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.