Ben's Journal

They just told us - it'll be a "completely full" flight tonight. The good news is that we are in Economy Plus, which is actual...

Shira and I are about to start yet another adventure - this time to England. When I wake up tomorrow I'll be in a strange land where th...

I'm so not making this up... Shira just got the rush delivered Blackberry today. Only one small detail - it was yet another empty box. ...

Christian Cantrell passed me this fantastically funny video, which is actually part of a bigger series : That's the Ruby on Rails...

OK, so clearly Gareth was less than impressed about the potential discovery of the use of the human appendix. But I have to say, I'm...

This explains why Aaron from sales is always kicking butt - it's the open bottle of beer he has on his desk, at the ready. It also answe...

I was motivated by the ASUS EEE Laptop to more closely examine its bargain basement priced competitor - the One Laptop Per Child lapto...

Who knew that the Print-Screen button on your keyboard could be so useful? In Windows, the ability to capture a screen shot at the pre...

Yesterday, my Dad gave a beautiful and moving eulogy for his mom. He was kind enough to let me archive it here. To appreciate it, you hav...

box . Yes, box. The handset speaker (or software that controls it) on Shira's Blackberry Pearl just randomly stopped working the other d...

We just heard beautiful eulogies from my family about grandma. We all agree - she was a remarkable woman. In so many ways she glued our fa...

We just landed in Rochester for my Grandma's Funeral and was greeted by - surprise - a perfectly sunny day. Huh, Rochester can look good...

Today we celebrated Josh's third birthday - gosh he's cute. Pretty much everything he says and does is adorable. I think he really ...

Today, while browsing the Linux Journal I stumbled across the not yet released ASUS EEE PC 701 . The EEE is a $250 laptop which compete...

Getting Started Subversion is a version control system which makes tracking versions of files easy. This becomes essential when you ar...

Today, at approximately 9:45am my Grandma, Harriette Simon, passed away. While we were surprised that she left us this morning, she's ...

These White-handed Gibbons at the Honolulu zoo definitely had us captivated. They had some amazing swinging skills. Of course we had to...

Today we practiced one of our more esoteric traditions at shul - beating willow branches. The goal: get all the leaves off your bundle of w...

The silence has been fairly deafening after the ratification of R6RS . What, to me, started off as a promising effort, turned into one wher...

The Disclaimer I recently needed some fairly obvious functionality in ActionScript, but for the life of me, I couldn't find an obviou...

Our kitchen at work apparently only needs two supplies: sponges and bandages. Sponges, I get, but bandages? What are people planning? We h...

Since Ben and I went to Pearl Harbor on a Hawaii vacation several years ago, I didn't feel it was necessary to take photos. However, I ...

Sorry for the dark photo... The story goes that if you put the flower behind your right ear, you are available (single), behind your left, ...

The other day I needed to jump on AIM, but was away from my usual computers. At first I tried AIM Express , a web only version of AIM. Unfo...

We recently picked up an eStarling frame for my parents. It's a digital frame like you've no doubt seen, but with a twist. The fr...

Shira getting a taste at the Dole Pineapple plantation. Yum!

Previously, I mentioned an impressive Postgres Tip list. Today I stumbled across a comparable set of tips for MySQL . Specifically, I ...

There's nothing I can add to this story . Just read it , and then take a few minutes and make donation . I'm almost certain this w...

Credit for this nice find of a book goes to my Dad. He introduced me to Bill Jelen, aka Mr. Excel, the author of Guerrilla Data Analysis u...

Forget about walk in refrigeration - my mom provides live in refrigeration. 59 degrees in my parent's house, yikes! It wouldn't be ...

Apparently, paradise agrees with my wife.

Here's Grandma and David from a few day ago gambling. Yes, she's remarkably sick. But, she's a Simon at heart - she's got to...

If you thought my view was impressive today, check out Shira's. No that's not a mural, that's the real deal. How's that...

Call me a hospital rookie, but I still stand and gape like an 8 year old when the chopper lands on the roof at the hospital. That's jus...

Thanks to Nick for pointing me to the Endgadget article announcing the new Sidekick . Oh man, do I want to get play with one of these....

Sure, antibiotics and other modern medical offerings are nice and all. But really, what medical issue can't be solved with a shot of wh...

If you are even a remotely a Star Wars wars fan, the Family Guy episode is an absolute must see. One day we'll have to explain to our ...

Here we all are - hanging out in Grandma's hospital room. We are all pretending to work, though really we are just schmoozing. Note Gra...

I was all ready to get in my flight suit and find an aircraft carrier to declare - Mission Accomplished - I've completed my first 2 Star...

Whoops, posted my heading to Rochester without a photo. Here's some proof that I'm really on a plane heading to Rochester. One day ...

I'm moving up my timetable - I was planning to head to Rochester for Sukkot. Unfortunately, my grandma is still not well, and her healt...

Well not mine, but the guy parked next to me. Sorry, as a dyslexic, I coudn't resist. --Ben

I've been enjoying the pair of Etymotic Research ER-6 headphones ( http://tinyurl.com/2owz3f ) my parents bought me a while back. They ...

Here's Greg at the Torpedo Factory with a paper giraffe. The resemblance is uncanny, no? Shira, Greg and I had a fun time hanging out i...

Before After Just because there's a big gate standing in the way, doesn't mean there's much security. Case in point - by t...

Tonight I really wished I had the PHP equivalent of Java's System.getCurrentTimeMillis() or JavaScript's getTime(). I didn't ha...

Update: Here's a camera phone shot of the sanctuary before Yom Kippur started. It's taken from the Bimah . It's hard to tell...