Zendcon 2009

Got home last night from Zendcon 2009. Good conference.

Here are a few of the main things I'm taking away from it:

• I'm a fool not to be using APC (and maybe memcache)
• Zendconners really like twitter (I got sucked in: @carl_welch)
• I need to learn more about dependency injection and better OOP methods
• I need to give git a try (had a good visit with the guy at the github booth)

Update (Monday 26 October): I took some pictures, and I've posted them to flickr.

Barnswallows' return

The barnswallows are back. Considering the placement of the nest, I assume that it has to be the same ones as last year. I've been taking a few pictures.

Belize: Altun Ha

(This is part 4 of a 6-part description of a trip I took to Belize with friends just after Thanksgiving 2008. I put my pictures a flickr.)

We got up early Tuesday morning and were picked up from the Xanadu pier by a speedboat from Searious Tours. There were already several other tourists on board (along with the three crewmembers), and we picked up a few more at other resorts along the coast. Then we headed out over the open waters toward the mainland.

The fellow from Searious who drove the boat (a two-engine job, about 40 feet long) and served as our tour guide as we left San Pedro was named Willie. He was very knowledgeable about the local flora and fauna, and he was fun to listen to: his speech was sort of a toned-down version of the frequently-overblown Caribbean stereotype (I'm thinking Predator 2 here). On the way to the mainland, we got to see a couple of bottle-nosed dolphins break the surface pretty close to the boat.

Once we reached the coast, we went up the Belize River a bit. We saw an iguana lounging about in one of the trees. We stopped at a dock and transferred to a van which took us to Altun Ha. The ruins there are pretty spectacular--I'll let the photos speak for themselves. We stayed for an hour or so. We got to climb to the top of one of the structures, and that was a real kick. There were no guardrails or anything to prevent a careless tourist from falling over the side--one of the many differences with tourist attractions in the litigation-happy US.







After Altun Ha we spent a couple of hours at the Maruba Spa. They apparently offer massages, mud treatments, and several other odd things. We enjoyed a nice lunch and some time by the pool. Then we rode back to the dock (with one of the tour guides acting as bartender in the back of the van: Belikin and rum punch) and took the boat back to Ambergris Caye (the ride back offered a pretty spectacular sunset). That evening we walked up the beach to the Blue Water grill for some fantastic seafood (I had some snapper), and then we headed back to Xanadu and fell into bed.

Belize: San Pedro

(This is part 3 of a 6-part description of a trip I took to Belize with friends just after Thanksgiving 2008. I put my pictures a flickr.)

We had pretty luxurious accommodations in San Pedro, which is on the island of Ambergris Caye. We were in a three-level dome-topped structure, and we had the top two levels. Our downstairs had a well-equipped kitchen, a dining area, a common area (TV and couches), and a bedroom (L and KL took that one). There were two more bedrooms upstairs: I took one, and H and K took the other. Each bedroom had its own bathroom. There was a wonderful wooden deck/balcony off of our downstairs, and it looked out over the water. It was really quite fancy.



The beach wasn't quite what I expected, because I hadn't read about the barrier reef. Ocean waves strike the reef, rather than the coast, which is a big part of why the water here is so clear. But that means that we didn't see or hear waves, which is one of my favorite ocean things. So that was a very minor disappointment, but it was still very cool being by the water. The reef is not that far out, so we could see waves breaking out on the reef just below the horizon, and that was pretty awesome to watch. The beach itself is very clean white sand, and it was fun walking around.





That first afternoon in San Pedro we didn't do much more than have a good meal and settle in to Xanadu. We turned in early, because we knew we had an early start the next morning: the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha.

Belize: Pook's Hill

(This is part 2 of a 6-part description of a trip I took to Belize with friends just after Thanksgiving 2008. I put my pictures a flickr.)

David introduced us to his co-manager (and wife) Kat and the owner (Ray) and took our bags to our cabanas (I'd never seen a thatched roof up close before). We took it easy that afternoon, and it got dark around 6PM. After the amazing sunsets, we mostly hung out at the main cabana, which has hammocks, chairs, a well-stocked bar, and a few sugar-water dispensers that were very popular with the local hummingbirds. This gave us an opportunity to get acquainted with some of the other guests: at one point I got to have a fun visit with a self-described "petrol head" from Britain, and we talked about Steve McQueen movies. After a few drinks, dinner was served downstairs, and we were treated to a delicious buffet-style meal. After some after-dinner coffee and tea (and maybe a few more cocktails), we retired to our cabanas for the night. I found that I really enjoyed falling asleep to the sounds of the jungle.







The next morning (Saturday), my companions went on the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) adventure tour. I picked up a charming sinus infection around the time we began this trip, so I stayed at Pook's. My friends said that it was a great experience, in which they hiked, explored some caverns, and visited Mayan ruins. The hike to the ATM cave requires four river crossings each way, and there are no bridges: you swim across. So, although they said it was lots of fun, my friends told me that I'd made a good decision to skip it. So I had a quiet morning at Pook's, and by afternoon I felt perked up enough to do part of one of the hiking trails. By the time I got back to the lodge, my friends had returned from the ATM trip, and we enjoyed another evening at the main cabana.



Sunday morning we finished out the hiking trail I'd started the previous afternoon. That route took us across a large meadow and along several well-kept jungle trails. That afternoon we had a real treat: we went inner-tubing down the Roaring River. It was surprisingly fun and relaxing. The water was cool but not cold, and it was amazingly clear. There was a great swimming hole in a bend of the river, and we had a high time hanging around there for about an hour. We saw some sleeping bats hanging from a tree, some fresh footprints (probably a tapir) on the riverbank, and we got a kick out of watching the smaller fish nibbling at the skin of our feet (that tickled a bit).









Sunday evening's pre-dinner drinking was on the roof of the owner's house, which is up at the top of the hill and afforded a breathtaking view of the valley. We saw several egret flocks fly to their nighttime nesting areas, and we were up high enough to see the hills.



Monday morning we spent a little time on one of the other hiking trails near Pook's, this one through the jungle above the owner's house. At one point we all heard something moving around to our left, but we never saw what it was. And then we took the monstrously-bumpy road back to Teakettle Village, the Western Highway back to Belize City and its municipal airport, and a Tropic Air prop to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. That was a really cool flight out over the water. It offered a great view of the clear waters of the Carribean and the barrier reef. A short cab ride got us to our home for the next four days: Xanadu Resort.

Belize: Arrival

(This is part 1 of a 6-part description of a trip I took to Belize with friends just after Thanksgiving 2008. I put my pictures a flickr.)

Two friends of mine (L and KL) and I flew to Houston on Thanksgiving where we were met by two other friends (K and H). We spent the night there and then got up the next morning and took a Continental jet to the Belize City International Airport. After going through immigration and customs, we stepped outside and were met by David, one of the managers at Pook's Hill Lodge. Pook's is a great place in the jungle of the Cayo District, far away from any population centers.

David packed us and our stuff into a van, and we headed westward on the Western Highway. After about an hour, we stopped at a restaurant called Amigos and had a delicious lunch of stewed chicken, rice and beans, and Belikin beer. Due to import restrictions, Belikin is about the only beer you can get in Belize--fortunately it's very good.

After lunch we went to the Belize Zoo, which features howler monkeys, spider monkeys, owls, tapirs (which were quite a bit bigger than I expected), otters, coatis, a puma (also larger than I expected), a pair of HUGE crocodiles, a couple of jaguars, and some really foul-smelling wild pigs called peccaries. I didn't get many good pictures, but I got a short movie of one of the jaguars (he came right up to the fence).



Another hour on the Western Highway brought us to Teakettle Village. We took a monstrously bumpy dirt road for about a half an hour, and then we arrived at Pook's Hill Lodge, where we spent the next three days.

Sunday at/before ZendCon

I'm at ZendCon this week. I flew in to San Jose airport yesterday and got the hotel shuttle to the hotel (which is in Santa Clara). I got in pretty early (around 10AM local time), but my room was already ready, so I got to go straight in.

A bit later I took the hotel shuttle to the Santa Clara Convention Center, which is where the conference is being held. Conference check-in only took a few minutes (I gave them my name, and they gave me my conference packet), so I had the rest of the afternoon play.

I had the hotel shuttle take me to the local CalTrain station, and I took that into San Francisco. I was wanting to go to Pier 39 (a touristy shopping area with Bay cruises and an aquarium), but I had a terrible time finding the right bus. The nice woman who answered the Pier 39 phone number told me to take the 9x bus. As far as I can tell, that particular bus runs approximately once every two weeks. I only ever saw one 9x bus, and it was going the wrong way. I almost gave up a couple of times and just took the train back early.

I eventually got to Pier 39 (I caught the 10 bus, which runs fairly regularly, and which got me to within a block of the pier), but I didn't have much time there (I needed to get back to the train station by 7PM for the return to Santa Clara). But the pier offers a nice view of the Bay, and I took several pictures. I could see Alcatraz Island, and there was a neat view of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. Some of the other shorelines were wrapped in a neat fog, and seeing the sea lions was cool.

I got back to the hotel and had some dinner in the hotel restaurant. By then I was pretty tired (I didn't sleep much the night before, and the time change added an extra two hours to the day), so I turned in a bit early.

barn swallows; bigger and bolder

They're painting my building, so each day I fear that I'll come home to find that the painters have "evicted" the hatchlings (which they probably wouldn't survive). But they were still there again today.

It amazes me how much they've grown in just over a week. wikipedia says that barn swallows fledge (I believe that more-or-less means "leave the nest") after about 18-23 days, so they've got another week or two.

barn swallows

About a month ago I started noticing a bird's nest attached to the wall near the door to my apartment. I'd occasionally see a couple of small, orange-and-black birds coming and going. Because of something that happened a couple of days ago, I wanted to find out what kind of birds they were.

A Web search directed me to whatbird.com. This site has a pretty cool search feature allowing you to enter certain characteristics of a bird (size, color, tail shape, etc.), and it'll help you figure out what kind of bird it is. Turns out that my neighbors are barn swallows.

The thing that happened earlier in the week is that their eggs hatched. So now I have about four other new neighbors. I took a few pictures and posted some of the better ones to my flickr account:

Fallen Tree

There was a ferocious wind-and-rain storm here a week ago, and it knocked over some trees. I took some pictures of one of the more impressive casualties. I think it was an elm tree, and (judging by the rings) it appears to have been around forty years old. They cut it up to cart it off, and they made a cut just above the roots. It was probably around two feet in diameter at the base.

Here are a couple of the pictures...

overnight at the lake

I'm writing this from my friends' lakehouse. I've been here since yesterday afternoon, and it's been a nice break from routine. I took a few pictures which I think came out pretty well.

There was a brief snowstorm yesterday afternoon with wonderfully large snowflakes:



This morning I took a picture from a similar angle. The lake was so still this morning--like looking at glass:

2007 Halloween pumpking carving

Hung out with friends today. We have a tradition of carving jack-o-lanterns for Halloween, and my part of the tradition is not to carve a jack-o-lantern. *shrug* It's way too messy for my delicate sensibilities. Ewwww.

This time, one of my friends convinced me to join in the fun. So here's my jack-o-lantern...



One of my other friends found these really nifty little watch-battery-powered LED candles, and that's what's inside.

And here it is in the light... So, not too messy, after all.

And here's the lot. The friend who found the LED candles (she's the X-Men fan) carved the '07 Jack to mark the occasion. She's clever, that one. My favorite is the Frank Castle Jack.

Anyway, had a good time seeing friends. We listened to a really cool CD I bought this afternoon: Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

OSCON 2007: Friday

OSCON Friday is much like Wednesday and Thursday, but it's a half day: keynotes, two sessions, a final keynote, and a final schmoozing session. The Friday keynotes were pretty good. The first was from Philip Rosedale of SecondLife. He gave a demonstration, which was my first time to actually see Second Life. It looked pretty cool, and he displayed some data graphs from inside the virtual word. He said that lots of people use it for telemeetings. They're beginning to offer voice features, so people will probably start using it for teleconferencing. Some of the components of Second Life are open source, and Rosedale was encouraging the community to contribute to the project.

Next was Jimmy Wales of wikia, which hopes to fulfill Wales' ambitious goal of giving everyone free access to the entire sum of human knowledge. Wales also announced wikia's acquisition of grub, Web-crawling software which lives on unused computer cycles (sort of like SETI@home, but less pointless).

Simon Wardley then spoke about information technology commoditisation. I believe his point was that open source means allowing people not to have to spend all their time building entire infrastructures from scratch, because someone else has hopefully already done it for you and has open-sourced the code. And Simon evidently really likes ducks.

Nat Torkington, OSCON program chairperson, gave a farewell keynote. He's stepping down from OSCON organization duties (and perhaps leaving O'Reilly altogether--not sure). A (paraphrased) quote from his talk was "ignore the noise and make some signal" (participate in and contribute to a cause about which you feel passionate).

The last keynote was "Pimp My Garbage" by an electronics engineer named James Larsson. Larsson like to make interesting things out of computer equipment that other people want to throw away. His creations have to be seen to be fully appreciated, and he took the notion of building a better mousetrap to a hilarious conclusion.

The first session I attended was "Subversion Worst Practices" [sic] by Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian W. Fitzpatrick, a couple of Google software engineers who moonlight as subversion developers. They gave a good list of things to avoid when implementing version control, like storing ISO images in a repository, skipping out on backups, and manually editing repository files.

I was wanting to go to "Testing With Selenium" as my second session, but it was cancelled (selenium is an in-browser unit testing framework, which can be a good way of automated javascript testing). So I went down the hall to "Running Your Programming Language on Parrot", and was quite promptly confused. shrug

So I had some time to kill Friday afternoon. I decided to go to the Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden. I didn't much care for the Chinese Garden, which was pretty small. It was $7 and 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back. It was OK, but nothing special. It didn't seem very well-kept: the water was pretty murky, and cobwebs were everywhere.

But the Japanese Garden was awesome. It was $8, it's in Washington Park (western Portland), and it was really beautiful and peaceful. I spent a couple of hours there, and took several pictures (I posted them to flickr). I highly recommend this to anyone with a couple of hours to spend in Portland.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures:

Photos from Antarctica

Some photos (not mine) from Antarctica hit digg.com yesterday. The post says it's a flash-frozen tsunami. Lame, but the pictures are very cool.

Dallas World Acquarium

Friends and I went to Dallas recently to see The Police in concert (great show). We also checked out the Dallas World Acquarium. I took several pictures, most of which didn't come out very well. But here are a couple of pretty good ones.

This first one may be hard to understand out of context. There's a large pool with rays and a shark, and there's a plexiglass tunnel along the floor of this pool. You can walk through the tunnel and see the shark and rays (although the distortion is pretty bad). You can also (from an upper level) look down into the pool and see the tunnel. This picture is looking down into the pool while the shark is swimming over the tunnel:



And here's a penguin, because penguins are awesome:



The DWA also has a black jaguar. Beautiful animal. So if you've got a couple of hours to kill in Dallas, hit the DWA.

More photos (cool clouds)

I took some pictures the other day. It was a day with my favorite kind of weather: it was cloudy and cool, but not rainy. There were some horses in a nearby field, some wildflowers, and some pretty cool-looking clouds. The local topology really worked for me--very flat horizons made the photo contrast image-editing technique very effective.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Storm clouds

Have had some thunderstorms in the last few days. A few nights ago, I heard thunder, and was surprised to see clear skies when I looked out the window. When I stepped outside for another look, I found that the storm was sneaking up over my roof. Took a couple of pictures, which don't quite do it justice.

Trees

Took some pictures at work the other day. Trees are in bloom, and the colors were pretty impressive. My favorite picture in the set has purple-, brown-, and green-leaf trees in front of a deep blue sky: