Author: cdwan

Went on a whale watching boat trip this afternoon with Jen and Jen’s parents. Whales are very, very cool animals. We saw two humpbacks, one of whom “breached” (leapt completely out of the water, executing about a 1/2 turn in midair). In my opinion, whales are one of the wonders of the natural world, and I’m really happy to have gotten to see them in my lifetime.

News of the weird. Bullets not boobs, or “pornstars can talk?”

I went to a kung fu class at the kung fu palace up the street. The trainer seems like a pretty reasonable guy, but I barely even broke a sweat. Clearly he was being nice, but we’re going to need to step it up if I’m to stay with this program. I want either (a) God’s own workout or (b) Real hand to hand training. It’s “Shotokan (sp?)” school, for the record. I may start showing up for the cardio session he has the hour before the class. Sure, I’d have to suffer through working out with a class full of women, but there are bound to be up-sides too.

My father gave me a rather nice box of cigars for my birthday. I’m looking for cost-effective advice on the care and maintenance of high grade stogies for those of us who smoke, maybe, one or two a quarter. Suggestions that they be shared will be met with a baleful glare of “I don’t see you coming to visit, do I?”

My new T-shirt says “HARVARD – The Michigan of the East.” I wore it on the T today, and nobody had the nerve to comment. Wusses.

I’m going whale watching this weekend! Jen’s parents will be in town, and we’ve got tickets for an afternoon on a boat with the big mammals. I think that whales are cool.

On a related note, I filled the thistle feeder, and the same day saw a goldfinch and a chickadee eating from it. Talk about positive reinforcement.

Click here for my response to simianpower‘s infantile poop story.

And in case you’re tired of reading:

an article from today’s New York Times made me angry today. It describes how both campaigns from the major parties have teams working their butts off to either keep Nader off or get him on the ballots in as many states as possible.

The drive by Pennsylvania Democrats is one of the most extensive and offers a glimpse into what it takes to mount such a challenge.

Working with Reed Smith was a Philadelphia lawyer, Gregory M. Harvey, an elections specialist who has been detached from his firm while he organized 70 volunteers at his end of the state.

It is pathetic, yet totally predictable, that both parties would rather spend this level of energy on negative crap than on trying too make themselves more compelling or appealing to those few voters who are currently still willing to vote for Nader.

Let me say it again: The Democrats would rather deny me the ability to vote for Nader than talk me out of voting for him. That’s complete crap.

Just another example of The Man keepin’ us down. You can vote for whomever you want…as long as it’s one of these two rich white men from Yale.

Sometimes, on the way to work, I stop off at some station on the T and have a cup of coffee and check my email before going all the way to the office. It’s my little way of exploring Boston and Cambridge, and not getting into a dank and moody commuter rut. This morning I’ve stopped off at Kendall / MIT. I bought a cup of coffee at Au Bon Pan, and then followed signs for the “Rooftop Garden.”

Turns out that someone decided that the top of a parking structure would be much better used as a mini-park with beautiful flowers and trees than simply as a space to put more cars. So I’m settled in here until my coffee gets cold. I think it’s good for my soul to sit out here.

Oh yeah, I also need to buy a book or two on Web Services. That whole WSDL->PERL->Java interoperability thing is sort of a pain.

Changed the exterior doorknobs on the house today. Got some high quality Schlage knobs and deadbolts, and then mounted them. Along the way we had, I think, every possible permutation of pain-in-the-butt doorknob mounting error, including configuring one door such that I can *either* set the deadbolt *or* use the doorknob lock, but not both.

On the plus side:

(1) We now have keys to both exterior doors.
(2) The people who had the keys before now have keys to the doorknobs in my trash
(3) I got to play with a 2 1/8″ drill bit. It’s pretty sweet to own a machine that can cut perfectly round holes in a door that are 2 1/8″ across.
(4) Ummm…did I mention the part about not being creeped out by not having keys to my front door? That’s resolved now.

Fitness update: 50 sit ups in a minute, 34 push ups in series, 10 pull ups. I will improve.

I tried “finger rolls,” in which I hold a barbell loaded with 170 lbs at waist height, and open and close my hands on it to move it up and down. These are evil, evil, evil. My forearms are still wondering what happened. On the other hand, when I need to use my fingers to move my body around on rock, this ability will come in handy.

“Collateral” is a pretty good movie. Tom Cruise can really act, when he hasn’t simply been told “act like Tom Cruise, that’s what’s selling”. The movie, for all that it’s billed as an action flick, really has a lot of drama. The vast majority of it is shot in a taxi, with the two main characters just interacting and talking. They even gave Jason Stratham a cameo as some random badass who knows the Tom Cruise character. Cruse does a convincing job of being dangerous and quick on his feet. I would see this one again.

“Alien vs. Predator” on the other hand is not a great movie. It’s not campy and brilliant like Jason X…it’s just a genre film putting in the time and pulling out the bucks. I like both series (Alien a lot more than Predator) so it was sort of fun. The short version is, on open, level ground with good sight lines, $10 on the Predator every time. Add in dark and twisty passages and multiple enemies and it goes about 50/50. Predator is quick and can think strategically. The Aliens are *fast* and they just keep coming. Throw in an Alien queen and all bets swing to the Aliens. Unless, of course, the Predators decide to forgo honorable combat and use ranged weapons. Ranged weapons (preferably with splash damage) are the way to go when dealing with Alien queens.

We tried out the tent (which will be used for the great alaska adventure) last night. Glad we did. It leaks, big time. More water repellent! More sealant!

I did feel a little bit silly, camping out in the backyard. I would have felt a lot more silly taking a tent that I had never even set up before on a weeklong trip.

AVP. I’m going.

Had my first good climbing day since arriving in Rhode Island this evening. I’ve been feeling weak and soft from intermittent workouts and lack of restful sleep. The fact that I was once again climbing at something like the level I used to makes me very happy and confident that I’ve settled in a bit here. I really need a climbing partner so I can get back to rated top rope and (pleasepleaseplease) lead. Bouldering is fun, but it’s for the serious jocks. I do pretty well on the harder top ropes, but I flirt with injury on the easy boulder puzzles.

Of course, a “good” climbing day means that I’ve got tiny lacerations all over my hands, and my forearm skin is weeping from trying to cling to this one totally evil hold (you sort of have to hug it and move your feet around a corner). W00T.

Spent my day writing WSDL, which is like a mutant, bastardized, cross between HTML and Java, with some of its very own syntax thrown in for good measure. In theory, this will allow our PERL based applications to talk to clients written in any language whatsoever. In reality, there are subtle differences between the various implementations. It’s just like any other sort of engineering. Evaluate the benefits and make yer’ choice.

Killer squirrel