Monday, July 29, 2002
We made it back from Baltimore. This weekend was a total blast. Bo Dollis & The Wild Magnolias were joined by a couple of Mardi Gras indians from Bo's tribe. And as always Buckwheat Zydeco got the crowd moving and left them wanting more. Rachel and Fernando were excellent hosts, and it was really nice to catch up with Linda and Jeff. All and all, it was a great weekend. Too bad we couldn't stay longer.
posted by Kirby Turner | July 29 10:24 AM | comments (15)My favorite feature of the day: Visual Studio.NET Database Project create command file.
posted by Kirby Turner | July 29 10:15 AM | comments (0)Friday, July 26, 2002
Melanie and I are flying down to Baltimore today. I'm so psyched for a number of reasons. First, I have always wanted to visit Baltimore, the hometown of such greats as John Waters and Divine. Secondly, we are going to visit with Rachel and Fernado another of Melanie's sisters and her sister's boyfriend respectively.
Another reason for being excited is Artscape, which is going on this weekend in Baltimore. And the best part of Artscape is Buckwheat Zydeco who will be performing on the Sun Stage at 8:45 pm on Saturday. This guy really gets my butt ah-movin'.
And finally, I am psyched about the trip to Baltimore because my friends Linda and Jeff, originally from St. Louis now living in the DC area, are driving up for the weekend. It's been two years since I have seen either of them, and I am so excited that we will be meeting up at Artscape. It's going to be a great weekend!
Thursday, July 25, 2002
Last night Melanie and I saw Chicago. Entertaining but the crowd was not into it as much as the crowd at Hairspray. My favorite part of Chicago? The outfits. Totally reminded me of the preferred style for many at Monday night Fetish night in St. Louis. I miss those Monday nights at time.
posted by Kirby Turner | July 25 08:38 PM | comments (0)Wednesday, July 24, 2002
A year ago today, Melanie and I were part of a group going to a Yankee's game. Melanie and I separated from the group to find a shorter line for beer and hot dogs. We got to our seats before the rest of the group and started talking. We talked to each other for the rest of the game [and I was gracefully trying to stare at her long, tan, smooth, sexy legs]. I wonder if she ever caught me looking.
That night was the start of something between the two of us. We started talking on the phone and e-mailing each other on a regular basis. And even though she thought to herself "He's short" at a party a few days after the game, she agreed to go out with me.
A year ago today was the start of something very wonderful. Had you told me I would be falling in love I would have said you were crazy. And now I can't imagine going a single day without having Melanie in my life.
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Recently my friend Karsten Januszewski posted a message to the RSS-DEV group suggesting that UDDI could be used as a directory of RSS feeds. I for one really like the idea. UDDI provides not only a public directory that is easily searchable but an API that would allow me to automate the search rather the discovery of new RSS feeds that I might be interested in.
Ironically a couple of days prior to first learning of Karsten's idea, I spent an hour looking for RSS feeds covering a particular topic for a customer. Sure I found various sites listing some feeds and such but no definitive directory. Should Karsten's idea take off then the time it took me to find feed in the past will be greatly reduced. And as I said I can automate the discovery of new RSS feeds. I for one fully support Karsten's idea.
Sunday, July 21, 2002
xsd.exe from the .NET SDK has been a favorite tool of mine in recent months, but it let me down tonight. It seems that xsd.exe does not support schema files that import other schemas. I'm bummed.
[Moments later] I'm no longer bummed. It turns out that xsd.exe does in fact support <xsd:import>. You simply need to include all .xsd file names on the command line. For example:
xsd.exe /c /l:cs /n:"namespace" a.xsd b.xsd c.xsd
"It's not my fault. It's the bartender's fault." - MD
posted by Kirby Turner | July 21 06:25 PM | comments (11)The brief power outage in the lower Manhattan was an interesting experience. With no power in the West Village, shops and restaurants were forced to close. This sent a large number of people out onto the streets. And traffic was a total mess with no traffic signals working. Subways were not working and buses were overflowing with people.
I was planning to meet Melanie and Brenna for lunch in Central Park just as the power went out. So I started walking. And I walked, and I walked. I can now say I have walked from my apartment to Melanie's Upper Eastside pad with only one brief stop in Central Park. Although an enjoyable walk, it's not something I care to do on a regular basis.
Saturday, July 20, 2002
Last night Melanie, her sister Brenna, and I saw the new Broadway musical Hairspray based on the John Waters' movie of the same name. The show set in Baltimore, 1962, was not only hilarious but energetic, up-beat, and quite entertaining. The story is about a plump teenage girl who fights for racial equality and integration by appearing as a regular on a local TV dance show. What's more funny than that? Well, a lot of things I guess but this show is still very funny. And Harvery Fierstein is simply divine as Edna Turnblad.
posted by Kirby Turner | July 20 10:05 AM | comments (0)Tuesday, July 16, 2002
I am starting to realize there are different types of software developers. I guess I have always known this but it was not clear to me how the differences affect delivery of software solutions. This probably explains why I am happy on some gigs and frustrated on others. And why I can easily become frustrated on projects where I start out happy.
As Joel Spolsky says, there are five worlds of software development: shrinkwrap, internal, embedded, games, and throwaway. I come from the shrinkwrap world where programs should have easy to use interfaces, be easy to install and deploy, and resilient to variations between computers. After all, shrinkwrap applications are expected to be used "in the wild" by a large number of people. Developing shrinkwrap applications requires a mindset not commonly found in the corporate and consulting worlds. And with this different mindset comes a different way to work towards achieving the goals.
I'll pick on my buddies at Antenna Software for a moment. Now in their defense, I will say I left Antenna over a year ago and a lot has changed in that time. My comments here are based on my time at Antenna as an employee.
Antenna had the dream to be an ISV focused on mobile and ASP-based solutions for the field force automation. In my mind to be successful we had to think like those companies producing shrinkwrap and embedded applications. However the software engineering team was staffed with primarily people either recently out of college or from a corporate IT background. The college guys are okay because you can shape and mold them but the corporate folks are a different story. And I believe this contributed to the lack of a solid product after my one year at Antenna.
A lot of assumptions can be made when you are developing applications that only run within a single company. It is easier to demand certain restrictions or hardware configurations. And deployment can be more involved. It can be tough for most ex-corporate developers to make the switch from controlled environment programming to programming for the wild, which leads me to my current thought and reason for this post.
I work in the consulting world of software development. I like the freedom it provides and will probably remain a consultant for the rest of my career. But most of the projects that consultants work on are custom software development for a single corporation. There are exceptions from time to time like the work I did last year at i-Deal, which was an internal software development effort turned commercial Web-based software. But for the most part consulting gigs are on internal software development efforts.
In my career I have observed an interesting fact. When I apply shrinkwrap techniques and approaches for delivering an internal software solution the customer tends to be happier and the solution is perceived as having a higher level of quality. Working in this manner will not make the software developer's life easier. In fact, it is harder for the developer and requires more work. But software development is not about making the developer's life easier. It's about making the end user's life easier.
Monday, July 15, 2002
As some already know, my grandmother Dot passed away last week. I left for Memphis as soon as I heard the news to be with the family. Although it is sad that Dot is no longer with us, she is in a much better place now.
Dot was an amazing woman and a wonderful grandmother. I still have fond memories of summer times at her place with a frig packed with Jell-O, Easter Saturday dying eggs, and nights playing Aggravation and watching Carson. I can't think of a better person to have as a grandmother. I love you, Dot.
Thursday, July 11, 2002
I just finished the latest in Microsoft C# beta exams, 71-315 Develop and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C#.NET and Microsoft Visual Studio.NET. The test was easier than the last one but still had challenging questions. Those planning to take this exam should have a working knowledge of Web app setup projects, security settings via the web.config, working with DataList, Repeater, and DataGrid server controls, how to write custom user controls, and once again ADO.NET, some XML, and how to consume Web services.
And yes, for those wondering...I rescheduled the exam so I could take it this morning in Memphis.
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Death in the family - will be in Memphis for the next few days.
posted by Kirby Turner | July 10 09:22 AM | comments (0)Tuesday, July 09, 2002
"I was in one of the most beautiful places in all the world, the Himalayan mountains. Several months before, in my endless quest for the perfect snow, I had left my home in America and traveled by plane to Nepal with my two snowboards, to have the ultimate experience in snowboarding."
This is the first paragraph of Frederick Lenz's book Snowboarding to Nirvana. I read this paragraph and had to buy the book. I can't wait to start reading the book.
Monday, July 08, 2002
Melanie and I have returned to the Big Apple after a 4 day trip through the green mountain state of Vermont. We started the road trip with a drive up the west side of the state ending at Stowe. On the way we took a sneak peek at the Mad River Glen ski slopes. The scenery was wonderful with views of lakes and green mountains all around. We ended the night with a 4th of July firework show in Stowe. Don't be fooled by this small town. The firework show could easily rival big city firework shows. For those wondering, we spent our nights at Three Bears at the Fountain, a truly wonderful Vermont B&B.
The next day we drove out to Burlington to see Lake Champlain. Burlington is a cool college town. Interesting people walking the streets and again nice scenic views. We left Burlington to return to Stowe via Smuggler's Knot. What a cool drive! Large rocks, big trees, and some very tight turns that made driving a bit scary at times.
We explored more of Stowe the next day. We checked out the ski slopes and hiked down a blue run on Mt Mansfield. Riding the slopes is still a better way for getting down though. We did a little shopping and got some great deals on some ski/boarding wear. And we ended our visit of Stowe with Melanie kicking my butt at miniature golf.
From Stowe, we headed down to Killington where we stayed at the Birch Ridge Inn. Our dinner at the Inn was excellent. We highly recommend it to all Killington visitors. After picking up Melanie's skis, checking out the Killington slopes [yes, we are obsessed], and a drive through Killington to see homes, we headed back to NYC.
Our scenic drive home took us through the southwest corner of Vermont. Unfortunately we could not see much because of the smoky haze. We later learned the hazy was caused by forest fires in Canada. This was followed by a lengthy drive in traffic between Albany, NY and NYC. This 2 hour drive took us only 4 hours. East Coast holiday travel by car can suck at times, especially returning home.
Overall the road trip was great. Vermont is great. And Melanie is great. I can't wait until we return.
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
After a full day of research, learning the ins and outs of writing Windows Services using .NET, and using more about WSDL, it is time for me to sign-off for a few days. Melanie and I are driving up to Stowe, VT for the holiday weekend. And no we are not leaving the city because of the various terrorist threats. We are leaving town because we have a 4 day holiday and I have wanted to see Vermont in the summer time for a very long time.
If we have time and are able, I will post entries about our trip but don't count on it. I am hoping for a geek-free weekend.
Monday, July 01, 2002
I am jealous of my friend Darren who signed off of IM with the comment "My work week is only 35 hours." How did he get so lucky? Cool new place in Sarasota, FL. Cool new job. And Jeff is cool too.
posted by Kirby Turner | July 1 04:32 PM | comments (6)
