William Estep

I’m Bill, a programmer, writer, and technology enthusiast. I have been blogging off and on for 20+ years. I spent 13 years in the US Navy on submarines as a nuclear-trained electronic technician.

Research Guide: Knitting History and Techniques

For a recent class, I needed to create a beginner research guide for a topic that interests me. So of course, I chose knitting history. Below is the rough content of my research guide. Enjoy!

Double Basket Beanie Pattern Is Live

I finally finished writing the pattern to my satisfaction and testing the various options. I’m really happy with this one. It’s an interesting and very squishy hat.

It is based on Barbara Walker’s Double Basket Pattern. The stitch pattern is just knits and purls.

Like my Basket Weave Beanie I’m writing the pattern to be easily sized by adjusting the number of stitch patterns knit.

If you are interested, you can buy the pattern on my ravelry store or click here: Buy Now.

My Favorite Everything Socks

My first package from the wonderful Woolens & Nosh yarn club was from October, 2023, and since it was my first, I wanted to make something special with it. So I decided to knit a pair of socks using all of my favorite components.

The yarn base is great. It’s 90% superwash Targhee and 10% Nylon, and it is a delight to knit with. The colorway is described as Our Seasonal Offering: House made butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter and sage cream sauce.

Double Basket Beanie Prototype

I finished the first prototype of my new Double Basket Beanie. Based on Barbara Walker’s Double Basket Pattern this beanie is comfortable and squishy. Also an easy knit. The stitch pattern is just knits and purls.

Like my Basket Weave Beanie I’m writing the pattern to be easily sized by adjusting the number of stitch patterns knit.

Next, I’m going to start knitting a medium version in a fun color.

Bulky Swatch Blanket

I’ve started putting together the Bulky Swatch Blanket.

I plan to tile the swatches together somewhat randomly and use different colors for the connecting knitting bands. The swatches are various sizes, so I will keep it random and shoot for a Mondrian-style look. We’ll see how it goes 🙂

Beanie Prototype: Double Basket Pattern

I am working on a new Beanie using the delightful Double Basket pattern. The prototype is comfortable, squishy, and has an interesting texture. Keep an eye on this space and I’ll let you know when the pattern is ready on my Ravelry page.

Enjoy!

Basket Weave Beanie

I just added my first pattern to Ravelry. The pattern is for a great little beanie using the Basket Weave pattern.

Enjoy!

Downtown Sunset

I was at our downtown clinic today, filming some new drone footage of the building. We had a beautiful sunset over the river.

Enjoy!

Whiskey Knits Project Bag

I love a good project bag, and I wanted a really big project bag for my checkmate sweater. So I dug my sewing machine out of the closet and got to work. Check out my Whiskey Knits large drawstring project bag. Plenty of pockets inside for stuff, and one pocket outside. What do you guys think?

Enjoy!

Vertices Unite Shawl

It took a while, but I finally finished my first Westknits shawl, Vertices Unite. I used the sock yarns from @by.delz’s sock club, so each section has a nice sparkle. It was a fun knit, and I love the colors. Now I need to wait for cooler weather to enjoy it.

Fair Isle Pattern

On page 91 of Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, pages 88-89 is the “Fair Isle” pattern. It is nice stranded colorwork and a nice intro to Argyle patterns. It is an enjoyable knit, and for the swatches, I’m trying to keep a 2 stitch border on each side in garter for later seaming/joining into the larger blanket, but I ran into some challenges with this. I tried several different approaches early on (don’t look at the edges, they are a mess) but ultimately found that just holding both colors together for the first 2 and last 2 stitches worked the best and matched the thickness of the fabric. That’s what this project is all about…experimenting and learning.

Knotted Rib and Broad Spiral Rib

For this swatch/block in my crazy quilt project, I knit a combination of the Knotted Rib and Broad Spiral Rib from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 49. This square is knit using Berroco Vintage Chunky in colorway 61194, Rhubarb.

I made no effort to compensate for the cable flare. Shame on me! I may need to redo this swatch before I add it to the Bulky Swatch Blanket.

Swiss Check Pattern

The next swatch in my crazy quilt project is the Swiss Check Pattern from Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 90. I knit this with Paintbox, colorway 300, Paper White, and colorway 329, Grass Green. It’s a fun color-change pattern. Note the caution about leaving the strand loose behind the three slipped stitches on rows 2 and 6. Also, slip as if to purl, and always slip with the yarn to the wrong side.

Squared Check Pattern

The Squared Check Pattern from Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 19 is a lovely geometric pattern of alternating knits and purls. The result is architectural but still has a nice drape, and the pattern looks good on the reverse. I knit this with Berroco Vintage Chunky, colorway 6100, Snow Day.

Enjoy!

Shadow Cable Pattern

The Shadow Cable pattern from Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 273 is the newest addition to the Crazy Quilt swatch stack. The swatch is knit with Berroco Vintage Chunky color 61192, Marmalade. It is a nice, easy-to-work cable pattern that creates an interesting result. As Barbara Walker points out, it’s similar to a Basket Cable, but the cables are staggered and do not cross. It is subtle but draws the eye.

Chevron Pattern

Check out the Chevron pattern from Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 26. This is the newest addition to the Crazy Quilt swatch stack. The swatch is knit using Paintbox color 339, Sailor Blue. This pattern looks great in this solid dark color. It’s an easy knit and relatively easy pattern to work.

Enjoy!

Basketweave

This installment of the Crazy Quilt swatches is the Basketweave from Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 16. Barbara opens this pattern, “This famous pattern is notable for its ease of working and handsome appearance.” So true! This pattern is easy to internalize and it looks beautiful in Paintbox Simply Chunky color 310, Coffee Bean.

It’s a lovely texture. I really want to try and this pattern with two colors, purls in one color and the knits in another. Or an intarsia diagonal across the square like the ‘Oscar‘ flag.

German Clustered Cable

Another Crazy Quilt swatch from Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 274, the German Clustered Cable. Barbara describes the pattern as, “a simple German pattern consisting of knit-purl checks, with a single cable cross worked into each knit check.”

The finished result is delightful! It has texture and interest with wavy cables running over a sea of purl checks. My first thought was how fun this would be as a filler stitch on a sweater.

Hexagon Swatch

The Crazy Quilt swatch block knitting continues! In Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, page 67, the Hexagon Pattern is an interesting mix of colors and slip stitches. This stitch pattern is deceptively simple. The garter stitch rows are slipped in alternating checks against a smooth background of stockinette stitch.

I used Paintbox Yarns Simply Chunky for this swatch. The darker foreground color is Raspberry Pink, color 343, and the background color is Ballet Pink, color 352.

Swatch Quilt Ideas

I’m working through Barbara Walker’s first Treasury of Knitting Patterns and making some swatches. I think I’ll make them large, with a bulky yarn and maybe turn the resulting swatches into a blanket someday.

Today it’s the Inverness Diamonds pattern using Berroco Vintage Chunky left-overs from my large cardigan.

Nice texture. Lovely pattern. Enjoy!

Error Running Coverage on Ubuntu

Trying to install pytest and coverage on my ubuntu development server, and ran into an issue when running coverage:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_sqlite3'

To resolve, install python with enable extensions:

PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions" pyenv install 3.9.2

Enjoy!

Found My Watchcap

Cleaning out the boat I found my old watch cap (wool hat) that I made back in 2004 for an Alaska cruise. So glad to see it again! It’s in pretty good shape, and even has a few Dalmatian hairs still stuck in it (miss you Samson!).

Enjoy!

Freestyle Caps by Cheryl Andrews

I’ve made two of the Freestyle Caps by Cheryl Andrews. It’s a fun knit. The construction of the brim doesn’t require any additional support, and the welt around the lower edge is a nice touch.

It’s a hat that works well for my friend @cerberus_forge.

Enjoy!

B6DF4B55-7318-403B-9B6F-9EA445C63244-e1653677102742.jpeg

My First Gloves

We don’t get a lot of cold weather here in Florida, but it’s been chilly the past few days, and my new “Don’t skid, honey!” by Justin Lorkowska gloves are just right.

Comfortable, easy knit, and stylish.

Enjoy!

The Fitzgerald Sweater

I finished knitting my first Cardigan, and my first sweater done in pieces. The pattern (Fitzgerald by Amy Christoffers) is from Berroco and uses the Berroco Vintage Chunky yarn, so the pattern knits quickly. (Well…quickly for a sweater.) I’m still waiting on the buttons to arrive to call the sweater 100% complete.

I really like how it turned out. I’m not really a fan of plastic yarns, but the Berroco Vintage has a good amount of wool, and is easy to work with. Plus, it’s not a huge financial investment.

Starting My Berroco Fitzgerald

Here’s a view of the ribbing, center panel and some seed stitch on my Berroco Fitzgerald cardigan. Using Berroco vintage Chunky yarn in the cracked pepper color way. I made a couple of tweaks to the center panel, and am happy with it so far. We’ll see how the sweater comes together. This is my first bottom up sweater, and my first large project done in pieces then assembled. Also, I think the button band and shawl collar will be a fun learning experience. Really looking forward to it!

Knitting a Scottish Tam

A friend of mine ask if I could knit him a Scottish Tam. Seems easy enough, and I’ve never done a felted project, so why not.

I found a decent pattern on Ravelry close to what he was looking for, and knit up a sample.

The sample turned out ok. I need to change a couple of things for fit and size requirements, but otherwise it should work.

To really get the final right, I’ve made up some swatches of the yarn. The color is called Turtle. It’s a nice yellow olive and will look great.

I miss my old watch cap

I’ve enjoyed knitting off and on for many, many years. The last time I took the hobby seriously was back in 2005. During that time, I knit a really nice watch cap to wear on an Alaska trip. (Unfortunately, the only photo’s I have wearing the old cap are not great.) I wore the watch cap for many years, including the trip from south Florida to north Florida when I purchased my boat…even Florida gets chilly in winter.

Countryside Scarf for Birthday

Now that I’m back into knitting, I made a nice textured scarf for my sister on her birthday this year.

The pattern is the Countryside scarf by La boutique de Jeanne

I’m really happy with how it turned out, but also not inclined to do more scarves. Just never ending rectangle of the same stitch pattern over and over….

I do want to do a shawl soon though. I’ve been collecting nice fingering weight yarns to give the amazing Vertices Unite by Stephen West a try.

Cables! In a Hat!

OMG! New hat done! Using Jason’s Cashmere Hat pattern, I created this nice hat using Patons Classic Wool Worsted in Aran.

Easy first cable pattern, and I really like the results. I already have an idea to do this in a darker color.

Enjoy!

Walking more

I’ve been trying to walk more. Since the Covid-19 pandemic started, I’ve gotten even more used to just sitting ‘at home’ in front of a couple of computers for all waking hours.

Fortunately, the neighborhood I’m in has some really good walking areas. There is a great little park nearby, and the wonderful Ortega River Bridge is just down the road. According to my measurements, from my boat to the other side of the Ortega River Bridge and back is just over two miles.

Strides for Pride

In 2017, my sister and I participated in the Strides for Pride 5k. We walked and had a good time.

This year, the event is a virtual 5k. I signed up again, and did my 5k today. It was a nice morning and I had a nice walk.

I’m not breaking any records with the pace, but it was a pleasure to participate, and I appreciated the very good excuse to get out and walk. Since I was in no rush, I did stop for a bit and watch a barge go through the Ortega River Bridge.

Daily Reminder

I’ve hung this Calvin and Hobbes comic in my office for more than twenty years. Now that I don’t have an office, it will live on in various electronic forms as a daily reminder to find the joy and the fun in the little things. We are all making it up as we go…might as well dance on the bed!

Enjoy!

Duolingo Milestone

I hit a numeric milestone in Duolingo yesterday, 300 days learning Spanish.

One of my Covid-19-keep-my-sanity-hobbies I decided to take on was learning Spanish. I started out really strong, and in the early days was spending an hour or more each day. After a couple of months, I started burning out, so I slowed down, and found a balance where I could still move forward, but not feel it was too much.

Just a Note Regarding Harry Potter

I just wanted to take a second and say that I nor anyone associated with this website approves of or appreciates the destructive and bigoted transphobic messages coming from J.K Rowling recently. If you are not familiar with the issues, ContraPoints does a fantastic job describing the issues.

While I say that, I do want to say, I really love Harry Potter and the wonderful world the books create. Such a delight and wonderful addition to the world.

New Radio Cabinet

For the holidays last year, my good friends, Al and Amie surprised me with a Raspberry Pi kit.

I’ve had an idea for a while now to put up a panel or screen that ties various boat systems together and displays relevant information, such as location, boat speed, ais information…etc.

Yes, there are turn-key solutions for this, but I would also like to have a system I can tinker with and make my own.

I Met a Dog and Some Horses

Of course, the Monday after daylight savings time shift, I had to drive to St. Augustine and film some interviews. I really could have used the extra hour of sleep!

But on the plus side I got to meet a horse-sized dog, and several horses, as well as several dog-sized miniature horses.

I’m lucky that work throws me these odd encounters occasionally.

Sunsets on the Boat

I haven’t posted a sunset from the boat in a while. Nice evening on the bow reading a book.

Fireworks in Slo-Mo

Sometimes you get lucky. I was able to catch a cool clip of our local neighborhood fireworks in slow motion. Enjoy with sound on if you can.

Happy New Year!

Here’s the finale!

And who doesn’t love a bonfire in slow motion 🙂

“The Tender Bar: A Memoir” by J.R. Moehringer

Who helped shape your life? Is who you are today genetic? Environmental? Or some combination of both? J.R. Moehringer looks for the answer tosome of these questions in his memoir “The Tender Bar”.

J.R. only knows his father as a disembodied voice on the radio. Growingup in small town Manhasset, New York, JR struggles with his identity. From a small town bar, the beach, Arizona, Yale, to the New York Times, J.R. Searches for himself.

"The Silver Ships," by S.H. Jucha

S.H. Jucha’s debut novel, “The Silver Ships,” introduces a future universe where colony ships from old Earth have settled in different, distant systems, and worked to make a life for themselves.

Two of the groups, with very different experiences and opportunities, meet again after centuries. The now, very different cultures must work through some challenges and face a common alien threat.

"Knots and Crosses" by Ian Rankin

We had a lot of great reviews on the old ClubReading website. And so those don’t go to waste, (and so we have some fresh content here occasionally), I’m going to post an old review now and again for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

“Knots and Crosses” by Ian Rankin is a classic noir crime mystery, set in 1980’s Edinburgh. Ian Rankin’s recurring police detective, John Rebus makes his debut in this story about serial killing and revenge.

"The Town and the City" Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac’s first published novel, The Town and the City is a story of monumental scope and great emotional depth. The book’s jacket cover talks about Kerouac’s idolization of Thomas Wolfe and this book reflects that interest. The story is about choices and regrets. It’s also about a generation robbed of choices and left wondering and apathetic and lost. The book tells the story of a family growing up in a small New Hampshire town pre-World War II and follows the family through war and loss.

Ornament

A friend gave me this cool metal sailboat ornament to decorate the boat for the holiday. Love it! I’ll have to find it a permanent home.

Coffee!

I’m surprised more of my posts aren’t coffee related. Nice fresh pot for some weekend boat work.

Recent Travel Drinking

I haven’t posted in a while, and want to get back to recording my thoughts and fun hobby activities.

I was recently in Pensacola for a week of work, and had the pleasure of visiting a fun whisky bar, Old Hickory Whiskey Bar.

Some of my favorites.

Rigging Repairs

Rigging repairs on the boat are done. Nothing major, I had a short list of items I wanted repaired/replaced. The secondary supports for the port and starboard spreaders, and the running backstays. All done and everything is looking great!

The work was done by Jason of Argonaut Rigging. Great vendor! Highly recommend him.

Ten Year Plan Number Plate

s/v Ten Year Plan received it’s official number plate today. U.S. Coast Guard documented boats are assigned a lifetime documentation number. The requirements are the number be affixed to the interior of the boat in such a way as altering them would damage the numbers or the hull. Folks solve this problem in a varieties of ways, including wooden plaques, plastic or metal carved plates.

A friend of mine, Al, owns the AutoMetalSkin company, and offered to make a number plate for me. Using a jewelers saw, he cut out the numbers from a sheet of metal, then using his unique finishing process, coated the number plate with brass. He left it exposed, without a clear coat, so we can watch the metal patina over time. See the video below to see more of the reveal process.

Vive la vida y deja vivir

New Boat Arrives

My new Tender arrived today. So of course I had to set it up in my living room. 😁

It’s easy inflate and it all fits in the provided bag. It’s the PHP-310 Air Floor Inflatable from West Marine.

Looking forward to many years of service from this great little boat.

The question has come up several times regarding what to call the little boat. Is it a tender, or a dinghy, a zodiac or a skiff? Here’s a rough definition of each as I understand them:

Comfort Without the Bulk

When I was looking to redo the V-Berth on my boat, I researched mattress options, and ran across several ‘under-mattress’ systems and ended up going with the Froli Modular SleepSystems.

The big challenge is ventilation under the mattress.

Affordable and well made
Easy to follow instructions
Easy to assemble and use
Comfortable and adjustable
Great ventilation.

As others have noted, it can be a wrestling match with the Froli to get to the lockers under the cushions in the V-Berth. What has worked for me so far is keeping the overall pieces small enough to handle, instead of creating one large connected piece, I have three smaller pieces: One on port, one for the bench starboard locker cushion, and one for the center key piece.

Boat Renovations

Since purchasing the boat, I’ve been focusing on internal renovations and minor updates.

The first big change was getting the v-berth updated. I took out a couple of small shelves, refinished the drawers, and made a key board and mounting rails. The biggest job was making the cushions.

The next big project was ripping out the cabinets on the starboard side of the main cabin and creating a pilot berth.

Ten Year Plan Boat Cards

Thank you to Lindsay S. Powell Designs for the great boat cards. Another item checked off the list on the Ten Year Plan 🙂 I’m very happy with how they turned out.

Amateur Radio – W4MTP

“It’s all part of the ten year plan.”

So part of the plan, along with learning sewing and canvas work, sailing, diesel repair…and many other things, I decided to get my amateur radio certifications to improve my communications options on the boat.

Amateur Radio (ham radio) is a popular hobby and service that brings people, electronics and communication together. People use ham radio to talk across town, around the world, or even into space, all without the Internet or cell phones. It’s fun, social, educational, and can be a lifeline during times of need.
Read More

WOTD: Gonfalon

A Gonfalon is a type of flag or banner suspended from a crossbar.

Ten Year Plan: Annapolis Boat Show 2015

What a great way to spend a few days of vacation! Annapolis in October is beautiful, and the boat show is amazing.

I learned a lot, and will plan to go again in the future. Someday, I’ll get to attend on my own boat.

Here are all the pictures I took during the event in one gallery.

Enjoy!

Ten Year Plan: Annapolis Boat Show Day 1

I’m using my vacation time this year to check out the Annapolis BoatShow. I drove up yesterday, 10/8/15, and hit the show early this morning.

To be honest, I was almost as excited for the long drive as I was for the boat show. I love long road trips, and this was a great opportunity to chill and listen to podcasts. It was a nice drive with little drama. The only challenge was I-95 closure in South Carolina. But Waze routed me around it without any issue.

Day of the Dead Party Costume Plans

My plan is a dark vest with a themed lining, long sleeve shirt, and dark pants. To tie it all together, I found these great masks on ebay.

The first one is fairly tradition, well made and very comfortable. Thanks seller ktn.cybermart for offering these. The second is just too fabulous! I haven’t decided which to wear yet 🙂

Thanks to Joann.com I found some nice fabrics to work with.

I’ll post updates as I start working on the various pieces.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.
Vivian Greene

Perfect is the enemy of good
Voltaire

Marriage: What Is It Good For?

Kudos to the Supreme Court yesterday ruling correctly that equality is a constitutional right under the law, and not something to be argued about and applied willy-nilly.

I know I’m just whispering to the wind, but it is important to keep this point going forward: This fight has never been about religion. Marriage in this country is not restricted to a specific religious sect or group, and likewise, it is not defined by a specific group.

Hawaiian Classics Shirt in Green

I found a really cool green and white stripped seersucker fabric and had to dosomething with it. So I made another shirt using the Hawaiian Classics pattern. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’m getting the hang ofcollars finally.

I also went back and fixed the hems on the first Hawaiian shirt, and now both are very wearable.

This learning to sew stuff is fun. Making a shirt is very much an engineering project. It’s turning into a great way to spend my spare time.

Are You Wearing Enough Flair?

“What do you think, Joanna, of the person who only does the bare minimum?”

Are you wearing the right amount of flair? If you don’t get the reference,please immediately go watch Office Space.

I was joking with a friend the other day, that I can’t help think of that scene from Office Space when I see someone wearing religious paraphernalia like a cross pendant. So we coined the phrase, Religious Flair. And yes, I know that these tokens probably mean a great deal to the person wearing them,and they may have great sentimental meaning. And yes, I’m a horrible person for saying all this, but it does creep me out a bit to see people walking around with medieval torture/execution devices around their necks.

Hawaiian Classic Shirt #2

Time to start a new shirt. I purchased the Hawaiian Classics 220 shirt pattern from the Victoria Jones Collection. This is my first ‘non-beginner’ pattern. The instructions are great, and the construction is pretty straightforward. I did end up making several learning mistakes on the muslin, but the real shirt is going great. That’s the whole point, in my opinion, of the muslin. Yes, check fit and adjust, of course, but I also find it a great learning experience figuring out the nuances of the pattern.

Learning To Sew

Part of the ten year plan is learning some independence skills. For example, I want to be able to repair and create cushion covers and sail covers. This means learning some basic sewing skills and learning to work on a gear driven sewing machine.

Enter my beautiful Singer 15-91. What a wonderful machine! I bought it from a sewing machine expert, the-treasure-cellar on ebay, and couldn’t be more pleased. From 1952, this single-stitch machine is smooth and wonderful to work with.

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.
Albert Einstein

We Will Miss You Terry Pratchett

One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite Terry Pratchett books:

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32)
Read More

Clutter and The Ten Year Plan

I have a lot of stuff. Not nearly as much as some, but still plenty. I’m not a hoarder, so don’t expect to see me on any reality TV shows anytime soon. During my last move, I took the opportunity to slim down how much stuff I cart around, and I have a pretty good handle on the clutter, but I still have a ton of stuff. Far more than I need and far more than will work for my ten year plan.

The tape doesn’t lie.

We Need More--I Want More

The cynic in me wants to say how awful things are and to rail against anything and everyone that doesn’t agree with me. But, if I did that, I’d be just like everyone else 🙂

Seriously though, I know that it doesn’t value me or effect positive change to only bitch and moan. So what will I say?

I’ve made the statement before, that for me personally, this president, President Obama, is the first president we’ve had in my lifetime that I can honestly say I am proud of. He is a well spoken, well educated man who acts from genuine desire to do good. And the list of accomplishments during his presidency are remarkable.

Words Don’t Cook Rice.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
Albert Camus

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley

Raise your words,
not your voice.
It is rain that
grows flowers,
not thunder.
Rumi

There comes a time when a man would have to be a complete fool not to realize that his fate hangs on a particle of time.
Charles Borden, Sea Quest

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
Oscar Wilde

The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living
W. H. Auden

Video Editing Adventures

I have a new role at work. For many years I managed the application development teams, but with recent growth and shifts, I’ve moved to the Marketing and Communications team as an innovation architect. The new role has so many interesting opportunities to learn new skills. One thing I’ve been learning is video editing. Our Marketing team has one videographer. She out-sources a great deal of the filming and editing work, but with limited funds, she does as much as she can personally.

The Sublime Regex

Sublime Text is a really wonderful text editor. It’s flexible and extensible enough to cover just about any need, but still simple and clean to use. This post is not a long discussion about either text editors or regular expressions, but a simple post about a problem I needed to tackle and the simple solution.

I pulled a bunch of data from our issue tracking software, and I needed to create a simple list of all the issues resolved and the person assigned the issue. Simple. I grabbed the text I needed from the csv file created, then used a simple find/replace in Sublime Text to put the text in the format I ultimately wanted.

The First Real Ride of Spring

Yesterday was the first real ride of spring. The weather was perfect, and the Todd and I headed north up the coast for a bit, then across the Mayport Ferry, before heading back to Sippers and having some coffee. It was a great ride. I love the winding road once you get past the Zoo and Cruise ship terminals, and Herschel heads out onto blunt island. The views are fantastic, and it stays interesting all the way up to Big Talbot island. Todd is breaking in his brand new shiny bike. It’s pretty nice.

Time to Cleanup My TextExpander Snippets

I ran across a terrific blog post by Thomas Borowski discussing his TextExpander snippet for Pelican blog posts. I have my own snippet for such purposes, but love his solution for Slug creation.

TextExpander is one of those small pieces of software I use every single day and can’t imaging doing without. The premise is simple, a short bit of text expands and turns into a large amount of text. For example, I use dates a lot in my day job, so I have several simple snippets that dump dates in the right format. Number one on the list is ,ds which expands into 2014-03-22.

Sublime Pelican Plugin

Wow. If you, like me, are a Sublime convert, and a Pelican blogger, then this wonderful plugin is a must.

The plugin adds several Pelican commands to the command palette creating shortcuts for article creation and adding tags.

The best, and for me, the most useful part is the tag insert feature. It pulls all the tags from the site content and makes an easy to search and use list.

Jealous Car

Yes, I’ve mentioned it before, I love my Prius. It’s a great car and I’m not ashamed to say it. I love the cool technology and the pleasant ride, and I love the great mileage. It is a terrific car.

But, I do love, lust after, and dream of the Porsche 911. Yes, it’s Porsche, like Portia.

What a lovely car.

Sublime Text 2

I wanted to see what all the buzz is about, so I downloaded the evaluation of Sublime Text 2, and bought a copy a few minutes later. What a terrific editor. It’s clean, easy to work with large projects, intuitive, and powerful.

My favorite part so far, and keep in mind I’ve only been using it for a few hours, is the Find and Replace with regular expressions. Many editors will do this, but this is the first editor where I’ve very easily been able to find a pattern, select all the locations at once, and make a chance in all the locations with ease.

Catchup

It has been a while since I’ve posted anything. Some fun stuff going on, so here are some updates.

I finished NaNoWriMo 2013 as a winner! What a fun challenge. Everyone should give it a try. If you have ever thought of writing a novel, start thinking about it now for the 2014 NaNoWriMo. Start roughing out an outline.

NaNoWriMo Continues

alter-text

Writing is going well this year. I’ve got some truck-sized plot holes to deal with, but I’m tweaking the outline as I go and plugging away at the word count.

Last weekend’s NaNoThon activities helped me catch up and make some solid progress.

It’s funny how the mind works. I can easily ignore the environment around me, but when I sit down to write all I can think about is how dusty the tv is, and I notice how long it’s been since I vacuumed or loaded the dishwasher.

Calm River

alter-text

The river is very calm this morning. It’s chilly (down right cold for Florida!), and the wind is still, the sky clear. It’s a beautiful morning.

Work and life have been on the stressful side lately, and the calm river is a good reminder this morning to bring the calm inside.

Like other moods or emotions, calm is infectious. Be the source of calm in your life.

Maciej Cegłowski Discusses

Check out Maciej Cegłowski’s great talk from XOXO 2013. He is the creator behind Pinboard. it’s a fun and inspiring talk.

Enjoy!

Looking At a Python Pelican

I really like the static version of the site. It’s so much easier to support and configure. I can tweak to my hearts content. Jekyll is a wonderful platform, and Octopress is a great framework on Jekyll. However, ruby isn’t my strength. I’ve fiddled with ruby in the past, but I don’t love it. It is a great language, just not for me.

If I’m perfectly honest, I love perl. Perl was an early first love, and is still a terrific language, but the static site generators in perl are limited. I did take a look at Blosxom, but there isn’t a large number of active users. I did find one site with current posts built using Blosxom, so it’s still out there.

Catbird Is An Actual Bird

Catbird is an actual bird!

“The catbird seat” is an idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in all types of dealings among parties.
According to Douglas Harper’s Online Etymological Dictionary, the phrase refers to the Gray Catbird and was used in the 19th century in the American South.
Source
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iPhone Speed Vid

Very cool video showing speed tests of all iPhones side by side.

Enjoy!

AM Damp

Yeah! I finally got the bike out this am for a quick ride. It’s been a long time. The forecast is for a nice sunny day, but it was foggy and damp this morning. Very damp…and chilly. :-)

No complaints though. It was nice to have cool enough weather to wear my big leather jacket and not roast.

To my pleasant surprise, the bike started right up. I don’t know why, but I figured I’d have a challenge getting it started since it’s been neglected for so long. But, no. I hit the starter and it roared to life, ready for adventure.

Training Pays Off

Mario Frangoulis sings a wonderful cover of the Moody Blues song, “Nights in White Satin.” This guy has an amazing voice. It’s a great song, but put it in Italian and give it to an opera singer, and wow–powerful stuff!

Just goes to show, if you know what you are doing, you can sing anything and people will love it.

Enjoy!

Second Life's Strang Second Life | The Verge

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The Verge has a good article about Second Life, but the interesting part is the posts layout. The post has some nice features, like eye catching pull outs and rotating images, all floating on a retro background. Well done.

When mainstream media outlets touched down in Second Life seven years ago they tended to focus on the strangeness of it all. People were having sex through a game and dressing up as foxes and kittens. The reality, says Tom Boellstorff, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, is more prosaic: “Humans already live many different kinds of life: online is just one more of those kinds of lives.”
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Common MySQL Queries

I ran across this terrific resource, Common MySQL Queries.

Tons of great examples…for example:

Given a birthdate in @dob, here are two simple formulae for age in years:

Date_format( From_Days( To_Days(Curdate()) - To_Days(@dob) ), '%Y' ) + 0
Year(Curdate()) - Year(@dob) - ( Right(Curdate(),5) &amp;lt; Right(@dob,5) )

and here is one for age in years to two decimal places, ignoring day of month:

Round((((Year(now()) - Year(@dob)))*12 + (((Month(now()) - Month(@dob)))))/12, 2)

Enjoy!

Dragons Past and Present

Below is a paper I wrote for a college lit class. It was a fun research project. Enjoy – Bill

Dragons appear in our oldest mythology and folklore. Dragons have been a source of terror and mystery, throughout history. They populate early mythology, medieval literature, the Renaissance, and modern fiction. The dragons of today share many characteristics of the dragons from our earliest folklore and myths. No longer the feared hero’s antagonist, or the confidants of emperors, today dragons live on in our fiction.

The Galaxy Note II by Samsung

I got an evaluation phone at work to fiddle with for 30 days. I’ve been a long time apple iPhone fan, and still am, but I’ve been hearing more and more good things about Android and Android phones that I figured it was time to check them out.

My first reaction when they handed me the box was, “Damn! This thing is huge!”

1Password yeah! I wasn’t smart enough to look for a 1Password android version first thing. It took me a couple of hours and several typed passwords before I wised up and searched. 1Password syncs with my dropbox password list just like on the iPhone.

Apartment Living

Yeah! I’m finally getting settled in the new place. Moving is exhausting. Mostly mental, but exhausting none the less.

I haven’t lived in an apartment since my early Navy days in Virginia. I shared an apartment with a Navy buddy in Virginia Beach. We were noisy! To be honest, I don’t remember much about the complex, just the apartment. I don’t know if we had lots of neighbors, and if the raucous we created caused problems.

Anger Management

Silence. Internal voices saying, “I’m not good enough,” and “I’m evil.” Jibes and taunts. I talked about this some in the MBAGPP post, what it is like to stand apart from society and deal with the bigotry.

Folks are driven by these challenges in different ways. Some turn away and find new groups and families that meet their support requirements. Some close down and get angry. And some quit, unable to deal with or unable to bear the burden.

People Are Challenging

I make no claim to understand people. In fact, I’m often confused by peoples motivations or responses.

For a long time, I was convinced that my lack of understanding was a result of my own limitations. I believed I was either naive about the situation, or I had put up too many barriers between myself and others to ‘grok’ their meaning.

We all have so much in common, so why is basic communication so difficult? We are all born, we all die, we all suffer, and we all experience occasional joy.

Old Words

Packing, boxes, tape, more boxes more tape…. That’s my life for the next few weeks. I’m getting ready to move. Finally facing reality and ditching the too-big house and moving into an apartment in the part of town where stuff actually happens.

And I am going to use this opportunity to shed much of the stuff I’ve been hauling around for the past thirty years. We’ll see how that goes.

Cigar Boxes

I use a lot of index cards at work, and wanted something to toss them into. The idea of a cigar box came up, and a little searching, I found a seller on Etsy that sells lots of excellent cigar boxes in great shape. Blissfuldragonfly took care of the transaction quickly and I couldn’t be more happy with the result. I bought a lot of five, and now have really nice landing spots for index cards, pens, and stray motorcycle patches I don’t know what to do with.

DIY Weekend

I did a bit of DIY this weekend. I love my car, but also really wanted bluetooth audio with the stereo. The factory Toyota options are a bit on the pricey side, so I screwed up some courage, picked a cool new stereo off of Crutchfield, read many websites, and watched many sample videos, then installed the new stereo.

Taking apart the dash turned out to be pretty darn easy, and not all that frightening. It’s all snapped together, with two screws holding the base pieces. To be honest, I wouldn’t have accomplished this part with the instructions alone. Watching a couple of video’s on youtube showing how the dash comes apart to access the built in stereo really helped.

"Breaking the Surface" by Greg Louganis

As I mentioned in a previously, I am working on recovering all of the old ClubReading.com reviews. We had some good reviews on that old site, and I’d like to have that content available again. I did not write all of those old reviews, and will include the reviewers name when I have it. So I’m going to post a few as time allows in the blog stream, and they will be in their own ClubReading category. Enjoy!

Blogs and Stats and Objectives

Jordan McCollum has a great post for writers introducing site analytics and what to look for. Web marketing is a strange combination of advertising, customer appeal, and raw magic.

Tracking your blog: using the data: “What do I do with this information? Again, look for trends. What makes these posts your most popular? The subject? The tone? The search engine presence? Was it informative? Social? Fun? Funny? Personal? Then do that again!
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Common Questions

People are funny. Most folks require a certain comfort level to ask certain questions. But coming out on your blog does encourage those close acquaintances or friends to ask questions. That’s cool. So here are the most common couple of questions.

By the way, I’ve noticed including certain words in a blog title, such as big, ass, gay, and party generates an interesting array of visitors to the site. I’m not sure what they are hoping to find :-) but I hope they are not too disappointed.

Dan Is All Class

I don’t know the reasons, but I agree with what others have said, the show has been sliding, and Dan’s response is all class.

I would ask for more The Incomparable, Back to Work, Amplified, Build and Analyze, Hypercritical, The Ihnatko Almanac, Mac Power Users….but I can’t keep up now!

(Odd, I always assumed Roderick on the Line was on 5by5. Should be…dang funny show.)

5by5.tv has some of the best darn shows in the internet. Thanks!

Why You Should Quit

Chuck Wendig does these great “25 things” posts, taking the lists trend to a wonderful absurd. They are funny, very irreverent and often insightful. The latest one, reason 7 spoke to me:

25 Reasons You Should Quit Writing: “And at this point you make up some excuse about publishing trends or writer’s block or The Muse, but it all adds up to the same thing: you’re not very good at finishing what you start. Your life is littered with the dessicated corpses of countless incomplete manuscripts, characters whose lives are woefully cut short by your +7 Axe of Apathy. You’re so good at not finishing, embrace this skill and quit.”
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Annular Solar Eclipse Video

Agreed! This is a very cool video.

The coolest video of yesterday’s annular solar eclipse

Scalzi's Take on Privilege

John Scalzi ruffled some feathers again on his blog when he used a gaming metaphor to try and explain to the Straight White Male players in life that they are on the lowest/easiest setting. It’s an interesting read and plenty to think about.

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is – Whatever: You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on. The player who plays on the ‘Gay Minority Female’ setting? Hardcore.
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Macdrifter Summation of Text

A Simplenote Affair « Macdrifter: “WriteRoom Dropbox sync is amazingly fast. It’s faster than Simplenote with a large collection of notes. I use WriteRoom to quickly add a note. The launch and refresh time beat Simplenote by a large margin. The only thing I don’t like is the enormous margin in landscape.”

I’ve settled on Byword on my iPad for writing, and Elements for search if I can’t find what I’m looking for by the title.

Repetitive Tasks Chart Porn

Awesome awesomeness! Repetitive Tasks - Chart Porn

Enjoy!

My Big Ass Gay Pity Party

I had a rough day yesterday. I let myself go to a dark place and the resulting big ass pity party wasn’t pretty.

The trigger is always something trivial or on the surface silly. In this case, a distant semi-relative posted about their engagement on that awful so-called social media site, Facebook. I threw in my congrats because that’s what you do. Of course the little green jealousy monster started whispering in my ear. Everything is so perfect for them…health, youth, love of family and friends…why them?

Gravity Arranged

How does gravity work?

Oh the dreaded scale! We’ve all heard the story about Newton and an apple. Anyone who’s been ice skating knows with personal clarity the importance of treating gravity with respect.

So how does it work? Any two objects in the universe with mass are attracted to each other. But it’s not just a factor of attraction of mass, gravity is a force affecting space as well.

"A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian: A Novel" by Marina Lewycka

Reviewer: Linda

The main characters in this book are Ukrainian immigrants in the U.K. The narrator is the youngest daughter, and she doesn’t remember WWII. Her father and older sister, however, have vivid memories, memories they have never shared with the narrator. The book weaves the tale of the father’s marriage to a much younger Ukrainian (Russian?) gold-digger who is looking for permanent residence with tales of the past. The narrator and her sister have not spoken since their mother died, yet the gold-digger, as a common enemy, gets them back together. And they both learn lessons about the value of family.

"The Novelist" by Angela Hunt

Reviewer: Sally

Angela Hunt is in the top five of my favorite authors list. Her stories are exciting from page 1 to the end. I know when I start one; it is likely to be a very late night. They are hard to put down. “The Novelist” is a little different than the majority of Angela Hunt’s books…excellent…but different. That is not surprising, given the storyline of the book.

"Empire Falls (Vintage Contemporaries)" by Richard Russo

Russo’s novel is wonderful! The characters, even the minor characters are real, tangible, quirky, heartwarming and heartbreaking. His writing style is rich and engaging; his style reminds me of John Cheever, or John Updike, John somebody anyway.

Empire Falls, a small mill town in Maine, has seen the last of the good times. Miles Roby grew up in Empire Falls, had a brief chance of escape while in college, but was drawn back because of his mother’s failing health. Now, middle aged and struggling to make ends meet, Miles runs the Empire Grill.

"Unspoken" by Angela Hunt

Reviewer: Sally

Some people think humans evolved from apes…gorillas. Glee Granger thinks gorillas are almost human and can be taught to think and talk. Rob (Glee’s brother) thinks gorillas are animals, but he talks with Sema, Glee’s gorilla. Brad Fielding (director of Gorilla exhibit at zoo) thinks gorillas are fascinating…but animals from which humans evolved. Irene (Glee and Rob’s grandmother) thinks gorillas are animals uniquely created by God. Sema knows she’s a gorilla, and wants to be a mother gorilla.

"The Cat Who Went into the Closet (Cat Who...)" by Lilian Jackson Braun

This is another interesting tale about Qwilleran and his two cats. In this installment, they are renting a large mansion on the main street of town. The house’s owner is retired and now living in Florida. When the owner suddenly commits suicide, Qwilleran suspects foul play.

Qwilleran, the protagonist, is not your typical hero. He’s an older gentleman, a retired journalist, with a mind that never stops questioning and an imagination that often leads him into trouble. He’s grumpy in the mornings before his coffee, just like many of us, and he’s not always polite. His flaws make him all the more real and relatable, and that’s what makes him such an interesting character.

"Iceberg" by Clive Cussler

Reviewer: linda

Adventure books, I keep reminding myself, were written in the mid-1970s for men, just as James Bond movies were made for men. And the women in them are, well, less than the men. If you can make it past this issue, the book is a fun, quick read.

Dirk Pitt goes to look at a ship stuck in an Iceberg, and has at least 3 attempts at his life because of something he has learned, but he doesn’t know exactly what. As with Sahara, which was recently made into a movie, the actions sequences are improbable, but fun. An enjoyable read, if you ignore the women!

"The Body Myth: Adult Women and the Pressure to be Perfect" by Margo Maine, Joe Kelly

Reviewer: Linda

While this is not the most well-written book I have read, it is thought provoking. Aimed generally at eating disorders that cause women to starve themselves (anorexia or bingeing and purging) it has some applicability to anyone with an eating disorder. The book concentrates mostly on the media and the “body myth” from there, i.e., all women should look like teenager boys but with big boobs.

“The Fat Girls Guide to Life” by Wendy Shanker

Reviewer: Linda

This is a book which discusses acceptance of one’s weight and appearance. The author is funny and her discussion of Duke’s weight loss center is wonderful.

When your weight is getting you down and you feel like you are ready for radical change, read this book. If you still feel that way after reading it, maybe you are ready for radical change. As for me, FAT GIRLS UNITE!

"Petty Pewter Gods (P.I. Garrett)" by Glen Cook

Reviewer: littlemissthing

Add one part Kolchak: The Nightstalker, a touch of Columbo, and heavy helping of wizards, elves, dragons, and all sorts of fantasy creatures. Blend quickly while tongue is planted firmly in cheek. There you have the entire Garrett P.I. series from fantasy writer Glen Cook. Petty Pewter Gods is the 8th book in the series. While it definitely helps to have read the first seven before jumping into this simultaneously zany and action filled installment, Cook does a great job providing just enough back-story to explain the sometimes (O.K. quite often) strained relationships between our hero and his so-called allies.

"Child of the Prophecy: Book Three of the Sevenwaters Trilogy (The Sevenwaters Trilogy)" by Juliet Marillier

A myth combined with fantasy. That’s a very short description of what this book is.

The story and plot is important, but the writing and the journey is more important than finding out what happens. And that’s a really good thing, since I picked this book up not realizing that it was the third in a trilogy. I was a good 40 pages into the book before I entered it on this site and discovered it was the final book of a trilogy. It obviously stands on its own. Some of the characters of the first two books are in this book and I’m sure they would be more interesting if I had read the first two books.

"Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen" by Julie Powell

Julie Powell felt she was in a rut. Turning thirty, dead end temp secretary job, crappy loft apartment and trouble with her husband. On a visit home, she finds her mothers copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 50th Anniversary Edition and decides to cook every recipe in the book. In one year. And write about it online.

"Shantaram: A Novel" by Gregory David Roberts

(Anonymous Submission to old ClubReading website)

Lindsay or Linbaba, as the Indian people named him, is a fugitive who escaped prison in Australia, where he served two years of his 19-year sentence of arms robberies, which he used to do to support his heroin addiction caused by loosing custody of his daughter in a failed marriage. After the escape, Linbaba lands in Bombay on a fake New Zealand passport. Upon landing, he meets Prabaker who plays the guide role and shows him even the most secretive parts of Bombay. In the same time Lindsay meets Karla, a beautiful Swiss-American who works at Leopold’s cafÈ the place where all the ex-pats hang out. Linbaba falls deeply in love with Karla and the love takes a complicated role in the plot.

"The Actors Guide to Greed (Actors Guide To...)" by Rick Copp

Jarrod Jarvis was a child actor in a successful sitcom in the 80’s. Now he is in 30’s and struggling to reignite is career. At the premier party of Jarrod’s latest disastrous movie roll (held in the Starbucks across the street from the theater), Jarrod is approached by Wallace Goodwin, one of the writers from the sitcom. Wallace has written a play and wants Jarrod for a particular part. Even more surprising, the play is being produced and will run on London’s West End.

"Candy Apple Red (Jane Kelly Mystery)" by Nancy Bush

If you enjoy light, easy mystery books, then this book is for you. Jane Kelly followed a boyfriend from California to Washington state. She stayed; he didn’t. She studied criminology because he was, and now she’s using that in serving eviction notices. But things get complicated when her ex-boyfriend shows up. And eventually the body of a man who has been missing for four years. There’s our mystery.

"Bokuru" by Jon C. Hall

Reviewer: bardsandsages

“Bokuru” by Jon C. Hall

When a prominent archeologist’s mysterious death is quickly ruled a suicide, trial attorney and amateur archeologist Jim Henderson is hired to go to Africa and investigate. What seems to be a museum simply trying to make sure it can collect on a life insurance policy soon turns into a dangerous mystery involving missing relics, native legends, and hints at the very origins of humanity.

"Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)" by Flora Thompson

I learned of this book from Educating Alice (see previous review). While Alice is touring Jane Austin’s England, she receives the recommendation for this book. I also received that recommendation, and am so glad Alice shared it!

Lark Rise to Candleford is the story of England on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. More specifically, it’s the story of one young woman’s memories of growing up in a very small hamlet, when the men still plowed the farms with horses, and the girls all “went into service.”

"Damaged!" by Bernadette Y. Connor

Reviewer: Bardsandsages

Author Bernadette Y. Connor spins a thought-provoking tale of abuse, survival, redemption, and the need for forgiveness in her novel Damaged! The novel centers around the relationship of teenager Adrena Reynolds and her psychiatrist Vivian Matthews. As a child, Adrena was raped and beaten by her violent father while her drug addicted mother sat by and watched. After being rescued from her abusive home, the girl is assigned to Dr. Matthews for treatment and placed in foster care. But Dr. Matthews’ inexperience in her position is evident, as she allows herself to become overly attached emotionally to her young charge, and Adrena’s own sociopathic tendencies readily become evident as she manipulates her relationship with Matthews like some emotional vampire.

"The Burglar in the Library (Bernie Rhodenbarr Mystery)" by Lawrence Block

Bernie Rhodenbarr just wants a quiet weekend in the country. But who to take? The woman he has been dating is getting married on Thursday, so he ends up taking his best friend Carolyn. But he does have other reasons for wanting to get away. There is a book that needs stealing.

But nothing is ever that simple. Trapped by a snowstorm in an old English-style home turned hotel, Bernie is forced to solve several interesting murders.

"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell

This book discusses how we make snap judgments, or decide things “in a blink.” The stories are interesting, but I was disappointed in the lack of depth in the theory and explanation.

Perhaps I had too high expectations, since this is the same author who wrote The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, which I really enjoyed (I recall sitting in a drive-thru reading it!). Blink is also a snapshot of how things happen, in this case how we “thin-slice” or make decisions based upon limited data.

"Son of a Witch: A Novel" by Gregory Maguire

Maquire has done it again; he’s taken us into Oz, but not Baum’s Oz, a new, different Oz.

This book begins just after the Wicked Witch of the West has her meltdown. Liir, a boy who was raised by (as he thinks of her) “the Witch,” has to go out on his own. He returns to the Emerald City with Dorothy, but then is left on his own. His adventures are absorbing, and the issue of whether is the son of the Witch is left in mystery until the very end.

"Almost Like Being in Love: A Novel" by Steve Kluger

The book is presented as journal entries, newspaper articles, memo’s, emails, post-it notes and court records. There is some narrative but it never detracts from the flow of the book. Seeing the characters through their correspondence and journals gives a very personal view of the characters that would be difficult to achieve in a traditional narrative format.

"Flesh And Blood" by Michael Cunningham

Flesh and Blood is a large story covering three generations and 100 years.

The book starts in 1935 with Constantine and his early childhood memories. Constantine falls in love with and marries Mary. Constantine is a young strong immigrant. Not comfortable with his english, but strong and determined to have the dream. Mary is pretty and sophisticated in Constantine’s eyes.

"French Women Dont Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure" by Mireille Guiliano

There has been a bit of fuss in the media concerning this book, as the title is somewhat provacative. But it has more recipes than tips and the tips aren’t as useful as I had hoped.

The tips consist mostly of trade offs, just like most weight loss tips. If you have a large meal, cut back the next day. If you eat the bread, skip dessert and so forth. Nothing really new, but it is interesting reading.

"A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash" by Sylvia Nasar

The biography of a brilliant mathematician, A Beautiful Mind is not only fascinating but extremely well written. John Nash is a mathematician whose brilliance is matched by illness, specifically schizophrenia. When his illness takes over, his life changes dramatically. And in turn, he is changed by his illness.

Although the book is nothing like the movie (with very few exceptions), it does a much better job of conveying the extremes involved in Nash’s life. A brilliant, and arrogant, man who becomes ill but is still brilliant. On the other hand, a life full of promise becomes a living hell, which Nash eventually overcomes.

"The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town" Jacqueline Guidry

This is a story about the year two colored nuns came to a small town in Southern Louisiana to teach at the white Catholic school. One nun was to teach first and one fifth grade. But the real story is about change, and growth.

Vivian Leigh (named after the movie star) is 10 and in the fifth grade. The story follows her, her little sister, and their friends, family, and neighbors. All the people of Vivian Leigh’s little town begin to question their place in the world and how they think about others’ places.

"A Kiss of Shadows" Laurell K. Hamilton

Merry Gentry, a member of the Faerie royal bloodline, has been in hiding for the past three years. Now working as a Private Investigator in Los Angeles specializing in supernatural crime, she is drawn back into the Royal Court and all the dangers she tried to escape.

Laurell Hamilton has done it again! This is a great book with intriguing characters and great action. Merry Gentry’s world is like our world except that Faeries and Goblins still exist in the world and, through political alliances, have made a home in America.

"A Promise for Ellie" Lauraine Snelling

Andrew Bjorklund and Ellie Wold have known they would wed since grade school. Two years before Ellie graduated, her family moved to a different community. Her father made the decision to further his furniture manufacturing business. It was only an hour away by train, but it may as well have been a thousand miles. Andrew and Ellie had to content themselves with staying in touch by letter. Finally, Ellie would graduate in May, and they planned to marry in June.

"A Fragile Design" Tracie Peterson, Judith Miller

Arabella Newberry was not only fleeing the life of the Shakers, she was leaving her father behind her. Her father had forced his wife and daughter, Bella, to join a shaker community when Bella was 14 years old. Bella’s mother died a couple of years later of a broken heart.

Though she loved God, Bella could not embrace the Shaker doctrine that forces families to be separated and live as though they were not family at all.

“Writing the Novel” Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block is certainly a very successful writer. He currently has178 books listed on Amazon.com. The introduction starts with Mr. Blocktelling us why he wrote this book:

This is a book designed to help you write a novel. It contains thedistillation of my own experience of twenty years as a publishednovelist, plus a considerable amount that I&#8217;ve learned from otherwriters. My goal throughout has been to produce the sort of book Imight have found useful when I set out to write my own first novel.

And he does just that. This is a very entertaining and insightful book.Mr. Block shares many experiences with us as well as much hard learnedknowledge. The opening paragraphs sum up these thoughts:

"Different Roads" Joyce Sterling Scarbrough

The two main characters, Jaycee and Bud, share similar emotional challenges, but were raised in very different environments. Both are extreme narcissists, egocentric, self-indulgent magpies with no likeable qualities. Both lost their mothers when they were very young, and both complain of fathers who do not love them.

Jaycee was born and raised in a small Alabama town. She grew up poor and quickly learned to fend for herself; her father was to busy with booze to take care of or even notice her.

Where are my thoughts

Where are my thoughts?
In small boxes and cubbyholes,
Arcane bits of the past
Whisper the names of old friends
And hum old songs.
In files, yellowed paper and faded handwriting.
Checks, receipts, manual for a long gone kitchen appliance,
To do’s and to don’ts,
Old addresses and old loves,
Old projects, old degrees, flight logs
And pictures of Navy subs.
Perhaps on the computer,
Etched on platters, matters of drive;
Work and toil, man and machine.
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"All Creatures Great and Small" James Herriot

All Creatures Great and Small is a classic written in 1972, but I just discovered it. It is now an all-time favorite.

The author is the main character. James Herriot (a pen name) evidently kept a journal through the years about his experiences as a country veterinary surgeon. Each chapter tells one of his experiences. They follow in chronological order, so it reads like the story of his first year in practice. It is at times hilarious and at times tense as he deals with difficult cases.

"The Cat Who Moved a Mountain (Cat Who...)" by Lilian Jackson Braun

Reviewer: Sally

James Qwilleran stayed the compulsory five years in Pickax to complete the requirements placed on his inheritance. He is now officially a billionaire. Now it is time to decide what to do with the rest of his life. He intends to go somewhere–a quiet island with a beach or a mountain hideaway–someplace where he can have seclusion and quiet to sort out his options and make plans.

"8.4" by Peter Hernon

Interesting novel of an earthquake (8.4 magnitude, of course) on the New Madrid fault in Southeast Missouri/Southwest Illinois/Western Tennessee, etc. The science was fun to read. The romance was bad, as there was no basis for the romance. Over all, worth reading if you are an earthquake buff, or interested in the science of quakes.

Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down"

The first chapter of Nick Hornby’s novel, “A Long Way Down” introduces the 4 main characters, Martin, Maureen, Jess and JJ. Each main character tells the story in a rotating first person, and each section clearly identifies who is speaking. The story starts with Martin explaining why he is on top of a fifteen-story building, on New Years Eve, “Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block?”

Whiskey Sour: A Jack Daniels Mystery (A Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Mystery)

Caution: Puns Ahead!

That should be on the cover of this book–if you hate puns, you won’t find this book as amusing as I did. Because the bad guy calls himself the Gingerbread Man, one might think this was a light book. It certainly was a quick read, but the subject is disturbing, as the Gingerbread Man is a serial killer.

Basic Troubleshooting Techniques

Troubleshooting is tracking down pesky bugs, rooting them from the code and squashing them. Having some basic troubleshooting skills can greatly enhance your bug fighting. The goal of troubleshooting is to quickly identify the root cause of the problem, however, don’t confuse troubleshooting with problem solving. Problem solving is answering the question, “Can this be done?” or “How can we do this?” Troubleshooting on the other hand is answering the question, “Why isn’t this working?

RSS Feed in Zend Framework

Going to get a little geeky here. But I wanted to share a simple, and effective way to create a simple rss feed of content in the Zend Framework.

The new ClubReading site is separated into two parts, the blog, and the books. The books site is now using Disqus for the comments, and so far Disqus is working out great, but that’s a topic for another day. The blog is a wordpress blog. What I wanted to do was display a couple or three of the recently added books from the books site on the sidebar of the ClubReading Blog. My thought was to create a simple rss feed of the most recent books, and use the standard wordpress rss widget to display the feed content in the sidebar. But - how to create the rss feed? Turns out it was pretty simple thanks to a great article by Alex Netkachov called “Syndicate content with Zend Framework Zend_Feed classes”.

"84, Charing Cross Road" by Helene Hanff

This book is a collection of letters from a female writer in New York City to a bookstore in London. She writes for good, inexpensive copies of books which they ship to her in New York. Eventually, she and the man who answers for the bookstore become friends.

The love of books is throughout the collected letters. Helene tries to help her London friends by sending them treats during the rations in London after World War II. She longs to go to London, but doesn’t ever seem to have the funds to go.

"A House in Sicily" by Daphne Phelps

Daphne Phelps inherited a house in Sicily called Casa Cuseni. At the time, Daphne had no knowledge of Italian, no money, and was war-weary. At 34, she moved to the small Sicilian town of Taormina expecting to sell the house.

After 50 years and guests like Tennesee Williams, Bertrand Russel, Henry Faulkner and Roald Dahl, Daphne Phelps has a wonderful story to tell.

"Anonymous Rex" by Eric Garcia

A terrific read! Very entertaining, unusual and fresh with a sly humor and good story.

A detective story of sorts. In Eric Garcia’s world, Dinosaurs are walking among us. A while back, the Dino population of the world took notice of the annoying apes evolving and made the decision to hide their identity. Now living among the apes are various breeds of dinosaur hiding in very elaborate costumes…including our protagonist Vincent Rubio.

"At The Scent Of Water" by Linda Nichols

Reviewer: Sally

‘Life Happens!!’ We’ve all seen the bumper stickers. Some use different words, but the meaning is the same. It’s the cynic’s answer to ‘Why?’ It’s also the optimist’s answer to the same question. I like to finish the statement this way: ‘Life Happens!! Get over it!!!’

‘Why…is this happening to me?’ It is one of the age old questions. Many authors have offered their version of the answers. Viewpoints are varied, of course. We blame others, we blame God, and sometimes we even blame ourselves. One thing is for sure. There are no easy answers.

"Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman" by Alice Steinbach

Alice Steinbach manages to do the things we all want to do: She travels to different places to learn new things. She goes to cooking school in France, tours Jane Austin’s England, and learns a bit about being a geisha in Japan. She does many other things as well.

I loved reading this book; even when Alice learns something I have no interest in, she makes it interesting. The locations, the learning, and the lessons were wonderful to read about.

"Phoenix Tales: Stories of Death and Life" by Gregory Bernard Banks

Reviewer: Bardsandsages

Breaking the boundaries between literary and genre fiction, Gregory Bernard Banks’ Phoenix Tales: Stories of Death and Life is a stunning collection of short stories that confronts the meaning of life and death with beautiful bravery. Part science fiction, part philosophy, with a little horror thrown in, this collection should be on everyone’s reading list.

Yo! Need a vampire hunter over here!

Amazon emailed me a couple of days ago to let me know I might like the new Laurell Hamilton book “Blood Noir”. I don’t have the message anymore, but I remember it going something like “You liked Anita Blake in the past, you might like this one. Why not pre-order?” In reality, it said something like “As someone who purchased from the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series…”.

ClubReading Facelift

alter-text

Well - it’s time for some changes at ClubReading. The current site has served us well for a long time, but it is feeling it’s age. As you can see, the new site start page is a blog. This will give us a chance to share and dialog with the community, while still having a place for a conversation.

Stroll Back in Time

What an amazing website! Shorpy is an archive, in very high detail of historical photo’s. Presented in blog format, just browsing through the archives is an amazing trip back in time. Check it out: http://www.shorpy.com/

Don’t miss the opportunity to view the images full size. The detail is amazing.

I got a heads up about this great site from the This Week in Photography podcast episode #16.

Samson

alter-text

Yeah, I know. This post is a bit down, but I wanted to share a photo in a post, so why not post about my recently deceased Dalmatian?

Within affections distant touch,
Life’s gentle breath slowing to pass away,
Torn wailing grief; a cold wind
Through emptiness and regret.
Ideal of selfless gift, strength and beauty,
Leaves the final lesson cold.
In thought and apparent gentle reminder,
Of life’s fluid nature, the final gift,
Read More

Podcasts

I am so behind on podcasts. At present…after a day of listening to podcasts, I have 8.2 days of content left to listen to. And it’s good stuff! I’m a huge fan of the TWIT network podcasts. I remember most of these guys from the old Tech TV days, and enjoyed Leo’s radio show in L.A.

The ‘I Should Be Writing’ podcast is one of my favorite writers/authors podcast. Of course NPR’s Books cast is great, but there’s something very engaging about Mur’s casts. She also has some outstanding interviews.