News from Great Castle Wilson

Category: McQ

  • If my mind was this cluttered… Oh, wait.

    I’ve been busy on many fronts lately, and haven’t had time to blog. In lieu of real content, here’s a picture of my office…

    (Click on it to get a bigger view.)

    Some things to note:

    • You can see by the height of the chair that I have put my desk back in “stand up” mode. I’ve only been at it for a couple of days, and so my back (and feet) are still pretty sore, but I must say it’s a great way to remind myself that I need to lose weight. It usually takes about 3 weeks to get used to it again.
    • I do still juggle, especially on conference calls [pssst… don’t tell anyone. 😉 ]. The balls on the desk are actually made of wood; they’re great for training you to catch properly since they hurt if you do it wrong (but you don’t lose fingers like you do with knives). The pins (stuck in the back of the desk under the Escher print) are just for show, I haven’t used them in years. Oh, and there’s a unicycle just out of frame behind the cello case on the left. 🙂
    • The silent cello is still at work. I try to get 10 or 15 minutes to play it at lunch, but that’s about the best I’ve done.
    • Yes, my main development machine is a MacBook Pro.

    Anyway, stay tuned hopefully after EclipseCon is over, next week, we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming updates.

  • New Years, Resolutions, and Weighing In

    I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. But more than that, I’d like to remind us all that, for that wish to be fulfilled, we need to support and care for our friends and family; we are living in interesting times, and our love for each other is our best defense.

    Those of you who see me regularly know that I have been putting on weight lately. I’m currently over 250 pounds and, even for me, that much weight is a problem — the obvious indicator being that it is now difficult for me to get “crunched” enough to put on my snowboard boots. Ugh!

    As such, I’ve decided to join the ranks of the New Year’s resolution makers:

    I will lose 50 pounds this year.

    Now, in general, I’m pretty good at sticking to a resolution (particularly, one that I’ve told the world about 🙂 ), but losing that much weight will be a challenge, so I am asking for your support. Please feel free to remind me if you see me acting in a way that would run counter to the goal. I won’t let it happen deliberately, but it’s certainly possible that I just might not notice.

    Wish me luck.

    Peace.

  • My vote (in Canada) and a U.S. political note

    I hate the idea of strategic voting. I’ve always been a strong believer in voting for the party/candidate that most strongly reflects your world view. This year, however, I’m strongly tempted to vote Liberal (even though I think they’re idiots), simply because I believe the prospect of having a Conservative majority in government *now*, at the point when the world is about to go through a significant upheaval would be tragic.

    The thing is, when I look at the state of the world — ecologically, socially, and economically — and how I feel that we will have to respond to it, it’s clear that the party that best reflects my views is the Greens. I also believe that many, many others in Canada feel the same way.

    The NDP are also close, if they could just figure out that sometimes “Environment first” is going to have to trump “People first”, so that our kids get to have a world worth living in too.

    So what to do… hm…

    Btw, do you realize that if the Americans aren’t careful, they may end up with a vice-president who believes that Christ will return during her lifetime (or at least believed this at one point during her life).

    Random, unrelated question: Is insanity grounds for disqualification for leadership in the U.S.?

  • Bill C-61. Ugh.

    I saw Pookzilla’s post — link left for posterity, even though it looks like their blog is gone forever — about C-61, and that reminded me that I hadn’t blogged about this yet. I too think that C-61 is an epic fail, and for the first time ever, I felt sufficiently strongly about it that I wrote my MP. Here’s what I wrote:

    Sir,

    I am writing to express my strongest possible displeasure with the new bill C-61. This bill is a sledgehammer, where deftness is required. In a misguided attempt to prevent a small number of illegal activities, it will introduce new, significant constraints on the legitimate activities of all Canadians. As one small example, imagine a world where, as a parent, you could no longer load one of your children’s MP3 players with songs you had legitimately downloaded — that is a very real, likely outcome of this bill. The impact will be far reaching, and serious.

    Please research the situation as thoroughly as possible, with particular reference to those who do *not* have a vested interest in profit over the rights of Canadians, and vote appropriately.

    For context, I am a 48 year old member of your constituency who is:
    – a software architect (see http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/team-leaders.php)
    – a published author (http://safari.awprofessional.com/0321256638)
    – an electronic musician (http://mikew.ca/blog/?p=336)
    – and a member of an orchestra (http://www.divertimento.ca)

    Despite being an obvious potential beneficiary of some of the provisions of the current bill, I feel that it should be strongly apposed. This is the first (and may in be the only) time you hear from me. Please do net let this effort be wasted.

    With complete sincerity,
    Mike Wilson

  • The new album

    First, I have to apologize to everyone for the lack of updates on the site for the last while. Since I got back from EclipseCon my life has just been too fracking busy. There is one bit of good news though…

    Yup, that’s a new HBDI album. If you click on the above image, it will take you to a page with individual links for all of the songs, but you can download the whole album (as a ZIP, including a high-res image of the cover and a printable CD insert) by clicking on the link in the top left corner of that page.

  • EclipseCON

    It’s Wednesday night, and I’m getting ready to head out to the e4 kickoff BOF. We did our Eclipse 4.0 talk this morning and it seemed to go pretty well — big crowd, no rotten fruit thrown. It will be interesting to see who shows up for the BOF tonight.

    I’m rapidly approaching my limit for being away from home. The weather is nice here, and there are lots of smart people to talk to, but I really need to be back in my own environment. Oh well, at least I can say the weather’s good. Here’s a shot from outside the hotel:

  • I’m traveling next week.

    Next week is EclipseCon 2008, and this year I’m going. Those of you who know me, understand how big a deal that is. I really don’t like to travel; I feel about travel pretty much the way most people feel about getting a limb amputated.

    Despite that, if the prelude was any indication, I expect it will be a very exciting conference this year. I’m looking forward to talking f2f with many of the people who are active in the community that I know only from mailing lists and bugzilla.

    I fly out Sunday, and will be back in the city on Friday. Wish me luck. 🙂

  • An unexpected birthday present

    48 today (ugh!), but guess what was on my front step when I got home: My XO!

    More info once I’ve had a chance to play with it. Yes, I’m using it to send this.

  • Upcoming Divertimento concert

    Just letting people in Ottawa know that there’s another great Divertimento concert in November. The program is:

    • Fruhauf, Grand Rondo on “Simple Gifts” and “Bourbon” (World première)
    • Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92
    • DvorĂ k, Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88

    The Grand Rondo is a brand-spankin’ new, never publicly performed, short orchestral work by a contemporary organist/composer from California. It’s both lyrical and haunting, and well worth a listen. The other two pieces are both big works that really show the orchestra’s capabilities.

    There are two shows. The one on Friday is Dennis’ birthday, so I’ll probably be the only person from my family who will be there. [The show must go on!] If you come to the Saturday show, you can catch up with Deb, Dennis and many others.

    Friday, November 16, 2007
    Arlington Woods Free Methodist Church
    225 McClellan
    Nepean
    8 p.m.

    Saturday, November 17, 2007
    L’Église St-Thomas-d’Aquin
    1244 Kilborn Ave.
    Ottawa
    8 p.m.

    I’ve got tickets to sell, and I’d be happy to get credit for selling you one, so definitely let me know. They’re also available at the door, if you’re more of a spur-of-the-moment person. Prices are: $15 for adults; $10 for students and seniors; $3 for children 6 to 12; and free for (quiet 😉 ) children under 6.

    (Photo Š Charles Frost)

  • If you’re reading this…

    … then I owe you an apology. I took a bit of a break from blogging when I got back from our family vacation travel, and it’s taken me a while to get back into writing. I’m not exactly “re-charged” yet, but I’m ready, so here goes…

    Demise of SplashBlog

    As you can see, the widget in the sidebar that was displaying pictures has been disabled. See the text box for the current state of affairs, but never fear, the pictures will come back. I really like the immediacy of taking pictures with my phone and having them show up automatically in the blog. It’s just going to take a bit of work to re-enable them.

    Vacation Pictures

    Speaking of pictures, I did get my vacation shots up on the web in my Gallery2 site — no, that link won’t work any more; I might replace it with something better at some point. You won’t be able to see them unless you log in, so if you want to take a look you can send me a note and I’ll tell you the password (if I like you. ;-)).

    If you do check them out, watch out for The Black Spot. Unfortunately, the CCD on my camera developed a dark spot (while we were in Kingston) that is clearly visible in any of the images where that area is approximately a solid color — like the mist coming off a waterfall, for example. doh! I took the camera to Henry’s when we got back and they happily fixed it for free, but it was too late for the vacation snaps. Oh well.

    A Rogue by any other name

    One of my main “achievements” — if you want to call it that — during my vacation, was to level my horde-side rogue “Caltrop” to 63 [maybe 64 by tonight. ;-)] so that I could get back to playing with the guild on Sunday nights. It was a lot of work — she’s 13 days played — but it was worth it. For those unfamiliar with the game, “13 days played” means 13*24 hours in front of the screen to get her to that level, although some of that was done before my vacation started.

    I read books.

    Over the course of my vacation, I got through seven new books — all in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, of course.

    One in particular that I had been waiting for was the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, called Red Seas Under Red Skies. I’m not certain I enjoyed this one as much as the first, but I will say that after two full books I still find the mix of grand scope and yet very personal story compelling. I just wish he would drop his habit of trying to fool the reader in the introduction; this time, I actually imagined a better outcome from the confrontation than the author did. Oh well.

    I also picked up Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife books. They were a bit too girly for my tastes, but it was probably good for me to read something where the people were more important than the action, for a change.

    The rest of the books were just pulp. The sci-fi equivalents of the “penny dreadful” — just what you need when you’re on vacation. Speaking of pulp, has anybody ever seen the E. E. Smith “Lensman” or “Skylark” books in electronic form? It’s been a long time since I read them, and I’d like to ride that particular inertialess drive again.

    Whew! I guess that about covers it. Talk to you soon.