A Letter to God

A letter to God

From the land of griefs
Date: we are still in mourning

Our Father in Heaven, Lord of the universe
A thousand fold we believe in you
From the fields of suffering, these words are sent to you
From the foot of the mountains that have been starved
From the peaks whence the eagle in despair hath fallen on a thorny cluster and died
From the seas which no longer have islands
Only the sails of painful memory
From an embryo with it's life shackled
That is all this letter is about

Our Father in Heaven, oh lord whose orphans are fed up with prayers
Our Father in Heaven, years it has been now and still we pray to you
Our Father in Heaven, we are still starving and naked
Our Father in Heaven, we are still the remains of refugees

S. Al Kassem

On a lighter note....

I'm always happen when I can take....


if(!isset($category_id) || !(int)$category_id>0)
{
$category_id=0;
}

if(!isset($product_id) || !(int)$product_id>0)
{
$product_id=0;
}

if(!isset($remove))
{
$remove="";
}

if(!isset($active))
{
$active="";
}

if(!isset($inactive))
{
$inactive="";
}

if(!isset($action))
{
$action="";
}


...and condense it down too...


foreach(array('remove', 'active', 'inactive', 'action') as $v)
{ if(!isset($$v)) { $$v=''; } }


Writing code is therapeutic. :-)

Monsters or Suspicions Confirmed

Reading as usual and reading alot. Vandana being down has me riding the bus (which isn't that bad really) and affords me more time to dig into what it is i've been digging into. But this morningis different. The last two days were just plain awesome and peaceful. Something about not having to drive and worry about gas and stuff is extremely liberating. I just sit and am carried alongwhile blasting Dev and reading.

But this morning hurt a lot. This really is a dark place we live in. One covered with the veneer of hope and prosperity. There really are evil forces pulling the levers of our minds and controlling the flows of our resources and livelihood. White devils in dark recesses with Malthusian intent, spurned on by the washing of eugenicist squawk from robed killers. We've been taught to pay them homage and give to them our energy via our ignorance. We catch bullets for them. We kill innocents for them. We aid their thefts and fund their genocides. We allow the machinations of chaos believing whatever is said without question, of ever increasing revolutions of varying hues, that with elation portend prosperity, but deliver the goods of mis-guided democracy: austerity and misery.

I cried when I learned the truth of Yugoslavia and grew angry at the assault on Ossetia. I cried for those that died in Russia, and will soon die in Africa. I ache for those close that have no idea of what's coming, having thier fetuses posoined and men made poor and rural. Profit centers via low level sicknesses lasting abreviated and miserable lifetimes. I

Is this the same misery wrought upon the world as The English brought to bear during the age of Victoria? She, who traversed the exapanse with boat loads of Maxim guns and Bibles. She, who was once the center of a watery empire, now a player in a modern version, even more whoresome and deadly. More seductive carrying viruses far stronger then before and modern Maxims of might un-imagined, guided by that same old cabal who many years ago escaped north westward across the Mediterranean.

Why do I have to live in these times? Why do I have to stuggle in a sea of pawns controlled by a cadre of killers? Do we really not see ourselves as the robots we've become? Do we really not understand that we are programmed to be ignorantly complicit? Have we really become zombies? Were we always?

I don't know.

But I had better soon find out, for I now know for sure, that they wish to prune the dark continent and cripple the loins of my brothers. Encirlce the thrice empire, previously choked and looted, and breakup the dragon. Foment and scatter those of Altaic song and make their soil The Hearland. Melt the ice of places high and south, traversed by Bolivar and Sucre. And yet they still enslave their own.

They! The monsters of the Grove. Mackinders devils. Ahabs offspring. Working diligently in the darkness and going up the hill backwards. Crippling us with legality and dumbing us with the water. It's been said that grasping removes us from the situation...

...but I don't know.

But I, a lone battery standing outside the flow of an energy stream made up of an ignorant consortion, don't know.

But I had better find out soon. Is there a door out there open for me? Do I have an ear to hear the trumpet? Or am I doomed to fight against and die by the slow and secret with the downtrodden and lost?

Jen_Fer::An Apology

My zeal forbids me
Even now in the darkness of seperation
In the coldness as a wandering star
I Love my father
I Love my master

But alas, I've lain in the bosom of one most beautiful
and smelled the nectars of the grove
Those scopes, topped with the most perfect brow
in cool arctic azure
The earth misses and objects the absence of presence
The donkey blocks in the way
And in it's neighing, singing the name of one missed

"Father, please!
Those eyes!
That face!
That heart and soul.
My love goes out to her from the distance.
My thoughts, steeped in concern, circle the vision of her visage.
Peel off the slightest bit of energy for my love,
whom I've turned my back on, and miss deeply.
May she forgive my trespass."

In that short wonderful time
In the hot sunset of nations
I fell in love
I coalesced with her temporal
and spoke with her mystical
but never ate at that table
and never bowed to the east!

Ruff!

Don't chase a dog into a corner then get pissed when he bites!

FRACKING RANT!!!!

It seems the more I work with Ruby the more I like, but the more I like it, them more I'm reminded of why I don't like. <-- ROFL!!!!!

Seriously tho, there are a lot of different things to like about languages, or dislike.

Same even with spoken langauges. Turkish vs German as an example. As a native english speaker, the whole agglutination that is a very important aspect of Altaic languages (like Turkish) DROVE ME NUTS!!!!

German OTOH, is A LOT more like English (and even sounds like it when you really listen).

But back to the topic of agglutination, here comes Ruby where you can do ish like...

"User.find(ul.id).orders.all.map { do | order | the_order = order.payments.where(:type => 'some_string').first }"

!!!!!!!

And that's nothing compared to stuff I've seen!

So do you see what's going on here? You take one thing, which in this case is "User.find", then start taking all kinds of shit on to the end of it.

Now slowing down for a moment here, there is a lot going on in that single line of code. This alone points to the power and flexibility of the language. My issue here is that this precludes a "first glance" understanding of what's going. While the code can be read rather easily, it still "must" be read. The problem here is that it's not that easy for someone that's new or new"er" to the language to quickly grok. And never mind what the engine has to do in the back end

And never mind the fact that some will come along and write lines of code twice as long as that with pride and swollen chest.

It's almost like the age of high diction vs listening to someone who spent a career in the Marines.

More to the point here, I'm not sure if I feel it's bad that the language supports it or that the community demands it.

It's my opinion that a well placed comment with short terse directive lines of code is better then the single mega-line.

Hmmm...... RISC vs CISC?

Perhaps it's my feeling that only the minimal amount of complexity need be accepted. A system is going to have a given amount of complexity based on what it's designed or hoped to do. Anything beyond that is garbage.

Where Ruby is concerned, the complexity tends to be in the expression, as condoned and expected by the community. Where rails is concerned, the "additional" complexity is in convenience and forced convention.

Do I like Ruby? Well yeah actually. A lot of cool shit it does.

That said, I hate Rails!!!!!! I do not approve of forced convention. I'll take CI or my own take on an MVC framework anyday. More flexible and brutally fast. Less to grok in the effort of just getting someting done. Of course, if you do something stupid, the framework isn't going to come to your rescue. But hey(!), that's one of those trade offs right?

I'll take PHP and Python any day over Ruby. They may not be as "expressive" as Ruby, but they can do some cool ish as well!

PHP in particular feels like English. A language that allows the use of elegance when desired or the situation demands, but is still just as cool when the going (should) get(s) simple and the grunts need to understand.

Perhaps I'm too influenced by Larry Walls' comment about complexity.

Perhaps what I'm really bitching about (once again) is the community.

Perhaps I'm bitching about other things related to being a code monkey.

Perhaps I need to train some monkeys of my own damnit!

FUCK!!!!!

FUCK!!!!!!

Different World

In a different world you were mine.
In that different realm, you are mine, however imagined.
My heart still aches for that different timeline.
That possibility unrealized.
If only I had spoke differently.
If only I had acknowledged that I did not understand
we would be in different skies and at different beaches.
Warriors, bowing before the right hand of God.
Standing still in time and gaining power from the sun.
Fighting the only fight worth fighting, together!

That day was one of the best drives of my life.
17 lbs at my right foot
and wonderful sunshine through the canopy.
Motoko crushing all impediments
on my way to the most subtle mistake of my life.

Wrote this back in December

Rage, explosiveness, and intensity are all parts of love. The energy and power of creation in purity harbors the fuel of concern. And sonic events, well metered, powerful, and meticulously dreamed, are the carriers. Harbingers. Love is stronger then death! Love is stronger then blackness. Love is stronger then wrong. All things that fall short of that absolute are wrong!

Sucker Punch! H3LL Y3@H!!!!!

OK! Any movie with "When the Levee Breaks" in the trailer is going to get my attention. But when you throw in 20 foot Shogun (one with a MINI-GUN!!!!), "steam driven" post-death German soldiers in all their glorious Teutonic insanity,
Ghost in the Shell human piloted mechs, A B-20-f'en-5 Mitchell (with a jet engine on the right wing!), dirigibles littering the sky, swords, Super Cool Scott Glenn, A DRAGON(!!!), Bjork, Emiliani Torrini, a cover of Tommorrow Never Knows (that was a straight up Danielle Dax flashback for me), Kung Fu, and girls holding assault weapons the way they're supposed to be held, YOU GARAUNTEE MY ATTENDANCE!!!!

Holy crap! It's like someone spanned the years of my interests pulling out bits as they went and made a movie with them.

But alas, there is one place where they screwed up with me, and I'm positive a good many others. Dressing the girls in those stupid skimpy outfits. Women are beautiful! We don't need to see them dressed like hookers to believe it.

Guys like me are happy to see a girl feather the throttle in a drift or fire a small
frame handgun instinctively with accuracy. Michelle Rodgriguez was hotter then hell in Battle: Los Angeles! I didn't need to see her in a mini-skirt to believe she was going to kick some alien arse. Girls like her are just hot with grease on their
face and a wrench in their hand as they are naked.

All of us are capable of the monstrous. The huge. The gigantic. Men AND Women both!!!! Every woman is capable of being a warrior that is erect, principled, and just plain right. Or maybe it's just me and my idea or desire for such a woman. One that is strong in heart, direction, and intestinal rectitude (guts). One that won't give up on you, the fight, or whatever the cause may be. Perhaps I've seen Nausicaa too many times. Perhaps I'm foolishly daydreaming about what I consider my equal. Who knows?

I have a new friend on Facebook that puts me in mind of just such a person. Adorable and intense. Embracing all of her physical potential, but no less beautiful as a result. She seems both quiet and explosive. Softly intense.

Getting back on track, movies like this where women are kicking the 5hit out of dudes that would try to do them harm make me go warm and fuzzy. And then to make it like an early 80's punk video around the edges is just plain genious.

Evenstill, the purpose is never what we suspect or expect. Nor was it here. A glorious engine of dreams fell prey to Walter Freemans evil and the machinations of small weak men. And Rocket! My dearest Rocket, who gave her life for the weakest one in the story.

I am a musician

Back aroound (Canadian spelling eh?) '86 or '87 when "Marching Out" came out, I can remember the evenings I used to spend sitting in front of my room mates high end (at the time) CD player and tube receiver (definitely high end!) and listening to various of it's tracks over and fracken over again. One night in particular, clutching some truck driver serving of iced tea and dreaming.

Yeah, dreaming!

Music is supposed to do you the favor of taking you away from the daily bull5h1t isn't it? And back when you're in your teens / late teens, dreaming is huge thing isn't it? Or was that just me? And as you get older, shouldn't music remind you of how really free you can be should you decide it? Should you decide that what you want is what "YOU" want as opposed to what those around your say you should?

That night was inwardly epic in a way that only a true introvert can understand. It seemed as dark, cool, sweet, and mysterious as it should always be. The ambiance of glowing tubes and power lights in thedarkness as I sat on the floor with my legs wrapped in blanket: status information scrolling past diligently and endlessly. My mind gone, seeming to wander out into space and borne aloft by a desire to just go.
Into a sky that I don't know and into a future that I can't possibly begin to guess at. An introverted wandering powered by EL34's and stacked DiMarzio's singing out in anger as they harness the esoteric energy of sonic theory. Emotion breaking down and being reborn again over and over in vacuum, layered with delay, made huge and spacious with reverb, and finally punched outward into space through the vibration of paper.

Someone creating from that space was talking to me that night just as they are again speaking to me now. I listened and listened and listened and while never fully understanding the message, I've only now realized that point of this communication wasn't to understand it, but experience it. To just let it deliver me to times medi-evil or put me in places distant, fantastic, and other worldly. A quantum communication of the fantastic from one binding field to another. A delivery in a manner beyond the physical, but initiated by taylored sonic disturbance, colored by an individual in the grip of the same nature as I. Once received, mine to interpret as only I would. The greatest gift ever given to me, I played it over and over again, each time hearing and seeing more or different details of the communicated energy and interpreted setting.

The night time sky was alive and vibrant. Dots of light flickering above through the canopy or across a desert. The wind cool, full, and somehow torpid. The deepest green of an eventime forest enveloping in warmth. That JCM was the perfect emotion engine. Each pulse or subtle bleed of energy like a twinkling in the heavens. A momentary and emotive flash hinting at the brilliance of the design. The power tubes swelling and ebbing. Their magnetic fields doing the bidding of a ilk mate that was always there and will always be. Painting the soft and warm bladed floor green. Infusing the spring time air with honey. Instilling the wavering leaves with peace. My ilk mate, hammering out a space and moment in eternity for me and one that may someday be within arms reach. My exact opposite twin separated by a dis-heartening multiple of 365.

Ruby...... Ha ha ha....

I heard something a little while ago that made me a laugh. Essentially I overheard one guy here at work tell another while looking at a line of Ruby say, "It's starting to look like Perl".

Funny that 3 or so months ago, I mentioned that my biggest gripe with Ruby is that it had/has all the potential to become even more evil then Perl. It's an extremely flexible language, and just
like Perl, some use it to the point of writing code that is nigh on unmaintaiable simply because it's nigh on unreadable. Obfuscated. Single liners with 839 methods and other shizzle chained
together may seem cool when you wrote, but it's going to suck over time.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Of course, when I said this, they looked at me like I was strange or crazy.

But hey! What do I know?

And BTW, I'm not down on Ruby, but most of the Ruby community need not be so zealous.

SIG alert!

Seems I'm experiencing a S.I.G. (Self Installing Girlfriend) attack. This puts me in a funk for a couple of different reasons.

1) I can't read on the bus in peace. I would rather read Keynes or Brockdorf-Rantzau about now then field the blather from someone
that finishes my sentences and doesn't know who the aforementioned are.

2) I don't want a girlfriend.

3) I can't stand assumptions! So far, it's been assumed that I was going to school, in the military, and I'm a vegetarian. How could
I beging to expect something to work with someone that is more interested in what she thinks about me then what she knows.

4) Too much rage and endeavor! There isn't enough room for anyone else right now.

The only easy fix I see is to ride an earlier bus in the morning. That sucks for it's own reason as well. Or mayber I could for the
life out of here with discussions of how Europe would be today had it not been decisions by arseholes like Clemencau and Lloyd-George.

Of course, when Vandana is done, this becomes a non-issue.

Eulogy

Somewhere my partner has gone,
taken cruelly by cold hands clad in darkness.
Someplace ethereal and unknown,
never to be seen or heard again.
Only emptiness.

At times I hear your voice
or smell your smell.
At times I see you,
still winged and majestic.
At times,
all things you were are before my minds eyes,
stoking the fires of longing,
fanning the flames of loss.
But I imagine you still and will forever
as an honor,
and as a love.
As the cruel harbinger of precision.
As an elegant and powerful instrument of our objective.
As my friend!
Laughing in the daytime of our lives.
Roaring in the bloom of our anger.
Unfelled until now.

So down to the locker you go
taking your hold on us with you.
Down to that heavy blue and black.
The watery end of your container.
May we fly together again
in a realm far greater then the joke you left us in.

Bonds don't break!

There is sheer terror in love and knowing that someone from a long time ago that you missed, missed you too.

Separation the first time was brutal. It crushed the breath out of me. Years of confusion and feeling the loss that a parent must feel at losing a child.

I feel tethered to this person. Our orbits degenerating as gravity gets the better. This is the one person who has taken root deeper in my heart then any other. Missing for years, but now back.

Do I release my anger? Just let it go?

Do I put up my shields?

Vandana

I saw my love today
There, stranded, and picturesque
In deepest darkest azure
and wheeled with rake and sculpture.
What terrible longing hath the Swede wrought at the penning of her determined lines
or dreaming of her mighty core?
My heart falters and falls,
leaving me adrift,
when remembering that time anew
and anticipating the coming rapturous union
of pressure driven coupling.
Our choreography of rage, combustion, and precision,
forever etched in the halls of my memories.
The roaring of her engines singing out
at the bottom of a full moon night
and blasting through the cleavage of mountains bathed in blue.

FRACK!

I suddenly hate my life.

No, I'm not suicidal or want to die or down on myself or some other weak shizzle. I'm suddenly pissed at where I am right now.

Lakewood Den gets a twitter accont!

Just click (or cut and paste the) below.

http://twitter.com/#!/Lakewood_Den

Broken

This morning, hearing music on a radio someplace that was warm, spacious, and mellow with female vocals, I immediately began going someplace. Someplace fantastic and romantic. Infectious and affectionate.

Then I stopped it! I rejected it! I shunned it! This is not my place and won't be for a long time. The taste, sweet at first, then bitter. Because, you see, I am completely shattered. I am busted and broken.

Yet in this mess is cohesion. In the distance of the parts is the remaking. Despecialization! The shattered, like a collection of blastemas with a shared objective. I am re-becomming what I feel I should always have been. No longer shackled with longing and the layers of filters that constricted my heart. No longer anchored by fallen flyers or my own desire to lift up.

What falls of it's own volition, falls, never to return again.

But what get's up, climbs higher then the previous try.

I am broken. Augmented with rage, controlled with precision, and screaming in the blackness. Running towards the soon coming time of spirited motion through the long dark of discipline. Temporal perhaps, I am, but of an intent that is crushing. Bristling with electricity and sensitive to the touch.

12/07/10

A good night

Had a good night writing. But holy crap is it difficult at times. The emotion is immense. Like a flood. For three of you out there that do eventually read this, you will see that I loved you.

Fed up with the mediocre

How could I have spent so much time here?
Sleeping with anchors
and shriveling
That screamed lasted 2 good years
and has borne shame

No more is there room for others!

Just testing

Yeah, just testing.

Single again

Hmmmmm.........

After this scene, I have to see this movie!

And make sure to watch the whole thing.

BTW, If you are not truly moved by this on some level, something went wrong in your life somewhere a long time back.

One of the best Clash songs ever

The Clash: Corner Soul

Is the music of grove skin rock
Soaked in the diesel of war boys war?
Blood, black gold and the face of a judge
Is the music calling for a river of blood?

Beat the drums tonight, Alphonso
Spread the news all over the grove
The big meeting has decided
That total war must burn on the grove

Does it mean I should take my machete
To chop my way through the path of life?
Does it mean I should run with the dog pack
Is that the way to be the one to survive?

Never need a gun says Tai Chi
Move on up to dragon snaps his tail
Fall back on still waters
Hammer with his eye on the nail

Spread the word tonight please, Sammy
They're searching everyhouse on the grove
Don't go alone now, Sammy!
The wind has blown away the corner soul

Tell the news for me, Sammy
They're searching every place on the grove
But don't go down alone new, Sammy!
The wind has blown away the croner soul

Is the music calling for a river of blood?

You know the old saying....

...."keep your friends close and your enemies closer"?

Well ain't that the truth.

And who was it? Sun Tzu, or Niccolò Machiavelli?

But it's especially sad, this situation. There was no intent to be enemies with anyone on my part.

Metal

Some people aren't going to understand this. That's OK because people seldom understand what I say it seems.

I listen to all kinds of Music. I mean all kinds of music! From Chopin to Bulgarian folk singing. I love what it all does. The open will understand what I'm saying.

But nothing makes me feel alive when I'm angered, thoughtful, or just simply busy like... Nothing makes me yearn for objective more then... Nothing makes me more happy
in the face of a storm then... Nothing centers me in my core and makes me happier to be me then... METAL!

Yeah, that loud sh1t that older people like me aren't supposed to listen too.

Yeah, that stuff that black people say white people are crazy for listening too.

Yeah, that stuff that mediocre people cringe when hearing.

Yeah, sure, just like with everything else, 90% of it sucks! But just like everything else, that remaining 10% is sweetest cream.

I'm here to tell you something. There is a goodness or attraction in every kind of sound. Every kind of music. Once you can get that kind of thinking into your head,
you'll find yourself suddenly open to a much bigger world then the one you exist in now. And once that's done, you are one step away from being in for the best f'en ride
of your life. You know what it's called? Life!

Yeah, I just implied that I don't think some of you are really alive didn't I? If you take offense, ask yourself why?

Implications aside, what are you afraid of? As a matter fact, WTF have I been afraid of?

But I'm straying.

Yeah, I'm angry. And on some levels, I want to stay angry. I want to keep looking far off. I want to keep yearning for something bigger then me. And when I'm thinking
about these things, it's good, thoughtful, huge, rich, hard as frack, Metal that I like listening too. When I get the bit between my teeth and commit, I want to hear
Metal. When the throttle is open and the boost is climbing, I want metal. When I'm deciding what I'm going to do about a generally fracked situation, I want metal.

Isn't life supposed to be granderous? Isn't life supposed to be huge. Yes, there are times when one needs to slow down and enjoy what and who is around them, but is that
all life is? Security and comfort? In a dying world like ours, when attrocity and calamity is just around the corner, do we really want to just be comfortable when there
is so little time? As if you ever really had a lot of time anyway? What we have is nothing! A short flash in infinity. Something completely unnoticed by the continuum.
And understandably, we cling to each other in tighter when we look at things that way. BUT(!), is that justification for mediocrity?

Has that been my excuse? I certainly think big and look at the big but am I doing big?

We are thinkers. We are creators. We are actors on a real stage that's a hell of a lot bigger and more interesting then the TV set. We have the capacity to do big. We
have the capacity to phathom the enormous. We have the ability to build the incredible.

And keeping that in mind, shouldn't we have a fucken' hard ass soundtrack to go with it?

Yeah, I feel like a monster. I feel like ten million bucks. Perhaps the run this morning shook something loose in my head. Or perhaps the realization that i've put on
the chains of normalcy lately has me angry at my own self delusion. Perhaps I'm finally waking up from this nightmare of knowing the way all my life but not walking it.
Perhaps I'm rebelling against something.

But yeah, I feel like a conqueror. I feel intense. I feel fast. Made of anger and objective. Kingly and knowing. Discerning. And I want a soundtrack to go along with
these feelings. A fuckin' huge and powerful, clever, intelligent, layered sound that is emotive and crushing. That ripples and shakes inward and outward. Something that
is both martial and disciplined, but providing of wonder and amazement.

I want it all!

I think one must be possed at times to write code

I wrote this the other day.

$clean_time=(int) (trim(str_replace('pm', '', $raw_time))); $clean_time+=12;

This wasn't two days ago right. But I looked at it just a moment ago and had to laugh at how alien it looked. Now of course, it makes sense after just a moment of looking, but geez. Am I in some altered state when doing this crap?

Where is that geek switch again?

Holy crap! Can someone get this stuff out of my head. I can't stop thinking about boundary layer maintenance over weld seams in exhaust headers. I love this stuff but sometimes I really need to shut it off.

Same thing goes for the battle of Leige at the start of WWI. Being in a quandary about which historian to believe has me up 4:30 AM comparing sources.

I've really got to do something about this collection of facts swirling around in my head. Perhaps on the other side of that "doing" I can get get an 8 hour sleep in!

It's occurred too me....

After doing some testing of an application I'm working, I realized there are things that I don't want to and shouldn't be saying. For example, "OK, that's working. I don't know how, but it's working".

Yeah, that's not good. LOL

Sometimes it's nice just to...

...sit back and be happy with where you are, who you are, and what you've got. I'm totally inside my head here right now. I could be upset on multiple fronts, but you know f'en what? I don't want to be, so I'm not going to be.

Instead, I'm thinking about the fact that I'm sitting here right now with a brand new computer getting paid money to write code while I listen to music and wear jeans and boots and drink a cup of coffee. Yeah, I like what I do. I like my faculty! Everything can fall apart around me, but that will remain for some time. And once that's gone, what's the point?

On Running (Did I cover this before?)

Running this morning was absolutely @w3s0m3 (awesome). Just simply idyllic.

But even better is the fact that I feel like I'm getting stronger. Running 3.5+ miles has just gotten easy. Almost too easy. I realized this morning that in order to hit the 45 minute mark, I need to do just about another mile. My pace this morning felt fast, but it must've been better then I thought.

Fortune quote of the day

Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32:

Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now?
A: I will be three months November 8th.
Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time?

Do you ever get that feeling that something close to you isn't right?

I'm still tired, but energized at the same time
for I see the warning and it's no longer in my hands

"Yes, see? They're empty!"
I am now free to work.
Free to endeavor.
Free to labor.
Free to put my head down and go forward.
Free to build as someone would want me too.
And to do all for that someone.

We'll meet in eternity
where I'll see that ear and know
that I never deserved what was offered

To the wanderer: I love you, but go and do as you please.

Afternoons

Afternoons, yes, ages even
in an already dead city in a now dying country
and a contentious HQ
The flyers around me with straying eyes lie too me
and have lost control of their own sticks.

To them, I am bound.
And here we fly incestous fights
caught in Luftberry Circles wondering when one will break out

"There is no death in bugging out here, fellow wingman, consort, stable mate.
There is no shame in honesty. Just let go. I won't fire on you. I'll
just leave, my love, my partner in war."

The grey clouds lazily inbound
The cool breeze caressing
The fine mist, most pleasent
My resolve settled

So where is that potential that trembles the worlds foundation?
That rage beating in my chest?
That cold calculation behind my eyes?
Those heels that could crack the mantle?
I've shelved my rage for too long,
Investing my drive in diffuclty and uncertainty.
I'm tired of being tired.
I'm tired of being bound to unstable elements.
Tired of unilateral ministrations.

Stunned! In a geek kind of way that is.

Taking a little break in my work today, I did some reading about yet another MVC framework that has exceptional performance yada yada yada. That framework is DooPHP. I'm pretty impressed with the performance actually though this is based on what they stated on their site. I couldn't get it to run on my system!

This prompted me to test against my idea of how an MVC approach should work. I ran apache bench (AB) against a fresh install of Codeignitor 1.7 as well as a local copy of Turbine Dump. I was only slightly surprised to find that the The Dump was a bit slower, but then it's connecting to a DB, performing sessions checking, and all kinds of other mumbo jumbo a completely written and functioning application would.

That said, I copied the app to a different directory and disabled all the bells and whistles. I was still doing all the needed includes, but instantiating nothing other then the base Pavelow factory class as well as the sessions class. Just enough (I felt) to have the Dump kick out a ye ole familiar "Hello World" line.

Benchmark time! I ran ab against each framework for 1000 request and a concurrency level of 5.

Now the good news is that the Harvested Framework I use (that i've been calling Leonidas) had an average test result of 4.20 seconds. Cool! 1000 returns from the site in 4.2 seconds? Yeah, I was feeling good.

Codeignitor (CI) turned out the same test with an average result of 8.58 seconds. Now this really isn't that bad when you consider two things.

1) Turbine Dump / Leonidas is actually a procedural MVC approach that relies on a OO Framework I wrote called Pavelow for it's DB, pagination, and error logging processes. CI OTOH is fully OO. That means a good deal of difference in instantiation overhead alone.

2) CI is about the best performing MVC framework out there with the exception of DooPHP (which or course prompted all of this). Others such as Symfony and Cake are positively behemoths. If you remeber or know what RISC and CISC stand for, Cake and Symfony are clearly CISC frameworks.

Anyway, I decided to start reloading and turning things back on to see how these affected performance. Here goes....

1) Just including Pavelow increased the average of the same test to 7.18 seconds! That's significant overhead for simply loading and parsing the files.

2) Including and instantiating the Pavelow Factory brought the test results up to 7.41 seconds.

2) Now it starts to get ugly! Adding the DB Sessions class alone (but no instantiation) shot the average test result up to 12.65 seconds!!!!! This doesn't even include instantiation. Just parsing overhead! Thankfully, instantiation overhead only resulted in additional 1 second (13.86 to be exact). And thankfully yet again, an op-code cache is going to kill this kind of performance penalty.

To put a point on how significant the penalty of the DB Sessions class is, my inclusion of it is essentially my including just one file. OTOH, when including the Pavelow core, it also includes 7 other classes! That said, the up front penalty of parsing all 8 classes is still far below that of DB Sessions. It really does look like I'm going to have to write a db sessions component into Pavelow.

But all of the above said, I can now see that if I ever formalize Leonidas into a package fit for distribution, it'll stomp the OO frameworks in terms of performance.

A Song of Kings

I am I!
Alone in the night time of life
and hurdling forward
faster then all others

I entered alone
and shall die alone
I shall only live once in this earth
and die only once on this earth in this earth
so I shall rule this earth
till the end of this one time.

Business certainly is business

This is a rant about those of you doing web development. In particular those of "US" who code more then we design and like to work with others that do the design part. I'm sure there are a good number of you out there that are aware of what I'm talking. I'm also sure that fewer of you are fully aware to the fullest degree of just how much pain this can entail.

In my particular case, the issue has everything to do with being unequally yoked. LOL. I, the developer code geek type guy (yeah, right) working with someone that is a designer first, and in spite of whatever he claims to be after that, is still a designer. Now that by itself may not be such a bad thing, but we're not talking about "by itself here". We're talking about a semi-official business partnership where the result of our work is money right?

So let me just get straight to the heart of this issue. This guy doesn't know enough about anything to call himself a web developer or web designer. He just isn't . He can make some pretty pictures. I'll certainly give him that, but the buck stops hard right there.

You know what, I'm just just going to create a list of things that suck.

• Knowing Dreamweaver DOES NOT MAKE YOU A WEB DEVELOPER!!!!!! This is by far the most important thing on this list. Positioning in this case is important.
  


• You don't start work until the specs and design are set in stone! Doing otherwise is nothing short of lunacy.
  


• The client has no business being able to screw around with stuff while you are building it. None whatsoever. All this does is send the signal to noise ratio through the roof.
  


• Nobody works on the code while the developer is building it. Doing so is, yup, you guessed it. Lunacy!
  


• Programmers DON'T TASK SWITCH!!!!! Expecting them to do so shows ignorance and a general lack of experience.
  


• If you made the design, YOU FIX IT!! Don't expect me or any other programmer that knows better to come back and try to dig through that Dreamweaver crap. It's your creation. Handle it!
  


• And don't ever try to tell a programmer how long things should take. For those of you out there that think web sites take two weeks, pull your head out of your arse. It's clear that you don't know enough to realize that you don't know enough. Those sites that have been thrown up in two weeks, all smelly and stuff, are based on huge, slow, kludges called frameworks. Very difficult to extend and they don't scale well. You won't find one site out there that is doing significant traffic and relying on crap like Joomla. And when I say "significant", I'm referring to sites that are running load balanced and fault tolerant clusters.
  

Moral of the story kids? Always make sure you are dead certain what you're getting in bed with.

The sow harvest gap

It certainly is a tough thing when you can see the goodness of things to come, but they aren't coming fast enough to help. I'm in this gap right now. It sucks!

Juxtapositions

As low so high Elvaleethia
I chatted today with the Dragonfly
and hints of those old things reappeared
Paintings by those azure scopes
That starstruck glance
Those days will not come again
fleeting, watery, and long cherished
The sun caressing us
The ocean soothing us
The sand cradling us

Funny that

Something that was said in this video....

... reminds me of how I felt when motorcycling.

"The things that appeared extremely important to you yesterday when you left your office will seem unimportant when you land your plane."

Thanx Bruce!

You know, it's becomming more and more obvious as I get older that a lot of the stuff I've learned from others, via publications of some sort, TV or online news media, or even just message boards or word of mouth, IS CRAP! Furthermore, it's consistent across knowledge domains as well. Programming, History or Geo-Politics, and even high performance engine development. We are most often started down a path or direction that is essentially a line of thought only to find that it's only part true and in some cases causes patterns of thought or understanding that is detrimental to further development or growth in that area. (Dayum brah!)

Ultimately, this boils down to the source of the information. This was really brought home to me in a big way just a moment ago while re-discovering my love for Artima.com (I'm not a Java guy, but good converstaion about coding is just plain good for you!) and reading a recent post by Bruce Eckel. In it, he explains succinctly what has been kind of hazy around the fringes of my thoughts via an experience he had. In short, his attitude about the language C++ was largely the
result of James Gosling and others responsible for the creation of the language Java.

...many people jump to the conclusion that C++ was badly designed, which is far from the truth.

Java fed this perception with its cavalier attitude about language design. I've written about this in Thinking in Java and in many weblogs, so longtime followers already know that Java tweaked me the wrong way from the start, because of the dismissive attitude of Gosling and the language designers.

... and ...

I have no idea how much this formative experience with Gosling influenced my later feelings about his work, but the fact that the attitude about C++ was "we looked at it and it sucked so we decided to whip out a language of our own" didn't help.

Accepting the fact that sometimes our information is tainted by the source, we have to then realize that perhaps there is something in us that causes to rest on what we've been given and follow it into the ditch so to speak. What

is it or why is it that we can't be open enough to at least re-appraise what it is we believe or have been told? Large swaths of our population as Americans suffer from this, as well as the entire world. I initially believed that is was simply a question of temperment (some being more open to introspection and self improvement) but I now for a fact that temperment and socialization play big parts in this. How many scientists or inventors have been hindered by Societies, Committees, or Councils with "The World is Flat!" type attitudes? How many of these have gone to their graves without their due honor thanks to these associations of clowns? If you really look into this, you'll find the number is pretty damn high and spread across a good many disciplines. Even war planning and doctrine suffered from this. General LeMay's insistence during WWII that daylight bombing with huge squadrons of B-17's and B-24's would continue to be the way forward was far from the truth. Especially considering that pilots that were actually doing the fighting came to realize that the job could be done with more efficiency and less loss of life by servicing more
targets with Fighter Bombers. This was the very recommendation of General Robin Olds and others during WWII that was scoffed at by the deaf "Flat Earthers", but later accepted as doctrine at a point later in time. How many lives would have been saved had LeMay and others just listened?

Obviously, collections of people that no longer question their knowledge sources are a detriment to society and human endeavor as a whole.

I've encountered this in the high performance community regarding Somender Singh's discovery that grooving quench pads in combustion chambers can dramatically increase turbulence and improve fuel burn to nearly 100% (!) with the side effects of engine oil lasting 5 to 10 times longer, no detonation, and lowered emissions. In spite of this being verified not only by experience from people like me that have actually tried it, but also independent engineers that have tested his claims and found them to be true, there remains a huge flock of derisive zealots that refuse to accept what has been found. In other words, they are clinging to some line of thought that is wrong REGARDLESS OF BEING PRESENTED WITH EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY!

This is a downright amazing thing to witness.

I can't help but wonder how much further along or how much things would be different if guys like Babbage, Tesla, Singh, Ataturk, Whittle, Olds, and so on, were listened too WHEN THEY ACTUALLY FIRST HAD OR DEVELOPED THEIR IDEAS.

Getting back on track, how does one avoid not letting themselves become closed to the truth, however it may come? Are you really honest enough to yourself to wonder if you have it wrong or believe it wrong? Do you dismiss other out of hand instead of really considering what is they say?

You HAVE TO BE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT in your quest for knowledge! It's a must. If you rest on what's been handed to you, I'm positive you'll find yourself in a ditch. Now this isn't to say that nobody is to be believed, but those worthy of your attention will suffer your questions. And even more so if they do it with a kind attitude.

The list grows

To the list of historical figures that can truly be considered great and worthy of mention, I must add Gazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Talk about kickin' some arse, this was the man!

I'm sure most of you won't bat an eye reading this.

Some thoughts

There is never an excuse to do wrong.
Not a one.
If you feel the need to do wrong, it's compulsion.
If you feel you have a reason, you are lying to yourself
and it's just in you to do bad.
So if you plan to do bad, at least be honest about you're reasoning,
or what's driving you.

The other option is to stand up to what's wrong
because you're standing up for what's right. Perhaps it's not easier said then done, but it's worth the effort and it's worth it to not cause pain to yourself or anyone else.

You've got be kidding me!

I just stumbled on to this.

Uhhh....., isn't that "unused portion" called the Duodenum?

WTF!?!?

I can't say what the Flabbergaster Eagle said, but....

...somebody shoot me please.

Turbine Dump top tip: Make sure business partners are on the same level of understanding and ability you are. IF YOU FAIL TO DO THAT at least take comfort in the fact that suicide is a way out.

And BTW you would be counselors, stewards of my well being, this is closer to the reason FB, and indeed everything, ****'EN SUCKS!

But alas, this is just frustration. A couple of rounds with the Planet Smasher and I'll be just fine. :-)

Soon

Ahh yes, this feels like a new dawning
It feels like some people just can't let go
It feels like I'm letting go

I'll soon be cut

Ahh yes, my spirit knows this is that true thing
That fighting thing
That breaking through the shell that all plants must do

I'll soon be lean

Ahh yes, the morning is nigh
And after a long eve of labor
And after a long eve of resolution

I know I'll soon be good

Home

My home is high and bright
Distant
A speck in the Azure and cumulous
I long to be there
Alone as I have always been
And always will be
In this Earth
And in this aeon
The love I seek is the next age
After the planet stops
And things vibrate anew
And all complexities are held on high and cherished

Historical lessons un-taught

My meanderings into history and various historical figures in particular seems to suggest that not all populations are READY for the positives these figures bring. But of course, we are too mired in the quagmires of political correctness and the divisive self interest of almost all sub-groups whether they be social, ethnic, religious, or political to accept long term positive change, much less recognize it when we see it.

But hey! What do I know?

Simon in Peru

When a man writes is it with the intent that it will be remembered in time? Is this the reason a man writes? I've never believed that. However, I should qualify that statement, or perhaps restate it and say "I don't believe that a man who writes only to be remembered will ever write something worth remembering!"

That said, I am always moved when I read something worthy of remembrance. I recently came across the below while reading of Simon Bolivars' trials in Peru. He was obviously in a rather dark place and managed to express his feelings in a way that's just plain amazing, tho it may be a bit loquacious for modern tastes. ;-)

Until now I have fought for liberty: in future I will fight for my glory, no matter what it costs. My glory now consists in ruling no more and in thinking of nothing but myself: I have always had this intention but it increases progressively by the day. My years, my ill health, and my disillusion with all the dreams of youth prevent me from taking any other way. The presence of another person kills me: I live amongst the tress of this miserable place on the coast of Peru and I have become a misanthrope overnight. But you must understand that I am not depressed, and this loathing for people and society does not come from a physical cause or from an personal trouble, but from a conviction deep within me. Ambition, says Rousseau, guides men when they reach the age of forty, and I have reached that age. But my ambition has died. I have nothing to hope for and everything to fear. Observe the breakdown in human affairs. At all times the works of men have been ephemeral but in our day they are like the emerging embryo that dies before it even develops. On all sides I hear the sounds of disaster. My ear is one of catastrophes. Everything comes life and dies before my eyes as though struck by lightning. Everything passes and I would be a fool to flatter myself that I can stand firm in the midst of so many upheavals, in the midst of so much destruction, the the midst of the moral subversion of the world. No, my friend, that cannot be! Since death has not decided to take me under it's protective wings, I must hurry to hide my head in the midst of oblivion and silence, before I am struck by blows from heaven and reduced to dust, to ashes, to nothingness. It would be madness on my part to watch the storm and fail to take shelter... Everyone falls, struck by be disgrace, or disaster. Can I remain standing? Impossible. I too must fall.

Feel free to return to your romance novels now.

And yet more bad code!

I guess it really doesn't matter where the code comes from or how high tech their name sounds. Most of it is just plain bad! I'm now staring down the pipe of more headache with an absolutely terrible code base that reads like a collection of ALL of PHP's (and development in general) bad practices.

Coding is the one place where all of it's practitioners need to be like Monk. That's because all code needs to be well ordered, commented, and laid out. Otherwise, nothing is efficient and nothing is easy to work with. When your guests come over and need towels for the shower do you just say, "Oh they're somewhere back there" with a dollop of uninterested hand waving? More often then not (assuming you care), you tell them where they can find it. Even it it's just "In the closet next to the bathroom", it's a good bet that your closet (once again assuming you actually care) is well ordered enough that Jane Guest can just open it and quickly grok what's going on.

Now I don't claim to be the best or know the most (but I do like my stuff!) but perhaps I should start charging what some of these tossers are for chucking out that crap code. After all...

a) The cream rises to the top.
b) In order to be cream, you must first believe you are cream!

OK.... End rant.

Dealing in a sea of noise

"What is that supposed to mean"?

"Nothing".

I don't really care much for his politics (In particular, his foreign policy), but you have to admit that this is just downright cool. Are there any reasons we can't relax while working at world domination?

Your embed code here!

More bad code woes

And it's not my code this time either. I've been working with Opencart on the behalf of a client and it's really turned out to be a pain in the arse. Much more so then I expected. I initially thought it was fantastic by virtue of it's MVC approach, but jumping into it has really left scratching my head in areas.

But rather then really go in to details, I'm going to complain about one thing that makes less sense then any of the other odditities. In particular, it's how it handles options for products and especially how it updates them. The update method in the model actually deletes the rows in the database then re-inserts all of them regardless of their being any changes. This is an extremely brain dead algorithm and makes extending the feature a trip to hell.

Oh well. Life is going to suck for the rest of this evening.

MVC Frameworks and the softer sex

Thanx to one of Terry Chays' funny comments on Twitter, I got to thinking about Frameworks and women.

Andrei was right. Rails has women in it. I'm switching!

To which I repsonded....

Are you sure those are the kind of women you want? Big, slow, cumbersome, and overly complex?

I'm sure the hordes are rising from the altar even now to reign death upon me.

Anyway, what kind of women would you want anyway? Seriously! One that is big, slow, cumbersome, powerful, did I say slow, not very approachable, and uselessly complex or one that is lean, powerful, fast, easy to get to know and complex when need be(!!!)?

If your framework is one of the larger folk that's constantly returning to the salad bar to pack on more, errr....., features, well there you go.

Personally, I prefer the one that carries only what it needs. Yeah, I'll take the fitness model framework anyday. Codeigniter comes very very close to that in my opinion. However, a harvested procedural MVC (without the 'M') would be tops. I'll finish mine one day. ;-)

Ain't this the truth

An importahnt scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that the opponents grdually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with he idea from the beginning.

--Max Planck

Only Lakewood

Today is a good day
I am losing faith in the objective and it's unbearable lightness
For I desire not what the eye see's.
Only Lakewood

And the systems purr with the song of my soul
Alone for evermore
translated into the wailing of my engines
and shaking with pure rage
I will not plumb the depths of sorrow again
for an unfounded frag
My heart shall see darkness again for
Only Lakewood

What thought you of that impulsive decision wreaking of temerity
Would our mission cool your bad ways?
Or do you still desire those empty deeds?
The promise requires for more then you've given.
And the promise promises it is losing energy!
For I can no longer expose my heart to a bad position
and risk it harm for anything other then
Only Lakewood

Absolutely amazing!

One of the regulars where I work told me that she was an English major. When I pressed why she chose that field of study, she mentioned being a writer. Of course, I had to read something. What I found is absolutely amazing! It's below.

A Native Land

Above these thorns of primrose
How neatly our shadows
Rise and fall
Like waves surfing
The ocean's incoming tide
The scorched night brings the abandonment
Of malignant consequence

I never knew the depths
Of your golden valleys
Hidden crevasses conquered
By migrant pilgrims
To rest in the fields
Of wheat in my womb

Tangerine lips press
And bring dimension
Upon this festering curiosity
Like coming home
To a native land
Your pale inbred hands
Faithfully pervade
The continent of my mind
Because it is not your own

So eager to lose ourselves
In the honey-thick gravity
Of love so new
The only limb of experience
Youth's warrior to an endless dawn
Two tangled bodies
Bruise the patient sky
A yellow shiver
Ripping the smooth night
With its edgy spine

------------------------------------------------------

Her name is Christine, but I only know her old last name from her marriage, which is Long.

The page where this is printed is at http://www.muse-apprentice-guild.com/spring_2006/pantanos_poets/christine_long.html

Enjoy!

Ever so lightly

Pacific Station
I am aloft and systems nominal
Shed no tears in the short term for I sleep with speed
My heart cradled in his arms
His words, the foundation of the universe
My spirit shivers with glee every so lightly

And to that space between the storms I declare,
"There is nothing greter then the Word!"
Radiating outwards from that small space
That big mystery
The husbandmen of our bond,
Dearest Dunya
The author of our life together
And as the author of our life together, our purring,
which as man and wife in the deepest of night
stokes the unseen fires of our spirits
and shakes the world ever so lightly

So the court of the Pacific BG's
It is with trepidation that I speed to our meet
My heart alive with that underpinning energy
That field rejected by the world
I come with engines alight in an effort to bleed energy
To present my bond
Whose seed has worked it's way into my heart
and shaken my world
more then ever so lightly

Cartweaver is crap

How people can charge for that is beyond me.

OMGWTF!!!!!

Kitterus Maximus is dead! Long live Kitterus Maximus!

SYL

First off, this song does not speak for my views on anything OK?



If you can appreciate it, good. Otherwise, spare me the feedback.

Chapter 11

"She's setting you up for a bug!"

"I know", replied BDKR, now once again visibly agitated and somewhat tired looking. "You know, I'm kind of glad to be honest with you. The bigger truth is that I'm hurt to the core because I comitted absolutely. But what else can a brother do eh? I'm really tempted to put her in the drink, but I'm sure that will bend noses up down the chain. The best thing for me to do is bug out as well."

"And that makes you feel how?", Anviyell asked somewhat softly knowing that Bell was not in the best of places.

"Energetic. Full with rage. Ready to go out for a fight. Whatever." That distant calm look returning to his face. Only those small hints of moisture at the corners of his eyes betraying his feelings.

A couple of moments passed. They watched as the clouds moved slowly by beneath their feet and the sound of the starboard fan took the edge off their existence. The ocean far below and what could only be imagined below it's surface.

"Suckers Song?", Anvil asked with a soft kind smirk.

"Straight up! But trust me, I am no longer struggling with my own stick!!!! She has to follow me".

That flash of anger and tinge of growl in his voice told Anvil everything he needed to know. He was done with San, and ever more than that, he would be the leader that he and Lakewood needed more then anything else in the world at this time.

It's been some time since I've been around

And there is a hell of a lot to say!

But that will just have to wait.

Chapter 9: Evermore

On that sill
On that canopy written there
There's my name
Emblazoned and read with fear

"There's this march, there is this war
There's this rage as Evermore
Unlike my heart temporal
My fathers words perennial"

And that day
Shook green leaves white clouds ephemeral
Systems sang
Displays blossomed with a soft unfurl

"There's this warm gentle wind
There's this hope that none can rend
Coursing through earthen veins
There is his love that always mends"

Chorus:
There's rage in the Lakewood Den and
There's tumult in my heart
'Cause there is love coursing through my viens
Requesting that you be a part.

I promise you Evermore!

In that sky
In that space we built Evermore
Twixt the storms
Hidden our dream and passioned lore

"There's this fine turbine scream
There are these engines sounds as dream
Rumbling bone, flesh, sinew
Shaking leaves wet with morning dew"

And that day
Shook green leaves white clouds ephemeral
And my heart sang
As I opened to you with soft unfurl

"There's these fists there are these hands
Their power rippling through the lands
Powered by my fathers words
As evermore as times eternal sands"

Chorus:
There's rage in the Lakewood Den and
There's tumult in my heart
'Cause there is love coursing through my viens
Requesting you be a part.

I promise you Evermore!

Ruminations

After a far more productive day working in hell on a Buick Century (blown headgasket), I popped into the pad to have a cup of hot brown and relax a little. On
goes Top Gear and everything is good right? Watching episode 2 from Season 11, I can't help but think just how right on Jezza's diatribe about the serenity (not really
the word I want but it'll do for now) of just going for a drive or ride and being alone really is.

The last 7 years I spent in California was in Monterey Bay and most of that someplace in Santa Cruz county. At the time I lived somewhere between 50 and 65 miles from
work. Most wouldn't put up with such a commute and chose to live someplace a lot closer. The choice most often made was Salinas, which anyone who has ever been there
knows that it's really nothing more then an over sized truck stop come shooting gallery. Prolly has something to do with all the families of incarcerated convicts 20
minutes down the road at Soledad.

So yeah, the place was bunk. I lived there for exactly one year then boltered north. A short stint (3 months?) in the herione laden town of Gilroy, then I broke left to
270 and landed in one of the best places I ever lived and met one of the best poeple I ever met. La Selva Beach and Lily Cogan.

But....., uhhhh...., I'm getting off topic.

The cool thing about living in Monterey Bay was the extreme abundance of killer roads, killer weather, killer views, killer beaches, and that mad commute I had. I
essentially spent 2 hours a day in my car and was knocking over miles at the rate of 2200 A MONTH!

But here is the cool thing, and the true reason for this rant: I loved it. On any day, I had choice after choice of routes to take. The evenings on the return home often
provided that night time central coast ambiance (normally fog) with very few cars to share it with. Everything from bumpy farming roads with huge 100+ (Yeah!) sweepers
to narrow two lanes with branches hanging out over the road and fast a$$ blind corners cut into the sides of hills. From time to time my radar detector chirping as it caught
errant whiffs of CHP K band bouncing about.

Every night after work I was faced with the quandry of what route to take and what exactly was my driving mood. Did I want to relax and just enjoy the scenery?
In that case I could've stayed on 101 and just cruised with the lorries, but the normal choice was to head for the base of the mountains on the west side of
Salinas Valley then head north. Sometimes towards Montery then heading south from Laguna Seca over a high and gorgous vista with a view of the Pacific then down into
Carmel Valley. Other times was a trek that would take me due west from that ghetto mall in Salinas and 101 through more farming roads that rolled up and down endlessly.
Bits of farming shizzle parked here and there and the occasional house in seas of cabbage bathed in full moon blue. Roads so narrow that the only time I dared blast
through there was in the dead of night when even the chickens and barn rats were sure to be asleep as opposed to out on the road to be turned into road carpet by my
Cocteau Twins blasting Subaru Legacy wagon. That road eventually ending with a turn north west towards Castroville and eventually, the biggest tease and dream of all,
Moss Landing. The absolute middle of the bay and dotted with examples of a potential lifetime never to be realized.

Oh well...

This for me was essentially a seven year age of introspection. Introspection puncatuated with great music, great food, great people, great trips, and the occasional
terror of overcooking corners (I really should be dead now!).

That said, let me also say that there are two kinds of fast people. Those that are just naturally fast (seemingly fearless happy go lucky loons that
instead of having 100 yard stares go about with a whacky gazes and jesters hats) and those with a natural affinity and apptitude for going fast. A very big yet very
subtle difference. Far more of us in this ilk are of the latter type, and for us, introspection is the corner stone of our profession/obsession. Somehow we find
comfort at an elevated pace as our minds slip into a different level of operation. Our situational awarness shoots through the roof and our bodily sensors increase in
sensitivity. We slip into flow states and begin to process information at a rate far greater then the tosser on a major highway that's bored into trance by the painted
lines slipping past. Every change in attitude sensed, every protest of the tires felt, braking points and corner speed calculated and decided upon without any
conscious consdiration. Every wiggle and slide noted at a rate that's far more impressive then any multi-pipeline RISC processor could every hope to match.

Isn't that what it is that we really dig? Taking a machine, whether it be motorcycle, car, skateboard, or fighter, and venturing out to someplace close to our limits, if
not over them. And as our skills increase, venturing out to the limits of our machines or conveyances. And it's not even so much the machine as it is what the machine
allows or makes possible for us to experience. The chance to open up our senses and operate closer to our fullest capability by controlling vehicles that are far more
capable then our bodies alone. To feel forces acting upon us that we just can't attain merely from running or jumping.

Here is a quick little story that sums it up well in my opinion. When I was kid in my early teens, me and the rest of the idiots in my neighborhood had our BMX bikes and
like to build jumps just like idiots all over the world. I one day went outside on my then Schwinn Scrambler to find my mates building a dirt ramp on the side of this
driveway that ended up being nearly 3 feet high. This had some potential I thought. After watching a bunch of the other kids just kind of barely go over, I got fed up,
talked some crap, then headed down the street a little for my turn. I put everything I had in getting up to speed for that jump. After launch, I wound up being nearly
two feet higher then the heads of the rest of the idiots standing by watching. While being six feet in the air and blasting along, I was also giggling my arse off! Stuff
like that tickled me straight to my core!

And that says it well. Big jumps, drifts, backing it in, feeling that hit when a big turbo finally spools up, big airs on vert ramps, or whatever it is that makes you
feel good.

Anyway, I've come to realize that my time out there in Santa Cruz has been the benchmark that the quality of my life is judged
against. On almost every level. Personal growth, freinds, travel, music, writing, and just as important as all the previous, driving and riding fast.
Thinking about going fast and actually going fast in a such an incredible part of the world is the one thing that will remain with me forever and color my view of things
until I'm dead and roots are digging through my carcass. And just as important as that, those clear, cold, sparkling, full moon, Montery Bay
evenings experienced alone with just the sound of the engine or songs like Sultitan Itan were most precious.

I doubt that those who've never lived such a life can ever hope to understand.

Suckers Song

Anviyell
Elvaleethia
Arya
And the court of the Pacific BG's
Rise and be glad
Stand and shout
For the Lakewood Den lives
It's leader breaking free of the spell

But go about quietly
and speak about respectfully
and treat his soul with dignity
for he now sings the suckers song
and struggles with his own stick

Anviyell
Elvaleethia
Arya
And the consortium of propulsion
Rise and show support
Bristle with a warriors cavort
For the Lakewood Den lives
It's leader fighting and unfelled

But go about sadly
yet speak about gladly
and respect the pain highly
for BDKR now sings the suckers song
and is fighting that addiction of old

Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science

While writing some copy for the 15 Dragonflies site I'm developing, I did a little research to make certain my ideas on a couple of things and stumbled onto a page / list entry with the title above. The title alone caused me a good deal of laughter, but the ensuing discussion is downright sick.

Austin Ziegler does a very good job of talking about the issues surrounding OO databases and touches lightly on other issues that result for the "Impedance Mismatch" that OODBMS vendors like to banter about. As a matter of fact, he's a far less abrasive version of Fabian Pascal, but no less entertaining at the same time.

I'm certainly glad to read this stuff from time to time. Especially in light of my present circumstances and my decision to roll my own as opposed to working for blokes on band wagons. Being told that you suck because you aren't good at doing something that sucks, well...., SUCKS!

What do I suck at? Well, I'm glad you asked. I suck at accepting the idea that these bloated carcass frameworks like Cake and Ruby on Rails are great. I suck at the idea of accepting XML as the best thing since sliced bread. I suck at accepting the idea that the extremely expensive overhead of OR mapping is to be accepted.

I wonder if 15 Dragonflies is the first development house to openly eschew this folly and call it for what it is.

Chapter 7: Splash and Bug

You're kidding right?
Are you really saying this to me?

I am I!
Wrought with anger and purpose,
forged of calculation and velocity,
and christened with the roar of internal combustion.
There is no greater rage in all the BG's!
At times smooth and graceful.
At times explosive and decisive.
I shall not be hemmed in.
I shall not be ashamed!

My core: a subtle expression,
more delicate then I ever knew,
more convoluted then I ever imagined,
more powerful then I ever dreamed.
And now I realize for the first time ever, likely to be alone forever.

There is no more wonderous equation then that of an honest heart!
All thanx to dayspring.

Yes Alfred, I have loved and lost
and for the good as well.
You see, the extension of my arm,
the offerring of my hand,
the opening of my heart,
is always an invitation into the heavens.
From which, I will not step down.
I can not step down.
I will not go down there again.
Down there into those dusty throes of mediocrity and safety.
The temporality of flesh.
A lifetime without velocity.
A lifetime without flow states.
Traded for a lifetime of fear and safety.
Ending in regret.

So it's loss again.
And to that I say good.
For I have only one master.

But for you Pygmalion, I have only one answer,
and it's now approaching from your six at mach 5!

Chapter 6: Ramp up

I'm coming through the bottom of the bell curve now
A violent swing upwards that's making straight my brow
and watery my eyes
I'm sure it won't take too many of such days to get over these cycles
But I'm here in it now
So let's run with it.
Let's use it to fight with
Let's shake with this rage
Every sinew ready
Every nerve on alert
Every part of my body mercurial with withdrawal

I recognize you Elke
Here again in different form
No less majestic then before
and scared
Those layers of emotional distance
fortified with layers of physical distance
and time
Hallmarks of the weak

I am not the man you encountered the first time
completely unaware of the trap you had no idea you were setting
I am no longer the man that steps into the binders having recognized the pattern
That fortress around my heart glistening and reaching into the heavens
Yet there is a door that will open for you if you commit.

I will always love you San,
whatever form you take,
my warrior princess,
Queen of Moro.
I am yours for the chasing.
The risk yours to take.
You can have me if you want me,
but the work is yours to do!
It's my heart that needs convincing
It's my path that you must follow

I have a fight to fight
come along side and throw
or bug out

Below the layer

What a killer morning
In a lights out REM conveyance
through places far richer then here
Or up there at the surface in Everyday
Through those places I walked
That shop holding that brilliant man
at the floor of Carbon Canyon
"You are not there in the surface version!"
Yours: A wheeled sea of gray whatever
Dotted by those gems of 555
You: The emotive behind their motive!
"Yes sir, I will give them your love",
though I suspect it's only I that knows you.

WTF is wrong with me?!?

So I walk
stumbling into places that aren't known
Escape perhaps from being labelled as ugly
But I know that's not the case
These wanderings into dark dens
filled with purveyors of confusion and dred
Familiar, but not real
Fear generators in the interest of warning

But that's all behind by some ways
and the sun is out
Morning light on incarnadine formations
Afill with narrow passages and equipment
Those freindly and feminine modern alchemist
That spent assistant in wanna-be-jimmy-buffet
All setting me down into the cool embrace of friendly chatter

But from the aft decks of submerged boats
That urgent feeling grows strong
This comfort is bad!
That cooing about over Staggerwing drops
in a now transitioning background
fading away for good

The plot thickens

I am definitely working a different modus these days. One that is not entirely stable. Near emotional extremes with brutal transitions. I'm not depressed, down, sad, or whatever, but I've certainly hit some lows. One of them dished out via my employer (tho in all honestly, not entirely their fault). The highs on the other hand have been stellar. These aren't merely contrived or the results of some chemical imbalance (:rofl:) either. Some absolutely wonderful things have happened.

I'm smiling even thinking about this stuff. I'm smiling even though I feel I'm on the edge of a precipice. Even though I feel empty and queasy.

Funny enough, even my workouts are affected by this whatever. Same goes for my diet. Some weeks back (about 4 now) I finally decided that I'm going to go back to doing what I know is right for me. Eating in a way that I know is good for my body. I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it right as I feel like I'm starving nearly all the time, but then I spent a good deal of my 20's feeling like I was starving. Tons and tons of water, fruit, vegetables, and some meat every now and then. I do know a heck of a lot more then I did back then so I've allready began to make appropriate adjustments.

The workouts on the other hand have become like an audience with a monster. A showcase of raw energy and aural rage. Funny that considering I have the hardest time just starting a workout. Once there however, I feel like Leonidas.

As a matter of fact, all of life has me feeling like Leonidas these days.

Maybe it's just when I slow down that the tears come.

Whatever the case, this is the onset of tumult. A time I know is going to require delicate steps.

But why all the fanfare when I know the answers?

This is what I'm talking about!

Redblocks fool!



That first Volvo, at full boost is making over 900 HP!

Garbage

And here I am again
Going qwerty to blast out a line of thought
A line of vanity
While the noise churns away in the background
That infernal smoke rising
"What am I doing here?"
The King of Speed
Destroyer of worlds
Crafter of logic
And most of all, one of those vain men

Yeah, it would appear my resolve is less then I thought
Less strong then the lyrical suggestions of lore and song
Bellicose and ridiculous rantings
Weighting nothing

But whatever the case, it's time to try again
Yeah, one more try
Because I know someone did not give up on me
To his very end with mouth shut
My friend
My master
Where has my heart been?
To where have my eyes wandered?

Chapter 4: redress

Not even yet dry,
I knew it was you the moment the phone rang!

--------------

"Bogey six! Bogey six!", screamed systems on both aircraft. About the same time, a jolt of electricity was blasted through the bodies of the pilots in their respective aircraft to make sure they woke. Anviyell in a state of shock as he came to the surface from an ocean of sleep to be pounded with the blaring alarms of an impending attack. BDKR yelling "Scopes! Scopes!" in a sudden blast of anger to get his aircraft to show the position and speed of the inbound relative to his own. Both aircraft autopilots aware of where they were in relation to one another and the inbound, and aware of the still groggy state of their drivers, neither of which had made any direct inputs into the controls, split in oppossing directions, engines at full mill with the cans lit. Ascending 6g reversals with trails of flares streaming aft.

"Inbound! Inbound!", voices screamed in both aircraft. BDKR, going left and half way through his reversal, his head cocked back peering into the darkness.

"Inbound Volley! Inbound Volley!", the systems once again yelled.

"What the hell?!", BDRK screamed into his mask. Anviyell registering about the same thought.

Flare streams now joined by chaff generators desperately spat ordinance in an effort to
confound the inbound vampires, completely unseen against the glistening reflections of the moon on the face of Davey Jones locker.

"Miss! Miss!" the systems screamed. Flashes of light blooming aft and below as both planes continued seperation and passed through 1.5.

"Spool plasma!", BDKR barked into the radio. "Two! Continue uphill! Call home!". Anviyell pulling the stick back a little farther and passing through 50K. BDKR, punched in a bit more left bank and a boot full of left rudder to help get his bird into a down hill attitude, idled the motors and popped the boards for a few moments as he unloaded the plane and the tail came over the top. Then the airframe shook and rumbled in a fit of dead serious rumble and buffet as he scrubbed speed and brought the nose up and around. A brief momment of eerie and peaceful bliss with nothing more then the groaning of the airframe, soothing electronic report from the flight systems, and that full moon night time ocean spread out below him. Small tufts of clounds in lazy formations glowing madly.

"I'm not going swimming tonight", he spoke softly, blinking to fight the blur from his eyes. He eased his pull, cleaned up, rolled nearly level, and pushed the throttles forward to stage 8 to
regain air speed. The engines roaring back to life. The spatial display in the heads up going fuzzy as he realized that the first salvo masked a huge chaff discharge.

"Ha haaa... I got something for you", he smirked. "Pickle p spread", he muttered in a voice a lot less demanding and far more smug then only moments before. A volley of 5 small missles racing forward from his aircraft tracking to a point sure the cover the attackers plot of highest probablity and exploding into huge clouds of magnetic and luminescent paint. Billowing bluish green and eerily for a moment before a shape blasted through it in a heading that brought it
low to his left and passing aft.

"YEEAAAHHHH!!!!!", BDKR growled as he rolled nearly inverted and pulled. "Tallyho! Devil at 11 o'clock low heading 090."

"Jason Jason Jason. Tokyo Delta Brainchild. Domino flight in furball with one. Spool the fountains!", Anviyell spoke to Indie Station for the Atlantic BG.

"Copy Domino flight", came a cool reply. "Package in route".

BDKR was now pulling 9 g's to bring the random on target while activating the camera zoom. "Why does that plane look so familiar?", he said as the image came to life in the HUD.

"Don't tell me you know this gomer", responded Anviyell.

"Sorry, but I do. It's Dido!"

--------------

Why, Elishat, have you come back?
Can I stand more longing?
Are you ready to fight?

Famine

Logic
That cold and unwavering freind
Loyal to the end
Stronger even then my very heart
That synonym for my love for you

Against the blackness of night
and the cruelty of a peircing ocean breeze
you let me hold you.
Pleasure not known for ages,
the mere embrace.
And like an image from Klimt,
I cradled your head close to my chest.
Slowly nuzzling and melding
Sounding into the deepest sea of intimacy.

Again, I was where dreamt.

Logic says,
"Dearest Elissa,
Siren of Anatolia
Queen of Carthage
The borders of my heart are boundless
and of depth without end
Yours for the sounding
Please don't paint my heart green
or cash in on my emotion.
Please don't say that "That" kiss was for not".

Code Igniter

ROCKS!!!!!

I've always respected it more then the other gigantor frameworks, but now that I'm using it for VFBG, I just can't be happier.

The VFBG lives!

VFBG net and org are already resolving! I updated the name servers with the registrar not more then 90 minutes back.

Righteous stuff that mate!

My boy

Just some pics

A guy I know name John Lane rally races a Volvo 240. Here is a killer pic of it.





That's just gorgeous!

On a different front, I'm starting the site for the VFBG. Here's a screen shot from my laptop.





Nice and clean. Black and with with a simple gradient.

Forget to add this earlier: The first picture is from Kanokus Photography. The are at http://www.kanokusphotography.com/. Check 'em out!