Quite a while ago—back in September of 2006—Andrea and I visited Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in Dresden. I never got around to putting up the pictures, but since I’ve been playing around with Flickr, I guess now’s as good a time as any.
Pictures that have a different border have extra “notes” associated with them, on Flickr.
I was on a conference call as I typed this—actually, it was a series of conference calls—so I had to type quietly. (That doesn’t impact your ability to read this post; I just wanted to share.)
I’ve decided to take some vacation in August. This last week a colleague and I have been covering for my Project Manager, while he’s on vacation, and I’ve decided that I need to take my own vacation, as soon as he gets back. (I’ll stay here for at least a day, when he gets back, to transition, but then I’m heading off.) I’m getting sort of burnt-out, and run-down.
Speaking of which, I’m fairly sure that I’ll be getting sick, this week. I can already feel my body starting to complain, and I have a deployment this weekend, which means I’ll be losing a bunch of sleep. So it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll be sick by Monday.
On an unrelated note, since I’ve got Flickr up and running, here is a picture, from my Flickr account:
I got my photos moved over to my new Flickr account. I haven’t yet taken advantage of any of the cool new features, though, except to put a little Flash thing in the sidebar. My first step will be to update any posts that are pointing to my old Yahoo! Photos site, and point them to Flickr instead. The good news is that I can now point a link directly to a Flickr “set” instead of just creating a link to my main site, and having to say “click this, then click that, then click the other, to see the photos”.
When I do update the site, and re-point any posts to my Flickr account, I don’t think I’ll bother to re-post, to say that I’m done. I think I’ve put up quite enough posts about photos, by this point, and even I’m getting tired of talking about it.
I don’t know why I’m so fond of the word “redux” in my blog post titles. Well, true, I’ve only used it twice; but I never used it at all before I started blogging. I’m only about 80% sure that I’m using it properly.
Anyway, I have good news on my Yahoo! Photos situation. I had been holding off on moving my photos to Flickr, because I was hoping that I would get an official email from Rogers, first, explaining the whole situation clearly. I got that email this morning, and the news is just what I’d been hoping for: Rogers Yahoo! customers will get Flickr Pro accounts, as part of their Rogers service. Just like Rogers worked out a deal so that their customers would get unlimited photos on Yahoo! Photos, they’ve worked out a similar deal that their customers would get Flickr Pro accounts.
I don’t actually know what the impact would have been, if I’d only gotten a “normal” Flickr account; what would I have lost? Would I be able to create links to old “albums” or “keywords” or whatever Flickr calls them, or would people only be able to see my newest photos? I was going to get around to looking up the difference between the two types of accounts, but never did. And now I don’t have to.
I don’t know when I’ll get around to moving the photos from the old service into the new service; probably some time when I have a bunch of spare time on my hands, so that I can navigate around Flickr, and get used to it. I already know, or at least am led to believe, that Flickr uses photo “sets” and “collections” instead of albums, like Yahoo! Photos used, so I’ll have to get used to that. I’m really hoping that I don’t have to go in and add each individual photo to a particular “set” or “collection”—I have almost 900 pictures uploaded, and it would take a long time to go back and tag/label them all. Even with tools that let you do bunches of pictures at once, it will take me a long time.
But I’ll get a lot in return, when I do move to Flickr:
I was randomly surfing the web yesterday, and I came across Google’s Book Search site. So, being narcissistic, I immediately looked up Beginning XML, to see what I could find. They have it listed at this page.
It’s pretty cool; they have links to places you can buy it, reviews, places on the web that reference the book, and the part that I found the coolest, they have references to my book in other books. If there’s some other book that has Beginning XML in the bibliography, you can click the link, and see the appropriate page from that book, with the reference to Beginning XML highlighted.
Of course, while I was there, I couldn’t stop myself from clicking on the reviews, and reading them. They’re all very positive, except for the first one, which is very critical. (Mostly of the fact that so many of the authors, including myself, thank God in the “About the Authors” section, but there are other critiques in the review as well.) Luckily, it’s a review that I’ve seen before—in fact, I think one of the other “God-thanking” authors forwarded it to me, a long time ago—so I wasn’t shocked by it, but it still hurts, a bit, to read it again.
Actually, for this reason, I tend to avoid reading reviews altogether, if I can. Most of the reviews I’ve read—from both critics and readers—have been positive, but I always hate reading the negative ones. Especially the ones with valid criticisms, those hurt the worst, but even the ones that are negative for the sake of being negative still hurt, on some level. (Even if I don’t always feel that it’s rational to be hurt.) I’m led to believe that a lot of authors tend to avoid reading their own reviews; if I ever take the plunge into writing fiction, I’m sure I’ll avoid reviews all the more.
Why, you might be asking, is serna doing nothing today but surfing YouTube? And if you were to ask that, serna might answer that he’s
There are those who say that YouTube is a waste of time. To those people, I say this:
I had previously mentioned the myriad friends I have who keep inviting me to join Facebook. (I hadn’t yet made up my mind, when I wrote that post, but I since have: I’m not joining Facebook. Find something better to do than asking me to.)
But, since I keep coming across Facebook everywhere I turn, I thought I’d do a search for “facebook” on Google, and post some of the more interesting links I found.
First off, if you don’t know anything about Facebook, you might be interested in a biographical page about the site. Then, if you’re still in a reading mood, there was an article in the Toronto Star, which says that there are more members of Facebook from Toronto than from any other city in the world. (The byline claims that it’s “not just because we’re geeks”, but that still remains to be seen.)
And if you’re still in a reading mood, I found a good article by someone named danah boyd, on privacy, and the fact that privacy is not Boolean, on or off; there are degrees of privacy.
Hey, while we’re on the subject of privacy, you might want to check this out—in fact, I’d suggest that you do! It’s a video—be warned that it starts playing immediately, when it loads; there’s no “play” button or anything—and it talks about who Facebook gets their funding from. I haven’t done any double-checking on their facts; if you’re interested, and/or worried, it shouldn’t be too hard to verify it.
Finally, if you’re feeling silly, there are a bajillion videos on YouTube having to do with Facebook, but I just picked three. To start with, an infomercial parody, which I liked. Then I found two songs—both of which are what I think of, when I picture a Facebook user. Heh. There is the aptly named Facebook Song, and the equally aptly named Facebook.com Song.
If you go to this blog post, by Christine Estima, you’ll see a great “Toronto story”. Maybe not the best Toronto story—who am I to judge?—but I enjoyed reading it.
(Actually, there is more than one story in that post, along with some fond remembrances Christine has of some of her friends back home in T.O. I feel guilty linking to a post that’s somewhat personal, but I feel that it’s worth it, to share the first story with you, my gentle reader. Maybe, to be polite, you should just read the first story, and then stop reading?)
I love living in Toronto, and therefore I love reading stories like this.
I know, I know, I haven’t written anything this week. But I put up two posts on Monday; surely that counts for something, right? (I think the serna Bible Blog makes me lazy, when it comes to this blog; because I’m pretty much posting there consistently, every day, on some level it makes me feel that “hey, I’ve already posted today, there’s no need to post again.”)
After we got back from Elora/Guelph/St. Jacobs, Andrea and I were talking, and we both feel that there are a lot of places in Ontario worth visiting. I semi-seriously suggested that we should visit every place in Ontario; not necessarily every single town/village, but… I don’t know. Section it off into pieces, 10km2 or something, and visit each one of those regions.
I don’t think it’s something we’ll end up doing, but if we do, I’m sure I’ll start a “serna Travel Blog” to document it all. And it might even give me a chance to play with the Google Maps API; wouldn’t it be cool if I created a map of Ontario, and marked out all of our travels on it? No? It would just be geeky, and not really helpful? Oh. Never mind then. I’ll just have to find some other excuse^H^H^H^Hreason to play with the Google Maps API…
Anyway, if you think I didn’t write much this week, I’m sure I won’t write anything next week. I don’t have any plans this weekend, so hopefully there won’t be anything to write about on Monday, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be very busy next week, so I won’t have time to document the mundane details of my life.
For no real reason, Andrea and I decided to go away for the weekend. Well, not for the whole weekend; we left Saturday (after getting my car back), and came back Sunday. We didn’t really have any particular reason for going, and nor did we have any particular destination in mind; we just looked for someplace within easy driving distance. A couple of people had suggested Elora Gorge, so that’s where we decided to go.
Unfortunately, when we looked for a place to stay, we could only find bed & breakfast places; no hotels, or inns, or motels, or anything. So we decided to stay in Guelph, instead, at a hotel. It’s within easy driving distance of Elora, so it was fairly win-win. Also, if we wanted to do anything Saturday night, there would be a better chance of someplace in Guelph being open than someplace in Elora.
We drove down on Saturday, and, unfortunately, it was raining. We decided to drop by the gorge anyway, just to orient ourselves and figure out where it was, and then we dropped into the main town of Elora. It’s a very touristy place, with old fashioned-style shops. Although it was still raining, we decided to walk around for a bit, and look in the shops. It was mostly touristy stuff, that I would never bother with, although we did find some really nice leather chairs in one particular store; it was a store with stuff from artisans, and the chairs were made of some nice soft, comfortable, seemingly well-worn leather. (For anyone reading this who’s seen my leather jacket, you will probably understand why I would like chairs made out of seemingly well-worn leather.) From what I know of leather furniture—which is very little—they seemed like the same price as any other leather chairs, but I liked them a lot more. I would have been tempted to buy them, except that:
Warning: This post will be long, and there is a good chance that it will turn into a rant. But I’ll try to make it as matter-of-fact as I can.
I had really been hoping to avoid this, but alas, it was not meant to be. I’ve been having car troubles again. I’d wanted to be able to get my new car, before having to dump more money into the old one, but that’s not going to happen soon enough. Here’s what happened:
My car had been having some trouble starting, lately. I would turn the key and nothing would happen except for a loud click, and then all of the dashboard lights (and the A/C) would come on, but the engine wouldn’t start. But then I’d turn the key again, and it would turn over, and everyone would be happy. I would foolishly forget about it, until the next time it happened.
Well, last Saturday, we were supposed to go home and visit with my family. We drove to the gas station—with no trouble starting—got gas, and then were going to head on our way, when… you guessed it. The car wouldn’t start. But this time, no matter how many times I turned the key, nothing happened. We finally managed to get it into neutral, and push it out of the way so that other cars could get gas, and I had to call for a tow.
The tow truck came, and brought me and my dead car to the dealer’s. Luckily, we were close to home, so Andrea just walked home, rather than crowding into the tow truck with myself and the other two guys.
I was lucky that the shop at my dealer’s was open. They weren’t able to fix the car right away, but at least I could talk to the guy and explain the problem. I’m embarrassed to say that I also, while I was there, had the summer tires put back on the car. Yes, you read that right, people: It was July, and I still had my winter tires on the car. But this time, I told them that I didn’t want them to store the winter tires; I was planning to sell the car, so no sense leaving the tires at the dealer anymore.
Ironically enough, while I was there, there was another guy getting an oil change on his car, and they had a conversation similar to this:
I’ve just found out that Yahoo! is going to discontinue their Yahoo! Photos service. Anyone who has photos on Yahoo! Photos will have to move their photos to another service—which is bad news for me, because Rogers has a deal with Yahoo!, and I’d been getting unlimited photo storage through Yahoo! for my pictures. (I’ve linked to my photos site a few times, on this blog.)
Now, this isn’t all bad news. I’d been frustrated with the Yahoo! Photos site for a while, because I can’t upload a picture there and then put it on my blog—the best I can do is give someone a link to my main Photos page, and then say “now go to this particular folder, and the pictures are all in there.” (For example, when I went to Venezuela, and then wanted to put up the pictures, I had to do this.) One of my options will be to migrate my photos to a site like Flickr, which has more functionality than what Yahoo! Photos has, and will make it easier to share my pictures.
However, based on the very limited research I’ve done into it, I don’t think I’ll be getting unlimited photo storage on Flickr for free, just because I’m a Rogers customer, like I did with Yahoo! Photos. (There is a rumour that I might get a 3 month trial subscription to their “Pro” account, but I haven’t verified, yet.) This may be okay; the free Flickr account might suit my needs, especially since I don’t upload photos very often. But I’ll need to research, and see what the limitations are of a free Flickr account.
In any event, I’m going to have to go back through my previous posts, and look for links to my Yahoo! Photos page, which will be frustrating, boring, and annoying, all at once.
First off, for anyone who read my last post, about my stained pants, you’ll be happy to know that I was able to slip into the men’s room and clean them off. (I had to prepare two paper towels—one wet and one dry—go into one of the stalls, and then wipe as much of the stain off as I could.) The results weren’t perfect, but the stain was removed much better than I would have assumed. If someone were to look very closely, they probably still would have seen the stain, but, frankly, there’s not a person in the world who wants to look that closely at my posterior.
Those of you who read my blog religiously, day after day, will remember that this isn’t the first time I’ve spilled something on myself. (I wrote about it in a previous post, which was also titled “Coffee”. I should really put more thought into my titles.)
But here’s the weird part: Although I keep spilling things on myself, for some reason, I keep managing to clean the stains off, with nothing but water and paper towels. I guess all of my clothes are made out of some kind of space-age material, that repels stains.
Andrea made muffins again on the weekend. They’re good—she’s getting very good at making muffins.
That might seem like an isolated fact, but bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this.
After my experiment on Friday, trying to drink more water, I wasn’t sure if I would carry the experiment on today, or if I would give it up. To do it properly, of course, I’d probably have to give up coffee, too, because I believe coffee dehydrates you. But I wasn’t sure if I could do it.
Don’t yet see the connection? Read on…
On my way in to the office, this morning, I was eating one of Andrea’s muffins, and a piece fell off, and landed between my legs. I didn’t think much of it, but when I got to the office, I looked down, and saw that there was a big brown mark on the seat below me. Apparently it was a fairly big piece of muffin. And then I looked closer at the location of the stain, did some mental calculations, and started to worry. It was in a bad place.
So when I got upstairs, I stopped by the men’s room, which, luckily, has a big full-length mirror, and confirmed my worst fears: There is a stain on my pants, in a bad place.
So this is where the coffee comes in: There’s no way I’m going downstairs to Tim Horton’s today, looking like I’ve soiled myself.
I’m not normally one to post cleaning tips to my blog, but what the heck, it’s something to write about.
I’ve been worried about the amount of chemicals Andrea and I dump down the drain, whenever we clean, especially when I clean the bathrooms. (Not to mention, of course, the number of chemicals that we, as a nation, dump down the drain. Or the number of chemicals dumped in North America.) So, when I cleaned the bathrooms yesterday, I decided to use vinegar, instead of cleansers, just to see how well it would work. If you haven’t heard of this, vinegar can be used in place of cleansers in many instances; washing floors, cleaning sinks, etc. (Ask your grandparents; they probably used vinegar all the time, before the chemicals became so popular.)
Normally, I mostly use Murphy’s Oil Soap for cleaning—which I hope isn’t too harsh—but for some jobs, including the tub, I use CLR Kitchen & Bathroom. (Or just plain CLR, for some of the really nasty stuff, but this is rare.) This time, instead, I decided to use a mixture of 50% water and 50% vinegar for most of the work, and full-strength vinegar to do the tub. (For the floors, the mixture was probably a bit more weak than 50/50.)
What I was expecting was that the vinegar would work fairly well, but that I’d have to do a bit more scrubbing than I had with the chemicals; which I’m fine with, really. I’d rather use elbow grease and be more friendly to the environment, than save myself five minutes by using chemicals. And that was true, sort of; it was a bit more work to scrub the tub with vinegar, even using it full-strength, than it had been with CLR Kitchen & Bathroom. But for most of the work, including the sinks, toilets, floors, and shower tiles, using vinegar was exactly the same as using the cleansers I’d used before. It was no harder to clean those surfaces with vinegar than it had been with Murphy’s. (In fact, the vinegar might have worked better on the tile grout than Murphy’s had.)
In a nutshell, I’m sold. I’ll be using vinegar to clean my bathrooms, from now on, instead of cleansers. We also put some in a spray bottle, again using a mixture of 50% vinegar to 50% water, and Andrea used that for cleaning the kitchen. Not only will we be pouring less chemicals down the drain, but we’ll also
What’s this? A movie review for a movie that’s still in the theatres? I know, kids, I’m scared too.
We went and saw SiCKO, by Michael Moore, on Saturday. I liked it, but don’t have much to say. This time around, Moore is taking a more anecdotal approach; instead of giving us a lot of facts and figures about the health care industry in America, he gives us just a few facts and figures, and then spends a lot of time showing the effects on normal Americans. Much of the movie seems to be spent trying to convince Americans that the word “socialism” isn’t necessarily a bad thing; they have socialized police, and fire departments, and schools, so why not socialized health care?
My one concern about the movie, is purely the concern of a Canadian: Moore spends a bit of time comparing the American health care system to the British system, and a lot of time comparing it to the Canadian and French systems. I worry that this emphasis on the Canadian system, and how much better it is than the American system, is going to make us complacent. I mean, let’s face it, we already have a superiority complex, when comparing our health care to theirs, but we don’t seem to pay attention to the fact that our system is being eroded in the same way that the American system was. (We just started later than they did.) Privatization has already begun here in Canada. If Moore’s movie helps Canadians to stand up, and say “let’s not let our system become like theirs”, then I’m happy. But if Moore’s movie makes Canadians think “Phew! I don’t have to worry about health care, because Michael Moore says our health care system is great!” then we have a problem.
I’ve decided that I—like most people—don’t drink enough water. So I’m going to try and drink more. Unfortunately, I’m probably not going to; I’ll forget all about it by Monday.
But I’ve at least made a start, today: I put reminders in my calendar, every hour on the hour for the entire working day, to go and get myself a drink of water.
Isn’t that just the most pathetic thing you’ve read today? It’ll get even more pathetic if I have to do the same thing on Monday, and then Tuesday, and then…
I have a very minor bone to pick with the way spell check works in Microsoft Outlook. It’s with the word “versus” which is normally abbreviated to “vs.” (that is, v-s-period). My problem is illustrated in the following screenshot:
As you can see, the text of my email is “This vs. that.” But when Outlook spell checks the text, it only looks at the “vs” and doesn’t look at the period; so it thinks that there is a typo, and suggests that you replace the word with “vs.” However, if you were to do so, you would end up with “This vs.. that.”
As I said, this is a very minor inconvenience. But it’s one that’s existed since Outlook 97 or so, and they’ve never solved it.
Edited post
Although I tend not to edit posts, once I’ve put them up, this one’s an exception. I’ve modified the links to my photos site.
Probably not that important, but I’m anal-retentive, that way.
Ever have one of those moments when you have a bunch of time to kill, and you feel like surfing the web, but there’s nothing specific you really want to look at? You must; I’m sure it’s not just me. Well, when that happens, I tend to pull up my trusty HTML editor, and start crafting a blog post.
I’ve spent the last week looking for a new picture to use for my desktop background, but I haven’t found anything I liked. I tried looking for actresses I like—partially as a response to the desktop image Andrea’s currently using, but I won’t tell you what that is—but I realized that there aren’t that many actresses I like. At least, not enough to make her my desktop background. (I looked for Lucy Liu in specific, but everything I found was either not that great, or… well, mildly pornograpnic.) I tried looking for shows that I like, but I couldn’t find much [that I liked] for Harvey Birdman or Home Movies. (I thought Simpsons was too commonplace.) I’m not really into cars, so I didn’t bother looking for car pictures. In the past, I’d spent a good solid couple of hours looking for guitar-themed background images, to little avail, so I didn’t bother with that.
I finally settled on a picture of the interior of the Honda Civic. (Didn’t I just say that I’m not into cars, so I didn’t bother looking for car pictures? Yes I did. So why did I change my mind, and look for a car picture? Read on, for my reasoning…)
We’ve decided to get a new car, because we’ve been thinking about getting a hybrid for… well, for a long time now. From what little I know about hybrids—which isn’t much—our two main choices were to get a Toyota or a Honda. From my reading, I think that Toyota hybrids are a bit more fuel efficient than Hondas, but not really that much, so I was more leaning toward getting a Honda.
Here’s what I’ve discovered so far:
I’ve been in the habit of changing my MSN Messenger “message” every couple of days, to random quotes I find online. For some reason, I was in a Monty Python kind of mood today, so I chose this: “What’s brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!”
Wikked Lil' Grrrl says:
Oh Serna. *shaking head*
sernaferna says:
hehe I was looking for Monty Python quotes, and that was the first one that wasn't 8 paragraphs long. 
Wikked Lil' Grrrl says:
i'd have gone with "We lived for 3 months in a paper bag in a septic tank"
sernaferna says:
I was tempted to just go for the simple "And now for something completely different"
Wikked Lil' Grrrl says:
Also an excellent choice.
sernaferna says:
But I thought that *everyone* could get some joy out of this one, even if they'd never heard of MP. 
Wikked Lil' Grrrl says:
True. It *is* a universal sentiment.
Wikked Lil' Grrrl says:
Just a little... "low-brow" for someone of your style.
sernaferna says:
heh
sernaferna says:
Hey, I like potty humour as much as the next guy.
sernaferna says:
Well... I guess it depends who the next guy is. 
Wikked Lil' Grrrl says:
George Michael? 
sernaferna says:
*groan*
sernaferna says:
BTW, do you mind if I post this conversation to my blog? It's been so long since I've done that...
We watched the new Pink Panther movie, with Steve Martin, on the weekend, but I’m not going to bother posting a movie review about it, because I don’t really have much to say. (It was a slap-stick kind of movie, which I don’t normally go for, but they did have quite a few jokes that I laughed at. Even some of the slap-stick stuff had me laughing, when it was executed well.) I was semi-mesmerized by Emily Mortimer, as Nicole, because I was trying to remember where I know her from, but I looked her up on IMDB, and I don’t recognize anything that she’s been in, so I guess I don’t recognize her. (Addendum: I then looked her up on her Wikipedia page, and it turns out she was in The Kid, with Bruce Willis. I think that I saw that movie, so maybe I remember her from that?)
Anyway, I think the thing I liked best about The Pink Panther is the theme music, originally written by Henry Mancini. I’ve always loved the Pink Panther theme music, and I think most people do. I like the original score better than the “modernized” version that was in the new movie, but still, it was pleasant to watch the movie just to have that music in the background. Actually, now that I think about it, I seem to recall that there was another “modernized” version of the music in one of the Charlie’s Angels movies, that the Pussycat Dolls were dancing to, and I didn’t like that version, either. So this must be one of those songs where the old-fashioned feel is part of its charm, or something.
I really should try and get a copy of that song on CD, or download it, or something. Of course, since I don’t have any kind of file sharing program, that might be difficult…
Actually, both of these things occurred as I was on my way to get lunch, so I guess they’re not totally random. If I wanted to pretend that I’d put any thought into this post, I’d claim that “things I saw on my way to lunch” was the theme. But I’d like to think that all of the people who come here are intelligent people, who wouldn’t fall for a trick like that.
Anyway…
On my way to lunch, today, I passed by the cubicle of a woman who was playing Solitaire on her laptop. I catch her every once in a while—probably about half the time I pass by, when she’s at her desk. Not that I’m judging, or making fun. I just find it kind of funny that I catch her at it so often. She probably doesn’t realize that people can see her screen so well, from the angle she’s on. (I guess the lesson is that people who play Solitaire at work should walk by their desks from different angles, to see how visible the screen is.)
And then, when I walked by the kitchen, I could smell someone else’s lunch. At the time, I was trying to decide what I wanted for lunch—I didn’t want to settle for a burger and fries—so it was a relief to think that I could get whatever the other person had. Until it turned out to be Swiss Chalet. (It was the unmistakable smell of Swiss Chalet fries, I’d been inhaling.) Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go for Swiss Chalet, although smelling the other guy’s fries had kindled a burning desire to do so. I haven’t eaten there in a long time, even though it’s one of my favourite restaurants.
So I ended up getting a burger and fries.
Now, aren’t you glad you took the time to read this?
Regular readers—if any—will have noticed that I don’t post to my blog as often as I used to. I’ve gone from multiple posts per day to multiple or single posts per week. Part of the reason is that I’ve been self-editing myself.
For example, I was about to start a post this morning, about the fact that I left home an hour late, this morning, and still got to work at the same time. (That’s rush-hour traffic, for you.) I got about three or four paragraphs into the post, before I realized that it was utterly boring and pointless.
So here is the post I would have posted, if I’d let myself carry on: I left home an hour late, this morning, and still got to work at the same time. (That’s rush-hour traffic, for you.)
Title: Service-Oriented Architecture
Subtitle: Concepts, Technology, and Design
Author: Thomas Erl
I don’t have much to say about this book, other than the fact that it’s a must-read for anyone interested in the topic of Service-Oriented Architecture. Erl is clear and articulate, when laying out the concepts, and brings you to a full understanding of SOA in a way that will make sense to you. Consider this book a textbook for any SOA-related work you want to do, whether you’re an architect, a business analyst, a developer, or perhaps even a manager.
Of course, you’ll need to be prepared for the book’s size and weight; it’s huge. (Even if you’re not interested in SOA, you might want to consider buying the book to help yourself get in shape.) But don’t be daunted by that; there are a lot of diagrams included, and the book is very well laid out, so it won’t take as long to go through as you think it will. (That being said, I’ve been reading this thing since I received it as a Christmas present! But not because of the length; for most of that time, it sat untouched on my bed-side table.)
I don’t normally write about work, however, since I haven’t really done any work today, I don’t feel that this post is breaking the rule. I’ve done almost nothing, so far this morning, other than install software.
It started out with my copy of Enterprise Architect. I’ve been using the trial version, but I was given a proper key, today, so I had to uninstall the trial version, and install the “full” version. Incidentally, for you fellow computer geeks, if you’re looking for a good UML modelling tool, give Enterprise Architect, from Sparx Systems, a try. From what I’ve seen, over the last couple of days, it does everything Rational Rose does and more—even database modelling!—for a tenth of the price. (I believe there is a Linux version of EA as well, although I haven’t had a chance to try it out.)
Then I got a message from Pidgin, that there was a newer version available, so I downloaded that, and installed it. Pidgin is an instant messaging client I’ve been using; I was introduced to it when I first installed Ubuntu, because that’s the IM client that comes by default. (It used to be called GAIM, but there were some legal issues, and they decided to change the name to Pidgin. There’s some more detail on the Wikipedia article.) Incidentally, this means that I am currently running three IM clients, on my laptop: Office Communicator, which I use for communicating with the client; MSN Messenger, which is the main IM client I use for both work and personal; and Pidgin, which I only use for personal, and even then, hardly at all.
And finally, I opened up OpenOffice Impress—the “presentation software” that’s an equivalent to PowerPoint—to see how good it was at exporting a PowerPoint deck into Flash, and it told me that there was an OpenOffice upgrade, from 2.2 to 2.2.1, that I could install. So I downloaded it, and upgraded.
And it’s now quarter to 12, and I’m ready to do some real work. Oh, yeah, and I have to leave early today. So today won’t have been the most productive day I’ve ever worked, I don’t think. Unless I do a lot of work, over the next few hours…
Today I did something that I don’t normally do: I commented on someone else’s blog, and left a link to my own. I don’t normally do anything that will drive traffic here, mostly because I have a blogging inferiority complex—I’m pretty sure that anyone who comes here will immediately become bored. Possibly to the point that they won’t be legally allowed to operate heavy machinery.
Also—and this is, perhaps, a more important point—I never say anything of substance here. Why would I bother to send a link to someone else if I don’t have anything to link to?
Oh well. What’s done is done.
Author: Miriam Toews
It’s difficult to review this book. It’s about a Mennonite girl, Nomi, living in a Mennonite town. (In the book, “Mennonite” is always shortened to “Menno”. “Mennonites” are “Mennos”, a “Mennonite town” is a “Menno town”.) The girl is 16, and the book is written in the first person, and Toews does a good job of imitating the voice of a 16 year old girl. (From what I can tell.)
It’s difficult to review the book because it’s very good, and I didn’t like it. I’m not just saying that it’s good because it won awards—including the Governor General’s Literary Award, as the book proudly proclaims from the cover—I’m saying it’s good because I can tell that it’s good. Well, in my judgement, anyway. I can say with authority that I don’t like it because I don’t like it.
I can safely tell you, without spoiling anything, that the book is centred around Nomi and her father. As I said, they’re Mennos. The father is a good Menno, has never missed church. The girl’s older sister left home some time before, and her mother left home not long after. Both were excommunicated from the church. The book simply examines the way they deal with the situation.
Part of the reason I didn’t like the book is that it’s about Mennos. It would be very easy for someone to read the book and come away feeling superior to them. That may not have been Toews’ intention, but it would be very easy for someone to do. You could read the book, and come away thinking “Wow, Mennos are really backwards, aren’t they?” And then you could spend the rest of the day feeling smug and superior. I don’t feel superior to them, because I don’t feel superior to anyone. Andrea pointed out that she didn’t feel superior, partly because Mennos aren’t that much different from Baptists. If we were to go off and create our own town somewhere, with only Baptists allowed, we might live similarly to them. Of course, the fact that we wouldn’t go off and start a town like that is part of what makes Baptists different from Mennos. But I’m not trying to compare us, nor to judge superiority of one over the other. I’m just relaying Andrea’s thoughts on whether people might come away from the book feeling superior. I guess I should also mention that Toews came from a Menno town, and therefore I assume she writes with a certain amount of authority.
Part of the reason I didn’t like the book is that Toews does a good job of relaying the voice of a 16 year old girl. Especially the kind that would skip school more often than she went, and smoke a lot of pot—the kind of girl that I would have enjoyed hanging out with, when I was 16. Why don’t I like that she did such a good job? Well… have you ever read the writings of a 16 year old? The best one can usually say is that it shows promise. And I just read 246 pages of it.
Part of the reason I didn’t like the book is that Nomi and her father are having a lot of problems dealing with the loss of Nomi’s sister and mother. I won’t say that they’re descending into madness, or anything like that, but I will say that they’re not acting normally. Some might say that the book is an excellent portrayal of two people, and how they deal with their grief; to me, it seems too over the top, and therefore unrealistic. Then again, who am I to say?
So I’ll sum up the review the way I started it: The book is very good, and I didn’t like it.
I wrote that I’d only seen one article about the whole Paris Hilton situation that I felt was worth reading. Based on a tip from the Colbert Report, I have now seen something else worth watching—on, of all places, MSNBC.
Now, to be clear, MSNBC wasn’t making any sense of the situation. Oh no! They were being as irresponsible as all of the other media outlets. It was, believe it or not, Tommy Chong who was bringing clarity to the situation. For some bizarre reason, Contessa Brewer invited Chong on to give his opinion on the situation, and, to her surprise, he gave it.
If you’re alive, live in North America, and are a sentient human being, you’ve probably been inundated with news about Paris Hilton’s arrest, and going to jail and coming back out and going back in again.
I’ve seen/heard/read story after story, and every time, I get a little more disgusted with the media.
I’ve only come across one article that was worth reading—and even it wasn’t an “article”, per se, it was an editorial piece. If you’d like to read it, click here.
I remember what it was I was going to write about, having to do with my haircut. Not that it’s important, but I’ll share it now:
As he was using the razor on the back of my head, and trimming the sideburns and all that, he trimmed the hair in my ears. This, ladies, and gentlemen, is proof positive that I’m getting old. I never knew I even had hair in my ears, but I actually had enough that the guy felt he needed to control it a bit.
I think I need to blog more often. Soon I’ll be so old and decrepit that I won’t be able to lift my fingers to type on the keyboard anymore. Who will continue the serna Bible Blog when I’m gone?
Phew. Today was a busy day!
It started with choir practice. Our concert is next Saturday, the 16th, so of course we’re having as many practices as we can, to get ready. Practice is supposed to be 10–12 Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, not a single person was on time, today. Not. One. Single. Person. This was not a good way to start the day.
After that, we went to the dentist. I was pretty worried about this. Not that I’m normally worried about the dentist—I’ve never had a cavity, and trips to the dentist are usually pretty uneventful—but I haven’t been to a dentist in over three years, so I was afraid that there would be some problems. Luckily, my fears were unfounded, and my teeth were fine. Maybe a bit stained, but no cavities or anything. The interesting thing, though, was when the hygienist suggested that I get braces. My front teeth stick out—a lot—so she suggested that I might want to get them straightened. They don’t need to be straightened, it would be purely a visual thing, but she put the bug in my ear.
Normally, I wouldn’t give it any thought at all, and would probably consider it a vanity to get my teeth straightened. We’re too self-conscious, in North America, about piddly little things like that. On the other hand, I have to admit, I am self-conscious about them. Especially this week; I was watching a video, in the last couple of days, of me talking, and I was watching the way that I have to specifically talk around my teeth, and it made me very self-conscious about them. I’ve always known that they look… off, but I didn’t realize how much so. So, I’m not saying that I’ll get braces, but it’s on my mind, and I’m going to give it some thought.
After we left the dentist, Andrea and I were in the car, heading to get her hair cut, and having a detailed discussion about the possibility of me getting braces, when we got in an accident. Now, let me stress, for the record: It wasn’t my fault. I’ve been in numerous accidents, most of which have been my fault, but this one wasn’t. We were driving through an intersection, on the green light, and there was a car turning left. For some reason, she decided to go while we were still in the intersection, and she hit the back of my car. (Pictured below.)
It was bizarre, because I don’t know what she could have been thinking. It was obvious she couldn’t go, and yet, for some reason, I guess she thought she could. She even hesitated a bit, as if she wasn’t sure of herself. I tried to swerve out of the way—which might have helped—but not enough to avoid her altogether. As she hit me, I could hear the crunching, the scraping, and the broken glass, and I knew it was going to be a good amount of damage. But then, when I got out of the car, and looked at the damage, there wasn’t any! Well, there was a big scrape, along the back panel, but other than that, no damage. Not even a tail light that was out. (And, frankly, with the rust on the hood of my car, an extra scrape on the back isn’t really a big deal.) We went back and looked at her car, and her front headlight was smashed out, which explained some of the sounds I’d been hearing, during the accident.
Of course, we decided not to bother with insurance, as there wasn’t anything to fix on my car, and the cost of fixing her light would have been less than the deductible she’d be paying anyway. Possibly the strangest thing about the accident is that the woman who was driving the other car wasn’t really sure what had happened. She was even wondering, at one point, who’s fault it might have been, but Andrea was having none of that, thank you very much. It was pretty obvious who’s fault it was, and she made no bones about it. (She wasn’t impolite, of course. She just didn’t let the woman keep any false pretenses about what had happened.)
After this, we continued on our merry way to get Andrea’s hair cut. I decided to get mine cut, too, while we were there, and I could have swore that there was something worth writing about, from the hair cut, but I’m not remembering what it was. It probably wasn’t important. (Not like all of the other stuff I’ve written about, eh?)
Not much happened after we got home. Except that I got a call from James, from Jeremy’s house. Apparently all of my friends back home are rip-roaring drunk, and wanted to let me know that they’re having fun without me. Jerks. (Actually, they probably weren’t that drunk. At least, most of them. And by the time you read this, I doubt any of them will be drunk anymore.) While I was on the phone with them, it was reported to me that a friend of mine—Hi Terri!—has started a “group” on Facebook, devoted to getting me to sign up. (Is “group” the right word?) She’s apparently gotten 23 people in this group, including people that I don’t know.
You can create all the groups you want, people, I’m not joining. Heh.
I had to hang up the phone with them, though, so that I could come to work, since I have to pull another all-nighter tonight. Which is where I was when I typed this.
Once again, I’ve got the urge to become a full-time writer. Not just a computer nerd who sometimes takes a few weeks out of a year to update his book on XML, but a real, full-time, stay-at-home-and-do-nothing-else, writer. Of course, I still want to do it for all the wrong reasons.
But I’ve also added a new reason to the list: I’m not happy with my job, these days. I’m not sure if it’s the job itself, or the situation, but I think the reason is that WORK-RELATED REASON WHY SERNA IS NOT HAPPY WITH HIS JOB REMOVED FROM SENTENCE. Which is pretty reasonable, don’t you think?
I sometimes wonder how well my sense of humour really comes through, in blog form. It’s probably not nearly as funny to everyone else as it is to me—which makes it exactly like my sense of humour in real life. (Did I ever write here about Andy Kaufman? No? Oh well. I don’t feel like getting into it right now. Look him up on Wikipedia, if you’re interested.)
I should really get to work on finishing my novel, so that I can send it to someone knowledgeable, so that I can get an opinion as to whether it’s publishable. If so, I’ll be more than happy to pursue that, and then, when the money starts rolling in, quit my day job.
Or, when the money starts dribbling in, do that and my day job. Which means I would have two jobs. Hmm. Maybe I should think this through a bit more…
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