Morrissey

My sister wrote me something the other day and I’m going to share it here.

I saw Morrissey play at DAR Constitution Hall tonight and I had this welling of emotion when he came out. Anyway, it’s hard to put it into words without it sounding a bit silly, but thanks for taking me to see him in 1992 in that tiny place in C-ville. I was 15 and you were 22! I am forever in your debt.

Dag, that was 12 years ago, in Charlottesville Virginia. I was so proud to be able to take my sister. and the show was wonderful. At the time I was working as a Respiratory Therapist for the University of Virginia Medical Center. My those were heady times for me. My first apartment. Alone in a new town. It was a great treat to see Morrissey at the peak of his game as a solo artist.

Semantic Web

Just posted this to a mailing list:

There’s so much hype and mystique about what the Semantic Web could be, might be, will be — I am particularly taken with a new series of articles (still unfolding) on xml.com about Paul Ford’s work on actually trying to *build* semantic web applications.

* Screenscraping the Senate

* Uncle Sam’s Semantic Web

“The United States government and the Semantic Web are a perfect match: imagine all of those senators and representatives, each query-able by age, party affiliation, bills proposed, committee membership, and voting record. For the last few years, I’ve wanted to collect as much data on the U.S. government as I could, convert it to RDF, and build a site and a web service that make it possible to explore that data. This will be my goal over the next year, and I’ll document my progress here on XML.com.”
…
“Does creating a Semantic Web of data make it easier to analyze and explore that data in new ways? In addition to testing the Semantic Web concept, if all goes well, I’ll have a nicely organized map of the U.S. government, structured using publicly available ontologies, available in a single, reliable format (RDF), which anyone can incorporate into their own Semantic Web projects. It seems worth trying.”

Debate

Leah and I went to class in a rush, we had an outline due tonight. But alas! No class. I suspect our teacher played hooky to watch the presidential debate.

Ah well, more time to prepare the house for the imminent arrival of my mom, tomorrow.

Phew.

The entrails of my self are all over the place right now.

My mother comes Friday — she’s going to a reunion this weekend and staying with Leah and me. We’re in a bit of disarray right now, so we have a bit more cleaning to do.

Counseling today went well. Learning so much it makes me cry. A lot of work is happening, man. Work is hard.

Technical Writing class good. I’m in a group and we’re writing a manual about the Library at City College.

C++ is good – – though not as OO oriented as I might have hoped. Still, “call-by-reference” made my head hurt the other night in class.

Spanish is Spanish. Working on Past tense and lots of busy, er… practice work.

The part time job is exactly what I hoped it would be. When I’m not there, I don’t worry about it. Which is precisely the kind of job a boy like me needs.

Quote of the day: Don’t be a “guy” — be a “man” — anyone can be a “guy” — from …say anything.

I make mistakes. Lots of them. Supposedly this helps me learn. Why’s it got to be so hard? Phew.

Latest Stew Photos

I put my latest pix of stew (from yesterday’s show) up on my flickr site.

Joel on Software: the book! the interview! the dessert topping!

A few weeks ago I got an email from the people doing promotions of Joel Spolsky‘s new book — they wanted to send me a free copy since I’ve linked to Joel so many times over the years. Hey, I like free stuff. I suppose this is what’s called a “review copy.” Well, I’m happy to have a copy I can cart around and read in the tub — as opposed to his site, which I can’t really read in the bathtub.

The book is conveniently titled Joel On Software, after his site, Joel on Software. It’s great stuff about software engineering, how to write documentation, and more. It’s particularly apropos right now because it ties into the Technical Writing class I’m taking at City College.

I also am happy to see The Joel Test in print. It’s been quite a while since I originally read it. Perhaps I should make some copies of that one to send to some of my friends.

Well, yesterday I downloaded and listened to this interview with Joel on IT Conversations. More good food for thought. I particularly like the part where they talk about how FogBUGZ is built in VBScript and they paid an intern to write a VBScript compiler that could spit out PHP. So when they update the VBScript, they can “emit” (I have never heard that verb with regards to software development) a web based version whenever they want it. Really cool stuff. I sense that Joel is the kind of developer I would love to buy a beer. I bet he’s got great war stories.

Anyway, go buy his book man! Totally worth a read.

Stew song on Everwood tonight!

So yesterday Leah and I went and saw Stew at the Adams Ave Street Fair as promised. He was wonderful as always. He also mentiond a little fun fact about having a song on TV tomorrow — which is to say today. So here’s the 411, direct from the Stew camp:

last time we had a song on a teen oriented tv show we got tons of email from adults who just “happened to have the tv on at the time and heard your music” along with alot of folks who “never watch that show but just happened to be watching it that night to see what all the talk was about.” But the best email we got was from someone who said they were watching tv with the sound down and then heard our song…really.

Now you don’t need an excuse for watching such a show. we’ve just given you one. Actually i’ve heard Everwood is a cool show. I don’t watch prime time tv so i dont know but i’ll be watching this monday at 9pm. Word has it that if you dont dig tv you should tune in 45 minutes into the show. we’re on close to the end.

you have been notified.

everwood
this monday
9pm
WB network

I’m pretty sure I’ll be outta class by then.

Panorama City Is The Place To Be And I Say That Unironically

So today is coming to a close. Started out with a trip to the dump! Then a drive up to see a football game featuring two of Leah’s kids. Then lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (Cobb Salad). We then saw Mr. 3000 (not bad) and made our way home. Herculean driving of the 170 miles (that’s just one way) by Leah.

So tired. Tomorrow: spring cleaning in the cabinets, and then Stew!

Also, C++ homework and Spanish homework. Oh, and a wee bit of freelance. I have some invoices to… er… invoice.

G’night!

Oh yeah, Joelle put up a photo of Leah and I at Rock The Walk. We look about as good as could be expected having had a long day and being out of shape white people. 🙂 We wish her well in her endeavor to do the AIDS Walk thing tomorrow morning!

C++ Tutorial

I came across this C++ Tutorial. I’ll be reading it. It’s nowhere near as useful as Roedy Green‘s Java pages, but it’ll do in a pinch.

More work done, another week nearly over.

I need to take a couch to the dump and go to work!