I'm sick and tired of all your politics Journal Entries. You all complain about the lying, cheating, negative campaigning, smearing, etc etc etc. And you all want to live in the town of Gum Drop Falls, near Chocolate Lake, and everyone is good and decent and honest.

AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!

I'll let you in on a big secret. To some degree they are all crooks. And so are we.

We don't live in some utopia because the human animal is flawed. Sometimes only moderately flawed, sometimes downright evil, but flawed none-the-less.

And there is the brilliance of the American system!

Everyone is selfish, self-centered, egotistical, etc. So they fight, hurl mud, organize campaigns of misinformation, etc. And they fight each other. Meanwhile, every effort they make to fight each other is that much less attention they direct at us. We are more-or-less left alone. You need to get all the officials pulling in the same direction to get mass genocides and other such fun. But get them pulling in different directions and you get left alone.

So don't worry. They are all scoundrels, but they are scoundrels who can't work together for more than a moment or two. I'm less scared of disorganized scoundrels than an organized group of seemingly 'good men', because they are just scoundrels that hide it better.

Here is the rule that everyone should remember:

Unless there is a severe flaw in some other part of their game, the team that pitches better will win.

The Tigers have no flaws, and they simply pitched better. Wang and Mussina are a nice pair but I don't have anyone I feel good about 3 through 5 and I don't have any confidence in my relievers short of Rivera.

Good luck, Detroit. I hope you come back to NY for the World Series. On paper the Mets probably match up the best, although they've had some injuries lately and they are playing in Quadruple "A" rather than the major league. Your path look pretty clear from here on out.

Mr. November showed up again tonight. He's a relatively quiet guy - such that it baffles the mind to think how the average spoiled star would behave with his numbers.

After ten years, it is time that we can appropriately ask "Is he the greatest of his generation? Is he on par with the greatest of all time?

1. Hits for power
2. Hits for average
3. Hits situationally
4. Hits in the clutch
5. Hits to all fields
6. Runs the bases well
7. Fields his position exceptionally
8. Positive clubhouse influence
9. Good leader
10. Good role model

There simply aren't any holes in his game.

Now there is a certain pitcher whom is a definite first ballot hall-of-famer, but he is a bit more difficult to measure against the all time greats. Pitchers have become so specialized that it is tough to measure a closer against the great starters of previous eras. You can't argue with a 0.81 post-season era over a very large body of work. You can't plausibly argue that there has been a better closer since the emergence of the modern closer, but would a Sandy Kofax have been even better if he was used in the same role? Who can say?

Sam, the following are some things that I remember confusing lots of beginners and didn't seem to be covered very well it lots of books. I'd suggest trying to wrap your head around this as early as possible.

Packages

Imagine that I wrote a class called Log that handles log files. Now Blinder wrote a class called Log that provides a whole bunch of mathematical operations based on Logarithms. Finally, Fort Knox writes a class called Log that is part of the data model for a timber company. Now say you want to write an application that uses all three of our classes. How do you keep all three straight?

This problem comes up so often in the software world that Java provided a set of best practices on how to handle it right from the start: packages.

A package forms part of the name for a class. In that way, all three Log classes can have different names.

A set of rules and conventions are generally followed when naming packages. Here they are off the top of my head:

1. package names are always in lower case, while class names start with case characters
2. package names consist of one or more words with dots between them
3. package names that start with java are part of the java language as defined by Sun
4. package names that start with javax are optional parts or extensions to the java language as defined by sun
5. everyone else uses reverse internet domains to distinguish packages

The full name of the Map class provided by Sun is java.util.Map. When I write a class as part of professional services engagement for my company, I write com.mycompanyname.ps.projectname.other.descriptive.text.MyClass. This seems like a pain in the ass at first, but it quickly becomes second nature.

The packages normally translate into directories. So when I write the code for com.mycompanyname.ps.projectname.other.descriptive.text.MyClass I do it in a file named com/mycompanyname/ps/projectname/other/descriptive/text/MyClass.java. When that file is compiled, the output will go to com/mycompanyname/ps/projectname/other/descriptive/text/MyClass.class. Again, this seems like a pain in the ass, but it too will become second nature.

I can take a bunch of class files and put them into a zip file, then use that zip file as a "library". This zip file is usually a "jar" file, which stands for "Java ARchive", and has the extension "jar". The directory structure inside the jar will still contain com/mycompanyname/ps/projectname/other/....

For things like classwork, your email address is probably the good root for a package name. You'll probably want to put your work in packages like com.gmail.samthebutcher.schoolname.cs101.proj1...

Typing out the full name of a class every time you need to reference it can be very tedious. By using the keyword "import" at the top of java file, you can avoid having to type out the whole name every time you need to reference it. So I can use the command "import com.mycompanyname.ps.projectname.other.descriptive.text.MyClass;", then I can just use the short name MyClass within my code, and Java knows what I mean.

I can also import an entire package at once by typing "import com.mycompanyname.ps.projectname.other.descriptive.text.*;". Understand, however, that this only imports that specific package. If there is another package with a name that includes that name but then has another leve, like com.mycompanyname.ps.projectname.other.descriptive.text.anextralevel.MyClass, it is a totally seperate package and won't get included with the *.

The package java.lang is always imported automatically. String and java.lang.String are the same thing.

Jar Utility

As mentioned briefly above, Java has the capability to work with lots of class files bundled together in a zip format. While Java can use a plain old zip file, most of the time java uses a specialized zip file called a Java ARchive, with a jar extension. A jar contains an extra directory, META_INF, and an extra file META-INF/MANIFEST.MF. The manifest file is used to store metadat about the jar, and do some other things you don't need to know about right now.

Java provides a jar utility to make, update, and view jar files. The jar utility takes many of the same command line switches as the unix tar command, so it is pretty easy to use. BTW, the "M" switch suppresses the generation of the manifest, so the command "java cfM MyZip.zip ..." is a pretty good way to zip up a file or directory.

Ant nad your project structure

The Apache Foundation supplies lots of great Java utilities. One of which is Ant, available at http://ant.apache.org/. Ant is basically a build automation tool. A file, build.xml, resides in the base direcotyr of your project. Then you issue command like "ant compile" or "ant clean" and ant builds your project. Ant is, by far, the most widely used tool for doing this.

Typically, you'll give each project its own base dir. It might be ~/mycode/myproject, or it could be somewhere else. Under that base dir, you'll normally have your build.xml file a dir src/, and maybe a dir lib/. The lib directory will contain any third party libraries and jar files. You'll write your code under src, taking care to have the right subdirectories to tie in with your packages.

After you have written some source, you need to compile it. Here is where you start using ant. You'll issue the command "ant compile". First ant will notice that the compile task is dependent on a task nameed "init". "init" is responsible for building out the remainsing subdirectories that you need. I usually have init create a directory build/ for any generated files, build/classes/ for the class files that correspond to my code under src/, and dist/ for any jar files that I generate. After init runs, then the compile task runs, compiling each of the source files and placing them in a tree that corresponds to their package names under build/classes/.

Now, after going back and fixing some syntax errors, I want to try running my program. I use the command "ant run" and ant will set up the appropriate classpath, then execute my program. Finally, I want to bundle up my program in a jar file. I can issue the command "ant jar" and ant will build my jar file.

"ant -projecthelp" will list all the possible tasks that have been defined for this project.

Putting it Together

Here is a sample development environment demoing both packages and Ant. I'm not sure if slashdot will let me get away with uuencoding.

begin 755 HelloWorld_src.zip
M4$L#!`H````(`&&>)#40OF:J[0$``'0&```)````8G5I;&0N>&ULC56Y;MPP
M$.T-^!]H(JW(I-^UBS1I`J1S$\#@BB.'NQ0E#*F%#^3?,Q0EKJ1HCXX<SKSW
MYI(V3V^U94=`;QJWY=_$5\Z>'N_O-BTV>R@#<ZJ&+?\!UC;/#5K-F89*=39L
M>=G4K;'`R?W^CK$8T@*&]R%FKU!4]"[BE;.CLMT,29`#9_)Q+=9C>3'V)3I\
MF#;%)P05_C"CLRQ16N5]M/)$(>/Y/V_LW-)S>`8+-;C`;%.JT%=GUQFK?_?>
MX+/T&6Y0^`ICU4H+RF5,38`!F#8X(,D12:ZY:.,#'RD2["J)<29DCOI`L1<I
M)AZW,HQ]ILZWX+1?<.[5497IS%@N)4*UUHK1C_K7:Q"23MFJP8<5\2.3[*FN
M"^X'*XN=C.F@%]E.>5@AFNJ(XY=J)+]\SF;Y[P@5RZF<J<@[6WJK"@'-KJ-6
M)D$_E7'%]TB29YE4B==:&2L0CK4Y@/"J;BU4#=)!3!=.SL$?BN(B6<]3_(K5
M'LF6&$5QRD`N4HA5QNLUIN4K8NO.#`4]GXHLSA=VMNC3PL);:3L]YI3:-$UC
MX=##G=XWD@1<3X*6__R@#*.=1CIOPHU-.U6;W@Y;'K"#B7&^)O-OT"24F!H'
MB`T."&S2MRCNIA2+^3[$VR)%,IT;]2N)K$A<^:+0-S+]3OK;/U!+`P0*````
M```IGB0U````````````````!````'-R8R]02P,$"@``````#IXD-0``````
M``````````@```!S<F,O8V]M+U!+`P0*```````.GB0U````````````````
M#@```'-R8R]C;VTO9VUA:6PO4$L#!`H```````Z>)#4````````````````6
M````<W)C+V-O;2]G;6%I;"]R979M:6ME+U!+`P0*``````!$GB0U````````
M````````(P```'-R8R]C;VTO9VUA:6PO<F5V;6EK92]S86UP;&5F;W)S86TO
M4$L#!`H````(`$*>)#5>S$WLA@```*D````R````<W)C+V-O;2]G;6%I;"]R
M979M:6ME+W-A;7!L969O<G-A;2](96QL;U=O<FQD+FIA=F$UC$T*PC`0A?>!
MW&'HJ@7)!7H!]UVX$!?3=`RADQ^2M"#BW1VK/AZ\@?GX,MH5'8%-P;B`GDVA
M/?B53,60F>ZIR#%JE;>9O07+6"N<B3E=4N$%GEJ!Y/>N#9O,GOP"8HO]U(J/
M[GH#+*X.?_J3Z5$;!9.V9K(PC6/?'=X3'.9N&+_P2ROI&U!+`0(4`PH````(
M`&&>)#40OF:J[0$``'0&```)``````````````"D@0````!B=6EL9"YX;6Q0
M2P$"%`,*```````IGB0U````````````````!````````````!``[4$4`@``
M<W)C+U!+`0(4`PH```````Z>)#4````````````````(````````````$`#M
M038"``!S<F,O8V]M+U!+`0(4`PH```````Z>)#4````````````````.````
M````````$`#M05P"``!S<F,O8V]M+V=M86EL+U!+`0(4`PH```````Z>)#4`
M```````````````6````````````$`#M08@"``!S<F,O8V]M+V=M86EL+W)E
M=FUI:V4O4$L!`A0#"@``````1)XD-0```````````````",````````````0
M`.U!O`(``'-R8R]C;VTO9VUA:6PO<F5V;6EK92]S86UP;&5F;W)S86TO4$L!
M`A0#"@````@`0IXD-5[,3>R&````J0```#(``````````````*2!_0(``'-R
M8R]C;VTO9VUA:6PO<F5V;6EK92]S86UP;&5F;W)S86TO2&5L;&]7;W)L9"YJ
9879A4$L%!@`````'``<`T`$``-,#````````
`
end

The uuencode almost works. Pull out the random spaces and everything should be ok.

I don't believe my team (NY Yankees) has a realistic chance right now, so I don't have a dog in this race...

Would you actually feel good about putting the ball in All Star starting pitcher Kenny Rogers' hands in a critical playoff situation, or do you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and an overwhelming feeling of dread?

If you do feel confident, please explain why, given his 0-3, 8.85 era in 9 playoff appearances record.

There is this amazing family of designs that is used successfuly at lots of major airports. It is based on arranging the gates in circles or snowflake patterns. That way when you need to change planes, you don't have to walk miles to get from one gate to another.

Please look into it.

That is all,
RevMike

Another guy on my team is having trouble with jMeter. jMeter is a open source testing program which we were using to simulate various load conditions on our software. His core skills don't include Java, so I went to help him out.

We kept getting java.lang.OutOfMemory exceptions while trying to run various test scripts. The cases that were triggering it were bigger cases, but nothing absurdly big.

"No problem," I thought, "I'll just bump up the heap size." I edited the jmeter shell script and bumped the memory devoted to jmeter to 1.75 Gig. Still no luck. Then I started playing with various settings - If you become a java developer remind me to teach you about generational garbage collecting. Still no luck.

After two days I noticed the follwoing: All these settings were defined throughout the shell script. At the very end of the script, they were all combined into a shell variable calls ARGS, and then java was invoked. It looked something like this:

ARGS="$MODE $HEAP $SURVIVORSPACE $GCMETHOD"
java -classpath $CLASSPATH -jar jmeter.jar

This simple change, two days later, made everything work:

ARGS="$MODE $HEAP $SURVIVORSPACE $GCMETHOD"
java $ARGS -classpath $CLASSPATH -jar jmeter.jar

To make it worse, the customer was looking over my shoulder when I discovered it. He had a good long laugh at my expense.

Despite years of development and an almost universal grunt of dismay from geeks, there is no F/OSS tool that can replace Microsoft Word. It comes up short for several tasks (simple data management, spreadsheets, page layout) and is overkill for many others (simple note-taking or letter writing), but it's in a class all on its own when it comes to what it was intended for: writing.

Feel like you can prove me wrong? Know a program that can be my pen-and-paper better than I'd ever believe? Here's the chance to give it a new user and advocate. The program must:

1. Be a Win32, .Net/Mono, or simiarly windows-friendly App. Java and other add-ons are OK, but Linux-native isn't.
2. Take either .DOC or a similar equivalent (.HTM, .DOCX, or some standard flavor of .XML). Batch converters are ok, but see below.
3. Count the words in any arbitrary section of text, including the text as a whole
4. Track the changes I make at least as well as Work 2k (only the last writing session is all I really need)
5. Have an on-the-fly spellchecker
6. Have a built-in or hooked-in thesaurus
7. Have an some option to fix common typos as a type
8. have some similiar option to undo accidental typo-corrections easily
9. Be able to either export to .DOC or have a Palm OS companion that can read and at least commonent upon an RTF-style version.

OOo passes 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9, but fails pretty miserably at 3, 6, and 8. I don't use OOo.

For the record, I did get a laptop a few weeks back. I considered Acer and a few others, but was wooed by the HP/Compaq Turion and "big familiar name to heckle support to." (I checked the post-merger quality by a geek who had, and would still have if not for divorce, a Compaq laptop.)

Thanks to a sale at BestBy, I picked up the Turion, WXGA, 15.4 (.1?) HP Paviliion dv5000. A quick newegg upgrade to 2 GB ram, and it's now my primary PC, where I waste many hours playing City of Heroes with "good enough framerate for an RPG."

The NY Post is truly the greatest newspaper in NY, the United States, and the world. Today's front page is a good example of why.

The invention of the printing press, of writing, nay - of language itself, all led to this.

I finally purchased the little adapter so that I can use my Treo 650 as an MP3 player. I downloaded PocketTunes, which is a fantastic little app, loaded up my memory card, and now I'm listening.

Of course, the "cool" thing is to have the white iPod headphones, or even better, the black iPod headphones. What am I using? Climb in the wayback machine and go back to 1990, when the Sony walkman line was being produced in bright yellow and black. I'm using bright yellow earbud headphones! I'm probably the only one on the train or subway hip enough to pull that off.

While we're on the topic of music, let me just stte for the record that early Pink Floyd consists of a whole lot of incredible but often overlooked music. Atom Heart Mother and Meddle are two fantastic albums; Fearless and Summer '68 are great songs. So if your experience with Pink Floyd consists of Dark Side, The Wall, Animals, and Wish You Were Here give the early stuff a listen.

Wired is running this story today. The author groans about the decline of unions in the United States:

It's sad to see the anemic state of organized labor in this country today. Worse, it kills me to admit that, to a large degree, the erosion of the labor movement is the fault of the unions themselves. Their refusal or inability to change with the times, to keep the movement relevant in the face of globalization and the digital conversion -- the so-called new economy -- has been disastrous.

Then the author continues for another page and a half without offering any sort of constructive suggestion on a way that unions can once again become relevent.

Through my career, I've been the one in charge. I've made myself valuable enough that I management works hard to keep me.

My brain is the "means of production". What can a union possibly do for me?

I got a Treo 650 about a week ago, and I figured it was time to review it. I'm a consultant dealing with about 6 or 7 clients in the Northeast US on a regular basis, plus a roughly equal number of pre-sales contacts at any given time. Reliable access to my email as well as contacts, schedule, etc. is critical for me. Mobility is critical for me.

First, some background. I bought a Treo 600 about 18 months ago - the Sprint CDMA model for those keeping score at home. I found it to be an indispensible tool, but not without its problems. First, the built in applications are lousy. The built in web browser is all but useless, unable to load any but the simplest of pages. The built in email application is pathetically basic. The camera produced poor results even in perfect conditions. I frequently had to reset the phone, on some days as much as often as three or four times. It was only a good phone when measured against everything that came before it.

On the good side, the GoodLink software http://www.good.com/ provided extremely good synchronization with my company's exchange server. The killer usage here has been for my engineers to send me a patch in email, detach the patch to the SD flash card, and use a pocket USB flash card device to load the patch onto the client server. When clients are behind strict firewals, the phone paid for itself in prductivity gained from not having to leave the client site and find a hotspot every time I needed a patch

Also, PDANet by http://www.junefabrics.com/ is a very useful app tht allowed me to use the Treo as a modem, getting up to 144kb data connection on my laptop anywhere within Sprint's 1xRTT digital network.

I had looked briefly at the Treo 700w. I didn't like the fact that Windows Mobile is not quite as usable as the Palm OS on a Treo. 700w need to pull out the stylus and use two hands a lot more often that users of the Palm based Treos. I also didn't like the fact that the screen resolution was reduced compared to that of the Treo 650. The 700w did offer EvDO service, however, for data speeds rated at 400-600kb with bursts up to 2Mb. I was already using an EvDO PCMCIA card at this point, though, and so that was interesting but not compelling.

My plan, then, was to wait for the Treo 700p, rumored for a late May release. The 700p is basically an updated 650, fixing the one glaring flaw with the 650 - its small memory - and adding EvDO support. A friend, however, offered me a sightly used Sprint branded Treo 650 for free, however. I jumped at the chance. I called Sprint and activated the new phone, then immediately started putting it through its paces.

Before doing anything else, I upgraded the firmware to the latest and greatest - rev. 1.13. Then I got the newest version of GoodLink installed. At this point my new Treo was functional for work, and I could look at other features at my liesure.

Even before adding additional software, the base unit represents a major upgrade. The mail application supports POP and IMAP and comes with built in profiles for major mail providers. I was able to configure it immediately for access to my AIM mail and the mail account associated with my cable modem. The built-in browser is pretty darn good. I'm able to use it to get to GMail and Yahoo! Mail. In fact I've found it works well on all but very few of the sites I visit on a regular basis. The phone application has a nice shortcuts function that can be used both for speed dial and to launch most other aplications quickly and easily. The launcher has been upgraded to handle applications installed on an SD flash card as well as the internal memory, so I no longer need a special application for that.

On the hardware side, there are several nice upgrades as well. First the screen is a bright 320x320, which supports QVGA apps with room above and below for menus and such. The camera is not great, but greatly improved. It is usable now, rather than a waste of space. The battery is removable, and I've taken to carrying a spare rather than pulling out the charger on particularly heavy days.

I only have one complaint. The keyboard functions are slightly different than the Treo 600. I'm accustomed to pressing the far right power key in order to turn the screen back on during a call. Now that button also ends a call, so I've accidentally hung up on some people before I broke the habit.

All the palm products benefit from a large library of free and low cost software. I had been running a mobile content application called AvantGo but the web browser is good enough that I may drop it. I'm looking into various MP3 and video players as well, but will go down that road once I get headphones. The coolest application I've found so far is Kmaps, which delivers Google Maps directly to my phone. I also enjoy card games, and have purchased about a dozen from Seahorse Software, including Euchre.

There are several IM choices at several price points. VeriChat is the standard full featured choice, but costs $25 up front then $20 per year. I don't use IM very much, so I instead installed Agile Messenger 2.0 Beta. VeriChat can run in the background while using other applications, but Agile is a foreground only application. Agile has the advantage of being free (as in beer), however, which is the right price for the occassional user.

BlueTooth is functional, but not perfect. Others have complained that the Treo 650 is prone to static with many headsets. I can't disagree. My wife recently got the Motorola RAZR V3c with matching H500 headset and that combination outperforms the Treo 650 and Treo headset. It is still better than the wired headset, though, and I won't go back. I chose the Treo headset because it uses the Treo charger and I didn't want to carry around yet another wall wart in my bag, but I might have had better performance if I had studied all the reviews and chose a different headset. Voice dialing is not available built in, but there are some 3rd party apps that provide this.

Dial-up networking is available natively via BlueTooth as well - reducing the need to use PDANet. PDANet, however, still has the advantage of being able to connect the phone and PC via the sync cable for better speed and battery life. The Treo 650 is still a 1xRTT device, so it isn't any faster than the 600. The 700p should support EvDO.

A note about chargers: Sprint made a decision to sell a universal charger that charges most off the phones sold by Sprint. They provide a small adapter that connects the universal charger to the Treo 650 power port. It was easier to find a Sprint universal car charger and an iGo power tip for Sprint at my local Radio Shack than get the "native" Treo versions of both.

As a final note, the stability of the Treo 650 is a step up from the 600 and, from my observations of the Windows Mobile users I know, better than that as well. I've experienced a few hangs or resets while installing and removing various combination of software, but hangs or resets in normal use have been rare. Most of them have been related to using the web browser to open a page that downloaded too much content, causing an out-of-memory condition. The phone always recovers just fine. Unlike the 600, the Treo 650 is smart enough to automatically reactivate the phone if the phone was turned on before a self-triggered reboot. The 600 woud sometimes reboot leaving the phone turned off - and one got to enjoy a quiet day until realizing that all the incoming calls were going straight to voicemail.

A note about service... I'm using Sprint and I've been happy with it. In the US, the CDMA service providers tend to have better coverage and better data plans than the GSM providers, and that certainly won't change until WCDMA/UMTS replaces GSM. The two national CDMA providers are Sprint and Verizon. Verizon has a better coverage area but Sprint has a generally better rate structure. Verizon also has a reputation among the smartphone community for modifying their phones, disabling certain features. My usage varies greatly month to month, from a few hundred minutes to a few thousand. Under the Sprint "Fair and Flexible" plan, I only pay a small increment for blocks of minutes over my base amount. I never get stuck with a several hundred dollar bill because I went 500 minute over my plan. Also, with unlimited roaming I get voice service on the more extensive Verizon network.

In summary, the Treo 650 is an excellent smartphone. It is very functional, has broad software support, and does everything I need it do. It suffers primarily from an undersized memory, which can be somewhat mitigated by using a large flash card. Voice dialing is also a feature that my wife's RAZR does so well and makes me jealous. A better BlueTooth capability would also be nice. I wish I had upgraded a year ago. I'm extremely satisifed, though I will probably upgrade to Treo 700p once it has been out for 6 months or so. The larger memory and EvDO support are too tempting, but I'll wait for the price to come down a little and the initial bugs to be worked out.

I held back, wanting someone else to be the first to publish details of our little get-together Sol finnally did so, and now I feel a little more comfortable telling the story.

I was a bit reluctant to be first. I still blown away by how close I feel to Sol, Blinder, and btlzu2. I'm honestly a little afraid of betraying a secret, that speaking of it too loudly would somehow cause it to disintigrate like a very old piece of lace found in an old trunk in the attic.

But that isn't all; I also have a sense of particular inadequacy. Of the four of us, I am the only one who is not an artist. I am not a musician, nor a poet. I can not illustrate, nor can I write prose. It simply isn't in me.

(Don't get me wrong: I'm not lacking for self esteem. I'm a damn good engineer. My talents are simply different.)

Regardless, I do have this sense of particular inadequacy. Why would I attempt to provide a narrative of the evening, when I am likely the least capable of capturing the textures? Better to let someone else. Now that the ice has been broken, however, let me comment from the peanut gallery...

Originally, these two invited blinder and i out to dinner, but i managed to coax them into coming by instead, so i'd have more spoons to offer, being at home.

This actually caught me a little off guard. My interaction with the rest of zoo.pl has always been a little more distant. Btlzu2 was actually the first with whom I shared telephone conversation, and that was a job interview. I like you all, but until now I never took significant steps to move my relationship with any of you beyond the realm of slashdot.

I was surprised that you would invite a couple of "strangers" into your home. There are lots of weirdos on the internet, you know. :) Had I known ahead of time that you had a much deeper relationship with btlzu2, I would not have been so surprised.

The RevMike is a charming- and i mean VERY charming- guy, who alternates between quiet and loud. I'll get to that. For now, just know that he doesn't show up without charm and grace. You immediately get the sense that he's the grownup in the room, which must be weird for him but is a profound relief for everybody else. We blinked, smiled, and thought, "At least there's a grown-up along."

But not the stuffy kind of grownup. This is the kind who can get you into trouble you NEVER could have thought of on your own!!!

If I had been drinking when I read that, it would have come through my nose. ME! A GROWN-UP? I can't dispute the trouble part.

Anyway, we sat around the table and ate and talked for the first half of the night. First we had cheese, chips, and pesto. Sol made a delicious dinner. We talked much about others in the zoo. Blinder showed us a picture he has of ellem playing guitar wearing the wild expression of a mass murderer. He left his laptop open across the room and I could feel ellem watching me from the corner of his eye. Sol and Blinder assured me he was a very nice guy, and that the police never found enough evidence, but I still needed them to close the laptop.

Revmike is... loud, and quiet. THat is to say, he's a wiseass who can fit in around here, but he is also observant, well-balanced, and thinks a lot more than he says. There's a sophistication about him that isn't about trying to be clever, it's about thought. And i like that. He's the sweet kind of person who also seems to get things done- and he does it in a discreet way so that no one realises who's really guiding the events of the evening.

He was the first to take pictures. The first to share pictures, the first to share contact info, the first to introduce audio and recording, and he did it so smoothly you wouldn't have realised that the ideas were all coming from him. It's very remarkable. Good leaders are hardly noticed for it at all- i like this guy.

After dinner, Sol served us dark chocolate and cherry vodka. Btlzu2 and gluttonously finished the bottle. :)

Then, however, we prevailed on Sol and Blinder to share their talents. Sol read her story "Harold and the Dragon" for us, and Blinder showed us some samples of sketches that Sol had made of teacup dragons. They played some music they had written and recorded together, including a song called "Accelerant". Sol also sang a acapela rendition of their song "Tokyo Flat" I attempted to record all this using my mobile phone's camcorder capability, and failed at every turn. When my phone locked up and needed to be rebooted, I even lost the six minute interview which should have become the foundation of "SolemnDragon: Behind the Music". :(

You still need to send me that recording of Tokyo Flat.

I don't think of myself as a leader. I'm pretty sure I am not. I encouraged everyone to do things they wanted to do anyway. We took pictures using our camera phones then beamed them to each other's palm pilots. It doesn't take lots of persuassion to get a bunch of geeks playing with their gadgets.:)

And the performance stuff - you yourself admit that you love an audience. When someone is passionate about something - like you are with your art - it doesn't take much to get them to share it.

It is more accurate to turn it around. Sol, that nickname is so very appropriate for you, because other naturally make you the center. Your warmth, enthusiasm, passion make you the sun in any solar system you occupy. Btlzu2 and I encourage you to take that center place because we enjoy your warmth and glow. A king may tell the sun to rise, but if he gives the order just before dawn, he really isn't showing much leadership.

One last thing: OMG!!111!!! PONYS!!!11!1!1!