The New GPS

This is as close as I'm going to get to our new GPS. That is, until the wife unpacks it, sets it up and learns all about it.

I may have the golden opportunity to be in charge of disposing of the packing materials. Though one can only hope.

--Ben

How low can you go?

You know you've hit a low point in the age of your hardware when you need to cool the machine using an ordinary house fan.

Yikes, time for a new computer or two.

--Ben

Visit from the Bro

David was in town for the Bears game (sorry they lost Dave) and so I got a chance to hang a bit with him.

If he looks mostly asleep in this picture it's because he is. This was take really early this morning as he had an early flight to catch.

As usual, it was great seeing him.

--Ben

Some Beach

Took a walk on the OC beach this morning. It was just perfect. The water was warm, the breeze was cool and the sun was shining.

--Ben

B&S @ O.C.

Our very generous neighbors let us borrow their beach house for the weekend in Ocean City. Wow, what a treat.

--Ben

Scenes from a run

I ran along the Patomac this morning - got some beautiful views of the city.

I also got a snapshot of a convoy of 3 police cars and 3 large buses. Katrina victims being moved, or maybe being taken from DCA? Just a theory....

--Ben

Calm before the storm

Waiting for a religious committee meeting to start. Not much todo...except take a snapshot or two of the library where we meet.

So many books, so little time.

--Ben

NerdTV

I, Cringely . NerdTV | PBS

Who needs HBO, when we have Nerd TV? Now all we need is our own computer geek reality show...

You as a Cyborg

Make yours today...

Thanks to Adverblog for the site.

In Print

Our business is more official than ever - we have business cards!

They came out pretty nice. Best of all, they were free from http://www.vistaprint.com.

Now I can win another lunch at Noodels & Co.

--Ben

Female Logic

Sitting at the kitchen table, Shira grabbed my sidekick (cell phone) from my case, and almost dropped it on the floor. The floor is ceramic tile, which means that anything close to breakable that falls on it will instantly shatter.

In an amazing save, she grabbed the phone just before it hit the ground.

Her response to the incident:

It would have been your fault if it had broken. You're the one who chose this floor.

This left me speechless.

Object Design

Move along folks, nothing to see here....

Just ignore this design. This is just a tad bit easier than hand copying the whiteboard.

--Ben

Husbandsforsale.com

Husbandsforsale.com

This is wrong. All I can read is the domain name, and I still know it's wrong.

Any French speakers out there want to translate for the rest of us?

Java Source Code -- Online

sun.rmi.transport.ObjectTable

Lets say you are trying to debug why your servlet container isn't exiting cleanly, even though you think you have done everything right. At first you'll poke around google and run some kill -3's. But at some point, you'll need to poke around the Java source.

I found the above site, which makes it very easy to look around the source code of the usually hidden implementation of SUN's Java objects.

In the end, I figured out my problem: I wasn't unexporting all the references to RMI objects I had exported, which caused the RMI Reaper thread to stay alive -- and we all know what happens when the RMI Reaper thread stays alive. Your application won't die.

Anyway, it's a cool site -- and hopefully you'll never need it.

The Jewish View Of Katrina

Opinion: Katrina through Jewish eyes

Somone's (who I happen to agree with) 2 cents on the Jewish view of Katrina

I especially liked the comment:

A group called Repentance America said it was God's retribution for New Orleans being a "sin city." Repentance America did not issue any explanation of why the hurricane managed to miss Las Vegas.

I guess this falls under the Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People category...

Congestion...

It must be the first day of school because traffic volume is way up.

Summer is officially over, time to get back to work.

--Ben

Gas data point

Got gas tonight - $3.579/gal.

It'll be interesting to see if in a few weeks this seems like a lot of money or a real steal.

--Ben

Noo-Noos

What's better than dinner at Noodles & Company?

Free dinner at N&Co., of course.

I dropped a business card into their drawing, and won today.

Kinda like winning the lottery, but without all those pesky taxes.

--Ben

Lube'n

Thanks to Justin, I finally found two of my lube points on my car, and took care of them. They weren't glaringly easy to find, so I feel better.

Happy labor day to all!

--Ben

Fun with Nick and Lauren

We got to spend a fun evening with Nick and Lauren tonight. We hit cafe asia and ended up back at the house playing jenga.

Yeah, for the record I lost.

It was great to see them.

--Ben

Shoes!

With all the possible places to visit in DC (museums, monuments, etc.), where do we go after lunch? Shoe shopping, of course. Where else?

--Ben

Mmmm....yummy...

Had lunch with the family @ Eli's. If you are in DC, and in search of Kosher food, Eli's is your best bet.

Very tasty and very kosher.

--Ben

Disposable Personal Organizer

http://www.pocketmod.com/

Here's a novel ideal - it should go well with my 3x5 notepad and portable whiteboard.

--Ben

Bed of Nails

Had a fun day in Baltimore, and visited the science museum. Shira couldn't resist grabbing a shot of Elana and Myself trying out the bed-of-nails exhibit.

This exhibit shows that lots of pain points (nails in this case) don't hurt as much as just a few - because the pain is spread around evenly.

Interesting, eh? Personally, I think Shira just wanted to see me on a bed of nails.

--Ben

Curb Rash - repaired

I just learned what curb rash is - when you scrape your rim against the curb (thanks Jenna!). And a few weeks later, ZZ got a myseterios case of it.

Well, about the only place in the area that deals with this is near Baltimore, where we were tonight.

So, we stopped by Keystone Automotive Industries to have it repaired. At first they told us that the wheel hadn't been delivered - shipping's been messed up, and you know the price of gas (I kid you not, they actually used gas prices as an excuse).

We gently explained that we didn't live in these parts and that coming back Tuesday isn't really an option.

So the guy went in the back to figure something out. Shira turns to me: they got the wheel in, they just don't want to put it on at 4:15pm. Nonsense, I say, that would be just plain dishonest.

Sure enough, the manager walks out and says - you guys are all set, just pull round back.

I got to watch them replace and balance my wheel - and I have to say they did a first rate job. In general, the staff was very nice - and I would go back.

Now, lets hope ZZ stays rash free...

--Ben

Wedding II, the sequel

We had so much fun at the wedding last week, we thought we would do another one this weekend.

Step 1, pickup the in-laws at the airport, as they are joining us at the shindig.

--Ben

Fun with screensavers

Shira found the "My Pictures Slideshow" screensaver tonight. And as a result, I've got a brand new screensaver to stare at.

I'm actually pretty impressed with how they implemented the feature, as it's convenient to add pictures in.

Many thanks to the wife for the gesture.

--Ben

NPR : Bagging One Job for Another

NPR : Bagging One Job for Another

This is a story from a sequence that NPR is running on people making big changes late in their lives. It's really interesting, and full of PMA [1]. I especially like this one: this guy gave up his job as a speech therapist so he could bag groceries instead.

It's not as insane as it sounds -- he's got a job that pays OK, and provides terrific benefits and leaves him plenty of time to do things he's really interested in.

I can just imagine it...

Honey, good news! I've quite my job as a programmer and now work in a toll booth. But don't you worry, I'm going to be much happier now, because I'll get to goof off more on the computer. Aren't you excited???

Yeah, she wouldn't be my wife for very long.

And besides, I happen to like my job a lot.

So, if you could quit your job today, what would you end up doing instead?

[1] -- PMA -- Postive Mental Attitude. Something I have a lot of, and my wife has almost none of.

U.S. Attonery's law enforcement priorities - yikes

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1125318960389

Wow, this article blows me away.

I can just imagine that one part of our country is rejoicing at this list of priorities, while another part is angry.

What's scariest to me is how this issue has a "have you stopped beating your wife?" quality to it. If you come out against this main issue it makes it look like you have no morals, and if you agree with the choice you appear to be ignoring lots of more life threating issues.

As for my view - I have no problem with the goverment watching out for obscenity, but (a) I would prefer it lower on the priority list and (b) it better be pretty dang permissive, allowing citizens to make the call on what they think is appropriate in the end.

--Ben

Information Architecture

You must be wondering - what MIS system do the Simon's use? How do they stay so organized and on top of things?

Easy - Shira crams thousands of random scraps of paper into her now-defunct addressbook and remembers each and every one of them.

Yes, she's that amazing.

--Ben

Latest must have mobile office device

I've got new tool in my mobile office arsenal - the portable whiteboard.

It's lighter, more durable, and easier to manage than a tablet pc. It has yet to BSOD on me and is just a tad bit cheeper. Oh, and its battery life is incredible.

--Ben