hello' in every language Dmitri and I know. They haven't responded. How's the warm-up?"

"Almost finished, Colonel," Anderson replied.

In the image background, Anderson saw the burly Russian pat Marsha on the butt. People who are intimate have a certain comfort around each other's bodies. While Anderson was no empath, it was obvious something was going on between the crass American and the pessimistic Russian. The two exchanged knowing smiles.

He looked at Zoe. She saw the same thing. Finally he understood. She smiled at him. "That's your secret?"

"Oui, mon ami. Hargrove overheard a bit of conversation between Marsha and I. As you know, he can be most forceful, and you know his rules on fraternization. So to keep them out of trouble, I lied. I believe you call it 'Flying Cover.' Aren't they cute?"

"Freaking adorable." Seeing the indicators turn from yellow to green he keyed the comm channel open. "Warm up complete, sir. Ready to scan on your mark."

"Very well. Prepare for burn." Hargrove chewed the bent stogie with near manic ferocity.

Safety harnesses held them in place as HERB spun under its own power, pointing the underside of Rice and Burroughs at the alien craft.

Their field of view was limited to the Edgar's head and Burroughs. Zoe activated the spectrum analyzers and then pointed Rice's telescope toward the craft. As Anderson activated the radar, sending his scans to Dmitri and Cole, Zoe zoomed in.

"Exciting, no?" Zoe grinned like a child about to ride a roller coaster.

"More like freaking terrifying."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Back at a nice safe space station in orbit around Earth." Anderson examined the contour scans. "Do you see those openings in front? Do those look like torpedo tubes to you?"

She shrugged.

A burst of light appeared behind the alien craft. Another ship, similar to Edgar in design, came into view. It had two hexagonal modules separated by a long boom. Six, evenly spaced, cylindrical pods ran the length of the boom.

"Two space ships, mon ami. They're trying to make first contact. We'll go down in history as the first humans to meet extraterrestrials."

"Are you getting this, Anderson? Another craft just appeared," Hargrove said.

"Yes, sir. We have it on our telescope, but my radar isn't showing it at all."

"Designate as contact Beta. Edgar's radar doesn't show anything either. Beta emitted an EM burst as it appeared."

"We picked up something similar before, sir. It's almost as if a rock traveling faster than light were skipping across the top of Einsteinian space. It causes an EM spike every time it slows below light speed."

Dmitri pointed to a monitor near Hardass. He reported his findings in his thick, Russian accent. "We've found possible hatches," he said pointing to a monitor with one hairy arm, "Assuming these are hatches, the beings are slightly taller and wider than humans. This appears to be an airlock."

"Good. Get on Beta," Hargrove ordered.

Cole pointed to Dmitri's monitor. "Hardass, Alpha has control surfaces, so it's designed for space and atmospheric travel," Cole said. Only she dared use Hargrove's nickname to his face. No one else tried. Cole took no shit and dished out plenty. Hargrove seemed to respect that. She floated toward the video pickup. "Hey, Princess. I'm picking up a bunch of signals back and forth between those craft. You think you can use one of those fancy French doctorates to take a look at them. They don't match any PRI or modulation pattern I've ever seen."

Zoe looked at the data streams on her console.

The Alpha rotated until it faced the newcomer. "If those are weapon ports.... Colonel, I think we should get out of here."

"Commander, I’m not blowing a first contact because you've got cold feet."

"Mon Dieu," Zoe shouted, "They're firing at each other!"

Beams, similar to the new Western Alliance charged particle weapons, flashed between the two ships--red from the Alpha, blue from the Beta. The blasts splashed short of their target as some invisible screen surrounding each ship flared in rainbow colors.

Alpha accelerated and was gone. Beta moved closer to HERB. In action too quick for any eye to follow, Alpha reappeared in a burst of light and strafed the newcomer. Beta sent a truncated beam under HERB. Something exploded nearby. Shrapnel bounced off Rice.

Zoe screamed. Anderson ached to do something but, stuck in Rice, he possessed limited options.

"Prepare for burn!" Hargrove said as he rotated HERB in the direction of orbit then ignited the much-protested nuclear engine.

Anderson watched in horror as a red beam beheaded Edgar just behind the command module near Rice. The rapidly vaporizing metal and escaping air flipped his crewmate's section end over end toward Mars.

A second beam struck behind Burroughs toward the drive section. A small explosion, luckily not the fuel cells, sent the engine and spine tumbling away from each other. Burroughs broke free, crashing through the solar wings leaving Rice the sole knot on a long stick.

Anderson ordered, "Emergency separation. Now!"

"They're dead." Zoe sat there, stunned.

"Zoe!"

"They're all dead. Don't you understand? They're all dead!"

"So are we if we don't get out of here. Start emergency separation and start it now. I've got to give us some cover."

She hesitated for a moment longer. Finally training overtook emotion. Anderson cut power to the radar and established a link to the Burroughs module. "Come on you oversized mosquito. Activate."

Burroughs responded. Anderson initiated its orbital descent program as Zoe detonated the docking ring, shooting Rice away from Edgar's remains. He adjusted his craft via attitude jet and brought Rice into a steep descent in front of Burroughs. Old instincts and reflexes from his career as a sub-orbital fighter pilot came into play. He used thrusters to set his velocity close to that of Burroughs.

A barrage of translight missiles appeared in a flash of light near Burroughs as its retro rockets fired. The drilling craft exploded shooting brightly glowing debris past Rice.

A large mass brushed them, spinning Rice slowly. Hoping the damage was minimal, he let the craft tumble uncontrolled, knowing emissions, whether engine or electronic, would aid the alien craft in targeting them. Sporadic beams flashed past Rice but none struck.

Anderson wished for his old Shrike fighter as he ignited the main engine. Rice spun awkwardly as he oriented the large landing thrusters to get them behind Phobos. He held his breath until several million tons of rock floated between he and the alien ships.

"You did it," Zoe shouted.

"I haven't done jack. Wait until we're down. Then you can thank me."

"Why land?"

"Because it’s the only thing this piece of shit is good for. For now we land, wait for the fighting to stop then get a signal to Earth."

"Then we die."

"Hey, we've got two weeks of air. A lot can happen in two weeks."

He wondered why he preferred the slow death on Mars to the quick death that seemed imminent in space. In the end it didn't matter. Dead was dead. Maybe part of him wanted to finally reach his goal of stepping on the red soil. Maybe he just wanted something to do before death, wrapped in a bright red beam, sliced through Rice like butter.

He fired the landing engine to drop the craft toward Mars. Minutes passed. Anderson realized he would soon pass under the futuristic battlefield.

He spared a look toward his crewmate. Her face was a mixture of sorrow and fear. Tears would come soon.

"We'll deploy the drag chute in two minutes. Let's see if they're still fighting."

"Will they shoot at us again?" Zoe asked.

"Only if we look like anything other than a piece of debris spiraling in. I wouldn't worry if I were you. More than likely they're too busy with each other to worry much about us." He knew God damn good and well they should worry but he thought it best to give Zoe something to hold on to.

He rotated the craft to give them a view of the stars. They saw nothing.

"Zoe, find us a landing site on the other side of the planet.

"Oui." He had never known her to appear so frail. The woman who stubbornly set her oar against the rapids of life was now adrift.

He remembered well seeing his wingman's Shrike explode on his first combat mission, the paralyzing fear and knowing he was next. All you had to do is survive one more minute. In times like that anger made a good oar.

"Zoe, I need you mad. Hate the bastards that did this. Do whatever it takes to get through. Keep thinking, 'Today we live. Tomorrow they die.'"

His words sunk in. While she didn't look angry, she didn't look helpless. "There is a relatively flat area we can make near Burroughs' original landing sight. I'll try to patch into the global mapping satellite. If it's still there, maybe we can get a signal to Earth without danger."

Anderson overrode the computers preprogrammed landing sequence. He judged the distance to the landing site and their rate of descent. The thrusters fired again to bleed away their velocity. Shortly, Rice dragged against the thin Martian atmosphere. "Drogue chute deploy in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1-now!"

With a bang the chute deployed. Deceleration pressed them into their seats as the thin fabric bit into the atmosphere. As he had hundreds of times in the simulator, Anderson continued landing procedures. "Disengaging drogue chute." Another explosive charge released Rice, and they were in free fall again.

"Engaging thrusters," Anderson continued. With a loud roar the landing thrusters burst to life pinning them to their seats. An anvil of weight fell on his chest. After a ten count it lightened enough for him to breathe again.

"We'll overshoot the original landing site," she said. "I'm activating the terrain mapper to look for another."

The mapper would send a flood of emissions to the aliens yelling "shoot here" but Anderson decided if the engine didn't give them away nothing would.

An image appeared on the center monitor. "Here. This is a wide, flat plane on our current course. It should do."

Alarms began buzzing. "Oh shit. We're losing fuel, Zoe. We've either got a tank rupture or a line break."

Anderson ran through the line pressure readings to localize the break. Just before he began diverting fuel down an alternate pathway something in the fuel system exploded. Rice tumbled wildly toward the surface. "We're going down hard."

The French scientist closed her eyes. Anderson wished he could do the same. He adjusted the craft to go in butt first, their best chance at survival.

He'd faced Death before. Learned to stare the Grim Reaper in the hood and laugh as he ducked past his skeletal grasp. There was no way out of this one however. The bastard was going to win.

For some reason his mind flashed to an old movie made in the late twentieth century. A red pinto station wagon with two Illinois Nazis fell from a bridge for an impossibly long time. He looked at Zoe and said, "I've always loved you." He thought it a very Zoe-like joke.

She didn't get it. "You have the worst romantic timing possible, mon cher." She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

They fell toward their fate and the red planet.

END CHAPTER 1 #

BEGIN CHAPTER 2

Dealbinder, Verlian master of the Long Haul, sat on the command dais with ears laid flat, back hair ridged up straight, claws yearning to be unsheathed, and a low growl escaping his muzzle. He expected the attack on his ship, such was the nature of the Kurr, but turning guns on a defenseless ship boiled his blood.

Earth made its first stumbling steps into space, attempting to create a colony on its nearest planetary neighbor. As the cub race made its first effort to stand upright, the Kurr slapped it down.

"Status," he growled.

His black furred weapons officer, Quickeye, reported, "The Earth ship's severed command section continues its plunge toward the planet. Deep scans show intermittent life signs. The Kurr ship entered the atmosphere and is crash landing nicely."

"May they do more crashing than landing. Attach a grapple beam to the section showing life signs. Be careful. Earth doesn't have inertial dampeners."

Shortdraw, a diminutive Brewer, approached Dealbinder’s dais. The being was one of Brewers aboard the Long Haul. "Dealbinder, permission to send a few Brewers over on a gravity sled. The Earthers won't be as excitable if they see one of us first."

Shortdraw, his helmsman, shamefully lacked hair and was only two-thirds Dealbinder's height. Despite his shortcomings, he had a point. The Brewer's shorter stature would less agitate the frightened Earthers and their size would let them navigate the Earth ship better.

"Make it so. Send Scuttler and Wallclimber on Bay f4's grav sled." He hated to lose that shipment, but he couldn't let the Earthers suffocate.

Bay four split end-to-end releasing the Long Haul's precious liquid payload into space. It saddened Dealbinder to see the canisters float away. He looked longingly at his own glass, half empty of Earth's greatest export.

The forward view screen showed the two Brewers on bay four's sled moving toward the severed head of the Earth ship. The grapple beam stopped the spin and arrested its fall toward Mars. If the section maintained atmospheric integrity and the airlock still functioned, the doomed Earth expedition might live. If not, he would morn the young race's failure.

Dealbinder thought of the planet-fallen Kurr. His claws unsheathed themselves as anger swept over him. If the Earthers perished, the Kurr would provide them an honor guard to the afterlife.

"Status of the Kurr ship."

"They've skidded to a halt. I'm reading three probable life signs. No power emissions from their ship."

Dealbinder smiled. Except a Verlian smile had nothing to do with happiness. He addressed Brightsmile, his wife and second in command. The Brewers joked that that made her the actual ship's master. Dealbinder failed to see the humor in it. If he heard such comments, outside the considerable earshot of Brightsmile, he showed the Brewers how little humor he saw in it.

"We'll need a landing party to recover the ape-cats and, if possible, their superluminal drive. I'll know how they developed and equipped so many translight vessels so quickly even if it costs every Kurr its skin."

Even now, Kurr ships drove the Verlians toward Earth. With the Verlian armada called toward the Riss frontier, the ape-cats made short work of the diminished containment fleet.

There was no way to save Earth from invasion.

He watched the gravity sled stop next to the broken vessel. The Brewers entered the ship.

Dealbinder waited a few minutes until impatience got the better of him. He clawed the communications channel open. "Scuttler, report."

"We've entered," the Brewer sounded out of breath. "The airlock is intact, but the ship is leaking air. Only a minimal atmosphere remains. We found two of the crew unconscious and in bad shape with multiple contusions, abrasions, and broken bones. The third attacked us with a wrench. The old guy wouldn't quit. We finally had to sedate him. We're shoving them into e-suits now, preparing them for transit."

Dealbinder sighed, a trait Brewers and Verlians shared. "I'm greatly pleased at least some of the Earthers survived. Two perished. That's two too many but better than I expected."

The view screen snapped to another image. Shortdraw pointed at it and said, "Looks like we have more survivors, Dealbinder," Shortdraw pointed at the view screen. There, hanging beneath shiny fabric, bobbed another piece of the ill-fated Earth ship.

"Quickeye?" Dealbinder queried.

"Scanning. Two life signs, both probable to strong."

"Never underestimate an Earth pilot." Dealbinder's ears wagged in amusement.

Shortdraw drew his lips back showing teeth. A Verlian would see that as aggression. With Brewers it showed amusement.

"Scuttler, get back to the ship. Looks like we have another rescue operation for you."

Did they all survive? If so, this was a joyous day indeed.

Quickeye broke him from his reverie. "There's been an explosion on the landing craft! They're falling with no thrusters."

"Ready the grapple beam!" Dealbinder ordered.

"They've dropped below the horizon," warned Quickeye.

"Set course for orbit above the falling vessel. Engage superluminal drive, level one," ordered the ship's master.

He prayed to Seers past, supplicating them to guide his helmsman, as he watched the Brewer work. No Verlian could match the speed of Shortdraw as he swung the ship toward Mars and engaged the superluminal drive.

The forward view screen showed the Long Haul's phase field cycling through the color spectrum from red to blue then bright white. As the ship transitioned from normal space to superluminal space, the screen showed an instant of blackness, and then exploded back into real space, phase field changing from bright white, to dull red, then fading to invisibility. The view screen snapped onto the falling craft. The status bar beside the image indicated altitude and rate of descent. They were too late.

"Engaging grapple." Quickeye didn't wait for the order. A green-gray beam struck the small lander surrounding it in a gravitational field, first neutralizing then reversing the planetary pull. Dealbinder watched the status bar. The fall stopped just short of the planet. The craft began to rise.

"We've got them!" shouted Quickeye.

Verlian roars and Brewer cheers erupted on the bridge of the Long Haul.

Anderson and Zoe held hands as they fell through the Martian atmosphere. He added the missed romance to his list of unfulfilled dreams. Death would come soon in the form of bounces and skids across the Martian landscape.

Centrifuge-like gravity nailed him to his seat. Rice's fall slowed, and then stopped. Confusion gripped Anderson's mind until he noticed the green-gray glow of the alien gravity device. So Death was not to call so soon after all.

He watched the altimeter drop to 10 meters, and then climb. The force reduced to the point he could breathe again.

"Why have they not killed us?" Zoe asked, her voice strained from the effects of high gravity.

"Don't know. Maybe they're in a taking prisoners mood now. Who can figure the psychology of bug-eyed aliens," Anderson answered, his head pounding.

Zoe actually smiled. Her face contained fear, worry, sorrow, and pain, but for an instant she smiled.

As Rice rotated Anderson sighed in relief as he saw the Edgar-shaped ship above them.

"The good guys, no?" Zoe asked.

"Maybe. At least they aren't the 'blow you to bits' guys."

One of the six cylinders was split lengthwise and opened to space. The gravity beam guided them into that opening.

Another beam, from inside the cylinder, took over holding Rice in place. The cylinder closed leaving them in darkness surrounded by the gravity beams glow.

Another light entered the container. A circular hatch opened casting a bright light silhouetting a bulb-headed humanoid figure. The BEMs had arrived.

It rode a circular piece of metal with a control panel on one edge. It orbited Rice twice, and then landed near the airlock. There was no way to keep the alien out. An airlock system designed for ease of use cycled. The alien entered.

As the humanoid stepped into Rice, Anderson realized the alien didn't have a bulbous head. It wore a helmet and held two space suits, no thicker than his coveralls, in its hand.

As the being pulled off its helmet Anderson was surprised to see a human face looking back at them. A perfectly ordinary, everyday, seemingly human face broke into a grin as he laid lustful eyes on Zoe. She was still clad in shorts and a tee shirt. "I'm not interrupin' anything am I?" The voice was Southern.

Anderson protectively stepped in front of her.

The newcomer grinned and tossed the space suits toward the pair. "Y'all want to suit up and get into the Long Haul. There's some folks in there that want to meet you."

"You're human."

"Nothin' gets past you chief. I'm Reginald Montgomery. Now let's shake a leg."

"And we're in a vessel that can go faster than the speed of light."

"The Long Haul ain't fast, but she's a good ship. Still, she's faster than anything the ape-cats can field. Now come on."

"And you're here to rescue us?"

Apparently Reginald had had enough of Anderson's inquiry. "Shut up and suit up now, or I'm leavin' you here for the rest of the trip!"

"I think we should do as he asks. Our other option is to make love until Rice runs out of air, no?"

Anderson did a double take at Zoe. Had he heard what he thought he heard?

"Ah the French woman. I wasn't sure whether it was you or Marsha Cole." The Southerner peeled off some French that made Zoe blush.

"You speak French very well. Too bad your vocabulary is not as cultured as your accent. You're from the future, no?"

The stranger smiled crookedly. "More like the past. Now, would you please get in your e-suits? I'll explain the rest when we get inside." With that Reginald exited the lander.

Anderson and D'Arcy did as requested. The e-suits were simple coveralls with feet, hands, and a helmet. As he pulled the suit over his shoulders it began sealing itself along the front and tightened around his skin. The suit remained baggy around his joints. The helmet was self-sealing as well.

They boarded the thin plate hovering just outside the airlock. Anderson stumbled as he stepped onto it. Suddenly he was much heavier.

"Careful Zoe. This thing has a gravity of about one g." Even with the warning she stumbled.

Anderson heard Reginald's voice. "I'll lower the gravity a bit." He did something with the controls and suddenly Anderson weighed less. He heard Reginald's voice speaking in some guttural, growling language and another, much deeper voice, replying.

The sled glided back to the hatch with no sense of motion at all.

"The ship's master, what you'd call a captain, has lowered the gravity ship-wide."

The iris hatch opened into a short tube ending in another iris. The first hatch closed once the circular sled passed through. Anderson heard atmosphere hissing into the tube. When the hissing stopped, the other hatch opened revealing a hexagonal corridor running the length of the ship. There was an iris hatch on each of the corridor walls. Anderson guessed the corridor connected the command and engine compartments just like Edgar's spine.

Even after years of being in space, Anderson felt his stomach turn as Reginald rotated the sled, landing it on a black painted floor.

"Always remember, black is down," Reginald said.

Anderson tested the air as Reginald helped him out of the e-suit. It had an odd, musk scent.

The corridor looked cavernous. At first Anderson thought it was six months spent in HERB's cramped confines. Then he realized the ceilings were abnormally tall. "How did humans get a ship like this?"

"It's not a human ship, its Verlian. Oh, and they call us Brewers, not humans. Y'all come this way to the bridge. Ver Kiterler is waiting."

"Brewers?"

"The Verlians have a habit of calling things by their function rather than title. They also use nicknames a lot. My great, great, great, granddaddy went to work brewin' beer for the Verlians back in the 1800s. So they call us brewers. Kiterler actually means 'deal binder' in bear-speak. He was called Brewbringer before the Seers sent us to rescue you. Not a bad fellow once you get to know him."

"They like beer and you brew it?" Zoe asked.

"I'm a helmsman. I don't brew beer. A lot of us still do though. The Verlians just haven't gotten around to renaming us yet. And no, they don't like beer. More like worship it. You see the Verlians are a naturally aggressive race and latent telepaths. Beer calms 'em down and heightens their empathy with other Verlians. That's why they can switch nicknames the way humans change hairstyles. Confusin' as hell if you ask me."

Anderson wasn't sure what he expected telepathic aliens to look like. He was sure, however, that he never expected them to look like bears. But there they sat. Three very large brown, black, and blond bears intermingled with two humans.

Of course, calling them bears was like calling humans apes. They were of ursine ancestry but had longer fore limbs. Their hands were very odd indeed, possessing retractable claws extending from their fists. They walked on four legs as often as two and sat on the ground with a back and armrest extending from the deck. The aliens were as tall sitting down as a human was standing.

The bears were in constant conversation speaking in baritone voices through a complex mussel. Both humans and bears sat behind consoles made of an unknown material. On a pedestal in the middle of the bridge sat Ver Kiterler, Dealbinder. The bear motioned them toward the pedestal with one extended claw.

"Welcome to the Long Haul. Please accept our hospitality."

Another Verlian, with blond fur and blue eyes, brought a tray containing three glasses and a large pitcher, all filled with an amber, frothy liquid. Reginald held up his glass and toasted, "Confusion to the Kurr."

"Here, here," quoted Kiterler as he drained the pitcher and belched loudly. "Ah, now that's something to fight for. Drink up. As the Earth author stated, 'for tomorrow we may die'."

"No thanks. I'm on duty." Anderson had no desire whatsoever to drink.

The bridge went dead quiet. Even the Verlians stopped talking. All eyes were on Anderson. Zoe leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Perhaps we should drink, mon cher."

Anderson and Zoe smiled at each other and reached for the proffered glasses. He held his glass up. "May all Kurr engines explode on takeoff." He tipped the glass, drained the contents, then belched loudly. It was beer of decent quality.

The bridge erupted in rebel yells and Verlian roars.

Kiterler slapped Anderson on the back sending him to the ground. "Now that's a fighting spirit. We may just win this one."

Reginald bent down to help Anderson up. "You done good pard’. Refusing a Verlian's gift of beer is a quick trip to the infirmary."

Kiterler placed his pitcher-sized mug back on the tray. "No doubt you have many questions. We'll do our best to answer them. Right now we must get back to our wayward Brewers. Shortdraw plot a course back to Scuttler and Wallclimber."

Reginald replied in Verlian and assumed a position behind a console. A chair lifted out of the deck as he approached. The consoles adjusted for human or Verlian use.

The ursanoid bear spoke to the black furred Verlians. The forward view screen displayed the horizon of Mars. The image magnified. He and Zoe could see the Edgar's severed head.

"They're alive?" Zoe asked.

"They are indeed. All injured and unconscious but alive, if not-so-well. We'll place them in a med-bed as soon as they're aboard."

"They are alive," Zoe said as if trying to convince herself. "They are alive," she said again convinced. She hugged Anderson hard. He hugged back.

"I knew all along Hardass was too mean to die."

"You and he have much in common then," Zoe said and hugged him again.

She gave the ship's master a long, around the neck hug then kissed him on either side of his mussel. The Verlian hugged her back burying her in fur.

The Verlian spoke to her in French. She smiled.

"What'd he say?"

"He said I hug like a Verlian."

"A great compliment, I assure you Commander," Kiterler ruffled Zoe's hair the way Anderson's father did to him as a child.

The black furred Verlian spoke. An image of the Kurr vessel appeared on the forward view screen. The image then dimmed and blurred.

"What's going on?" Anderson asked.

"The Kurr have thrown up a dispersion screen around their wrecked vessel. It prevents us from scanning or using the grapple beam." The Verlian captain looked at Anderson, seeming to measure him against some internal calipers. "How would you like to pay a visit to the beings that did this?" asked Kiterler.

"I think I'd like that a lot," Anderson said. "Whoever did this to Earth was going to pay."

Anderson smiled like a schoolboy after his first kiss. Zoe's goodbye lasted until the Brewers catcalls and whistles turned into comments about someone getting a hose to break them up.

That warm feeling was quickly replaced by anger when Reginald let slip details of the Kurr invasion fleet.

"What do you mean they're going to invade Earth?" Anderson yelled more than queried.

The sled glided over the Martian landscape approaching the downed Kurr ship. The plan, such as it was, involved landing near the craft, boarding it, then kicking ass without taking the prerequisite names.

"Calm down, chief. There ain't nothin' you're gonna do about the Kurr comin' to pay Earth a visit," Reginald Montgomery said. "Besides, that's two weeks off. A lot can happen in two weeks. Hell, two weeks ago you prolly didn't believe in space aliens. Now look at you, on an assault team with two of 'em.

"Tell you what, we capture any ape-cats we'll send 'em on to Earth so the big shots can see what's coming. We already stockpiled a bunch of equipment and such for Earth's defense. Problem is the people of Earth'll use it to blow each other up if we expose it 'for the Kurr show up. Tell me I'm wrong, and I'll call you a liar."

Anderson wanted to protest but couldn't. The Chinese decided to cozy up to the United Islamic States using the leverage to retake Taiwan and threaten Japan. The Western Alliance and UIS arms race would soon end as the twenty-year cold war became hot. War was imminent.

"Perfect time for an invasion," Anderson grumbled. "If they have any luck, the Kurr will sit back and laugh as we blow each other to kingdom come."

"Actually, pard’, it may be the best time. Just think, all those weapons you were gonna use against each other can be turned on the Kurr."

"All they have to do is pit one group against another then mop up anything left standing. It's what I would do if I was them," Anderson said.

"That's cuz you ain't a Kurr. I've never heard of one negotiatin' or cuttin' a deal. They've always conquered and nothing short of conquered. Hell, the last planet rolled out the welcome mat and said 'Y'all come on in.' Stupid Arvin.

"The Kurr never knew defeat until they met up with Verlia's armada. Not that the Verlians needed that many ships. When a sublight ship meets a translight ship it’s a one-sided fight fer sure. Back then the only way we could lose was to run out of missiles. That all changed after the Kurr developed a superluminal drive of their own. Have to admit; never thought the ape-cats would do it.

"Now the main Verlian fleet is on its way. It's just gonna be fashionably late to the party. The Riss decided they was up for a fight and learnt they was wrong the hard way. Problem is while the Verlians were off teachin' the lizards a lesson, the Kurr up and launched a translight fleet.

"Kicked what few ships we had on the Kurr border in the teeth and headed toward Earth."

The gravity sled halted next to a rock outcropping. "Alright, the Kurr ships on the other side. Remember, pull the trigger once to fire once, pull the trigger twice and hold for continuous fire." Reginald hefted his own phase/pulse rifle.

"Yeah, yeah. I got it," Anderson said.

The Verlians walked on all fours with a much larger version of Anderson's rifle strapped to their back. The giant aliens lead the way.

The radio in Anderson's suit spoke in guttural Verlian tongue. He saw the others pointing their weapons toward a lone boulder away from the outcropping. Something not quite humanoid leapt over the boulder and began a run-jump in their direction.

Against the United Islamic States, if one jihadist ran toward a group of armed men, a squad of jihadists were ready to open up from hiding.

Anderson looked up in time to see three forms leaping from above. "Behind us!"

One creature fell toward him. Instinctively he rolled backward, bringing his legs upward, catching the creature in the midriff. He kicked upward hard sending the Kurr flying in Mars' low gravity. The time spent in Dmitri's torture chamber paid off at last.

Anderson rolled over pressing the trigger twice and holding. A stream of bright pulses left the barrel catching the Kurr just as it landed. Its midsection exploded, spraying blood and entrails across the red sand.

Anderson looked for a new target. Thomas, the one called Scuttler, lay on the ground, unmoving, his e-suit and flesh ripped open exposing his crushed rib cage and intestines to Martian air.

Reginald pointed his rifle at the murderous Kurr but not before the creature leapt. His shot missed.

Anderson pulled the trigger once catching the Kurr in mid leap. Its helmet caught the blast spreading red goo over Reginald.

A Verlian, Brightsmile maybe, held a Kurr impaled on her claws. The creature fought but to no avail. The claws extended through one shoulder and one leg.

The original Kurr continued its charge. "These guys are madder than jihadists," Anderson said and drew a bead on his target.

"Hold off, pard’. I've got somethin' special for this pussy." Reginald pulled a grenade from his arm, throwing it toward the Kurr. It exploded before reaching its target sending white tendrils in all directions. These wrapped around the Kurr, entangling the alien better than any straight jacket.

Reginald's Verlian must have equated to 'toss it' because Brightsmile hurled the impaled Kurr into the air. Another tangle grenade intercepted it binding the Kurr into an efficient package.

With the Kurr bundled, Reginald checked Scuttler's wounds. "Nothin' we can do. Damnit Tom, why'd you have to go and git yourself killed."

More Verlian on the radio. "Alright pard’. We're done for the day. Brightsmile and Barrelhugger are going to investigate the Kurr ship. We're to bring Tom and our captives back to the Long Haul.

Anderson was about to object, but his body told him it was time to quit. There's only so much adrenaline a blood stream can take in one day.

With three Kurr and three of HERB's crew in coffin-like med-beds the Long Shot headed toward Earth. It's master launched another long-winded monologue on Kurr tactics.

Anderson watched the view screen. The Sun dimmed to a pinpoint, then brightened every few seconds. "We're skipping." Anderson didn't realize he'd spoke out loud.

"What?" rumbled the Verlian, a bit perturbed at the interruption.

"Like the stone across water, no? Traveling faster than light then dropping back below light speed," explained Zoe.

The Verlian wagged its ears. It took Anderson a second to realize it was the Verlian equivalent of a smile. "Just so, Lt. Commander. The superluminal drive places us into a higher energy level where we travel much faster than in normal space. Much like an electron being excited to a higher energy level, we're able to 'excite' our ship to a higher translight energy level. We can't stay at that level long and fall back into normal space, or level zero. It takes our engines a few seconds to recharge and throw us back into translight space again. I've never thought of it as skipping stones but that is very much the same concept."

As if uninterrupted the alien continued, "The documents we are giving you also contain likely landing spots. The Kurr will attempt to form beachheads on several continents, then expand from there. They love personal combat and will do their best to engage in it early into the subjugation.

"If they hold to their normal tactics, they will destroy many of your population centers in their first attack, decentralize all military command and control structures, and move as many brewers as possible from your large cities."

The Verlian began walking to the door and motioned Anderson and Zoe to follow with an extended claw. Reginald followed. "Its time to take you back to your ship. The sled is programmed to take you to your space station. Explain to your people. The Kurr are coming. Hold out. You must hold out. If your planet falls, we won't be able to extricate the Kurr easily."

They walked down the hexagonal central corridor of the Long Haul. Dealbinder stopped next to the iris hatch, and motioned the brewers onto the small sleds used to navigate the cargo pods.

Dealbinder opened the hatch and guided the sled through. On the other side sat Rice in the middle of numerous crates of all sizes.

"We will defeat the Kurr space fleet. What remains of our containment fleet has joined with Alpha Centauri militia ships. Once the main Verlian armada arrives, we'll begin our assault. Both my race and yours depend on Earth holding.

Dealbinder pointed toward one of the med-beds. "This is Claw Leader P'Krom of Clan Glory Hunt. He survived the crash and was captured during your raid.

"He's sedated now and should wake up in a few of your hours. Keep him and his crewmen under close guard and bound. At first they will try to escape. Barring that they will try to kill themselves. This translator will allow you to understand them.

"These units contain your crewmates. I fear they're in bad shape. The med-units will repair their injuries given enough time. "

"It's time for you to be leaving. Good luck to you and your race." With that the Verlian opened the airlock to Rice. Anderson started to ask one of a hundred questions, but the Verlian picked him up as easily as a child. All the breath left his lungs as the Verlian bear hugged him, then placed him in Rice's airlock. Zoe was likewise hugged, then bear-handled into Rice. The airlock cycled leaving Zoe and him alone.

The Verlian must have retreated quickly because the cargo bay opened, revealing absolute blackness. In a flash of light, Earth was above them. The sled lifted out of the bay. Anderson watched the Long Haul flash out of existence as it leapt to trans-light speeds.

The sled upended itself and made a swift approach toward Station Icarus.

Anderson looked at Zoe. She played with some sort of handheld device left on her chair by a Verlian or brewer. "So let me get this straight. We've just met not one, but two, alien races."

"Yes," she stated as she activated the device. A small hologram appeared on its surface. She fiddled with the device and the image enlarged.

He continued. "One employs humans as brewers the other is out to conquer and subjugate Earth."

"Yes." She put the device down and smiled at him.

"And I'm so in love with you none of that really seems to matter. Am I insane?"

Zoe laughed a bit, unstrapped and sat in his lap. "Yes, but you are so cute when you are crazy."

They kissed all the way down to Icarus.

With sight that was not sight, an ancient being looked upon the third planet of a distant yellow sun. Its billions of inhabitants went about their day-to-day existence unaware of the drama unfolding heavenward. Tension gripped its populace as regional conflicts threatened to escalate into that planet's third world war.

Earth's civilization had been subtly guided by her kind for two hundred years. Now the guidance would be less subtle. Without interference a devastating war would occur within six of Earth's months razing the planet, killing billions. Civilization would be slow to return to such a world.

The Kurr acquired the superluminal drive with a minimum of help. Decoying the Verlian fleet was more difficult. Delaying Humanity's war even more so. The being smiled pleased with her ingenuity. The actors played their parts wonderfully.

Now an invasion killing millions would prevent a war killing billions. Earth would emerge from the invasion united. Her kind would see to an alliance between Earth and Verlia--an alliance to see them through the coming darkness and beyond.

A white furred hand lifted a mug of beer to her mussel. As was the custom of her race she drained the beloved beer in one prolonged swallow, then belched loudly. For better or worse, humanity was about to be introduced to the universe. The Verlian Seer smiled. She hoped the universe was ready.

END

Rules for Pulp Fiction

2009-07-21T14:59:00.004-06:00

I love writing all sort of things but the stories I love the most are Pulp Action Stories like those from the 30s, 40s and 50s. They're easy to write, you can generally throw the conventional wisdom of story mechanics out the window and they're a lot of fun.

Anyone can write a pulp action story as long as you follow a few simple rules.

The hero never dies. Oh, he may look dead. You may even see his ship fly into the Sun or his stage coach drop off a cliff but he's alive and will return with perfect hair.
Ditto for the villain (except for the hair part).
The main characters are happy at the end of the story no matter how many horrid things occurred during the story.
Each story must contain a 'rescuee' who is either kidnapped, death trapped, knocked unconscious and in the way of something horrible or (most likely) all of the above.
Heaving breasts or an allusion to heaving breasts must occur once during the story
Dr. Know-it-all must be present to describe the pseudo science, history of the universe or dispense frontier wisdom in some semi-plausible way
If a side kick or love interest runs out of ammo they must throw their gun at the nearest opponent
Evil people always look evil. Oh they may put on a good act for Aunt Marabel or Princess Adultra but quickly there after you'll see the evil.
Good guys always look and act good. Their hair seldom stays mussed for long
Comic relief comes from short people

And there you have the top 10 rules of pulp fiction. Please note any additions or corrections in the comments below.

Inks Lake, Summer of 09

2009-06-21T18:36:00.004-06:00

If you've read some of my previous posts you know we purchased a camping trailer. The trailer was a compromise. Debbie wished to recreate her childhood experiences she enjoyed and I wanted to please her and yet maintain an air conditioned environment.

I work for the State of Texas and so we get an insane number of holidays. There is, on average, one per month. This particular holiday trip fell on Juneteenth, celebrating the day the slaves of Texas learned of their emancipation after the civil war. While I'm not aware of any ancestors who were slaves of African decent I am more than happy to celebrate the holiday by hauling a twenty-nine foot trailer for an hour to a state park.

Its hot in Texas. Not as hot as other areas in the US but still pretty darn hot. The temperature during the day is in the high nineties which felt around 120 outside the shade. Did I mention that part of my criteria for camping involved air conditioning?

I thought it would be difficult to out-do our last outing to Inks. We went in the winter but winters in our part of Texas are not that cold. We had a fire and went for long walks on the trails. It was a great trip.

In between that trip and this one we traveled to Mustang Island State Park out near Port Aransas. The facilities at that park weren't nearly so nice as Inks although the beaches are nice. If you like sand and surf its the park for you. If you like lake activities and hiking, Inks is more your sort of place.

Not that the beach isn't fun. We saw a baby black tipped reef shark, a huge blue crab, a purple jelly fish, tons of nighttime sand crabs and a baby leopard shark that I accidentally kicked and yet still have all my toes. Fun, but not Inks lake level of fun.

Now, for the record, this trip to Inks did not start well. My youngest teenage step daughter decided to have a female moment the night before we left that upset Debbie. So we were late getting off the next morning as we played catchup from the previous night's fun.

My advice to any of you with thirteen year old daughters: your lovely daughter is about to disappear to be replaced with a fire breathing, irrational dragon. Not to worry, someday she'll be back but for now you should consult a physician for mood stabilizers. Not for her, for you. But I digress.

We arrived at Inks State Park around 9:30, an hour and a half later than planned. Unlike winter, the wait time to get a camping spot in summer is considerable. We waited for about forty-five minutes an assignment. I was minding Zack, our son, and Milo, our dog, when our name was called so Debbie went inside to get campsite number. We were given 151.

We loaded up and drove to the assigned area. It was at the very back of the park next to the small highway. While the area was heavily forested with lots of trails it was extremely crowded. There were tents and cars everywhere. Later we learned this was the closest spot to a popular swimming area but we didn't know that at the time. To make matters worse there was someone in our assigned campsite.

We weren't sure what to do about squatters so we drug the trailer back to the park entrance to inform the rangers. Note I still have twenty-nine feet of air conditioned comfort behind the truck waiting to be plugged in. We drive up to the station and Deb hops out. I drive past not sure I can make the turn around at the station with the trailer attached. I drove down to the campsites on the other side of the park then back. Debbie is waiting on me with a pissed off look.

“They have until 2 pm. to leave,” she said.

“Did you ask about the other campsites we like? 76 was empty when we drove by. That one's a dream.” ask I.

“She said they were all taken,” said Deb.

“Hmm, how about I give the Athey charm a try?” said I with my best grin.

Debbie just grimaced. “Fine but they're all taken.”

Now, as a side note the Athey's are known for their ability to BS. There's nothing but preachers and missionaries on one side of the family and nothing but business men and ranchers on the other. All in all its a lethal combination when properly used.

I walked into the ranger station and there is a short Hispanic lady reloading the brochure holders. She did not look happy. The rest of the rangers were in back laughing. Apparently she was the new person that got stuck with the jobs others did not want.

“I'll be with you in a moment,” she stated curtly.

“I'm in not hurry,” I said. It was true, we had until 2 for the squatters to vacate. “I see you survived the morning rush.”

“Barely,” she said.

“We were here in the winter. They told us it got crowded during the summer but I wasn't expecting this large a crowd,” I said conversationally.

She snorted a bit. “Yes, very busy.” She finished loading the brochure racks and walked back behind the counter. “How may I help you?” A burst of laughter came from the back. She looked in that direction and frowned.

Now the next few seconds were going to be very delicate. What we were dealing with was a pissed off civil servant who was having a bad day. She had very little power in life but what she had she wielded like a hammer. I was the supplicant seeking a favor from the ruler of the campsite assignments and knew it would be best if I acted that way. A little understanding, it turns out, goes a long way.

I put on my most likable grin. “We're in slot 151 and...”

She cut me off. “They have until 2 to leave.”

“And that's fine. But I was wondering if there were some empty slots somewhere to pull our trailer into. I'm really not a very good driver and I would hate to have to haul that thing all the way into town to wait until two. Do you have anything that's not full?”

“Nothing on the lake,” she said. Her tone wasn't quite as curt.

I continued. “I'm not picky, really. It doesn't have to be on the lake. Whatever you've got would be fine.”

She sighed, the tightness drained a bit from her face. “I've got slot 121 and 76. 76 is a drive through if you have problems backing.”

“76 would be fine,” I said trying to keep my grin from shit eating stage. The deal wasn't sealed yet.

The ranger did some stuff at the computer then gave me the slot assignment.

“Thanks,” I said. “Try to have a good time until the next rush.”

She actually smiled back and waved.

I hit the door and THE grin spread across my face like peanut butter on Mrs. Beards. This is the grin my wife hates. Its the one I get when I'm inordinately pleased with myself.

I climbed in the truck and showed Debbie the assignment. “How? What did you do?”

“I just smiled and asked nicely.”

She hit me. “I was not rude to that woman! I was nice!”

I looked at her still grinning. “You think its cute when Zack does it. Where do you think he got it from.” Zack if famous for people giving him stuff.

Debbie smiled a little but still seemed unwilling to let it go.

“We got it baby. We got one of the best spots in the park!”

Debbie cheered up and thanks to a level pad and a drive through camp site our setup was the easiest yet. No backing up and pulling forward four times to get the trailer centered. Just drive up and put the truck in park.

The campsite was beautiful. It was across from our last Inks Lake site. It has a huge drive, 5 large trees, a grill and a fire pit. The lake was just across the street.

As I unhooked the trailer Zack requested his bike. I took it out and he took off with Debbie yelling out the boundaries as he rounded the first corner. He drove back and then down a trail. When he rode back up he had a friend with him. It takes Zack about 5 minutes to find a friend anywhere we go.

Other notable events on day 1 involved the renting of a canoe. I'll have more on that in my next post.

'Til then,
Cheers.

Camping for Geeks

2009-01-22T18:07:00.009-06:00

My wife loves to camp. She loves tents and cook stoves, sleeping bags and camp fires. Myself: not so much.

Zack takes after my wife in loving the outdoors. Given his preference he'd spend most of his time outside with the dogs. My preference is to spend time in front of the TV or the computer. Yes Virginia, I'm a couch potato.

Recently I received some bad news. I'm in the beginning stages of hypertension which is also known as high blood pressure. This means changes to diet and activity levels. Given my desire for a sedentary lifestyle in familiar surroundings it seemed logical the best way to break out of the rut would be to get me out of the familiar surroundings into something a bit more privative without the luxuries of home. But I really don't like camping.

But there are things I enjoy that are camping like. I love sunsets and lakes, I like people watching and I enjoy setting by campfires. I felt there might be a compromise, a camping trailer!

So, off to Craig's list we went to find a nice used RV trailer that would pull comfortably behind our truck. What we found was a Jayco 29 footer that we three years old. In my opinion, the best deals are to be found in an economic downturn. Folks are tightening up and looking to get rid of luxury items.

The couple selling the trailer had kept it up well. The inside was immaculate. The outside was in good shape as well showing only a little wear during its three years of existence.

The camper has a queen size bed up front, a nicely appointed kitchen with a three burner range and oven, microwave oven, refrigerator with freezer, two cable TV connections, a full on bottom single on top bunk bed, a bathtub with shower and vanity sink and, best of all, a toilet. The couch and dining table also make into a bed. All told it could sleep 8 in relative comfort. The side also slide out so when you have the trailer set up the thing is fairly spacious.

So we purchased the trailing with a quick loan from our local credit union. Credit is still easy to come by if you have a good credit score. The process, in my opinion, is almost too easy.

So, deeper in debt but with a happy family we look for a good first location in order to loose our camper virginity. We had several folks recommend Inks Lake and so off to Burnett Texas we went. For anyone interested in Texas State parks, I recommend checking out the Park Finder. There really are parks a short distance from just about anyone in Texas.

Inks lake is very nice. It is one of Texas' a constant level lake kept that way by siphoning off water from lakes further up river. I wonder which politically savvy resident managed to pull that one off.

The facilities were clean and well kept. The park store had lots of goodies and allowed you to rent canoes and paddle boats. The trails were fun and the sunsets were just this side of heaven. This was my first camping experience and it was great.

Zack enjoyed it as well. Below is a picture of Zack blissfully fishing.

Dream Your Dreams

2008-11-09T19:57:00.001-06:00

We're full of dreams both good and bad
of things we've missed and things we've had

Reflections of our inner thoughts
Of things so noble and things so not

Yet who we are is in our dreams
Reflect our hopes and livelong themes

So dream you hearts desires and fears
Laugh the laughs and cry the tears

They illuminate the patterns of our soul's dense weave
The underpinnings of who we are and what we believe

Ubuntu 8 and HP Deskjet F4280

2008-11-09T16:00:00.005-06:00

My mother passed away recently bequeathed me a large number of old photos. I wish to save these treasures from the ravages of time and share them with others easily. Scanning them is the obvious solution but I"m afraid to use my old HP OfficeJeet K80 for the task. It has a scanner but you load the original like a FAX machine and I'm afraid this would damage the photos so I purchased a brand new HP DeskJet F4280 for the task. I got home with my new technological goody and prepared to scan away.

Note: I love Linux. Its a great operating system that takes a lot less system resources than Windows but there are times I just want to plug in my new piece of hardware and have it work. I you are that sort of person Linux is not necessarily for you.

I plugged the new device into my old home built computer and got an error. It simply would do a thing with it. So, I booted up my old laptop, discovered I had a bad disk drive, installed a new disk drive (we all have a spare laying around, right?), installed Ubuntu 8 on it and tried it. Same problem. Damn!

So, I hit the forums. The problem seemed to be that HP devices are controlled by something called HPLIP. HP decided to sidestep creating a new driver for everything that came out developed a single package which controlled all the HP devices attached to the various flavors of Linux.

The forum gurus stated I needed to upgrade to the latest version of this software if I had any hopes of getting the device working. But, as with everything involving Linux, it just wasn't that simple. I was running hplip 2.8.8 and needed hplip 2.8.10

I downloaded a run file named hplip-2.8.10.run from http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/install/install/index.html . Its simply a run file you execute by typing
sh hplip-2.8.10.run

Well, it almost worked. The thing hung up on the first step and would not go any further. I let the thing sit for an hour and still nothing.

I had tried to install Java docs earlier and for some reaons the java docs caused every install to hang afterwards. I'm still not sure why so I went to symantec package manager and unstalled java docs (although it never fully installed) and, for good measure, the existing hplip install.

After that, it installed fine and I saw the new print drivers in my printer setup window.

So now I can scan beauties like this

I can't believe I ever looked that young.

VMWare and Ubuntu Linux 7.10

2007-12-31T13:20:00.000-06:00

I wanted to get an install of XP on my Ubuntu box and so downloaded VMWare server (its free) from here and found a howto here which I will quote throughout this post.

The first step is to load some of the Ubuntu modules you'll need to compile the vmserver via aptitude. Run the following command

sudo aptitude install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential (which requires your install cd)

Next install xinetd

sudo aptitude install xinetd

Per the instrustions from hotowforge, I went to the following site and downloaded the latest any-to-any patch. You'll need this patch in the middle of your install. http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=76957&tstart=0

Untar the vmserver tarball you downloaded.

tar -xvzf

Change directory into the resultant directory (there will be only one) and run

sudo vmware-install.pl

I accepted the defaults with the possible exception of the default vmware file location (you'll want it on a partiton with some space) and the following question you show answer NO to.

Before running VMware Server for the first time, you need to configure it by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl". Do you want this program to invoke the command for you now? [yes]

Answer NO. You will then exit the installation script.

Now you'll want to run the patch you downloaded. Untar that file and descend into the resulting directory.

sudo ./runme.pl

Again, accept the defaults. The script modifies the installed vmware software. At the end you will again be asked to run the vmware-config. Answer YES this time.

After that completes, start vmware with the command

vmware

If you did everything right, the vmware console should appear. At this point you'll need to create a new virtual machine. If your machine once ran a microsoft product, you can reinstall on the new virtual machine but you'll need the license code off the old box. Alternately, you can install a new copy of Ubuntu or any other operating system supported by VMWARE.

So, to create a new guest OS you tell the vm server to create it, give it resource such as disk and memory. A note here is to use the defaults the first time you create an instance and, if you us FAT file system as a backup, allow vm server to split the created disk into 2 GB chunks.

After you have the VM created, put your OS install CD in and tell the instance to boot. It should read the CD and install the whatever OS you've selected. Follow the normal install procedure for that OS. The only additional step I recommend is to install vmtools into the new image once its up and running and has all the patches you wish to install.

Vmtools allows you to resize the screen above 460x680 and allows you to cut and paste between host and virtual machine.

All in all it was a fairly painless process outside of the OS install.

Galowwy LIVES!!!

2007-12-07T14:03:00.000-06:00

I am happy to report that all is well in the fish tank. All five fish somehow survived the initial three week period of the tank cycle. Galowwy now swims regularly around the tank with the others so all seems well. I also discovered the Galowwy is a Mickey Platy as well. It was hard to spot the mouse markings among the darkly colored scales but its there, sure enough.

My wife took a water sample into the pet store to determine if we could add more, less fragile fish than the indestructible platies. The fish guy stated that our water was too acidic. This is an odd fact since we have well water and that water is known for being too alkaline.

The pet store guy indicated that our addition of shells and the castle might be the cause. NOT THE CASTLE!! That is the single coolest feature ever to grace the inside of any fish tank.

We decided to remove the shells and await the next test. Time will tell whether we are ever ready for fragile fish. Then again, maybe we should just stick with platies.

Update:
Well, it turned out what we had here was a failure to communicate. The fish guy stated our PH is too high which indicates our water is too alkaline not too acidic. Now this makes sense since our water is surrounded by limestone down in the well. I also determined that our castles, is indeed, plaster which add to the alkalinity.

So now our choices are to remove the castle (never!) and remove about a quarter of the water and replace it with bottled water or we can buy fish that actually like a high PH. Unfortunately these fish also eat platies and that's a life lesson I'm not quite ready to teach my four year old.

Genuine Plastic Plants

2007-11-11T14:48:00.000-06:00

In hitch hikers guide to the galaxy, the advertisement for robots was something like "your plastic pal who's fun to be with." Marvin, the paranoid android was anything but fun but did make the series much more interesting.

I think the same can be said for aquarium plastic plants. They don't do much but they do make the tank more interesting. As a bonus, the fish seem to like them.

I became concerned about our fifth fish. He's the one that's darkly colored and spends most of his time under the castle. His name has ranged from Rebel, to Gollum, to Goblin, to Glowy to Galowy. Some of the information I read on the internet stated that platies can be shy when first introduced to a new tank and some hide for a while.

I decided the fish may need a bit more cover to come out from under the castle so Deb, Zack and I headed to the local pet store to buy some genuine plastic plants (GPP). My first tendency was to get real plants but the store owner guided us away from this decision. His concern was that plants make new tanks more complicated and can lead to algae problems.

While at the pet store, I described Galowy's plight of alway hiding in the castle. The owner seemed to thing the fish was suffering from the toxicity of the water. The term is called tank cycling and its the time that the bacteria form that convert fish waste into whatever they convert fish waste into.

Before the colony forms, ammonia and nitrates build up in the tank. The first set of sacrificial fish's job is to bring the bacteria with them so the water can support other, less fragile fish. So the owner said Galowy might be suffering from nitrate build up in the fish's blood stream. I came away from that conversation feeling guilty for naming the seed fish but not guilty enough to forgo the purchase of some GPPs.

We picked the plants that looked like they would fit in the tank. We bought two long and one short of different colors to give the tank a little variety. Zack was ecstatic to have the chance to add some new stuff to the tank and have the opportunity to actually put his hand in the water.

We added the plants and a few more shells to decorate. Zack giggled as he plopped two more shells in the water and watch them float to the bottom. I had to move the castle in order to situate the plants. Galowy swam out and joined the other fist for a while. It was nice to see it again. Galowy seemed to enjoy the additional hiding places as well.

Tangerine, the reddish orange fish, took to the new plants quickly, first tasting them and then swimming in and out readying his escape route from the tyrannical Mickeys. Tangerine is the explorer of the five always swimming new ways through the maze that's become our tank.

Sunrise, the pretty orange, yellow and black fish swims the perimeter trying to stay out of the Mickeys way and, by and large, does a good job of it.

As for the Mickeys, they tasted and re-tasted the GPPs hoping, somehow, they would suddenly become edible.

Galowy has since gone under the castle again. I think we'll move the structure once we feed again so that fish actually has a chance to eat.

Fish Tank, Day 2

2007-11-07T08:25:00.000-06:00

As reported yesterday, we now have fish in our fish tank. Four of the fish seem to be doing fine the fifth, however, is hiding under the Castle and refuses to come out. The fish's original name was Rebel since it refused to swim with the other fish. I've since renamed it to Gollum because it to hides from the light in a cave. I still count it as the odds on favorite to go belly up first.

Meanwhile, Mickey and Minnie, the two Micky Mouse Platies, have become a bonded pair of sorts. Mickey never leaves Minnie's side unless he's going to to harass either Sunrise or Tangerine. These two rule the tank and the other fish get out of their way.

Sunrise is my favorite having colors going from black to orange to yellow. Its a very pretty fish. Tangerine is Zack's favorite so far. This bright orange fish was once Mickey's favorite target but the bully mouse fish seems to pick on Sunrise more these days.

UPDATE:
As of noon today Gollum was out of the cave and swimming around the tank. I've read a bit online that Platies may be shy at first. Its either that of the fish is preggers and off getting ready to give birth.

FURTHER UPDATE:
Gollum has received a new name from Zack. Gollum's new tank name is Glowee. I'm not sure if Glowee is the proper name for a darkly colored fish but I'm sure there is some brilliant four year old logic to it.

Zack stormed into the house and I told him there was a surprise in the tank. He had yet to see Glowee/Gollum. The little man jumped up and down yelling "He's out, He's out." He then named the fish.

Note: Glowee is still the odds on favorite to go belly up first.

Fish Tank, The Beginning

2007-11-06T13:48:00.001-06:00

As time goes by, kids develop along certain predestined paths. We are now fully in the pet phase of Zack existence. This is the time when there is no animal, no matter how gross, that Zack would not enjoy having for a pet.

That being said, he's always wanted a fish tank ever since seeing Finding Nemo. Well, Deb and I finally broke down and bought twenty-nine gallon fish tank. But its not just a clear, water-filled, piece of furniture with pretty fish in it. Its a money disposal unit as well. Just put money in and watch it vanish.

Because you can't just have a tank sitting on a table. Oh no. You need a stand, a filter, a heater and special little rocks that go at the bottom. I wonder how fish in the wild survive without special little rocks but I'm assured by the pet store people that special little rocks are important to fish survival.

Now, I'm a fantasy nut so when it came time to decorate there would be no pirate ship, palm trees and treasure chest in my tank. Oh no. I had to have a castle and, being me, I had to have a big one. I still haven't added up how much the fish tank and its accessories cost, but I'm thinking its close to $500.

I'm sensitive to sum since the new computer monitor I want costs half that amount. I could even have an aquarium screen saver with real water filter noises coming out of my computer speakers as well. I'd never have to worry about belly up fish unless I programed it to have belly up fish. But I digress.

The steps to setting up a fish tank include buying it, the filter, the heater, the special little rocks, the castle, and the stand. You set this up in a nice location (which you'll want to change but only after you have 100 lbs of water in the tank), turn the filter on, and wait for two days.

I'm not really sure about the two days thing but I'm told by the same guy that says I need special little rocks that the water needs to filter for a while before I add any fish to it. I wonder how long water in the lake has to sit before the fish can swim in it.

So I waited for two days and added my first five fish (just a few minutes ago). You start with cheap fish that you won't cry over when they go belly up (whether programmed or not). The kind I purchased are called Platies. I have two Micky Mouse Platies, one gold and yellow Platy, one gold/orange Platy and one Blue/Gray Platy. I'm sure Zack will name them appropriately but there working names are Micky, Minnie, Sunrise, Tangerine, and Rebel.

These 'seed' fish are hardy and serve a very important purpose. Each fish carries with them a set of bacteria that help break down fish waste. Since these little guys are tough, they can survive in a new tank long enough for the bacteria colony to take up residence in the special little rocks. Once the colony is established, less hardy yet prettier fish can be added to a balanced ecosystem.

The whole process takes about three weeks. After that you take a water sample in and they test the ammonia levels and let you know if other wimp fish can live in your tank.

I'd also like to add a few live plants to the tank but the pet store folks tell me its better to get the tank established first before adding them. They promote algae growth and so you need to know what you're doing before adding them.

I feel a little sorry for the starter fish. They have a tough job and an uncertain future. They are the tank trail blazers giving their all for the others that follow.

I'll keep you updated on who goes belly up first (my money's on Rebel).

Failure to Recover

2007-10-25T09:04:00.000-06:00

I have really old computers. You may think this odd with my being in the tech industry but I never go out and buy 'the next big thing' until it is superseded by at least two more 'next big things'. Its analagous to never buying a new car and letting someone else pay the 'drive off the lot' fee.

My personal computer has been a Dell Inspiron 8100 for some time. This thing is at least 6 years old and had begun to show its age. I run linux on my personal machines since it runs faster and in a smaller footprint than MS stuff and trends toward more reliable.

I like linux and I like the Ubuntu brand of linux for my personal use. Its reliable and easy to use without the normal issues of upgrading found in MS products. I did, however, get bit when I tried to upgrade from 7.04 to 7.10 (Feisty Fox to Gutsy Gibbon). The darn upgrade hung halfway through hosing my laptop. So, I created a 7.10 CD on another machine, mounted it on my laptop and proceeded to recover the files to my external USB via a combination of tar and gzip (also known as a tarball).

I wiped the disk on the laptop and proceeded to restore my data. This is when horror struck. The tarball was corrupt. The reason, I suspect, is that my usb is formated for the old windows FAT file system which has an upper limit of 4 GB. The tarball was bigger than that.

I tried everything I knew to try but I couldn't get past the corruption. Googling only brought back windows solutions to the corrupt tarball. I thought this very odd. Either I was missing something obvious or no one else had run into this issue.

I finally found a product for windows called gzrt which restored broken gzip files. It is a C program that comes with a make file. Of course, since I had a new install I didn't have a C compiler so I downloaded G++ the GNU C++ compile then found I was missing the zlib library which I also downloaded.

Once compiled, I lauched it against my corrupted backup
./gzrecover backup2.tar.gz

This made a file called backup2.tar.recover. Since tar doesn't work agianst bad files I used cpio to extract the data.
cpio -F backup2.tar.recovered -ivd

After that all was well. All my precious files came back.

Lessons learned include
1) FAT sucks.
2) Gzip and Tar should allow for more robustness.
3) Thank God for other geeks out there who have run into the same problem and taken the time to find a fix.

Learning To Fly

2007-10-03T09:20:00.001-06:00

Well, we're off on another Zack sports event: Gymnastics!

Now, to start off, be it known that my son is not the most naturally gifted athlete. True, he can run further and faster that most kids his age and he somehow manages to hit a softball I throw him with his over sized bat. I tell him to use the smaller T-ball bat but he likes the cool red bat with the flame job. His choice of form over function disturbs me. I chalk it up to his two teenage half-sisters who's life revolves around image. But I digress.

Zack likes to go things alone. He doesn't like team sports. Its too much of everyone doing the same thing at the same time. BORING! Zack deplores that for some reason.

At play, Zack goes from place to place in the yard. He enjoys driving his Jeep, riding his bike or trike, throwing and batting balls, feeding the neighbor's horses, or just running around with our dog Milo. Since there are no other kids around he either plays by himself, Milo or my wife and I. Of course, finding frogs and insects is high on his list of enjoyments as well but the thing he loves best is to fly.

Teamwork is a foreign concept to Zack. His soccer experience was a poor one. He didn't like going out on the field. I think it was due to his fear of failure. We encourage, bribed, threatened and pleaded but Zack refused to take to the field during a game.

Gymnastics seemed a better choice for Zack. Its an individual sort of sport that makes use of his drive and energy. Initial signs were encouraging as his first trip to class was met with enthusiasm and, more importantly, participation.

I was out of town his first class. When my wife called and told me Zack had fun at class I almost yelled for joy. Finally we found something Zack liked to do with others. I wanted to see this for myself and went with my wife to see Zack jumping around and hanging from bars.

Zack did go to class and started to play with others. He has problems with staying in line, however. He doesn't stand in many lines and so the concept is foreign to him. Why would you stand in line when there is a perfectly good trampoline with no one on it.

After that class, where the coaches had to wrangle Zack into line, everything changed. He no longer wanted to go to class. He refused to do more than step inside the door. I admit, I was ready to admit defeat and chalk it up to another soccer experience.

Three times we tried and three times we failed to get Zack into class. On the last go around, I had to work and so Debbie took Zack by herself. He refused to go in and so she brought him home. He cried all the way saying he wanted to go back but there seemed no point if he would not participate or even go into the gym. The all-to-familiar soccer feeling set in and I assured myself this would be another bust.

So, we were going to give gymnastics one last shot. This time I was up to bat trying to entice Zack into class. Zack was conflicted about going. First he said he wanted to go then, in the next sentence, said he didn't want to go. Zack was one stressed four year old.

I decided to try. Debbie insisted. To be honest I would have been happy enough to go home but I sucked it up, bought Zack some cheese sticks at Sonic ( that always seems to help ) and drove him to the YMCA.

It started the same; Zack refused to go in. I asked him why. He said the teachers 'looked mean to him'. I looked at the coach. Andrew didn't look that mean to me but I did notice he scowled from time to time.

I told this to Zack. He looked at me with sad eyes and said, "No, he looked me AT me." A thunderbolt of understanding struck. Obviously during Zack's previous line jumping the coach gave him a stern look.

The solution, it seemed, was to get Zack past the 'mean coach' thought process. The male coach had an assistant who was near the door so I motioned her over. "Look Zack, she doesn't look mean to me."

The young Y staffer took the cue and put on a big smile and invited Zack over to his group. Zack didn't want to go so I held his hand as we walked over. The male coach gave Zack a big high-5 as he joined the group and that, it seems, is all it took.

Zack participated for the rest of the class. Yes he still left the line to wander around but this time the coaches were better prepared and asked him to rejoin. I became involved once when Zack said he was ready to leave. I offered one small bribe of visiting the Y pumpkin patch. Other than that, it all went OK.

In the war that is child rearing, this was a victory... and I have photographic evidence.

The Reasons For War Are Often Not Reasoned

2007-08-05T09:12:00.000-06:00

Wars are fought by groups, not people. This group can be a state, a county, a city, gang, religious group or a nation. When groups declare war and fight, the dead are called casualties. If a person kills another, the dead are called victims. In either circumstance, people are dead.

The motivations are remarkably similar in both war and murder. A man my be angry at another and therefore decide to kill the other. Similarly, one group can be so angry at another and so decided it must declare war to remove the threat.

Fear is another great motivator for taking another's life. If you fear harm from another to you or those you love then you may decide or be forced into taking another's life. Some would call this noble as a man kills someone threatening his family. Other times it is not as a man shoots another who is simply walking across some property. Likewise nations can go to war for what the fear another nation will do. In WW2 we were attacked by the Japanese but the nation we really wanted to fight was France... sorry, Germany. We feared Hitler and and the rest of the Axis (well, Italy not so much) and needed to get into the war.

Unfortunately, greed is another factor in war and murder. People kill people over possessions and likewise nations go to war over possessions. Whether its middle east oil Afganni uranium nations will sometimes take what they do not possess. Men will do the same killing another for the mere acquisition of property or goods.

Another emotion involved in violence is that of power. If a person or a nation feel untouchable they can often do things that wouldn't enter the mind of someone more vulnerable. Thus a powerful man man order the murder of another just because he feels he can get away with it. Likewise, a powerful nation may not fully consider the ramifications of going to war too easily thinking they are powerful enough to avoid any negative consequences.

Desperation is the final emotion I will consider in the essay. In many ways it is the exact opposite I think it is often the leading cause of criminal murders. Many more people die or lose property due to a criminal or drug abuser in a desperate situation than by organized crime killing someone who became 'inconvenient'.

So, why do we go to war and why to people murder? Murder is simple. One of the previously described emotions comes into play overriding the fear of being caught. War is as simple in a dictatorship or monarchy. The leader simply decides his country will go to war and sends the soldiers to the line. In republics or democracies it becomes a much more complex affair.

First the leaders much convince the rest of the group or the group's representatives of the need for war. At times this is easy such as the case of a sneak attack or the underlying hatred for another group overwhelms all sense of reason. Other times it is more difficult and the leader must build the case for ward.

In the case of either democracy or dictatorship the war can become unpopular if it lasts for long. The length of time for a democratic war seems to be around four years. Dictatorial wars can last longer but come at greater peril of having the government overthrown. Democracies just elect someone from the opposition who ends the war. This is an overthrow or sorts, but without the violence.

And so to go to war, leader's much tap into his group's negative emotions. Note, this doesn't just apply to war. It is often the way leaders motivate there followers. In American politics you see all sorts of examples of Democrats dehumanizing Republicans as baby starving, hate filled religious fanatics. You see similar statements from Republicans calling Democrats socialistic property thieves who want to give all your money to unwed, pregnant Mexican illegal immigrants.

One of the worst examples of this in the last century was Hitler. He preached that the Aryan nation was superior to the rest of humanity. The sub-humans should serve the Aryan nation or be cast into the ovens. He used every negative emotion to convince the German people war was the only answer.

Hitler used race as his tool of choice. This turns out to be a very effective tool for motivation. Humans have a need to feel a part of a group and there are few stronger group ties than race. The South used it as a way to keep Negroes enslaved and the United States used it as a justification to bring civilization to the Red Man. The fact that civilization came at the price of a huge land grab is beside the point.

Family is a stronger bond than race. Many family and tribal feuds happen just by virtue of the fact 'one of them did something to one of us'. The Arabs have s saying that goes something like “Me against my brother, my brother and I against our cousins, me and my cousins against the tribe, my tribe and I against the world.” Other than an interesting insight into the Arab mind, this also sums up man's natural emotions regarding family ties and loyalties.

Leaders use Nationalism, or more correctly regionalism, to trump race if the national identity runs strong. This is the case in the United States but not so much the case in places like Iraq. Nationalism runs strongest in the racial majority as they have seen the greatest benefit but you see nationalism in immigrants and their children who choose to move to a country for a better way of life. Nationalism runs more weakly in the minorities who feel exploited by those in power.

Religion seems to trump all other bonds. It slices across race, family and region. Since many are raised from birth to believe a certain way and, more detrimentally, in certain texts, a clever leader can use those beliefs and text to acquire power to convince a people to perform all sorts of heinous acts.

Note, before the flame wars start please read the following text.

I'm not saying faith is bad. I'm not saying religious texts are bad. What I'm saying is that a clever person, also known as a rules lawyer, can take the portions of the text needed to make a point and ignore the rest which contradicts that point. An example would be an unscrupulous Christian televangelist who used the Bible to con millions of dollars from old widows.

Some religions lend themselves better to violent/immoral manipulation than others. The Koran, for instance, replete with references to killing the infidel is particularly vulnerable to power hungry clerics looking to peddle influence through the death of others. Because religion is often taught from childhood, it is often difficult to contradict with logic and reason.

Seemingly worse these days are the ISMs. An Ism allows you to associate with a group with a common belief system. Indeed, Isms take the place of religion in many lives. While Isms normally start with a reason, rather than a faith, they become a faith unto themselves.

Environmentalist, these days, seems to be the secular world's answer to God. They start with a good premise; we should protect the environment since polluting it is bad and has negative consequences. OK. I don't know many who would disagree with that but the leaders of this movement move to strike down anyone who disagrees with their conclusion. Indeed, the environmentalist leaders use a skillful bait and switch stating that anyone who disagrees with their conclusion obviously disagrees with their premise. Their reaction bears a disturbing similarity to medieval witch hunts.

The environmentalist witch hunt is a microcosm explaining why group leaders (nation, race, religion and ism) use family, race, region, and belief system as motivations. It keeps people from thinking about the consequences of actions and thus makes it easier to lead a group to action; i.e. war.

Nations. religions and movement honor those who fight for them because they must. The motivation of honor, glory and reward, either in this life or the next, does much to motivate a soldiery. As it turns out honor, glory and riches is the best weapon old men have to use on the young to motivate them to fight.

As an interesting corollary, positive emotions such as joy, happiness and love are seldom used for such actions as killing and war. Oh, you hear of the odd case when someone loved another so much they had to put and end to their lives but such cases are rare.

So is there ever a reason for war. I believe there is but the key word is 'reason'. Reason here is used in the thoughtful interpretation of facts vs. finding facts to support the underlying emotions of fear, anger and greed. The only positive reason I can imagine is protection. In theory, democracies fight wars of protection and try to incite changes in unfriendly governments through success and the quality of that democracies ideas not by imposing democracy on others through brute force.

Indeed in Christendom, protection is the only way to motivate a people to war. Since, in theory again, Christians believe in love, peace and charitable giving, Christians cannot support a war that involves greed, anger, fear, desperation, or power hoarding. I think history is full of counter examples but again, we're talking theory here.

So what is my appraisal of war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Americans may say we went to war to 'free' the Iraqi people but most honest individuals will say it is because we feared what Saddam Hussein would do. It was fear that made us attack Iraq just as it was anger that made us attack Afghanistan. When a country goes to war saying it is 'protecting national interests' you can translate that into greed or desperation to hold onto what's theirs. While the American people were sold on the idea of freeing a repressed people and protecting those at home from foreign attack, I feel the stronger motivators were anger and fear but in the end history will be the judge. My fear, however, is that history often is written by the victor so we may never know.

We were ready to support military action because we were attacked. We used our emotions to filter through facts and come to the conclusion that killing other people was a good idea. When war was joined our nation rallied behind the troops and our leaders. Much like the environmental movement, criticism of the operation was stifled by our nations leader using the same tactic. If you disagree with the plans them you disagree with our premise and therefor a witch; i.e. you are unpatriotic.

My conservative friends, at this point, are yelling at the screen calling me a turncoat who let liberal Austin convert this red neck into an anti-war zealot. Well, this isn't really the case.

If we had won the war easily I most certainly would have been part of the crowd celebrating our great victory. Since the war in Iraq hasn't gone well, it gives us time to reflect on what went wrong. I was a strong supporter of the war in the beginning. I still support battling the hatred the Islamist spread if not the way we are doing it. But I feel that violence, is not the answer. It is a tool to make other nations do what is in America's best interest but I no longer hold to the illusion that we went to war for the Iraqis. We went to war because of anger and fear. Freeing the Iraqis and Afghanis was a justification, not a reason.

I believe it turned out the Rumsfeld was wrong to fight the war on the cheap. Too few troops were deployed to maintain peace which gave America's enemies a chance to grow strong. Likewise in Afghanistan, if people like John McCain hadn't insisted on B52 strikes to weaken the Tabliban then we would have never won there. Likewise, in Iraq, we should have deployed more troops to ensure the security there long enough to win the peace.

Sadly we lost the peace in Iraq and Al-Qaida won. The country was destabilized. Now we require more troops to do what should have been done earlier and we have the Bush administration to thank for it. Fiscal responsibility, in this case, damn near cost us the war.

The American left now sees weakness from Bush's failure and is capitalizing on it. They now use anger, fear, and quest for power to fuzz the issue without seeing the consequences of an early withdraw. We see signs of improvement on the groud as the surge gets under way but you would never know this if you listen to the rhetoric on the left. This is nothing new. Its happened before.

In the Vietnam War the anti-war movement not only took American troops out of the war but cut off all funding to a relatively stable South Vietnamese government. When financial support was cut, the government collapsed and millions of deaths occurred as a result and yet the left celebrates their efforts in ending the war. In a way they have more blood on their hands than those on the right who supported the war.

So by now my friends on the left are cursing me as a 'stay the course' zealot. If you're confused, read on. Even if your not confused, read on. The conclusion is coming soon.

We find ourselves in a dilemma concerning Iraq. If we leave, that country will go through a similar level of atrocities as Vietnam. Millions will die in ethnic and religious cleansing. Groups/Nations that hate us will see weakness and motivate their followers to great violence and spread an ideology of hate on others.

So is there a 'reason' to continue the fight. I submit that yes, there is a reason but the reason had better be for the right reasons, if you get my drfit. We can't fight just to pummel a society into our brand of thinking. If we are to be successful, it must be in the war of ideas where we win not through force of arms. True, you can force a populace to do what you want through force. You can even make them democratic but in the end, if the old ways are still there, it won't make much to bring a people back to its roots of violence and totalitarianism.

It is the hearts and minds that much change and that is the war we should be fighting more effectivly. If we don't, then every American life lost is wasted. But if we can protect the Iraqis long enough for the ideas to sink in, then it will be a victory. Sadly, only time will tell if we have the national will to stay long enough to find out.

And so to conclude:

Leaders use negative emotions to lead their followers to negative actions.
Conversely, leaders use positive emotions to lead their followers to positive actions.
An emotional basis for going to war is bad. It should only be undertaken for protection.
Going to war for protection sake involves reason, not emotion.
Love, peace and charity should be the underlying principles of a good society, not greed, hatred, and anger.
If you hold a gun to someone's head, they will agree with you most of the time but to really change their mind, you have to convince them your ideas are better than theirs.

Eclipse RCP 2 (a noobs account)

2007-08-02T09:11:00.000-06:00

I'm going through the book Eclipse Rich Client Platform by McAffer and Lemieus and have been beating my head against the wall for a bit. In chapter four, they have you create an application named Hyperbola using the Hello RCP template. That all went well as I happily navigated the tutorial.

Now, here comes the part where I'm a bonehead. The book shipped with JDK 1.4 and Eclipse 3.1. The current version I'm using is Java 1.6 and Eclipse 3.3. Like an idiot I decided to try to navigate the book using the more recent distros. After all, who wants to use old stuff.

I noted some differences in my last blog about how things have changed. Well, here's another to add to the list. In chapter four they showed you how your plugin could remember the size and location of its window the last time the plug-in ran. Well, I left that in and spent a while trying to figure out why the tutorial in chapter five wouldn't work.

So, now for what went wrong.

When you use the Hello RCP template to generate a plug-in, it creates several java files. One of these is named ApplicationWorkbenchAdvisor.java. In chapter 4 they had you make the following modifications to that file.

public void initialize(IWorkbenchConfigurer configurer) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
configurer.setSaveAndRestore(true);
//super.initialize(configurer);
}

Well, for some reason when you make this change, it never calls createInitialLayout in Perspective.java which is what adds the new view to your perspective. So far I've tried running the configurer.setSaveRestore to true before and after the super class constructor but nothing seems to work.

I did eventually find a work-a-round at CT Armstrong's Blog. You can either delete the workbench.xml file from your target env or go to Run->Open Run Dialog and check Clear under Main->Workspace Data. You'll want to turn this back off or else you'll never save the position and size of your plug-ins window. The final version of my initalize method looks like this.

public void initialize(IWorkbenchConfigurer configurer) {
super.initialize(configurer);
configurer.setSaveAndRestore(true);
}

Good Luck(you'll need it)
Drifter

Eclipse RCP

2007-07-30T14:55:00.000-06:00

I recently decided to upgrade my skill set and add Eclipse RCP to my list of things I almost know how to do. I purchased a book on the subject and gave it a whirl.

The book exhorts you to have two environments; one for you development environment and one for your deployment environment. I already had the Eclipse JAVA development environment at 3.3 so I downloaded RCP and installed it into a new directory. After this, you must go into window-preference then expand Plug-in Development->Target Platform to set your target platform to the RCP install location. I found I had to reselect all the Plug-ins it found in the RCP install location.

Next you create your project and the plug-in. The book left out the important step of configuring the environment the first time you use the RCP installation target. This is ignored in most tutorials (or is new in 3.3) due to the fact that the writers already have their environment set properly at the time the tutorial was developed.

The first thing that bit me was that there are subtle changes in the 3.1 to 3.3 versions of RCP. When you create your first plug-in, you'll find that IApplication no longer has a run() method. These have now been switched to start() and stop(). This, of course, blows the code compare function given by the book since the code base for 3.3 is different from 3.1. I grit my teeth and plow ahead.

Your first tutorial doesn't do much but pop up a screen. When you generate the plugin you get the following java files: Application, ApplicationActionBarAdvisor, ApplicationWorkbenchAdvisor, ApplicationWorkbenchWindowAdvisor, and Perspective.

Application.java is called at startup. Think of it as your entry point into the plug-in.

Perspective.java is where you create any views or editors you want the users to see when the plug-in is first invoked.

ApplicationWorkbenchAdvisor.java handles the GUI event loop. It has the following methods that can be overridden.

initialize() - called first to do such things as parse the command link, register adapters, and declare images
preStartup() - called after initialize but before the first window is opened.

ApplicationWorkbenchWindowAdvisor handles the windows customization like titles, placement and size.

ApplicationActionBarAdvisor creates and customizes information in the menu bar, cool bar (called tool bar most places) and the status line.

I've finished my first tutorial now and and off to the second. I'll post my problems and solutions here as I run into them

It had issues as well but I was able, in the end, to get it working in 3.3. This is the first tutorial. It has links to two others.

Good Luck (you'll need it)

Ubuntu Upgrade

2007-05-14T08:17:00.000-06:00

I upgraded to Feisty Fawn version of Unbuntu. So far I found this problem with Rhythm Box.

http://johnny.chadda.se/2007/02/21/unlock-the-gnome-keyring-upon-login/

I finally gave up on it although I did learn a lot about passwords along the way. I eventually created a new key ring profile, then deleted the default one and renamed my new one to default. It didn't solve my problem but I did get past the one problem of not being able to edit it.

Other than that, everything in Ubuntu seven works well.

Here's an update: In a previous post I explained how to download and install Java 6. You don't need to undertake that long drawn out process any longer. It installs like any other package now. You still need to set the alternatives but the directory names are a bit different than my last post on the subject.

After you do the install via the normal package manager, do the following

sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/bin/java" 1
sudo update-alternatives --set java /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/bin/java
java -version

You can always go back to a previous version but first you're going to need to find out what javas you have installed.

sudo update-alternatives --list java

This should allow you to use the 'set' command to set java to a previous version.

Top 10 Things I Leared About Taking a 4 Year Old to France

2007-04-16T10:46:00.000-06:00

Most people just looked at me like I had a frog growing out of my head when I told them I was taking my son to France. After all, he's a rambunctious four year old and neither my wife nor I speak French. I have to admit, it was trying at times. Now that we are back I realize we have memories we'll keep forever. Some memories are fond ones. Others are memories we laugh at now. Of course some of the laughs are still a little manic but I'm sure this will pass in time.

But there were lessons learned from taking Zack. I've listed ten of them here in hopes others might be better prepared than I when taking a preschooler overseas.

A jet lagged 4 year old is no fun. You may logically realize you need to get on a sleep schedule fitting the current time zone but a four year old is ill-equipped to grasp this and will keep you up all hours wanting to play.
Paris, in one word, sucks. The people are in a hurry and therefor a bit rude. The drivers are insane. There are nice people there and thanks to all those that helped the lost Texans.
With a 4 year old, Paris sucks more.
Be prepared to eat lots of French food; mostly French Fries since McDonalds are everywhere and look just like their American counterparts.
The high speed train (TGV) is wonderful and much better than flying. With a child in tow, it gets even better since they have a lot of cars they can explore.
French food (once you get past McDonalds) is very good.
French wine is very good and available at a low price.
French is not an easy language to learn, and much like the dialect of the southern United States, drops the last few pronounced letters.
If you try to teach a child to say C'est Bon (translated "This is good") in French, he just says "Bon"
Once a 4 year old gets over his jet lag he has one good day then wants to come home.

Top things my wife learned about dealing with a four year old in France

4 year olds love trains, trams, buses and water and you will spend much time on and in these
4 year olds do not like to shop for food, clothes or anything other than trains, buses, planes…….
When a mom with child has a breakdown in the airport because they have missed their flight back to the states and has no way to contact her husband, the French airport staff are very accommodating and pleasant and they buy you food.
4 year olds do not like to hurry, even when there is only 15 seconds to get on and off the trams
4 year olds love to embarrass you (I have one memory of him sticking his bare feet in the face of passenger sitting next to him on the plane)
French bread is not fattening, of course it may be the 4 miles you have to walk to purchase the bread that causes that illusion
I do not think that feeding bread to the ducks is an acceptable thing to do in France
There is no grass around the sidewalks
There is dog poo around every tree along the sidewalks
Motorcycles drive fast on the sidewalks
The French love blond children, therefore reinforcing the “I am the center of attention” mentality

Of special note is the fact that Zack watched King Kong in French from the hotel room after being a complete snot when Debbie was trying to shop for shoes. Eventually Debbie gave up and returned to the hotel angry that her shopping plans fell through.

There is one scene where King Kong is sliding on the ice playfully with the heroine. Zack said, "Ah, he loves her. He wants to buy her shoes." Those of you without kids won't realize how truly funny that is.

Uninstalled Google Deskstop

2007-04-02T06:38:00.000-06:00

I had a situation with my work computer where I couldn't get google desktop to uninstall. For some reason the google desktop search engine had issues. Note, I love this product and found myself hurting at work because I didn't have access to it.

Here are the manual steps to uninstall.

How to manually uninstall Google Desktop Search
You can easily uninstall Google Desktop Search by going to Start > Programs > Google Desktop Search > Uninstall Google Desktop Search. If that didn't work, you may need to manually uninstall the program. Here is how:
TO EDIT THE WINDOWS SYSTEM REGISTRY:
As you may know, editing the Windows registry is a fairly advanced process. If you're not comfortable doing it yourself, you may want to contact your system administrator. That said, you should be able to solve the problem by deleting the following registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Desktop
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Google\Google Desktop

You'll need to restart your machine in order for this change to take
effect. Once you've done this, you can remove the program files for
Desktop Search. Here's how:

TO REMOVE GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH:
Open C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME-THAT-NO-LONGER-EXISTS\Local
Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Desktop Search. Delete all the
files in this directory.

You should now be able to successfully install and use Google Desktop
Search.

The above is from http://www.techlifeweb.com/google/desktop_tips.html

Magical Anniversery

2007-04-01T16:10:00.000-06:00

Since I travel for work, I accumulate a lot of travel points for airlines and hotels. For my wedding anniversary, I decided to cash a few of these in to give the wife a special night out.

We dropped Zack of at his grandmother's house for an all too infrequent night out alone.

I started with making reservations at the Austin Hilton. I'm a diamond member of their frequent stayer program so I requested a complementary upgrade to suite. Luckily for me, I got it. The room was near the top floor so we had a marvelous view of the city.

I also ordered flowers for the wife, a nice bouquet of flowers in her favorite color. She was so impressed with the suite that she, at first, did not notice them. I mentioned that it looked like we had some flowers. She read the card and gave me a big hug and smooch.

I had another surprise that was due to arrive so I thought we should leave before things took off and we'd get an embarrassing knock at the door in the middle of something. I told her we had access to the executive lounge and that they had food and wine up there. We were both starving so the ruse worked. By the time we got back to the room, champagne and chocolate covered strawberries were on the living room table.

It was truely a great day. As planned, around nine, we left and picked up Zack so we could go swimming. He was asleep by the time we reached the hotel. Deb and I were beat from a hard day of having a good time so we all went to bed.

I woke up at 4 a.m. and looked out the window over Austin, Texas. I was so shocked by the beauty of the skyline and the full moon I snapped a cell phone picture of it. Sadly, the picture doesn't do the image any sort of justice and so this blog is more for me than anyone else. Now I can look and remember one magical night with the woman I picked to share my life.

So how does someone top such a magical night? Well, for her birthday I'm flying her and Zack ot France thanks to Frequent Flyer miles. Usually travel is a pain in the arse. But its times like these that it doesn't seem so bad.

ImageMagick, Travel Pictures, and Getting Pictures to Import

2007-03-26T09:22:00.000-06:00

I had a problem importing photos on my Ubuntu O/S. I received the following error.

An error occurred in the io-library ('Could not claim the USB device'): Could not claim interface 0 (Operation not permitted). Make sure no other program or kernel module (such as sdc2xx, stv680, spca50x) is using the device and you have read/write access to the device.

It worked fine on my old Fedora Core system so I hit the web to find the answer. It only took a few minutes, and some help from Google, to find the answer. It appears to be a bug.

Here's the link to fix it.
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libgphoto2/+bug/91250

You can read the whole thing but here's the crux of it.

Edit /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libgphoto2.rules
replace
BUS!="usb*", GOTO="libgphoto2_rules_end"

with
SUBSYSTEM!="usb_device", GOTO="libgphoto2_rules_end"

On another subject, to change a bunch of photos at once, you can use a tool called ImageMagick. Here's a perl script I use to shrink photos for email or web posting. If you're using LINUX, you put it in a directory where your files are located and run it. At the end, you should wind up with some _sm.jpg.

#!/usr/bin/perl

## this perl script converts jpgs to smaller jpgs and set the maximum size.

$size = '640';
@files= `ls *.jpg`;
foreach $file(@files) {
chomp $file;
print "Infile is $file\n";
($outfile,$ext) = split(/\./,$file);
$outfile .= '_sm.jpg';
print "Outfile is $outfile\n";
$cmd = "convert -geometry $size $file $outfile";
print "$cmd\n";
system $cmd;
}

Here's another version that changes the formate from jpg to png. Note, you only need to change the filename extension to make this happen.

#!/usr/bin/perl

## this perl script converts jpgs to png and set the maximum size.

$size = '640';
@files= `ls *.jpg`;
foreach $file(@files) {
chomp $file;
print "Infile is $file\n";
($outfile,$ext) = split(/\./,$file);
$outfile .= '.png';
print "Outfile is $outfile\n";
$cmd = "convert -geometry $size $file $outfile";
print "$cmd\n";
system $cmd;
}

For more information about Image Magick, visit their site at http://www.imagemagick.org

Wives Complete, Children Change Part 1

2007-03-17T00:58:00.000-06:00

This was a small blog that, as I wrote it, expanded into a multi-part series. In this series I'll attempt to explain my personal philosophy of marriage and parenthood. As with most philosophies, mine is based on observations from my life and the lives of others.

In this installment, I'm going to talk about the reasons not to get married. In my opinion those reasons are

Your Parents
Your Friends
Yourself

If you marry young, the primary example you have of how a marriage should work is your parents. Your gut, visceral reactions to marriage stimuli will be that of one or both parents. It is only calm and reason that will overcome this ( or a lot of therapy ). Therefor, if your parents had a bad marriage, you should enter into the institution carefully. By way of explanation, I'll give you some of my history.

I was raised in a house with parents that fought constantly. I was told from an early age the only reason my father was still in the house was to see the children graduate high school. After that, we were informed, he was gone.

I'm the third of four children. My parents had two children and decided that was enough. They had their boy and girl and therefor the perfect 1950s nuclear family. On top of that, my brother Chris was a hellion. He brought stress and trouble weekly, if not daily. His antics had my mom near a breaking point.

So, seven years after Chris arrived, mom discovered she was pregnant with me. She insisted it was only appendicitis (that had gone on for five months) and went to the doctor to be diagnosed. I'm not sure what the doctor said or how he said it. I'm sure he was happy and expected mom to be happy as well. She wasn't.

She came home and threw her purse at my father who, more than likely, was reclining in that old red nagahide chair drinking beer from a tupperware 'glass'. When the purse missed my father my mom yelled for all the neighbors to hear, "You bastard. You got me pregnant!"

Dad just smiled.

Worse, on the day I arrived, Doctor Shelton brought me in all bundled in baby blue and told mom, "Congratulations, its a boy."

"Not another boy!" my mom screamed and began crying. Then as the doctor laid me on my mom she began another kind of tears. I'm told they were tears of joy. "He's so beautiful," she said.

I'm told I was the perfect baby and easy to raise. When my younger sister came three years later it wasn't such a shock. Mom had already resigned herself to a middle age of raising children.

God, my friends, always has the last laugh.

As time wore on, my mother changed from the perfect wife of the fifties to a liberate (in a sense) woman of the sixties and seventies. I'm told by my older siblings, that one day mom had had enough. It was almost as if she carried any slight or insult my father gave in a bag on her back. When she exploded, the bag was flung at my father and it was the gift that kept on giving. Unfortunately, this occurred when I was a pre-teen and kept going until dad have his first heart attack.

Something about my father's brush with mortality changed the relationship between my father and mother. Its as if father understood he could die soon and mother pondered a life without my dad and decided things should change. They had a happy marriage after that (more or less). Unfortunately that didn't happen until after I graduated high school.

Entering college, my opinion of marriage was a low one and that opinion remained until my thirties due to the second reason not to get married; your friends.

I had two close friends whose marriages failed. One married his high school sweet heart and stayed married for seven years. The other, married at the end of a whirlwind romance. Both friends were miserable at the time of divorce. I'd known each of them for a long time and had never known anyone as sad as friends when they lost their wife.

Now I'll be the first to say I had a low opinion of both of these women. It was that they were horrible people, it was just that they made my friends sad or treated my friends poorly during their marriage. It was always odd going to their house. I always felt as though I was intruding. In fact, you could tell that any time spent with a 'single friend' was considered bad by the wives.

So, my overall impression of the union of my friends was that marriage was a horrid institution to be avoided at all costs. In the interest of full disclosure, they both did much better on their second marriage.

The third reason not to get married is yourself. Maybe your parents were always happy. Maybe your friend are still unmarried or have happy unions. But deep inside, you know, you aren't ready.

If you're thinking this, my opinion is, you're probably right. If you haven't met someone you're willing to be with for the rest of your life or you don't want to give up your life as it is then don't get married.

When you meet the right person, it will be as if you didn't have a life before. You want to spend every waking hour with them and think nothing of giving up Friday Night Poker. When you find THAT person, then you're ready to make the leap.

In the next installment, I'll detail how I found Zack's mom and how we fell in love.

Until then....

Top Things I Learned While in Germany

2007-03-16T15:18:00.000-06:00

My job requires I travel a great deal. I don't really like this aspect of my job as it keeps me away from home. On the bright side, it does broaden my world view and lets me see how other people live on planet Earth

Normally I travel within the United States. Occasionally I travel overseas. During my career I've travel to England, Korea, Hong Kong, and Greece on business. On vacations I've visited Canada (not really a foreign country), Mexico, Scotland, and Ireland. I place California as an honorary foreign country list. While marginally part of the US it is, well, out there.

Today I'm in Germany for two weeks. I'm staying in Mainz City on the Rhein River. Mainz is a pleasant, old city which houses many museums and fine restaurants. Mainz was a major Roman fortress and the city has many museums dedicated to that time period. The city also houses the Gutenberg Museum with some of the original Gutenberg bibles on display. Basically, the city has a lot to offer any tourist.

From what I've seen so far, the rest of he country is equally as nice. The food is outstanding here. Never have I found a country that can cook steak like Germany. I come from Texas and from a family of ranchers. While I prefer my steak spiced differently than the Germans, I can't fault their selection of meat or their cooking method. When you order a medium steak here its medium all the way through. Heck, most Texas steak houses can't do that.

I think Germany has the best bread in the world. I'm on a diet. Correction, I was on a diet. The diet has suffered greatly here. For you see, Germans eat a lot of sausage, bread, cheese and potatoes. None of this is on my diet but I can't seem to stop eating it.

I haven't tried the beer yet. I know it to be good as I've had it in the past. I drink wine mostly these days and I have to say German wine is pretty good.

And so, on this St. Patrick's Day, I have a confession to make. Ireland has been replaced by Germany as favorite foreign country. In Germany the people are nice, the beer flows freely, and the countryside beautiful. My apologies Ireland, Germany blows you away in all categories.

So, now, the part you've been waiting for. Top ten things I've learned while in Germany.

1) German drivers are polite but fast. If you use your turn signal a German driver will slow down and let you in. In Austin a turn signal usually leads to the other driver speeding up and close the gap. The fast yet polite statement, at first glance, may seem to be a bit of an oxymoron but I think I have an analogy that fits; an armed society is a polite society. In the same vein, a fast driver is a polite driver in Germany.

2) 90% of all German work out clothes ( bike shorts, sweats, t-shirts ) are black.

3) The river Rhein is beautiful and rightly part of the World Heritage of Mankind.

4) Germans love sour kraut. For some reason I find this funny.

5) Germans are friendly and helpful. They smile when you try to speak their language and reply to you in English.

6) German waiters consider it rude if you leave their tip on the table. You should hand it do them. The tips here are smaller, only 5-10% of the tab.

7) German words make sense. Their language often puts words together to form a noun. This makes it an easy language to read once you learn the 'base' words.

8) Germans have a good world view. It is a proper mix of pragmatism and optimism.

9) Never present a German a problem unless you intend for him to solve it. He may take days but he will come up with a solution.

10) German food is Wundervoll!

Go Tigers

2007-03-16T14:33:00.000-06:00

Go Tigers!!!!

I'm forced to say that now for the mighty Tiger is the mascot/name of my son's very first soccer team. Zack has turned four, you see, so it is time for him to give up his childish ways and turn to sports.

Sports. Just say the word a few times. It rings with power. It rings with determination. It rings with parents living vicariously through their children. Sports; civilization's alternative to war.

We signed my son up at the local YMCA to play soccer. "He's too young," you might say. But I say that you are never too young for a photo op that makes your parents smile. And smile we did as Zack took to the field for the very first soccer practice complete with team jersey, his own bright red and black ball, and over sized socks that covered his little shin guards. Man, was he cute.

Deb and I beamed as Zack excitedly took to the field. Of course, he was the cutest kid out there. After all, he's OUR son. He was equally cute when he asked that Deb stay with him during practice. Man, was that cute. He was even cuter when the couch asked the kids to kick the ball to the line then kick it back. He was the cutest ever when he kept kicking the ball into the next field, then down the embankment, then over to another field full of children. The cuteness wore off when he kicked the ball into the road and ran after it with Deb and I chasing after our adorable son yelling.

After that, embarrassment set it. Zack really isn't into the whole team thing. You see, in his mind there is an 'I' in team. The 'I' stands for 'I want to kick the cool ball over here'. Zack spent the remainder of practice kicking the ball here and there. He even kicked the ball where the couch told him to... once. He kicked the ball into the net then shoved his face into the net thinking it felt cool to have his mouth out one hole and each eye through another.

All the other kids stayed in line and did as told. All the other kids gathered in a huddle and talked about how much fun they were going to have this season. Zack ran here and there kicking is bright red and black ball where the ball led. In his defense, he kicked it a lot straighter than the kids who listened. I'm holding on to that. I have to for there is little else.

In his defense, Zack is only one of two children that have never played before. The other, a girl who is a year older, couldn't kick the ball well at all. As I said, I have to hold onto something.

A lady who sat next to Deb and I (she talked to one of us as the other was playing Zack goalie) asked if Zack was an only child. In a way he is. He has two older half-sisters that are 11+ years his senior. So it turns out he has three moms and is the only child of his dad. With all this he is, as expected, rotten as heck.

For Zack believes he is the center of the universe. I don't see this as a good thing or bad thing. It simply is the way it is. At the very least, he knows he is loved and that's more than I can say for a lot of kids... but I digress.

Zack, as the lady said, acts like most only children. He does what he thinks is fun. Following a group is not his normal mode of operation. He leads. If others follow that's OK. If they don't, well, that's OK as well. He'll have fun whether they're there or not.

After the practice, Deb and I were tired. Zack thought soccer was the coolest thing ever. Not better than Christmas or a birthday but pretty darn cool none the less. He was excited about hitting the field again. Maybe next time we can actually keep him on the field.

I understand they don't keep score at this age. All they try to do is teach the children how to kick the ball and hope beyond hope that they manage to get it in the correct goal. They don't enforce the rules either. At first I wondered about this. Then as I saw Zack kick the ball through a neighboring group of kids I understood. Its not about the score its all about the game and the fun of playing the game.

Zack has one more practice before his first game. I can't wait to see that first game. Regardless of the outcome it will be cute. After all, this is Zack we're talking about. And I'm holding on to the fact that he will, at least, kick the ball straight.

Childhood Memories (old and new)

2007-02-28T20:27:00.000-06:00

I don't pretend to be a child development expert. I simply observe the goings on in my son's life and try to report them here so others might remember their children and smile or look forward to having their own kids someday. One of the most important things to look forward to in life is seeing your kids excited and happy about some big event.

The type of event isn't all that important but what is important is to remember when you were a child. Remember what it was like to go to a 4th of July parade? What about your first trip to the local lake each year? Remember what it was like, on a hot summer day, to pull a Popsicle out of the freezer and suck on it until you had brain freeze? Luckily when you have children those memories we would otherwise loose come back as we watch our children live through those life events.

At age three, Zack began to understand that Christmas was a big deal and that birthdays were nice. By age four he realized the titanic magnitude of these days. It was incredible seeing Zack look forward to Christmas this year; to see the anticipation of Christmas morning rise to almost unbearable levels.

But as good as Christmas was, Zack's 4th birthday was even better. After Christmas was over Zack asked if we could have Christmas again. I explained that it only came once a year. Although saddened by the fact, Zack accepted it the way one does April 15th. Then he heard the really good news, his birthday would come soon.

At first, this didn't seem to help him with the Christmas blues but as time progressed and his birthday got closer, the excitement began to build all over again. Then something amazing happened; Zack realized this was going to be HIS day. No one else would get presents, no one else would have their name on a cake, and best of all, no one get to blow out candles.

As a quick side note, the daycare in which Zack is enrolled has five children. Two other children there have birthdays within a week of Zack. We went to those parties last year but didn't invite any non-family members to Zack's previous parties. The theory was he was too young to know the difference. I think we might have been wrong.

When his friends arrive he was as excited as any four year old I've ever seen. The thrill of having his friends over, riding his motorized Jeep in the his yard, and playing in his room made for one happy Zachary.

But even that level of happiness was trumped when it came time for cake. Not just any cake, mind you, but Zachary's birthday cake with Zachary's candles. Candles which would be blown out by Zachary after THE SONG.

As everyone began to sing THE SONG, Zack began to tremble with excitement. He was literally shaking. It was finally here! His birthday with his song and, best of all, his candles to blow out. Somehow he avoided the stroke or heart attack that would befall any adult exhibiting such shear joy and excitement.

The present opening was almost anticlimactic. He received lots of cars. He's known as a speed freak and so most of his friends brought things that rolled. He also received a few other toys, some clothes from grandmothers, and a bicycle from Deb and I. But is wasn't the material objects he loved the most. His greatest joy came from having his friends over and having his birthday song sung to him.

The cars and other toys will break, or wear out, or become lost, the clothes will become too small but the memories of this day will linger. Oh, Zack may be too young to remember his fourth birthday party but I'll remember Zack's fourth birthday forever.

For you see, children are God's gift to memories. Seeing Zack live through these important events lets me remember what it was like when I went through them. And if not for Zack, I wouldn't remember them at all.

Barack Obama and the Aggie Chainsaws

2007-02-12T08:08:00.000-06:00

I don't normally have odd dreams, at least not ones that I remember but Saturday night brought on doozy of a dream.

It started with Deb, Zack and I returning home from a relative's house. I recognized the land marks up to a point then realized I was lost. There were sign posts everywhere but none of them pointed to Austin (home).

The wife said she thought the road to Houston would get us there so I turned South and found myself in a great valley filled with toy electric trains. I drove carefully to avoid running over the small devices.

The wife said "I'm so tired of this cracked windshield. Would you finally fix it?" I looked up and saw a broken windshield. It wasn't a single crack but looked as though a large rock had hit the windshield causing a spider web of cracks right in front of my wife. Luckily for us, I saw a windshield repair place just ahead.

So we drove into one of the car bays at Doc's Windshield repair and got out. They said they would have it fixed shortly. We walked into the waiting room and discovered Doc also sold denim overalls; the kind with the two straps that go over the shoulder and connect to a bib in front.

The wife and I found this amusing and walked around the store. We discovered a locker room where folks viewed their overalls. There were some extremely odd body shapes that walked in to view their purchase. Deb and I laughed.

Zack wanted to go outside so we walked out to find the other side of Doc's was a Rocky Mountain forest looking over a beautiful lake and Doc's had somehow turned into a log hunting lodge.

I heard a phone ring and several overalled workers answered by activating a speaker phone. The voices coming out of the speaker were two folks I recognized. It was the Earl brothers who run an IT consulting shop. They were telling the workers of a large job of running computer cables across the country and were informing the workers of their tasks.

At the end of the call I said 'Hi' and the two recognized me. While we were talking my wife called my cell phone telling me KASE 101 (an Austin radio station) had a contest and I should go there immediately and try to win a turkey. I asked where she was and she stated she was already there. I had talked to the Earl brothers for so long that the car was ready. While she was test driving it she heard about the contest and drove out to it.

"I've got no way to get there," I said.
"Bum a ride with someone," she said.

So I asked some of the overalled guys with odd body shapes if they would take me. We drove to the contest which was in the middle of a corn field. There was a poor turkey stretched out on a huge tree stump. The contest, it seems, was to chop the turkey's head off. The person overseeing the contest was none other then Barack Obama, presidential candidate.

Many others tried to sever the turkey's head and failed. So as soon as I arrived someone handed me an ax. I said, "this is too small."

Barack just smiled and said, "Don't worry. I have just the thing."

He opened up his campaign van. It was full of axes. He had large and small axes but what he had most of was Aggie chain saws.

FYI: An Aggie chain saw is a normal tree saw which consists of metal tubing bent with a saw blade connected to either end. The Aggie version of this has a length of chain in place of the saw blade. It supposed to be funny. I was just confused as to why Barack had a campaign van full of them.

Barack handed me a huge, headsman's ax like the one used in Braveheart. Everyone was standing around yelling, "Chop! Chop! Chop!" so, I chopped. The task was quickly done but no one was around after the ax fell. Even the poor turkey was gone.

The overalled workers called me back to an old Chevy pickup truck saying they had to get back. We listened to KASE 101 on the way and I chatted with the DJs Bama, Rob, and Julie on my cell phone. Bama said he didn't know how I chopped the turkey's head off since when he tried, he just screamed like a little girl. Rob said that wasn't that unusual for Bama to scream like a little girl. We all laughed.

My wife called again to say how happy she was that I won then the phone went dead. In the distance I saw mushroom clouds, the kind you get from a nuclear explosion, but these were phantom mushroom clouds. Not real but dangerous all the same. I started worrying about Zack and Debbie and how I would keep them safe. Panic set in and I awoke.

Not sure what all that means but it was odd enough to share.

Happy Monday

Automatix on Ubuntu Linux

2007-02-08T17:57:00.000-06:00

one of the forum guys, I loaded in Automatix which, amoung other things, provides links to the various multimedia codex. So far it just looks like a list of popular downloads. Seems like this could have been done with a web site vs. an application but it may download and install things that are in a non-debian install file.

I'll update the blog with the things I install from Automatix but below you'll find the intstructions for loading the software on Ubuntu Edgy.

 echo "deb http://www.getautomatix.com/apt edgy main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Second Step:

 wget http://www.getautomatix.com/apt/key.gpg.asc

Third Step:

 gpg --import key.gpg.asc

Fourth Step:

gpg --export --armor 521A9C7C | sudo apt-key add -

Fifth Step:

 sudo apt-get update

Sixth Step:

 sudo apt-get install automatix2

Uncivil Air Patrol

2007-02-02T09:46:00.000-06:00

or

Confessions of an egomaniac and future security guard

Some confessions are in order here. I was in band: not a band, the band. The band was a marching band and I began this ultimately uncool endeavor while in 7^th grade. Oh, its not like they make you geek march at first. Oh no, the plot is much more insidious.
First they introduce you to an instrument. Me, I played the trombone because I thought it looked cool. Hey, I was twelve. Anyway, you start down your road to hell in 6^th grade. In Greenville they had one, and only one, music store from which to buy instruments. The fact that the owner of the store was the ex-high school band instructor is, I'm sure, purely coincidental.
Later in life I realized this must be some sort of retirement for old band teachers. Put in your time as a teacher for a bunch of off-key, tone deaf, rhythmless teenagers. Then retire and make a fortune on low quality band instruments sold to unwitting parents who will think their children have talent no matter how badly they play. I have to admit its one hell of a deal.
At any rate, the owner of this store would do his best to bring in musicians to play at various churches and functions to ensure moms, not kids, that playing an instrument in a band is a good thing. No, it can't be something innocuous like piano, which you can disavow any knowledge of later in life. He convinces them that playing a stupid looking instrument IN FRONT OF HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE is a good thing. Thus most children are given a choice of play or die: much like homework.
So, there I was a gawky kid playing a gawky instrument in a gawky band uniform marching around a football field looking…well gawky. Was this bad enough for me? Hell no. Me, I had to make things worse and join the Civil Air Patrol.
The CAP's intended purpose is to act as an auxiliary to the Air Force. When an aircraft goes down the CAP is called upon to go find it. This involves waking up a bunch of teenagers from a perfectly good nights sleep, dragging them hundreds of miles to an airport, telling them they are going to look for a plane, then having them hang around said airport while the adults actually search for the plane. Of course this is how it works in theory. Life is much more frustrating.
So I joined this rag tag group of ultra geeks for the usual reason. A friend said it would be cool. The fact I played the trombone and marched around a football field should be a decent clue as to my ability to judge what was cool and what was not. So, of course, I joined.
Looking back it wasn't that different from band. We marched a lot, we sat around in a room and learned first aid talents that could one day be used while standing around at an airport, and we took test in order to progress in rank. Rank was very important since it allowed you to tell others what to do based on the fact you'd taken more tests.
It was here that I met a young man of Polish decent. He enjoyed giving orders. He enjoyed pretending the rescue people. He enjoyed the perception of power even if the reality of it was a bit thin. Now I realize he was a security guard in the making.
I'll call this young man Don. Don had the honor of being in band as well. If possible he played an even more inane instrument than I: a barisomething. Baribone, baritone, boonsoon… Hell I don't remember. I've done my best to repress all memories of band.
Don loved the Civil Air Patrol. He loved barking orders. He loved standing at attention (which he somehow did even while sitting) and he loved pretending to bandage the wounds of others with substandard gauze and white tape. I suspect he practiced on his dogs at home. Not that I know for a fact he had dogs but he definitely was more a dog than cat person.
After a year of marching, taking tests, and taking orders I decided the CAP wasn't for me. I think the final straw was going on a 'mission' and sitting around another airport and seeing some drunk old guy with a haphazard uniform dress down a firend of mine for wearing the wrong kind of belt buckle.
Don and I remained friends until graduation then parted ways. We met a few years later. He'd put on about thirty pounds and was wearing a mall security guard outfit. Oddly enough, he looked at me as if I were some sort of criminal. After a few abortive attempts at conversation, I walked away confused.
I saw the guy every few years. He continued to gain about ten pounds a year. He made it to my twentieth high school reunion but barely made it through the door. He still wears a security guard uniform.
I guess there are a few lessons to be drawn from Don. One is never play the bari-something. I may have a detrimental effect on your future. Another is, if you are a control freak, at least be a control freak that doesn't involve a mall and a uniform. There are good jobs in a mall but I can think of none that involve a uniform. And lastly, never, ever, under penalty of jail time, show up to your twentieth high school reunion in a security guard outfit. You'll be talked about for years.
Where every you are Don, good night and good luck.

Love is the True Measure of Success

2007-02-02T07:58:00.000-06:00

Note: I wrote this back in my idealist early thirties but I think it still holds true today.

With what is a man born?

What allows him to survive to adulthood?

Food, Clothing, Shelter?

None of these allow a man to grow up secure and safe unless the child is loved. Without love there is no joy and without joy there is no life. This love is freely given by parents, family, friends, and guardians. For Love is something that cannot be found, cannot be gained through deeds, and cannot be stolen. Love must be given by another.

For what does a young man quest?

What drives him forward into the peril of uncertainty?

Honor, Devotion, Ambition?

All these pail in comparison to the man who quests for Love. For Love is something that cannot be found, cannot be gained through deeds, and cannot be stolen. Love must be given by another.

What makes a man great?

When a man arrives at greatness what brought him there?

Hard Work, Luck, Fate?

First we must define greatness. Many of the rich and powerful are broken, lonely souls with no one to love. Therefore, I say a man is as great as the love others bestow upon him and by the love he bestows upon others. For Love is something that cannot be found, cannot be gained through deeds, and cannot be stolen. Love must be given by another.

How do we measure a man's worth?

When he dies, how is his wealth divided?

Money, Possessions, Titles?

His wealth is seen in the people that loved him and mourn his passing. When we love someone, we give up a portion of ourselves. When that person is separated from us, we feel the pain of that part being taken away.

We don't think of love as pain but it is. There is a tribe in South America who's word for love translates literally into "pain of the heart". Only someone we love can truly hurt us through word or deed. The only tears some adults shed is when a loved one dies. The pain of eternal seperation is simply too much. And so we must decide whom to love and whom not to love; knowing that someday we may be separated from them forever..

But Love is also happiness. The joy we feel when loved one surround us is that love being returned. Thus love returned is happiness. And so we go through life, wanting to be happy but afraid of being hurt. The circuit of love given and returned is the true path to joy and happiness.

Adventures in Graceland

2007-02-01T09:02:00.000-06:00

Back in the early 90s I worked for a consulting firm employed by Federal Express. I spent nine months working on the project and spent half that time in Memphis. Here's something I wrote while there. Of all of my adventures in the city of blues, Graceland stands out in my mind as the most bizarre.

It was a Sunday. I had mistakenly brought nothing but suits with me on that trip. I wore suits to work everyday. It was Cutler/Williams corporate policy. The job I had before Cutler/Williams allowed me to wear sweats so the change came as quite a shock. I decided wearing suit pants and a dress shirt all day Sunday wouldn't be any fun so I went to Walmart for a comfort buying spree.

It was around one o'clock when I arrived at Wally World so I encountered the church crowd. It consisted of a lot of over weight men in polyester suits and women with big hair. I really wanted to get in and out quick so as to avoid unnecessary contact with the hicks on parade. I'm a little sensitive about hicks because I almost was one. I purchased tennis shoes, a sweat shirt and pants, all for under 50 bucks. Let's just say they were not top quality products.

I went back to my room and got comfortable. The Dallas Cowboys weren't on. Since I was a fan at the time, that sucked. Note I no longer root for that team since the foreigner took over.

I decided to read a book. Just as I'm dosing off after the first chapter ( technical books always make me sleepy ) my faithful Indiancompanion Parchi ( no really, he's from India ) knocked on my door. "Keith," he says, "I want to go to Graceland." What the heck. I'm in Memphis. The Cowboys aren't on the tube. I have nothing better to do so we go.

My first impression of the King's abode came from the parking lot. Yes, I said parking lot. It turns out that the Elvis Presly Estate, EPE for short, has a major industry surrounding Graceland. The parking lot is on the scale as the Walmart I visted earlier with approximately the same clientèle.

It was a cold Sunday afternoon and the parking lot was still almost 1/2 full. I couldn't believe it. After a brief hike past the Elvis Airplane museum we made it to the main ticket building in the Graceland shopping/museum complex. This place is pretty big. About the size of a small mall. It has no less than 4 shops, 2 restaurants, 3 museums, 1 movie theater and a reception area. I just stood looking around in awe.

I heard Parchi ask me a question but my mind was on Elvis overload.

"Huh?" I said, slowly pulling my jaw back into place.

"I asked if you wanted to get tickets for everything, you know man, all the museums and films and stuff."

"How about we just do Graceland and then see how much time we have left"

"Oh, OK." He was disappointed I could tell.

Even as I asked the question, I knew what the answer would be. "Hey Parchi, is Elvis very big in India?"

"Elvis is big everywhere" he said.

I could tell by the tone of his voice he thought this was a stupid question. The answer should have been obvious to anyone. Just what I need. Ghandi with an Elvis fixation. I realized that I needed to watch what I said or I could offend my co-worker. As it turns out this probably either saved my life or kept me from getting the snot beat out of me by trailer park people. But I'm getting ahead of my self.

Graceland was a short bus ride away. Parchi and I bought our $9 tickets and headed for the bus. As we queued up, I noticed the people around me. The usual tourist group was there; Orientals with cameras, a young couple with a baby, some obvious retirees, and lastly Parchi and me. Two more families joined the line before we loaded. As it turns out both groups were trailer park people with Elvis fixations. This was the first time I thought of the term which described them so perfectly. These people were Elvisians.

It fit. These are the people that read the Globe and the National Inquirer. These are the people abducted by UFOs. These are the people that voted for Fritz Mondale. By the way, if space aliens did abduct people, the Elvisians would be perfect candidates. Not only would no one believe them when and if they returned but I can think of no one else I'd like to see removed from the planet.

As we boarded the bus, each of us were given a tape player with "PROPERTY OF GRACELAND" stamped on it. Apparently this was a self paced tour. We were instructed to turn on our recorders. I place my headphones on and pressed the "ON" button. Nothing happened. Thank God for small favors. Billy Bob of Elvisian group #1 was having difficulty finding the on button. His massive set of chins no doubt hindering his ability to see it. Finally his wife, Marj, pushed it for him. Marj's mother gave a snort of disgust and mummered something about dumb and ox.

Elvisian group #2 seemed content enough. They were watching everything. "I bet he's up stairs right now" I heard one say. Apparently they were of the 'Elvis is Alive' sect of the Elvisians. I couldn't help but smile. This was going to be fun after all.

Parchi clicked his off button. Others did the same so I assumed the first section of the tape was complete. I couldn't help but notice the idiot grin on his face. He was enjoying himself immensely. So was I but for completely different reasons. The situation only got funnier.

Our first tour guide was a little guy with a high pitched southern accent. Smart remarks kept coming to mind but I suppressed every one of them. I noticed the young women with the baby had the same mischievous grin I did. When we locked eyes it was nearly more than we could do to keep from laughing.

The two Elvisian groups seem to have bonded. Between discussions of the greatness of Elvis came talks on the relative merits of manufactured housing. "Now if you would turn your tape players back on we'll enter the main hall," the tour guide finished.

If the impact of the moment was wasted on me, it was not wasted on the Elvisians. As devoted Catholics entering the presence of the Pope, they crossed the threshold to Graceland. Awe-struck they walked through the entrance to the Temple of Gawd. The young lady, I think her name was Beth, and I hung back to watch the others. Her husband Jeff was a semi-Elvisian so she also had to watch what she said.

The place was indeed the house of Gawd. Gawd made it's home here and Gawd was here to stay maintained and preserved by the EPE. I wish you could see the post cards I bought of each room. Words cannot describe it. Experience can barely contain it. My mind works even now to remove the memory of it. Bright yellows, royal blues, tacky glass statuettes, and that ugly green shag carpet so prominent in the 70's were all here in abundance. I remembered some of the styles from my childhood. I'd truly forgotten how ugly the 70's were.

My mom had some of these same decorations when I was a child. My first thought was that if mom had gotten lots of money back around '72, this is what her house would have looked like.

We completed our tour of the Living room, Dining Room, and Kitchen and headed downstairs to the TV and Pool room. The Elvisians had finally shaken themselves of their reverent silence and began talking amongst themselves again. It was a this point that I found out the mother-in-law of Billy Bob was psychic or at least she thought she was.

"The spirit of Elvis is close by. I can feel it"

"Of course he's close by. He's up stairs."

"What kind of idjit thinks the King is still alive."

"If he's not upstairs, why won't they let us up there."

And so the argument went. Beth and I were at the back of the group swapping snide comments. We had to do this in hushed tones in order to avoid a jihad by the Elvisians.

The TV room was a sight to behold. The bright, bright yellow mixed with dark royal blue in conjunction with mirrors on the ceiling lead to an effect that required sun glasses to appreciate. Think of the yellow vinyl material they used to make bean bag chairs. That was the decor of this room.

The baby on Beth's shoulder chose this moment to puke. Don't worry. Not a drop hit the sacred floors of Graceland. My left shoe caught it all. Beth started to apologize but I stopped her. "I know just how the kid feels." The shoe self destructed some 20 hours later.

Next we headed for the pool room. This room has some form of tapestry on each wall and the ceiling also. It reminded me of a giant, square, paisley tent. This is also where the trailer park psychic saw the ghost of Elvis. I guess billiards and the after life sort of go together. I wonder what effect this news would have on theologians and philosophers .

Next up was the Jungle room. We've been informed that this was one of Elvis' favorite rooms. The stairs on the way up from the basement are carpeted in green shag. Not just the floor but the walls and ceilings as well. This trend continues in the Jungle room. Carpet is on the ceiling. I stand in awe. Billy Bob made the comment that Elvis was probably the first person to think of putting carpet on the ceiling.

"No," I mummer, "he's the first person to think of it and not think it was stupid"

Apparently Elvisians have good hearing because I got several scowls. After that I didn't see much of either group.

Next on the tour was the office area. The only really interesting thing about it was the fact that there as a shooting range in the same building. Next came the Graceland museum and finally the racquetball court/Elvis monument. This was actually one of the more tasteful exhibits.

Finally we near the end of the tour at the "really final" resting place of the King. Apparently his last "final" resting place wasn't secure enough so they moved him to Graceland. It was here that we caught up with the Elvisians. Group one was in respectful silence while group two was wondering who was actually buried there. "Maybe it's Jimmy Hoffa" I say in my most innocent voice. I could see the look on all of the Elvisians. They had one thought on their respective pea brains; Kill the Heretic.

A short bus ride and many dirty looks later found us back at the Elvis strip mall where we were forced to buy Elvis souvenirs. I noticed a strange look in my co-worker's eyes. He began to have that same sort of vacant expression on his face characteristic of Elvisians. Parchi drove us forward into shop after shop, museum after museum, all at a pace the would kill Mongols. He had to see it all. He had to do it all. I had to stop him before a UFO abducted him and subjected him to rectal probes.

Elvis mania was upon him! What to do? My friend was becoming an Elvisian before my very eyes. The PA spoke. "Graceland will be closing in 5 minutes"

I looked upward and mouthed a "Thank you" to God. I glanced a Parchi. He had to have more whatever the cost. Then slowly, oh so slowly, sanity returned to my friend's face. "Well, I guess its time to go."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey, we'll be coming back to Memphis again. Maybe we can come back and see the rest," I lied.

"Yeah, maybe."

Parchi was quite on the way back to the hotel. He looked like he'd lost his best friend. I think on some level he knew how close he'd come to an Elvis OD.

Me, I left a little sadder than when I went into Graceland. Not because of what I saw of Elvis but what I saw of the Elvisians. Their lives seem to revolve around the King. They missed the point that Elvis was just a guy. As good or as bad as any of us. Mostly he was just a small town southern boy who made good. I'm not sure he knew the effect he had on people. I'm sure he never guessed that Elvis cults would spring up across the nation after his death.

I can even forgive him his house. If I made a gazillion dollars back then and let my mom decorate, it probably would have turned out much the same way ( although I hope I would have forgone the shag carpet on the ceiling ).

To this day, he fills a niche in some people's lives by giving them something they're missing. He makes them feel a part of something bigger and better. I don't know why he still effects people this way after so many years. I think its genetic. Probable involves the same gene that makes people think living in tornado bait is a good idea.

I did learn a lot about Elvis from going through the museums erected in his honor. He was generous with his money. There were several walls of "thank you" certificates from charity groups. There were even more walls containing all of his gold and platinum albums. His music changed the world and, as much as I hate to admit it, he is still the King of Rock 'n Roll.

In the end, I have to say I had a pretty good time. If you like people watching, or maybe I should say weird people watching, go to Graceland. It's a hoot. If you're ever in Memphis, check it out.

DB2 on Ubuntu

2007-01-31T16:50:00.000-06:00

I stated in my last post that I found a resource for installing db2. I'm going to quote that article verbatim here just in case that one ever goes away. Also, where my install differed from the instructions presented at
http://project-tigershark.com/people/rob/blog/2007/01/02/installing-db2-91-on-ubuntu-dapper-606/
I highlighted in red. Also, my Ubuntu is Edge Edge instead of Dapper Drake. I'm not sure this matters but it is a difference.

I do this because you never know when someone's going to delete their blog or have it removed by higher powers.

Installing DB2
The DB2 installation package is rpm-based, so we’ll need to install an rpm-compatible installer for Ubuntu. For this, we apt-get alien, an rpm package installer:

$ sudo apt-get install alien
also installed pdksh
sudo apt-get install pdksh
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
openssh-client was alread installed
sudo ./db2_install (from installation directory)

Now we may db2_install installation script that is bundled with DB2. This needs to be done as root:

$ tar xzvf db2exc_91_LNX_x86.tar.gz
$ sudo exp/disk1/db2_install
Here I simply used Archive Manager. In my installation is ran ./db2install from the directory where I extracted the tar file.

This should take a few minutes to install. At the time of this writing, the installation procedure had approximately ten steps and lasted about three to five minutes. Note that depending on the version of gcc that you have installed (if at all), you may need to install libstdc++5, as it is required for successful installation. This is easily obtained:

$ sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Setting Up Groups/Users
Now that we have DB2 installed, we need to configure it for use. We start by creating the standard DB2 user groups: instance owners, fenced users, and administrators. (Note that these commands need to be run as root — the sudo is dropped here for notational simplicity and a # is added in its place for clarity).

# groupadd -g 999 db2iadm1
# groupadd -g 998 db2fadm1
# groupadd -g 997 dasadm1

Now we’ll create a default user for each group:

# useradd -u 1002 -g dasadm1 -m -d /home/dasusr1 dasusr1 -p password2
# useradd -u 1003 -g db2fadm1 -m -d /home/db2fenc1 db2fenc1 -p password3
# useradd -u 1004 -g db2iadm1 -m -d /home/db2inst1 db2inst1 -p password4

Creating the Adminstrative Database
Now we need to create a DB2 Administration Server to administer all instances of DB2 under the purview of this installation:

# /opt/ibm/db2/V9.1/instance/dascrt -u dasusr1

Note here that dasusr1 may be any user that is a member of the dasadm1 group we set up earlier.

DB2 Instance Semantics. Creating an Instance.
A DB2 instance is an environment that acts as a logical container for a collection of databases. It’s an abstraction that allows the creation and usage of multiple independent DB2 environments using the same physical resources.

We need an instance to hold all of our databases. We’l create a default instance using the db2inst1 user we just created as its owner:

# /opt/ibm/db2/V9.1/instance/db2icrt -u db2fenc1 db2inst1

As we noted, db2inst1 is the instance owner, while db2fenc1 credentials are used to execute fenced stored procedures and executables.

Below lists the commands and output of the commands presented in the referenced blog.

The execution completed successfully.

For more information see the DB2 installation log at
"/tmp/db2_install.log.9926".
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo groupadd -g 999 db2iadm1
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo groupadd -g 998 db2fadm1
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo groupadd -g 997 dasadm1
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo useradd -u 1002 -g dasadm1 -m -d /home/dasusr1 dasusr1 -p password2
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ useradd -u 1003 -g db2fadm1 -m -d rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ useradd -u 1003 -g db2fadm1 -m -d /home/db2fenc1 db2fenc1 -p password3
useradd: unable to lock password file
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ useradd -u 1003 -g db2fadm1 -m -d /home/db2fenc1 db2fenc1 -p password3
useradd: unable to lock password file
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo useradd -u 1003 -g db2fadm1 -m -d /home/db2fenc1 db2fenc1 -p password3
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo useradd -u 1004 -g db2iadm1 -m -d /home/db2inst1 db2inst1 -p password4
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo /opt/ibm/db2/V9.1/instance/dascrt -u dasusr1
SQL4406W The DB2 Administration Server was started successfully.
DBI1070I Program dascrt completed successfully.
rkathey@delllaptop:~/db2install$ sudo /opt/ibm/db2/V9.1/instance/db2icrt -u db2fenc1 db2inst1
DBI1070I Program db2icrt completed successfully.

Starting and Stopping an Instance
A DB2 instance is an environment that acts as a logical container for a collection of In order to start and stop the DB2 instance (remember, we may have multiple instances for a given installation on a physical host), we log in as the owner and call db2start after inializing the DB2 environment:

$ su db2inst1
$. ~/sqllib/db2profile
$db2start

db2inst1@delllaptop:~$ db2start
ADM12026W The DB2 server has detected that a valid license for this product has not been registered.
SQL1063N DB2START processing was successful.
db2inst1@delllaptop:~$ db2sampl

Creating database "SAMPLE"...
Connecting to database "SAMPLE"...
Creating tables and data in schema "DB2INST1"...
Creating tables with XML columns and XML data in schema "DB2INST1"...

'db2sampl' processing complete.

Stopping the environment is just as simple: we’d call db2stop instead of db2start.

You may enable (or disable) automatic DB2 instance start/stop on system start-up/shut-down by calling:

$ db2iauto -on db2inst1

where db2inst1 is the login name of the instance. Replacing the -on flag with -off disables this feature.

The Sample Database
If you wish to build the sample database bundled with DB2 in order to play around, call db2sampl while logged into a DB2 instance owner account:

$ su db2inst1
$ . ~/sqllib/db2profile
$ db2sampl

After this I logged into db2inst1, ran the db2profile (as above) and launched db2ca to enter the graphical user interface. Thanks to the original author for the ubuntu db2 install.

The Great Ubuntu Reinstall of January 07

2007-01-31T11:45:00.000-06:00

Well, I did it. I royally hosed up my new Ubuntu Linux install trying to get my laptop to play a microsoft media file. Oh sure, it wasn't easy. I had to install and reinstall about twenty packages but I finally managed to bugger up the the O/S. I could claim it's all part of Microsoft's attempt to take over the world but in the end I have only myself to blame.

So its back to a thirty minute operating system load then another hour spent reloading things I'd already loaded once. If I find the packaged that did me in I'll post it here so other will know what not to do.

Thus shows the true value of blogs and the internet. Don't do as others have done. Do as others wish they had done.

Ok, that said, here's a list of steps I performed.
First I backed up the old home directory. Basically I just copied the files to a blank CD

Next I reinstalled Ubuntu by placing the Ubuntu install CD into the drive and rebooting. It'll boot Ubuntu off the CD. There is an icon on the desktop labled "Install". Double click that.

Follow the install menu options. I choose to reformat the drive in order to blow away my old install. Wait forever for that to finish then allow the software updater to update what you just installed. You'll need to rebot after that.

Here's where I did things differently from the last install.

I edited the /etc/apt/sources.list and added universe and multiverse to the end of the first two lines so they look something like

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe multiverse

Next I ran

sudo apt-get update

The reason this was needed is the fact that java-5 isn't in the application list of the default entries in /ect/apt/sources.list

After that I went to the System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager, found Java 5 (and some cool 3d star system packages) and updated my system. I decided not to install java 6 this time.

I rebooted my system after this just to make sure all the java stuff was set correctly. This probably isn't needed, after all this isn't Windows I'm using, but I decided to do it anyway just to make sure.

After this I installed Eclipse using the package updater under Applications->Add/Remove menu

Next, so I won't have to do another full install, I did a system backup. To accomplish this, first read this post in the Ubuntu Forums for details but it boils down to the following two statements.
cd /
then
sudo tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

After the backup finished, I copied it off to an external drive. The files was over a gig so it wouldn't fit on a CD.

I'll update the blog with more information as I run into other snags.

My next effort will be to install DB2. Luckily I found another blogger who's written instructions for this at http://project-tigershark.com/people/rob/blog/2007/01/02/installing-db2-91-on-ubuntu-dapper-606/

In the beginning

2007-01-30T09:49:00.000-06:00

Looking over my blog I noticed that the majority of my posts are about my son, Zack so I'm changing the name of the blog.

In this post I'll discuss the first time someone called me Zack's dad and why it brought tears to my eyes.

I'm married to a beautiful woman named Debbie. We met at work. She had two daughters from a previous marriage and so we decided, going in, not to have any additional children. We were too old, we thought, and there were enough folks in the world.

Note that this isn't the first time we've changed our mind on important subjects. When we began dating we both stated we weren't looking for a relationship and were happy being single. Within a month I knew she was the lady I wanted to marry and I think she'd decided I'd be a good husband as well. We were married nine months later.

Things were going along well when the world changed. 9/11, for some reason, made us decide it was a good idea to bring another person into the world. I know there was a minor population boom in the USA after the event. I don't know if more people is society's way of handling stress or if its something more basic in human nature that causes us to have children when angry or unsure. But whatever the reason, Zack was born in February of 2003.

His mom was in her late thirties at the time so carrying a large baby boy (9.8 lbs at birth) was an ordeal. She had the flu. She threw up a lot at the end. This caused Zack to get distressed which caused problems. She entered the hospital dehydrated and sick. This caused Zack to breath in meconium in the amniotic fluid while still in his mom's tummy. Meconium is poop. Breathing it in causes bad things to happen inside a baby's lungs.

To make a long story short, after one joy filled day with my son, he entered ICU as fever struck from pneumonia. I went from the happiest person on the planet to the saddest. The doctors assured me everything would be fine but that did nothing to comfort me.

After Zack entered ICU I was allowed to visit. There as a nurse at the front desk who asked who I was. She said, "Oh, you belong to the hairy baby." Remember that most babies in ICU are premature. Zack went full term. In fact he went a little beyond full term. He liked it in there.

She called to the nurse in the back. "Zack's Dad is here." It was four simple words On the face of them they were nothing special but it was like a lightening bolt hit me in the chest. It was my first time being called "Zack's Dad." I don't know why the impact was so great but a big smile came to my face as tears of joy rolled down my face. The nurse asked, "Are you ok?" I said "Yes, I think I am." I was Zack's dad and, God willing, I always would be.

I pulled out of my funk just in time for Debbie to enter her's. Odd how things work out that way. There are few things sadder than a mother leaving her new born in the hospital. Debbie stayed at her mother's, which was near the hospital, while I went back to an empty house. It wasn't a pleasant week.

Of course, as the doctors predicted, Zack was fine and the pain of leaving him in the hospital soon vanished. I have many titles: Architect, Husband, Son, and Brother but the one I'm proudest of is being Zack's Dad.

Of Networks and Bandersnatch

2007-01-29T08:44:00.000-06:00

Recently, AT&T VPN caused a problem at my house. I bought a new Linksys SRX 200 wireless router but regardless of my attempts and calls to Linksys support, I could not get my VPN to work with it. So, I would disconnect the rest of the household to work during the day. This caused problems due to the fact that
a) A tech person today seldom works an eight hour shift and
b) Teenagers are addicted to myspace.com

The solution turned out to be to use the old router connected directly to the cable modem the attach the new, high speed router to the first. I had to subnet them differently (added a 1 to the third network octet) but it seemed to work. So now I have a DMZ in my home network. Computers attaching to the old router have one firewall between them and the outside world while the folks using the newer network have two firewalls between them and the evils of the open internet.

As I tried out the new setup I discovered that the folks on the second segment of my LAN were very slow retrieving web pages. The solution seemed to be to turn off the wireless setting on the older router (which has no wireless clients). After that things sped up considerably.

If you want to run your own speed test, I recommend http://www.speedtest.net/

The have cool graphics and its the service Time Warner uses to test their cable modem connections.

If anyone else finds the solution to the Linksys SRX200 and AT&T VPN dialer client let me know.

Shadow Dancing

2007-01-26T10:04:00.000-06:00

On a late summer night in '05, Zack discovered the fun of shadows.

Shadow Dance:

It began with Deb and I sitting in our white, fake wicker chair by the drive way. We have one of those security lights that illuminates when it senses motion. It a fairly powerful light, complete illuminating the drive way.

Zack was pushing his play police car around the drive way when I discovered the security light made for excellent shadows. Not the multiple shadows you normally get but one, strong black shadow usually reserved for dark rooms and flash lights.

I made the age old rabbit shadow. Zack was fascinated by the construct. He tried to grab it but the wascally wabbit was too quick. He laughed and giggled until he discovered he had a shadow as well. At this point the fascination began.

I felt like I was watching something out of Peter Pan as my son tried to catch the his own dark image which was always just a little too fast for him. After chasing the shadow down the drive way, he found that the shadow would also chase him as well. Zack ran away from the dark boy on the ground watching the shadow as he ran. He was so intent was he on the dark image that he ran head long into Jessica’s car falling to the ground the ground in a heap of giggles.

Deb and I showed Zack how to control the shadow with his own movements. He waved his arms and laughed. Then he raised his foot into the air watching the shadow detach from his form. He tried to touch the shadow but it was always just out of reach. Finally he learned to squat down. The shadow squatted as well and at last he could touch the illusive being.

Zack was having so much fun it was hard to get him in for the night. Finally I was able to coax him into my arms to look at the stars. Zack likes stars so I sang him a song as we walked back toward the house. The rhythm was to a Louis Armstrong song “What a wonderful world” but the words were my own. Zack enjoyed it and didn’t fuss at all as we walked into the house. Once inside, Deb had to call her mom to describe the evening. Zack and I played ‘Tent on the couch’ where his folding tent goes on one section of the couch and he climbs in and out. We sang twinkle, twinkle little star for a while until Deb got off the phone with her mom.

Its nights like this when everything seems right with the world. I wish there were more of them.

My Dog Pillow!

2007-01-26T09:56:00.000-06:00

This was originally written on Monday 9/26/05

You know that your son is progressing well when everything in the house becomes MINE. In Zack’s mind, everything is his and you can not convince him otherwise. This was made more evident than usual when Deb brought home a new dog pillow.

We have an older dog that likes to lay around. I am her human so she's usually found laying around me. As I type this she lays near by waiting for me to go to bed. Now Jessica the dog loves my son. I would go so far as to say they are best friends. She doesn’t sleep with him but that is only because we keep the door closed to Zack’s room at night.

Food solidifies Zack’s place in the dogs heart. At every meal he finds some way to slip her food. For this she shows a greater than normal maternal instinct towards my son. The dog tries to rescue him from the swimming pool and barks at us as if to say WHAT ARE YOU DOING! On Zack’s forays into the pasture the dog assumes the vanguard scouting to make sure the path is clear. She trots in front checking for whatever dogs check for to make sure Zack will be OK.

Now saying this I also have to say dogs have a great sense of where they are in the pack. Deb and I are the dominant dogs in Jessica’s mind and as such our offspring must be deferred to. Jessica the dog has always treated Zack with a great deal of understanding to the point of letting Zack touch her eyeball. Yes, the dog laid there and let Zack explore her eye.

Thus we thought it extremely rude when Deb brought home the new dog pillow and Zack instantly claimed it and chased the dog away. In Jessica the dog’s mind, the matter was settled. Zack had a new bed. In Jessica the step daughter’s mind, the matter was far from over. ( Yes we have child and a dog named the same name. )

Jessica the teenager saw this as a completely unfair situation. Deb bought the pillow for Jessica the dog. Zack had no right to it. She ordered Zack off the pillow. At 2.5, Zack doesn’t order well. A fight broke out between siblings with Jessica the dog on the sidelines. Jessica the teenager would take Zack off the pillow and order the dog onto it. Jessica the dog would obey. Zack would then through a fit and order the dog off the pillow. The dog was caught in an obedience loop. You could tell she wanted to be left out of fight. Finally, the dog jumped up on the couch and laid her head down, ignoring any further commands to lay on the pillow.

The fight between Jessica the teenager and Zack raged on however. Obstinate teenager vs. the unwavering MINE! In the end I think MINE won but its hard to tell. Zack spent some time in his room. Jessica the teenager finally went to the TV room and shut to door. Jessica the dog just lay on the couch.

Time will tell if Jessica the dog will accept her new pillow or if she now thinks of it as Zack’s bed. Then again, when we come home from work Jessica the dog is often on Zack’s bed so I suppose its only fair that Jessica’s bed is now MINE!

In the end I don’t think the dog minds Zack sleeping on an item bought for her. The two lay together on the floor often. Zack throws her arm over her, leans against her belly and watches TV. She looks up, gives him one lick on the face then lays back down. Zack wipes the dog saliva off then kisses the dog. In the grand scheme of things, what’s one pillow between friends.

Linux, Commies, and Capitolism

2007-01-21T09:28:00.000-06:00

Note: How To's are located at bottom of post

Ok, for those of you who don't know what Linux is, crank up google and do a search. Its ok, I'll wait.

Ok, so now you know that Linux is a free operating system with a number of distributions from companies like Red Hat, SuSe, and others. Recently, at the advise of my java programing guru, I decided to try the Ubuntu version of Linux.

At first I typed in the wrong URL and went to Ubuntu.org which is a left leaning world community web site. I have nothing against left leaning community sites but I thought it was an odd place to store a Linux distribution. But then again, some raging capitalist believe the Linux development effort is lead by leftist radicals out to destroy the capitalist system as a whole. After all the thing is free!

What those folks don't understand is that the open source movement is built on the economics of ego, not dollars. You can download the source to the Linux kernel, make changes to it, compile it, and walla! You have your own operating system. For those of us with a semblance of life and a brain somewhat smaller than Jupiter this is a daunting task that we would never, ever, in a gagillion years undertake.

But luckily for us there are folks with brains the size of Jupiter that can do that and do it as a labor of love, pride the the ability to look down their nose at the rest of us that have, at least once in our lives, kissed a member of the opposite sex. But I digress.

I'm a wood-be java developer who is being guided on his virginal steps into Javadom but an experiance hack who works on an open source project that displays graphics for some of the games I enjoy. If you're interested you can go to the RPTools project web site.

I needed to reformat my aging laptop and decided to install Linux on it. I use Linux often and its my operating system of choice for home because I have teenagers who regularly virus anything with a Microsoft logo. Linux solved my woes and kept me from reinstalling Windows every other month.

So I took my old Dell Inspiron 8100 and and installed Ubuntu Linux. I liked the install process because it tool only one CD vs. the 4 that are required for Red Hat's Fedora Core or Suse Linux. The install went smoothly and I was up and running in no time. I installed Eclipse for Java development and upgraded the Java 1.4 to Java 5. Later I upgraded to Java 6.

Here's a list of things I did to get Ubuntu running on the laptop.

To install Java 5:
Open a terminal window.
sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk

And that's all there was to it.

Here's a link that discusses installing Tomcat as well.
http://www.spaceprogram.com/knowledge/2006/05/installing-java-5-jdk-and-tomcat-on.html

The next problem I ran into was Netscape Firefox had an issue. When I used the touch pad Firefox would navigate back to previous pages. This problem with Firefix and Unbuntu Linux was solved at the following link.

http://www.beginningubuntu.com/dapper_tips.html

Here's a quote from that page.

To configure the horizontal scroll of the touchpad to actually horizontally scroll a webpage, open Firefox, type about:config in the address box, and use that page's "Filter" text box to search for mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action. Double-click the line in the results and set the value to 1, rather than 2. The change will be instant and permanent.

Later I decided to upgrade to Java 6 on Unbuntu Linux. Here are the steps I followed for that.

download java from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
cd to dowload directory
chmod a+x jdk-6-linux-i586.bin
sudo ./jdk-6-linux-i586.bin
sudo mv jdk1.6.0 /usr/lib/jvm/
sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0/bin/java" 1
sudo update-alternatives --set java /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0/bin/java
java -version

For those of you who want to just install the Java runtime, go to my fellow blogger's page for those instructions.

http://rchandran.blogspot.com/2006/12/as-java-se-1.html

The only downside to the install is that my Dell 725 printer wouldn't work on Linux. I contacted Dell support and was told that printer wouldn't work with Linux. This runs contrary to what I know about print drivers but who knows what Microsoft has done to squash other peoples attempt break away from the Microsoft and enter a world with people are paid with praise and knowledge of a job well done.

Rocky the Airplane

2007-01-21T09:27:00.000-06:00

This is the story about Rocky the Airplane and Albin the Double-decker bus. It took place in January of '07.

Zack loves three things in life: Trains, planes and automobiles. Something about the speed and power of these machines fascinates him. His favorite movies are Pixar's Cars and Disney's Polar Express.

Zack, at times, thinks he is a train. He'll pump his arm like the driving pistons of a steam train and either make car or train noises (as appropriate to the situation). For planes, he doesn't pump his arms as he usually has a plane in his hand and makes high pitched jet engine noises as the plane streaks at high speed near someone's face. He does this so they can have the full effect of the plane's speed. Well, that and the ability to make people blink is pretty cool.

So, when Deb and I go out to shop the question from Zack is always, "Are we going to the train store?" The ordeal of the train store is documented in other blog posts so needless to say, we don't go there often.

On this day's trip my wife and I were looking for carpets and bar stools. We wound up with neither but on this day we went to World Market. Now World Market is an all around nice store with lots of nick-nacks and items from the world over (but mostly made in China). The have a good selection of wines, glassware (which we purchased), furniture, carpets, and ornamental stuff you put on shelves and in curios. Zack generally enjoys the store since they have ornamental trains, cars, boats, and planes to play with.

On this day, he was very good and sat in one place while Deb and I picked out some new glasses. We were so proud of him we agreed he could have one of the ornamental planes to take home. On the way to the register, he also found a double-decker bus he wanted.

Now Deb and I both agreed he could have one but not two. So at the register we tried the fruitless task of making a three year old see logic. Deb gave up and punted to me. So I asked, "If you could only have one, which would you choose?"

"I choose 2," replied Zack.

Well, in some ways a 2 is only one number so I think I lost that round. My next question was completely stupid. "If you had to choose between having both and going to college which would you choose?"

"But I want both," protested Zack.

To be honest, I was surprised he didn't give up college. I stood there scratching my head wondering how a three year old got the better of me in the argument. The people around us were all smiling. So next on the better parenting through deception method of child rearing, I decided to hide one of the items at the register.

Now our clerk that day was a red-headed youth with multiple facial piercings. This isn't someone you'd normally consider a nice guy. He had a dour expression on his face that showed no joy or love for the world so what he did next was a surprise.

As he rang up the airplane he applied a 40% discount. Debbie asked, "Are those on sale."

The clerk just looked down at Zack then up and Deb. His expression didn't change. He never smiled but he said "They are today."

He rang up the bus with a 40% discount as well.

I'm still not sure why he did it. Did he think Zack was cute? Did he overhear the conversation and decided to reward us for getting our son something special? Or was he just 'sticking it to the man' a.k.a. his boss.

I'm not sure but I think he thought the entire conversation with Zack was interesting enough to warrant a discount. Whatever his reasons were, I'm glad he did it. Zack played with the things for days. They went into the bath with him. He's named them Rocky the Plane and Albin the bus.

Rock and Albin sitting on my desk as I write this. Happy to have a home with a little boy that loves them.

Happiness is a Train Ride

2007-01-18T13:57:00.000-06:00

I remember when I was young, the joy of going to Old City Park. I think the park has another name, maybe Graham park, but to us it was always Old City Park. The reason, you may ask, is because we had a new city park called The New Park. This may lack in imagination but everyone knew the difference.

Allow me a brief aside to describe the parks. Wright Park was the New Park. It had tennis courts, a golf course and butted up next to one of the nicer neighborhoods in Greenville. Old City Park was, well, old. It was in a failing part of Greenville but for a child, it had much more to offer.

Old City Park had a lake with ducks, a bear, the oldest house in Greenville, and a motorized boat and car ride the usually worked. But the thing that set Old City Park off from any other park was the train. We’re not talking a full sized train though. It was simply a gasoline engine that was mounted onto a miniature train frame. The track ran around one of the playgrounds and as you rode it you couldn’t help but laugh and wave at all the people on the slides, monkey bars, and merry-go-rounds (not the motorized kind, you had to push).

For a kid, it was possibly the neatest place in Greenville.

The lake had a small island in the middle. We would dare each other to swim to it. In the end we were all too chicken to try. Some of those ducks looked mean and rumor had it there were snakes in the water.

The oldest house in Greenville had all sorts of antiques inside but we never got to go inside. It was always locked. We had to placate ourselves by looking in the window and making up stories about the ghosts that lived inside.

The playground contained all sorts of equipment that would send a modern OSHA inspector screaming into the night. It’s amazing how many things are dangerous these days. When I was growing up, it was called fun. Today they’re called law suites waiting to happen.

The boat ride was some boats sitting in a tub of water attached to arms that went round and round. As I recall the best thing about them was a bell on each boat you could ring. All four passengers had a steering wheel.

The car ride was much the same except, of course you were in a car not a boat. We all still had stirring wheels but it lacked the cool bell on the boats. Eventually both these rides went away but the trained remained for years afterward.

It was a special occasion to go to Gram Park. The bear was cool. The ducks were fun. The hokey car and boat rides were good for one ride. But the train was the best part. Something about it just made you smile.

I remember when they took the train out. It was sad. Still, as we get older, those sorts of things don’t matter like they used to.

Free Spirits and Scream Tests

2007-01-18T13:55:00.000-06:00

As I watch Zack discover the world and put things together, it amazes me the progress a child makes. I don’t know if my son is different from others. I do know he exhibits an amazing imagination for a three year old. Of course, having a father that routinely goes into a fantasy world to write and game must help.

Thomas the Tank Engine is a favorite world of his engine shunt troublesome trucks and get into all sorts of trouble. Luckily their friends are always there to help.

A second world he loves is that of sharks, dolphins, whales and sea turtles. We have a pool and he has a set of these creatures that migrate between the pool and the bath tub. Indeed, there are some nights with bath protests turn into shouts of joy with the introduction of a shark to the tub.

He and I explore the house looking for flying sharks, dinosaurs, or even the mundane black frogs with yellow eyes. We also chase non-imaginary butterflies, play with caterpillars, and talk to Buddy the Lizard.

Buddy deserves special note. He is a gecko that lives in an old banana plant husk by the pool. The only remarkable thing about Buddy is that he is always in the banana plant. Zack talks to him. Asks how he is doing and then screams at him trying to get him to move.

Zack explores the world in bursts of speed followed by motionless but intense scrutiny. He experiments with animals seeing how the react to various stimuli. Normally this starts with a finger, followed by gentle tones of reassurance. He play with the worm, insect, frog, cat, dog, or other subject showing the animal to Debbie and I. Eventually, however, it always winds up with the scream test.

Sometimes I worry about Zack. :-)

T-Rex and the train table

2007-01-18T13:49:00.000-06:00

At one time the train table my son received for Christmas was a happy care-free place. Rhino, zebra, and a plant eating dinosaur roamed the lush grassy center of the table. An American Indian tee pee was erected on the site with a canoe that rode on the river flowing from the tables water fall. Then, one day, everything changed for the worse.

A T-Rex, who once resided on a shelf in my son's room, arrived on the verdant plain. It ate the trees placed there with so much love and care, ripping the foliage from it spray foam base. The Indians were never seen again, obviously leaving for less hostile domains. The other animals all vanished; eaten, I assume, by the ravenous Rex.

Now, all is calm on the train table. Nothing lives there. The T-Rex left going back to his shelf during my wife's next cleaning. The other animals haven't returned living now safe in their box of plastic 'stuff'. Now, cars and trucks drive the roads and the trains go down their tracks but no living thing dares inhabit the center of the table for one never knows when the terrible Rex might return. Rar!

Happiness is an Electric Train

2006-12-24T11:49:00.000-06:00

As most of you know, I have a three year old son. One of his favorite programs is Thomas the Tank Engine. We saw how much fun he had with the Thomas and Friends wooden trains so we purchased a table and many of engines, cars, and track feature. Note: Thomas paraphenalia is not for the financially challenged.

Our local hobby store sells Thomas at the back of the store. But to get there you have to travel through the electric train section. That's clever marketing on their part. As Zack progressed in age, the allure of Thomas begins to fade and the passion for trains that move themselves took over. For the last half year (from age 3.25) Zack spent less than five minutes in the Thomas area and the rest of the time looking at the electric train section dreaming of the day when he could have a 'real' train. To make matters worse, they now sell Thomas trains in HO scale.

So for Christmas this year, my wife and I decided to put together a train table for Zack. He's a little young (at 3.75) but we had our reasons for giving it to him this year.
1) he loves electric trains
2) Debbie has always wanted an electrain train set
3) I love electric trains.

Of course, a set of tracks nailed to a 4'x8' hunk of plywood wouldn't do. No, in typical fashion, we went overboard. Luckily for me, I'm not alone. I have a friend named Derek who, among other talents, is an incredible artist when it comes to all things miniature. This guy should have been one of the members of the Weta workgroup that created all those amazing scenes for Lord of the Rings.

So, I invited him to Texas from California for my birthday party and hijacked him for a few days of craft with plaster, styrofoam, and paint. He left within a few days with most of the tables form in place. Sad thing is, after two weeks of additional work, the thing still didn't get finished. Oh, don't get me wrong, its a three year old's dream but the product that was delivered Christmas day had a few spots the paint didn't fully cover and the turf had some thin spots. I didn't have a chance to finish putting the bushes, trees and shrubs in place. While it looks nice, it could have looked a lot nicer.

This was the year where Zack first realized the big guy in a red suit did more than just show up this time of year in malls. He brought things; really cool nice things. So, we took Zack to see Santa at church where he sat on the jolly old man's lap and told him he wanted trains and trucks. Santa asked if he wanted anything else but Zack assured him that was all. Apparently, even at three, Zack knows to ration requests to what you really, really want.

I have to say, to Zack, it doens't matter one bit. When he woke and walked into the living room he just stood there for a bit staring. Finally a big smile crossed his face and he yelled, "I GOT A TRAIN!"

It made all the hours of effort worth it and all those flaws I once saw went away. To my son it was the best train set ever. As I write this at 1:00 p.m. he hasn't left it since 6 a.m. this morning other than the occastional bath room break which occurs only after his bladder has reached bursting stage complete with the 'hold the pee pee dance'. As I was writing this I asked the wife if he had eaten today. The answer was 'no' so we provided a plate of food. Zack grabbed a bite without looking at the plate and shoved it into his mouth. After the frist swallow he relized he was, indeed hungry and devoured the rest of the food.

Sadly, Zack will never thank my friend or I for our creation. Santa did it all, you see. But still, after seeing the smile on my son's face I don't mind. Seeing him disappear into a world of trains and tunnels with a huge smile on himself if thanks enough.

Night Terrors

2006-12-24T11:40:00.000-06:00

This is an old one from last year. I'm afraid its not very Christmas-ee

October 1st, 2005

Waking, Walking Night Terrors

The other night Zack woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Now I’ll confess that normally I let Debbie handle the Zack wakings. Its not that I’m lazy, well I am but that’s not the main reason, its that when I go to comfort Zack he demands that his mom rock him. There are time he points to the door and and commands me to ‘Go’. My role is reduced to fetching milk or whatever while Deb is rocking Zack trying to get him back to sleep.

This week he woke up every night between midnight and 2 a.m. We’re not sure why but every night he woke up asking for Deb in his sweet, sing-song voice. This changed on Friday night when he woke up screaming. It was obvious he woke up from a night mare. Problem was it turned out he hadn’t woke up at all.

He’s able to open doors now. A new trick that has Deb and I scared about what he might be able to get into or out of. On this night he opened the door and walked out of his room. Its not the first time he’s done this but normally he just says a few words like ‘milk’, ‘have you’ - which means he wants to be held, or ‘blanket and rock’ meaning he wants his white blanket to snuggle up with and he wants to be rocked.

This night was different, however. He looked at Deb and I and ran screaming the other way saying he was scared. We chased after him but he would have none of it. He ran all over the house asking for mom and dad. When we approached he ran off again, screaming. It was as if he didn’t recognize us as us but somehow saw us as something else.

I offered the usual cold milk and he just looked at me and screamed. He did the same to Deb. Any attempt to hold him or calm him down just made him scream more. Eventually he ran into the bath room nearest his room and slammed the door.

The whole event was horrible. Zack’s voice didn’t sound so much like Zack as something scared and feral. He ran from room to room desperately looking for someone he knew. Zachary was suffering and there was nothing Deb or I could do to make it better.

Deb’s family has experience this sort of behavior before. Both of Debbie and her daughters had walking night terrors as children. Kathryn once described to her mom what she saw during one of these episodes. She said her mom moved herky jerky being one place one second and then moving instantaneously somewhere else. Kathryn further said her dad was spinning rapidly in place as he talked to her. I can only guess at what Zack was seeing when he looked at Deb and I.

Secluded in the bathroom we could hear Zack sobbing for his parents. Debbie went in to calm him. He began screaming like before. She picked Zack up and he thrashed around until he saw himself in the mirror. Something about that brought him to full wakefulness. He stopped crying and calmed down. He began speaking like Zachary again and asked for some milk.

I have to say the whole episode scared me. My sci-fi/fantasy writer’s brain went to some sort of tormenting force that is somehow scared away by its own reflection. In truth, it was probably Zack seeing himself that snapped him out of whatever mental state was causing the hallucinations. Still, it seems odd that that one stimulus snapped Zack out of it.

The event forced me to read a bit on toddler sleeping patterns. It turns out this isn’t that rare an event. Still, as a parent you try to find the patterns that lead to this sort of problem.

In the end, I don’t know. It could have been food, a bad day at day care, or something he saw on TV. Still other explanations could be hereditary brain chemistry or environment factors such as pollens or mold. Who knows? I just know that I hope the episodes are rare. And if they aren’t, I hope we always have a mirror handy to drive away the demons.

Diabetes and Me

2006-12-16T12:16:00.000-06:00

I'm not a diabetic... yet.

Thanks to my mother's fine southern cooking and an addiction to Dr. Pepper I'm sure this disease looms on the horizon and its not just my diet. Both my mother, older sister and brother have some form of blood sugar issue so the deck is stacked against me. My weight is another issue, while I'm losing the excess pounds now, its only a matter of time before genetics and a bad diet catch up with me.

I was therefor pleased to read the following article. It looks as though the disease might be related to bad nerve impulses being sent to the brain from the pancreas. Seems odd but the doctors in the article were amazed at the result of deadening those nerves in mice with diabetes.

What's more, they think asthma might have a similar cure. Truly good news from our neighbors to the north.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a042812e-492c-4f07-8245-8a598ab5d1bf&k=63970

Shrek the Third

2006-12-15T12:01:00.000-06:00

First off, let me state, I'm a Shrek fan. It is the DVD we watch most often as a family. The movies have things in them for everyone to enjoy. My three year old enjoys the cartoon and loves the cat, Puss. The girls enjoy the romantic story of true love. I love the action, music, and punny humor.

I also empathize with an ogre that sometimes, just wants to be left alone but is drawn into events based on need and a desire to do what's right. Also, I admire Shrek's loyalty to his family and friends even if he comes off as, well, an ogre from time to time.

Due to my and my family's love of the movie, I was extremely pleased to here Shrek 3 is in the works. We might even break the taboo of taking a three year old to a crowed movie theater.

Here's the web site for anyone interested in information about the movie.

http://www.moviefonenewsblog.com/2006/12/13/insert-caption-shrek-the-third/

Lessons from Greece

2006-12-15T11:57:00.000-06:00

GDuring my two weeks in Athens, I've discovered the following things

• Uzo is the national drink of Greece and it is not your friend. Oh, it may start out as a polite conversation but towards the end of the night it turns into an argument and you will wake up the next morning regretting the conversation.
• If a man walks up to you on the street and starts polite conversation, he’s a pimp. I don't care what else he says he is, he's a pimp. The pimps in Greece are polite, friendly and do not take no for an answer. Distance is your only option since they don’t wander more than half a block from their corner.
• Good (kala) is used in some form in just about every sentence. This leads me to believe Greece is a good country.
• Greeks have great salads and serve mounds of meat at good prices.
• Parakalo (please, welcome, and about one hundred other meanings) is used at least once in each spoken paragraph.
• The Greeks speak at warp speed.
• You get free drinks when you ask the bar tender how to say something in Greek.
• The historical sites in Greece rock (pun intended)
• The Acropolis is much higher than it appeared in the Olympics. Bring a bottle of water for the accent.
• But most importantly, Uzo is not your friend.

So endeth the lesson.

Scary Man

2006-12-12T08:52:00.000-06:00

Last year, my son was 2 years old when Halloween rolled around. Here's a little something I wrote back then.

Scary Man:

As Halloween approaches, the ghosts and goblins of movies past begin to inhabit the malls. On this day there was a moving, talking Freddie Kruger doll outside Spencer’s Gifts. It had some sort of motion sensor that caused the animatron to activate when someone approached. Zack was very interested in the immobile robot calling it Scary Man.

You could tell his determination to get a close look because he completely forgot his obsession with mall the escalator. This event occurred after a disastrous ours trip to the shoe store. We decided Zack needed to wear something other than sandals. He had other ideas. But I digress.

As he approached the life-sized Freddie Kruger it activated. Zack instantly went into Ostrich mode covering his eyes so that he would disappear from the beast. After the thing spoke again ever after his clever cloaking tactic, he ran with eyes covered back toward the escalator.

The rest of the evening was spent going back to see the Scary Man as Zack dared himself to get closer and closer. Finally we left the mall with Zack looking backward saying ‘wanna see scary man’ over and over until we left the mall.

I wonder at our need to be scared. From an early age I would watch Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf man knowing I would have nightmares and wonder about the creature under the bed. But I would watch them over and over again all the same.

I see the same need in Zack and wonder if its genetics or simply a human need to push ourselves beyond our fear of the unknown. In some ways it is noble. In other ways its just plain nuts.

Live in the bowels of government

2006-12-05T19:24:00.000-06:00

I'm nearing the end of another assignment. This one is interesting because its doing government work. I've been out of that line of business for a while and I forgot the bureaucratic nightmares involved in even the simplest task. Its as if people derive great pleasure in playing the 'you can't do that' trump card.

Luckily, I learned the game long ago. The government does actually need a way to get things done, you just have to probe and prod long enough to find it. If one person says 'no', you find another person at equal or higher level that will say yes.

Please note, only do this if you're on a short term assignment. If you have to deal with the 'no' person for an extended period of time, you don't want to make an enemy. In stead, make them the hero. Give the credit for anything good they accomplish. After that, human nature will kick in and they'll actually want to succeed. Then sit back and watch them get squashed.