New Honda hydrogen vehicle

Exciting Times
Honda have released their first FCX Clarity to its first customer. This is an exciting piece of technology and Honda has obviously addressed concerns that it might get stolen. Namely by building in a theft deterrent - look at the size of the dang key! No one is going to steal that sucker because they don't want to carry this around with them :)



Review link is here.

Working hard

I just have to add these. Working tonight on a database server migration (yes, it went smoothly), I had some help.

From 2008-07-26

She seems to enjoy being here.

From 2008-07-26

No comments from the peanut gallery about my lack of hair, please :)

So this morning Tinto decides to bring in a leaf for me and places it at my feet. An odd move since I've seen him eating meat regularly (he has no problem eating). I sent him out and he came back with a second. And a third. Presently there are three leaves sitting on the floor and I presume he's in no mood to stop adding to the collection yet. Fortunately he's eating now so perhaps he'll take a nap. (ps - no such luck - he brought in the fourth one).

From 2008-07-26

From 2008-07-26

Week in review - July 26th 2008

Overall
A quiet week, so very little to report. Work continues to be interesting and I am working tonight from midnight on a belated task that we've been putting off for a few weeks. Needless to say it will be for me the closure of a significant chapter and that just has to be good.

From 2008-07-26

Cats
Cats are getting on well, as you can see above. Mind you, they sit together for pretty short periods before they annoy each other through mutual cleaning. Curiosity went up on top of the kitchen cabinets today just as she did the first day I got her. I asked her to dust whilst she was up there and she obliged by coming down with a nice gray coat. I think she just went up there to get away...

From Curiosity - F...

New laptop
Before I get questions, I'll declare the secret now... it's a sticker! Yes, I bought a refurbished Apple iPod Shuffle from The Apple Store the other day and it came with a set of Apple stickers and I thought it would be funny to stick one on my Dell laptop. No, it doesn't glow but I can live with that. I keep wondering if an Apple would be better as I sit and wait for my Dell to boot. I also wonder if alternatives to Outlook would help overall mail performance but to some extent I think that's a function of the Exchange server being overwhelmed.

From 2008-07-26

Travels
Very little of note here. Our plans of course remain unchanged but since all the reservations are done, there's little to do except plan some of the activities and work out what to see/eat etc.

I've spent some more time putting together a schedule of what I want to see (conference-wise) when I go to San Francisco in September. There's literally hundreds of sessions to see and of course you can't go to them all. Although we registered early, the OpenWorld hotels downtown filled rapidly and now we are staying out at the airport. One of the advantages of the approved hotels is that they run a regular shuttle out to them. Another is that the rate is reasonable ($229 a night at the Hyatt isn't bad). Of course being 20 miles out means some of the ambiance of the city is lost but we're there to work, not have fun lol.

Book Review
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936 - 1939
Only fitting that I'm reading this since we are going to Spain in December. I've only started it so aren't ready to review it yet however Anthony Beevor generally does an excellent job in his writing. Among my favourites are Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 and The Fall of Berlin 1945 in which he describes the events from both sides during these key phases in the war. After the Spanish Civil War book comes Paris After the Liberation 1944 - 1949 which of course will be another fitting book for the end of the year.

Some Danger Involved - A Novel
Rather entertaining novel about a detective agency (rather a one man operation) and his new understudy. Written in a pseudo-Victorian manner,not unlike a Sherlock Holmes, this literary piece provided a great interlude from the more serious stuff. There is apparently a sequel which I'll also read at some point and some research reveals a series of these.

Oracle 11g: New Features for DBAs and Developers
An excellent book so far as a guide to some of the new things to look for in our latest version of the database. I frequently refer to the 10g one to see if there's anything we could be using but aren't. This book, although not detailed, gives a taste of the new features and provides some implementation details that are a helpful starting point.

Movie Review
Sunshine is a sci-fi movie I'd watched through Netflix some months back. It's one of the few movies I contemplated dragging Claudia to the theatre to see and I'm glad I didn't. Watching the movie I couldn't help thinking about Event Horizon and saw many similarities there (ok, some of these are just the strange way my mind works). So I watched it all and returned it but recently rethought the movie and decided to watch it again. Perhaps I'll like it more this time around.

The Signal is another pseudo-sci-fi/horror movie and all I can say is "don't bother". I think we watched about 20 minutes of it but I found my mind wandering and thinking about flossing the cat or something equally productive. Don't waste your time on this one.

Flawless with Michael Caine turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. Caine plays a janitor at a diamond company in the 1960's who befriends a female executive (then somewhat of a rarity) and involves her in his scheme. Some interesting twists and of course I can't miss a Caine movie. Definitely worth watching.

Vantage Point is about the assasination of the US President on a foreign trip and shows the event from multiple perspectives. It can get just a bit tedious at times because each viewpoint shows pretty much the same 2-3 minutes of film (with a slightly altered perspective) however it turns out well in the end. Sure, it's worth watching if you have a spare couple of hours but I'd rather re-watch The Departed to try to figure out who's who.


Final note
I just came across this National Geographic photo site - some very interesting photos here, part of their Visions of Earth series.

Cultural invasion

The invasion
So we spent this afternoon doing some fun stuff - specifically organizing and booking our holiday for the end of the year. Taking advantage of Claudia's Paris conference in mid-December, we've added on a trip through southern France into Spain and extended our total stay to 13 days.

In Paris, I'll be doing the tourist thing whilst Claudia slaves away at the conference although we have six days there to explore. The usual tourist traps will be visited but I'll be attempting to get to the palace at Versailles. The Louvre and the Blackpool Tower (copy) will also be on the list.

Carcassonne
After the conference, we drive south to the medieval walled town of Carcassonne where we'll spend a couple of days. One of Claudia's colleagues from Georgia State University happens to live there so we're hoping to meet up and break bread (and wine). We originally looked at going to Bilbao specifically for the Guggenheim however we decided to save that for our next trip to the region which will also include Santiago de Compostela.



There are many places to visit but you could spend months driving around and discovering interesting places. This quaint town is both architecturally and culturally appealing.




Barcelona
Since we're visiting several World Heritage sites, we will also be hitting two in Barcelona. This one is the Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) and was designed by a renowned Spanish architect (Lluís Domènech i Montaner).



He also designed the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (Catalan for Hospital of the Holy Cross and Saint Paul).



Since we're on the architecture trip, we'll be visiting several important buildings designed by Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet. One of his more magnificant projects was the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (official Catalan name; Spanish: Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia; "Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family"). Ignoring the cranes, here visible in this 2006 photograph, it's definitely a complex structure.



He also did the Casa Milà, better known as La Pedrera (Catalan for 'The Quarry') and worked on the renovations of the Casa Batlló, known to locals as Casa dels ossos (House of Bones) thanks to its rather skeletal appearance.







There's a whole ton of stuff to do and with five full days in Barcelona, we will be busy. Barcelona has an excellent metro service so getting around should be simple.

Should be a fun trip and we'll take advantage of the light Christmas Day air travel volume to get back with minimal hassle. It's traditionally a very light travel day since most people would rather be munching turkey than stuffed in an aluminium tube propelled though the atmosphere by exploding gases. Still, by coming back on Christmas Day, we not only get a quiet flight but we also get to have midnight mass at one of the big cathedrals in Barcelona. A rare opportunity indeed.

Pumps, food and Europe.

Happy Sunday to you all.

A busy week indeed. In a way. I've had a quiet couple of weeks at work which have allowed me to enjoy the evenings and weekends. This week I've spent a lot of time calibrating my new insulin pump which has been great fun. In the two months since officially becoming a type 1 diabetic (actually a LADA for those wanting to split hairs), also known as insulin dependent, I have had a much better time using a pump. This marvellous device provides a constant stream of insulin throughout the day and night and gives significantly better blood glucose control.

From July 19 2008 ...

On Friday I came to the conclusion that I really do need to attend the annual Oracle conference held in San Francisco, so it is off to that fine city I'll be in late September. Lovely time of the year to visit the SF Bay area. Takes me back to one of the best times I had when I worked there for six months in 2001. Ahhh, the delights of an apartment overlooking the bay and Alcatraz. Not so much the 90 hour weeks that included sleeping under my desk many times. Very good for the frequent flyer miles though (weekly back to Florida).

This weekend was fun - I managed to cook four major dishes today that will provide sustenance for the week ahead. I had a curry craving so decided to make three lamb and one chicken dish. That of course involved an early expedition to Whole Foods for the requisite items and after seven hours of cooking, we now have some variety to consume in the coming weeks.

Specifically:
- Mughlai chicken with almonds and raisins (Shahjanani murghi)
- Delhi-style lamb with potatoes (Aloo gosht)
- Red lamb stew (Rogan josh)
- Kashmiri lamb stew (Kashmiri yakhni)

Soon I'll be finishing the journey with:
- Beef baked with yoghurt and black pepper (Dum gosht)
- Beef with onions (Do piaza)

Not that eating all this will lead to....



The next couple of months will be very interesting. Early August sees my one year anniversary with Silverpop and what a year it has been! Anyway, more on that next month but it does mark a significant milestone and won't go unnoticed.

Claudia is off to Canada for a conference in August (Toronto) so that should be interesting - still debating a quick trip there to see our Northern cousins. Seems 2008 will be the year of the conference. Toronto, San Francisco and then Paris.

So Paris. Claudia has a conference in Paris in mid-December so we are taking a Busure (Business/Pleasure) trip - the details are yet to be decided upon but likely it will involve a Saturday to Thursday stay in Paris for the conference and some tourist things followed by a trip into Spain. The current draft plan involves leaving Paris and driving to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Museum (amongst other things) and then on to Barcelona for a few days. This, a revised version of our original honeymoon plans will indeed turn out to be our opportunity to get away from it all for a bit. Other than the odd weekend here and there, our first real holiday in two years. More to follow. Of course this means we'd be flying back to the US on or around Christmas so we'll see how things work themselves out.

From Herding Cats ...

Have a fun week!

Victory for the common DVD

The Telectroscope
Thanks to Gail who was in New York recently and came across this strange device (the title above is a link to the web page for it). Seems in Victorian England, this chap came up with the idea of building a direct tunnel under the Atlantic and putting large lenses at either end so one could see between the two locations. Sounds like quite an interesting project considering the technology available of the day; seeing how much it took to build the Channel tunnel (1/100th of the distance or so) and with 20th Century tools, this pipe dream was quite ambitious. No wonder he descended into madness.

From Herding Cats ...

Netflix
So Netflix about whom I wrote in a previous posting have decided to keep their customer's profiles (ie: secondary queues). Great! But it is another fine example of a corporation making a monumental mistake only to retract it. A victory for common sense - and their bottom line.

That's all for now...