IceSamurai.net

I’m currently in the process of migrating my old website into this WordPress blog. Most of it will be easy with copy-and-paste, particularly since I kept my old site essentially as a running blog.

• Angie Everhart
• Claudia Black (Farscape)
• Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica [2004]) [ascii]
• Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica [2004]) – masked (for work computers
• Imogen Bailey #1 [ascii]
• Imogen Bailey #2 [ascii]
• Jolene Blalock [ascii]
• Kate Beckinsale [ascii]
• Mac OS X – Think Linux
• Natalie Portman [ascii]

While working at Student Support Services, I noticed that we spent an awful amount of man hours compiling statistics to report to the Dept. of Education. This I saw was at least twice a year, and created a large amount of stress for the director and associate directors. Coming from a computer background, I figured I could whip something up that would help out.

Spring 2006 — Now my goal is to revitalize it and make it into a desktop or web based program with a full fledged RDBMS to back it. A few things I’m planning on for this implementation: Java, Java and more Java. I recently started at a new company which allows me to finally get into Java development full time, so I figured I’d start putting it to good use. Besides, I need a hobby/project for when I’m at home.

Back in 2002, I messed around with the idea of building this thing in Visual Basic (a horrible language as I found out), but still, Visual Studio .NET gave me a few ideas.

The best part of this project is it can use any number of technologies very well, Java technologies of course!

• Java Web Services — allows me to build other client applications that allow for distributed access to the main server application.
• RDBMS (database) — Apache Derby (default database, other DBMSs may be plugged in)
• Web presentation layer — Apache Struts / Tiles. Using it now at work, loving it. But perhaps I’ll look at Java Server Faces (JSF), or if I’m feeling really up to it, OpenLaszlo (XML-based markup that can be compiled out to Flash or DHTML).
• Object-to-Relational Mapping — I’m looking at Hibernate (from JBoss [now RedHat]) and Apache Torque right now, I just want to stay away from an ORM that relies heavily on Java Reflection (it’s quite a dawg from what I hear).
• Project Management tools: Apache Maven. Heard great things about it, integrated library repository, Ant, the works!

At this rate, maybe this project will be entirely made up of and created by Apache projects. Later on I’ll probably look at developing an actual desktop client, I’ll definitely have to build a Mac-based client (I use OS X, and I know a lot of schools still use a lot of Apple hardware, particularly now with OS X being Unix-based.

Summer 1998 — My first try was an application built with Perl w/ the CGI.pm module, it was a web based form for tutors to enter in attendance records. It had it’s flaws, first off, it was using Perl. Don’t get me wrong, I love Perl, but I have since fallen in love with other programming languages that are better suited to web development, of course I may give mod_perl a try just for the fun of it and see if I can recreate this application from memory… lost all my source code. It proved quite useful, well, until the server it was on went kaput!  The “server” was actually just an old computer running Linux, I actually had to replace the motherboard on it because it wasn’t Y2k compliant.

The mondern workforce is getting shafted. There are no national holidays, observed by all companies (like Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, etc.) between 1 Janurary and Memorial Day (last week of May). Sure, some companies, most government agencies get Presidents’ Day, maybe MLKJr. Day, but that’s it.

What about the rest of us? We’re up shit creek.

Solution: St. Patrick’s Day (March 17^th-ish? I’m guessing here, I usually have a huge hangover on the 18^th), official national holiday.

Everybody gets to be Irish for a day. Most of the population probably has Irish ancestry (including me) anyway. Hey, they’re Catholic, and they drink… a lot… and what does drinking and a propensity for unsafe sex lead to? Apparently the Guiness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland is like Disney World for adults (and/or drunks).

Another holiday: December 5^th. No, it’s not Saint Nicolas Tag, that’s German. December 5^th is to commemorate and honor the only good or positive action that Congress has ever done. They got off their asses and passed the 21^st Amendment to repeal Prohibition (18^th Amendment).

Always liked E.E. Cummings’ poetry… it’s very interesting… that’s why it’s listed here.

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like

greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

(it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)