morrowlife

Today’s picture is an opportunity for my Esteemed Readers to guess what I had for dinner tonight. Sorry, you don’t get three guesses. Two would probably be too many. I’ll be checking the comments later. Be the first to guess!

Landed in Florida a little before noon today. The plane trip was uneventful and relaxing, although I had to ride in – gasp! – coach. It was a US Airways plane, so my frequent flyer status was meaningless. I experienced the usual levels of US Airways service, meaning, of course, that the service was lousy. There was one polite flight attendant and the counter agent who took my bag was very nice. The gate agent was incredibly rude to everyone, so I felt lucky to escape her notice. Two good things, though – my suitcase didn’t get lost and the pilot made an outstandingly soft landing. I congratulated him for it on my way out the door and he seemed pleased that somebody noticed.

I talked the lady at Avis out of a convertible. It’s a Chrysler Sebring – an old guy’s convertible, but I suppose that might be appropriate in my case. The weather today was simply perfect, so I enjoyed some top-down motoring. I took a couple of pictures of the car this evening and might try working one in to the blog soon.

Spent the afternoon at Astrotech. I was the only person there from our team, so it was very quiet in the office. Not a bad thing. Things will get busy tomorrow and then frantic the day after.

I still haven’t finished Where Wizards Stay Up Late (still enjoying it – more later), but Reader Number Four and I went to the library on Saturday and I checked out a couple of books on consulting, which just might be my ticket to fame and fortune, assuming my current plan of entering sweepstakes doesn’t work out. The one I brought on this trip is called How to Start a Freelance Consulting Business, which I think is an admirably descriptive title. I haven’t even started it yet, so I’ll reserve comments until I have something to comment about (yes, I know – that’s never stopped me before; you’re so obvious). I’m adding it to the book club and will let you know how it comes out, although most of my readers will find it doesn’t exactly apply to their circumstances. I predict a happy ending.

Rather than reading on the plane, I listened to actual music on my iPod today. I almost never do that, and there are 172+ songs on it, most of which I like a lot, so I just spent the two and a half hours vegetating. It was quite relaxing. I need to get back to podcasts soon – I have about 48 hours’ worth of material on there, and more coming all the time – but I’m still going through a few songs as I write this. Earth, Wind, and Fire‘s Got to Get You Into My Life (song 121 of 172) is playing right now. Very nice.

I also brought several movies on this trip. I have a mini Cary Grant film festival, consisting of Father Goose, His Girl Friday, and Arsenic and Old Lace. Then there’s Bob Hope‘s The Ghost Breakers, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly in Rear Window, Judy Holliday‘s Born Yesterday, William Powell and Myrna Loy in Song of the Thin Man (the one I couldn’t watch last week because I had forgotten to finalize it on my DVD recorder), and one movie I recorded recently but forgot to write its title on the disk. I’m sure it’s a really good movie, though.

I’m in the Marriott Courtyard hotel for a couple of days, after which I’ll be moving over to the Cape Winds. It’s really tempting to just stay in the Courtyard and accumulate Marriott points, but I sure enjoy staying in the much larger condos with their oceanfront view, living rooms, and kitchens. There’s a Marriott Residence Inn opening in a couple of weeks here. I’ll have to check it out.

Well, I need to post this and get to bed, so I’ll say good night. I already miss Readers One, Two, and Four. Take care.

As mentioned earlier, I didn’t get to actually see the Trier Karneval parade – I got there just a few minutes after it ended. Instead, I got to see (and walk through) a town square full of this stuff. Apparently, part of the tradition is throwing all the trash on the ground. Amazingly, they had it all cleaned up and looking German again within just a few hours.

I’m listening to Haydn’s Symphony Number 94 in G major (out of I don’t know how many, but at least 104 and that’s a lot of symphonies), performed by the Academy of Ancient Music, as I write this. I borrowed it from the library and imported it into iTunes. Very pleasant – not too heavy but sufficiently complex for good listening.

A few words on some recent books. Eniac was truly enjoyable. There’s enough technical depth for a savvy reader to understand how the world’s first digital computer was designed and put together, but not so much that a non-savvy reader’s head would swim. Explanations are clear and concise. More importantly, though, the story isn’t really as much a book about a computer as it is a book about the fascinating people who designed and built the thing, their efforts in getting it built, their frustrations at seeing their invention co-opted by others, and their inability to turn their invention into a viable business. I was fascinated by Eckert‘s and Mauchly‘s faults along with their genius, and really came to feel like I knew them, along with the fascinating people around them. The author’s viewpoint that they were continually ripped off by people with questionable motives comes through, but it’s a useful counterpoint to the many other published accounts of computing’s early days that discount E&M’s contributions. All in all, it’s a good, quick read (228 pages with extensive footnotes and bibliographic references) that should fascinate computer enthusiasts (link alert – I got a 95) and human-interest lovers alike. I recommend it.

A few weeks ago, I started Shut Up, He Explained, by Ring Lardner. It’s a collection of Lardner’s short humor, edited by Babette Rosmond and Henry Morgan. I’m most of the way through the first story, and I must say that I’m not really enjoying it. I worked on it for a few days and then put it down about two weeks ago and haven’t been able to get myself to pick it back up. Maybe I should just skip to the second story and see if it is better than the first.

The other one I’m reading right now is Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon. It’s about the development of computer networking in the 70s. As with Eniac, it’s more about personalities than technical content, which is just fine. History is about people, not things, after all. I get more of a feeling with this one, though, that the authors don’t really understand the science. Still, it’s worth a look.

Actually, there are a few electronic books I’ve been reading too. I just finished re-reading My Man Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse. As with all his other work, it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s a riot from the first page to the last. Wodehouse is able to make upper-class English twits not only sympathetic, but positively loveable. Highly recommended – read anything by Wodehouse you can get your hands on. And it’s free! Check out Gutenberg (link alert – scroll way down to find the right guy).

My trip to the Cape has moved up by a day, so I’m now leaving on Monday morning. It’s too bad, but the Paris trip’s delay has given me back six more days this month, so I guess I don’t mind spending one more day in Florida. Our spacecraft couldn’t be shipped on the 8th because of a conflict with another spacecraft, so we moved our shipment up by a day. I’m really looking forward to getting out there and getting the spacecraft launched.

I am absolutely committed to having some lame version of the book club up before the weekend is over. It will probably just be a list of recently-read, currently-in-progress, and future-reading-list books over there on the right, but it will at least be something. Have a great weekend.

Here’s another artsy one. That was sure a productive photography day. Thanks to Readers Number One and Four for their excellent unrehearsed (not to mention unaware) posing work. All the Trier pictures are on my other computer, so look for more of them later.

I’m back from Germany/Luxembourg, one day early. Our meeting went so well that we finished late in the afternoon yesterday. We had a little banquet last night at the Bitburger Wirtshaus in Trier, which is a pretty good informal place. I had an excellent sampler plate with lots of traditional German meats, potatoes, and vegetables (some of which I actually ate).

Came home today in first class, so I can’t complain. I still have two more systemwide upgrades on United, so that wasn’t my last first-class trip. The traffic getting out of Washington and then through Baltimore was pretty heavy, and there was some light rain in Pennsylvania, but it was above freezing all the way home and I heard a lot of podcasts. Watched Shadow of the Thin Man and North by Northwest on my computer on the way home. The Thin Man movies are all major favorites of mine (not just for certain reasons), and North by Northwest goes down with several other Cary Grant movies as some of the classiest filmmaking ever.

I also finished Eniac during the trip. More on that tomorrow.

We delayed our March Paris trip into May. This is a good thing – I had too much travel scheduled this month. Time for bed. Hasta manana.