Traveling Pedagogue

Blog Moved!

2011-08-14T16:25:00.001-07:00

This blog has moved, and all contents copied, to http://www.flat5.net/.

This blogger.com (blogspot) blog will be deleted in August 2012.

Please adjust all links hereto to the new location at http://www.flat5.net/.

Thank you!

Not Prepared

2010-05-11T11:59:00.007-07:00

There is a country, which I will allow to remain nameless, that receives a lot of "off-shoring" of software engineering from US companies. I teach a fair number of engineers from that country and, for whatever reason, I have to say they seem to be grossly under qualified. By and large, in the classroom they ask few questions -- that could be a cultural thing, I admit -- and in the labs they have more problems than others in following the detailed instructions -- again, that could be a cultural issue.

I say "cultural issue" because I know, for example, that the Japanese educational system is quite different from that of the US. And I've learned that students from Japan almost never ask questions -- because to do so in their educational system is taken to indicate they have not done their homework. It admits ignorance, so students trained to the Japanese tradition do not ask questions.

This other country about which I am writing, which is now obviously not Japan, may have something in their educational system or culture that leads to the poor performance of these students in our classes. Maybe there is something in their upbringing that discourages the asking of questions as with the Japanese. And perhaps they have learned a style of behavior that discourages, or makes unusually challenging, the following of written, detailed instructions. And it's also quite likely that a language barrier also exists that makes it all the more difficult for them when taking a class written and spoken in English.

But regardless of the reasons, it is very clear to me as an instructor that, after class is finished, these individuals are not going to be able to use our product with much success.

That's the down-side and, for the individual engineers, I feel sorry.

But it is also true that for US companies who "off-shore" to these same individuals, they are going to have to pay several times over for that work because, well, because it isn't going to work and they're going to have to pay to have it done again, and maybe again after that.

For that, I'm not sorry.

Many companies have learned that some things can be "off-shored" while other things cannot, or at least not without additional costs that remove any advantage of doing so. Those companies have learned that, for the highest quality in critical items, they should hire the best expertise they can get.

So on the other hand, I don't feel bad that the area of expertise that I teach -- which is often software used in the most stringent and critical of environments such as flying an aircraft with passengers on board or traveling between planets of our solar system -- for that kind of expertise, I don't particularly mind that companies are finding they must use US-based engineers.

I'm a US engineer and I've been out of work when it went "off-shore" in the first decade of 2000.

That work is coming back more and more, and I don't mind it one bit that the companies have learned this "the hard way".

You get what you pay for.

Software Breaks the Hardware

2010-04-30T09:58:00.017-07:00

IBM-360 Model 50 Front Panel

My first programming job was for the American Express Space Bank at the end of the 1960s. "Space Bank" was a relatively short-lived hotel and motel reservation system run by the credit card people.

A mainframe computer, an IBM-360 Model 50, contained the database of lodgings and hosted a network of low-speed teletype-like devices connecting the human reservation agents with the hotels.

But the job of keeping track of all the rooms and also communicating with those hundreds, later thousands, of teletype devices was proving to be too much for the mainframe. The decision was made to off-load the telecommunications and that's where the group I was in entered the picture.

Prior to that point, I had only written a single program for the company, in an archaic language called COBOL, and I'd hated it. In school we'd written a lot of things for different computers in assembler language. And we'd also studied the hardware and how it worked. My degree was in electronics and the relatively simple gates and latches used in digital computers were a no-brainer for me.

Yes, it is accurate to say I'm a geek. I really do understand digital computers.

So when the opportunity arose to switch to the group taking on this interesting new idea of front-ending a mainframe, I jumped at the chance.

We took some Honeywell minicomputers (DDP-516 and others) and wrote everything from the ground up to take over the teletype communications and interact with the IBM mainframe only when needed.

We called the minicomputer's software the Red Baron Operating System for reasons that I'll explain in another installment. But by today's use of terminology, it really was not an "operating system." Indeed, it was barely more than a kernel, and a darn small one at that.

The 516 we started with had 16K words with 16 bits per word. Everything was written in assembler language and, with only that small amount of memory available, we had to resort to several "tricks" that would be frowned upon today. For example, if a constant was needed somewhere in the program, it was common to look at the values of the instructions to see if one of them had the needed value and, if so, refer to the location containing that instruction rather than setting aside a whole word just for that constant.

Also, some instructions could be "OR'd together" with other instructions since they used different parts of the computer. That way two instructions could sometimes be done at the same time. The "boot loader" we keyed-in through the front panel was extremely limited in size and used both of these tricks to keep its size to an absolute minimum. (Forty years later I still remember some of that code!)

All the development programs ran on the same machine. During development, we would punch cards with the source code and then load the assembler program onto the machine and feed in the punch cards. The cards were run through twice for one assembly. If you wanted a hard-copy listing, that was a third pass that printed the source code along with the assigned instruction and data addresses.

When everything was ready, that same machine went "on-line" by loading in the object code, starting it and connecting with the mainframe. My part was the mainframe connection and I remember an extraordinary number of frustrating hours spent in debugging until the vendor (finally) produced some adequate documentation for the odd device that cross-connected mainframe and minicomputer.

Honeywell DDP-516 Minicomputer
with Teletype Model 33 ASR

We had two of those 516s, one on-line and one that was available for development. The development machine was also available to take over should the on-line machine fail.

And when we first went on-line, within a couple of days it did exactly that. It failed.

Back at that time, computers used core memory. Each "core" was a donut-shaped piece of magnetic material and it held one bit of information. Each core could be magnetized with the field going clockwise or counter-clockwise. One direction meant the bit was a "1" while the other direction meant "0". The computer programs and all their data were stored in an array of these tiny cores -- 32,768 times 17 cores.

That extra core, number 17, was for "parity" and helped identify when one of the other cores in a group of 16 broke.

Several days after going on-line, the 516 failed. The stand-by machine was started and placed on-line while the hardware engineer from Honeywell -- Stan was his name -- came out and ran a diagnostic program. It said there was a parity error in the broken machine. That meant one of the little cores wasn't working.

Stan called the factory and ordered a replacement.

A few days later the replacement core array arrived and Stan installed it. Stan deemed the machine repaired and ready for use.

And that was lucky because within a handful or two of days, the second machine that had gone on-line to replace the broken one, failed. And again, it was a parity error.

The machines were swapped and another core array ordered.

And a week later, you guessed it, another parity error in the then on-line machine.

We'd had these computers for months while we wrote and tested, for a few hours at a time, the software. They had worked flawlessly during all that time without a single problem.

But now it seemed that, regardless of which machine was on-line, the mere fact of it being on-line guaranteed it would fail within a few days or weeks.

Stan, the Honeywell engineer, said he maintained computers for several other companies in the area and he had never before ever seen a parity error on this model, much less three, and in quick succession.

I remember standing outside his on-site office one day with the computer listing of the RBOS software in my arms. I wanted to ask him a question about some now-forgotten detail but Stan was on the phone with the factory and I had to wait.

"I don't understand it," I could hear him saying. "I've got three core arrays here on the table in front of me and all of them have a bad memory location."

"And what's really weird," he went on, "is that all three have failed at the exact same memory address: 1534."

Overhearing this, naturally I looked up that address in the listing.

It was the instruction that the RBOS uses when there's nothing to do. It was a "jump to self" instruction.

Magnetic Cores

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_memory
(This image file is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution
ShareAlike 3.0 License.)

For the next part of the story, there's some technical detail that's essential.

Core memory, as I mentioned, is magnetized in one direction or the other to signify a "1" or a "0".

But to read whether it's a "1" or a "0", you have to try and magnitize it to a "0" -- if it was previously a "0", you get a small "bump" of electrical current in what's called the "sense wire". But if the core was a "1", then you get a much bigger "bump" in the sense wire. The electronics figure out which is which by the size of the bump, a "1" or a "0".

But a side effect is that, "reading" a memory location actually erases it so you have to then go back and write the correct value back in. (That also meant that "read" operations took about twice as long as "write" operations.)

Although made from very high quality materials to exacting standards, the little core donuts were not 100% efficient. To write a bit into one of the donuts, or to read it out and then re-write the value back in, you had to use slightly more energy than the donut would store in its magnetic field. A little bit of energy was lost, and it turned into a tiny amount of heat. And that heat had to go somewhere.

So, back to the story.

There I am standing outside Stan's office with the computer listing in my hands looking at the "jump to self" instruction and thinking about that tiny amount of excess heat. I knew that, when the computer had no real work to do, it would be "idle" and reading out that same memory location millions and millions of times over several seconds. Each time it did, a little bit of energy turned into heat, and that heat was absorbed by the little core donut.

But when the computer got busy doing something and was no longer idle, the donuts at that "jump to self" memory location weren't used and they would have time to cool off.

As I'm sure you know, when most physical objects change temperature, they expand or contract.

They flex.

And when things are flexed, they fatigue and, in some cases, they eventually break.

So, I went back to the other software engineers and explained my budding theory of how the software was breaking the hardware by accessing that one memory location millions of times and heating it up, and then doing something else and allowing it to cool off, and the repeated expansion and contractions were eventually fatiguing the donut cores at that one memory address more than any other and causing one of the cores to crack.

That, I explained, is what's causing the parity errors and, because of that one instruction "jump to self" that is unique to the on-line software, that's why we're only seeing that failing in the on-line system.

So I proposed, "Let's change the idle to a loop of four instructions: no operation, no operation, no operation, and jump back to the first no operation." ("No operation" is a dummy instruction typically spelled NOP and, as the name indicates, it doesn't do anything.)

The other engineers were skeptical but intrigued so we made the change and at the next opportunity, put the change into the on-line system but didn't tell anyone outside our little software group for fear they'd laugh.

But there was never another parity error.

Stan, if you're out there somewhere reading this, now you know: The software really did break the hardware!

Poor Sod!

2010-04-17T16:17:00.005-07:00

What follows is an email to an associate about to travel to Cedar Rapids Iowa from which I just returned. He's a martini man, by the way; Loves his martinis.

Dear name_withheld,

Bring your own food (and martini mixings) with you to Iowa.

And plan on either fasting or abandoning meals after no more than a spoonful.

Truly, if you expect nothing more than nationally known chains with, at best, mediocre cooks, you won't be too disappointed. But looking for more than that, you'll be crying in your martini and it'll undoubtedly be a piss poor one at that.

We're talkin' wholesome, mid-america, rail center of the continent with millions of animals on their way to slaughter houses. (Ever wonder what's left in mid-america after Omaha Beef ships all the good cuts everywhere else? Well, you're about to find out.)

Envision pigs, sheep, corn and soy in every direction for five hundred miles. Today's futures will headline the 5:00AM news and get more air time than how much rain the land *isn't* going to get today, and that will be followed by a brief traffic report to help you avoid the tractors moving from one field to another. Something like a pancake breakfast at St. Andrews Catholic Church may lead off the "real news" when they finally get to it. For national news, that's what they call the doings way out west in Des Moines.

Cedar Rapids downtown was flooded two years ago and, as far as food is concerned, it's still sunk. (Nobody knows that the Cedar River actually has some rapids not very far from downtown nor how that might be connected to the name of the town. Hello?)

But, alas, I hear you're on-hook for a visit to there in a couple of weeks and, let me say this, dear friend, we will all look up to your memory, taking one for the team like that.

"Good man, that chap, what?"

"They said his lip never quivered sipping that pond scum in the goblet they served him."

"Solid Old School. What a mate!"

Here's my brain dump with the "avoids" first.

Avoid: Biaggi's - Very pricey, snooty and terribly ignorant servers -- they live in Iowa, you know -- and anything from mediocre down to just plain burnt food. This place is only for those marketing and sales types who want to impress clients with how much they can spend while not wincing at the taste.

Avoid: Vito's, 4100 River Ridge Dr NE, Cedar Rapids IA 52402, http://www.vitoson42nd.com/, sports bar, pizza etc -- Someone sucked me into this one. I wanted to take him to the shooting range later and persuade him to hold the target while I shot at it but didn't, much to my later distress when he suggested another place that was "much, much better," the Irish Democrat Pub and Grille.

Avoid: Irish Democrat Pub and Grille, 1st Ave and 32nd St (NE), Cedar Rapids, IA 319-364-9896, looked promising with Guinness and such "on tap" but apparently coming from rotting kegs presumably bobbing in the Cedar River and connected to the restaurant underground by five miles of lead-lined pipes. The BBQ ribs tasted the same the following day each time I burped them up again and again. The flash-burnt formerly frozen vegetables ... Well, let's say no more about them.

I *did* find two restaurants worth repeat visits. Indeed, after sampling many places that looked worse than the above (and determining that my eye is spot-on in this regard), I ended up at the two restaurants that follow for lunch and dinner on all possible occasions. (In other words, considering Cedar Rapids Iowa, these two are -- I hate to risk saying it -- not that bad. Some might even say "good" but, well, that may only be in comparison with the rest of the town's offerings.)

Good: Siam Ville, 3635 1st Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids Iowa, 52402, http://siamville.com/default.aspx, I was there twice recently and twice again on my previous trip to the area. Your customers will know it and some may want to join you. It's quite good. I've had half a dozen different dishes from their menu and enjoyed them all.

Good to Excellent: R. G. Books Lounge and Vino's Ristaurant, 3611 1st Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52402, 319-363-7550, dinner only, http://vinosristorante.com/. Expect $40-50 bill for a drink and an entre. The servings tend to be large so that'll probably be enough food. The wine bar is fairly good in whites but avoid the Cabernets -- but I know you're a martini man and I suggest you start at the bar and size up the bartender's credentials before risking it. The servers are pretty good but don't forget you're in Cedar Rapids Iowa -- try not to expect much; it'll be safer that way. The calimari appetizer was excellent but, with the entre, I had too much food. Beware: they'll burn the garlic in most dishes -- you might try asking for the garlic "underdone" but I'm not sure that'll help so you might want to avoid such dishes altogether. Avoid the tira misu for desert; it was missing key ingredients such as the espresso that would've offset the syrupy sweetness. But the steak was excellent. And the pasta just about perfect. Even the seafood -- for the middle of the country -- was actually very nice. I was particularly impressed with the scallops. And they know how to cook a chicken, too.

These two good-to-excellent places are less than 100' apart. You can park in the same spot for either.

Breakfast is a lost cause in Cedar Rapids Iowa. Utterly hopeless. Don't even try. Bring bagels in your suitcase as well as coffee from Seattle if you can.

We'll post your picture on the shelf and put an empty martini glass next to it to toast your memory.

"Here's to 'im, boys."

"Bloody awful way to go."

"Poor sod!"

Once Upon A Time

2010-03-24T12:44:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, there were three RTOSes: VRTX, pSOS and VxWorks. VRTX and pSOS were written in assembler language, for assembler language programmers, and for systems that contained nothing but assembler language. They were "real" RTOSes for "real men" who carried processor reference cards in their shirt pockets and could divide 0x53662 by 05314 in their head.

VxWorks, on the other hand, gazed off to what it thought was the future, and what it could see was "C" (pun intended). And along with "C" it also saw Unix.

But that Unix was not the Linux we know today. That Unix -- Linux -- would not even be born for another decade.

No, the Unix that VxWorks saw on the horizon was the process-model of BSD and SystemV Unix.

Little VxWorks knew that was the future.

And so little VxWorks wanted to be like that.

So little VxWorks clothed itself in a C language wrapper so programs written in C would want to be near it.

And little VxWorks said, "Come, look, see what I have to offer!"

And the C programs looked and saw "exit()" and "environment variables" and "printf()" and they shouted with glee!

"Here is a home for us. Here is someone who understands what we want."

And so the C programs found a home with VxWorks.

Even so, however, VxWorks could not deny her genes. She was related to, not only in time but also in inspiration, to those other two RTOSes.

So VxWorks had "tasks" instead of "processes" and, at least in her early days, she would say, "We don't do processes because the memory and system call overhead are just too awful with this old clunky hardware."

And many years would pass as VxWorks grew from child to youth and then through her teen years.

Today, after several decades of dealing with the uncertainties of life, of surviving the ups and downs in her life, and of learning to adapt herself to an ever-evolving and complex world of shifting priorities, needs and economies, she is a full-fledged adult.

Today, VxWorks shifts her look and demeanor to many different environments. Sometimes she will be seen wearing a blue collar work suit and tool belt. Other times she may be costumed in a flight suit and white silk scarf that she drapes over the cockpit's edge to flutter in the slip stream.

At other times, she may act in more of an executive role, overseeing and sometimes chastising other operating systems that come to her for a safe and secure environment.

Today, VxWorks is an adult with all the complexities and dimensions that have accrued to her over the decades. Her roots and genes come from both the RTOS and the Unix world.

She is both, and she is neither.

In-transit to Dallas

2009-09-21T05:25:00.003-07:00

Assuming flights are on time today, I'll be at the customer's location late this afternoon to re-image the disk drives of our lab systems (via Ghost) with the correct contents for tomorrow's class.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be "in the classroom" days before heading home again on Thursday.

Then, Friday will be post-class processing with student-written course evaluations to enter, an expense report to complete and the usual end-of-week time card and status report.

All in all, that's a pretty light week.

Teaching a two-day class is nice because the travel days usually fall within the week unlike our much more common four-day classes when instructors must travel either the Sunday before or the Saturday after depending on which four of the five day work week the customer wants for "the class".

There is no "comp time" in this job so those days, like my recently sacrificed Labor Day Holiday and its following Saturday, both of which were "in transit" days for a four-day class during that four-day work week, are just part of the job.

It's a paycheck, gang.

I've been without.

It's a paycheck.

8 of 11

2009-04-24T06:06:00.001-07:00

Today is a travel day, driving from Huntsville to Nashville and then flying home on Southwest.

But before that I must get three weeks of travel receipts on its way to Alameda because there are no reimbursements until after they've seen them. The on-line expense reports are all in and approved but they won't cut the check -- or do the automatic deposit -- before the paperwork is done.

[Sigh.] Ok, so where's the nearest Kinko's / FedEx store?

Looking back, it's been a good two weeks here. Two classes of sixteen, the maximum we book, means a solid contribution to the department's bottom line. And with a weekend on the company nickel instead of flying home on Saturday and back to the same place the next day, I had time to enjoy myself while catching a few extra winks. Yeah, that was a real help.

And the restaurant list has been tended with a few dead plants removed and a couple of new ones added.

Worth Another Visit
- Jackson Family Restaurant, 234 Lime Quarry Rd, Madison Al 35758, breakfast and lunch only
- Cajun Cafe, 704 Hwy 231, Lacey's Spring, AL 35754, a memorable dive, lots of gumbos to sample
- Edo, in Madison AL, surprisingly good Japanese, hispanic sushi chefs (who were very good), and a full meal in a simple bowl of ramen
- Saigon Vietnamese, 8760 Madison Blvd, Suites P and Q, Madoson, AL 35758, great BBQ pork with vermicelli, spring rolls good but wrappers a tad on the rubbery side
- Vinotini, tapas lounge next to Pauli's, 7143 Hwy 72 West, SW corner Slaughter Rd and Univeristy Dr., excellent wine list, but pricey at $30-50 per person depending on what you get
- Thomas Bar-B-Q, 7929 Hwy 72 W, Madison AL, slow service but worth the wait -- the hot sauce on the table is wonderful
- Surin, 975 Airport Rd, Huntsville AL 35802, very good Thai, also known for their martinis
- Oh' Bryans Family Steak House, 100 Plaza Blvd, Madison AL, downright honest steaks if you order from the high end of the menu (the cheaper cuts get many downturned thumbs from locals)
Don't Bother
- Greenbriar's, the old place, 27028 Old Hwy 20, Madison AL, food is "died and fried" but in no specific order, don't bother unless you want an interesting place to see and have already had dinner before you arrive (and I REALLY hated the cole slaw)
- Greenbriar's, the new place, http://www.greenbrierbarbque.com/, east on 565 to Greenbriar exit north, but then first turn and on the access road -- there's a sign to mark the turn, reportedly a good place but apparently gone to seed as all the dishes were incredibly bland (and, again, I REALLY hated the cole slaw)
- Tai Pan, 2012 S. Memorial Pkwy, Huntsville, AL, tons of MSG in the food give mega-headaches and major drowsiness after eating

(I think I'll skip food today.)

Cajun Cafe

2009-04-16T18:05:00.008-07:00

Cajun Cafe, 704 Hwy 231,
Lacey's Spring, Alabama 35754
(Click for larger image)

After work, I drove south from Huntsville Alabama a handful of miles to where highway 231 crosses the Tennessee River.

"Maybe there'll be an interesting restaurant," I thought.

And, yup, just after crossing the bridge, there it was, the Cajun Cafe.

Small, dumpy, with red Christmas lights hanging from the eaves and a stray white cat sneaking around the parking lot.

"Doesn't look like much," I said to myself. "I'll check the menu but then probably go somewhere that looks better kept."

Today's Menu
(Click for larger image)

Standing just inside the door was a large menu with today's fare written in multi-colored chalk.

"Hmmm, several gumbos, shrimp, crawfish, ... this has possibilities."

As I started to think more seriously about staying, three groups came though the door and lined up at the cash register to order.

I moved to the end of the line but continued to study the menu.

The list of side dishes looked interesting, too. Lots of southern cooking here.

So I listened to those before me to hear what they wanted.

"Catfish, two pieces, with hush puppies, greens and butter beans, please."

"Catfish, one piece, with hush puppies, cabbage and corn."

"Catfish, two pieces, potato salad, and red beans and rice. Oh, and hush puppies, too."

These folks know something.

My turn came.

"And what will you have, sir?"

"Catfish, two pieces, hush puppies and, uhm, spicy turnip greens and, ah, yellow squash."

"$8.55, please."

I found an empty table to await the food and turned on my Blackberry to check email and fill the time.

There was a message from Robin: "Had any Gumbo yet?" she asked.

I filled her in and the expected dinner but before I could send it dinner arrived.

I quickly sampled each dish and finished the email reply to Robin with "Wonderful!" and hit send.

If you like atmosphere, hush puppies, catfish and southern cooking, this one's worth a drive. And with several gumbos on the menu, the Cajun Cafe will see me a few more times.

Pay No Attention

2009-02-23T19:39:00.003-07:00

The Man Behind the Curtain

In the near future, we will start instructor-led, live courses but on a remote basis. Students (and instructors) will attend class from home or work. They will avoid airplane travel, rental car agencies and taxies, and they will go home every night.

That's the good news and, by and large, we expect that a large proportion of our customers will prefer that method of delivery.

But as with most choices, there are some tradeoffs.

For example, when the instructor and students are in the same space, it is easy for the instructor to look around and in a few seconds, see if the material is being understood by the students or if they are all "out to lunch." In the latter case, an in-person and conscientious instructor will figure out the cause of the problem and then institute corrective steps.

Remote classes, however, are much more difficult in this regard. First, the instructor has a much smaller view of the audience, if any. In some classrooms, the instructor may have a video monitor showing the remote classroom(s), but even then, the monitor is considerably smaller in size. In such a small view, it's hard to see body language that says "I'm bored" or "I'm lost" or "When is he going to shut up!"

But in our case, there won't be any such monitor.

In our case, the class will see my computer's display and hear my voice, but the "return channel" from class to instructor is essentially off. I'll get nothing back unless I initiate the contact.

Although the occasional student will initiate a question, instructors have been taught to draw out the class from the very beginning to get the flow of questions going. And if they don't, questions are infrequent. And if the few that are asked are not given positive rewards, even those will evaporate.

It is, therefore, the instructor's job to pull out those initial questions.

And in a remote classroom environment, that initial practice will be all the more essential. It will be the "pull" that makes or breaks this form of delivery.

In an in-person class, there is a lot of back and forth "communication" occurs without a word being spoken by the students. A teacher knows, if he or she is paying attention, who is interested, who is bored, who is distracted with some personal issue or daydream, and who wants to understand but is terribly lost. It all shows in their body language.

There are some cultural differences in these languages but there are also some universal signs.

A cultural difference is a head nod. In the US, Canada and most of Europe, a nod means, "I understand," and a continuing nod means, "Please go on to the next concept -- this is starting to bore me."

In asian cultures and especially in Japan, that same nod means, "I find this incredibly interesting -- please tell me more." In other words, it is the exact opposite of the American nod.

Instructors who travel internationally eventually learn these, and many other, differences.

But some body language is universal.

The student who is on the verge of falling asleep is sending a universal message. Whether he or she is bored or physically exhausted, the message is, "I can't stay awake for this."

But all of this requires that the instructor can see the student.

In a remote classroom environment where the instructor can't see the students well enough or not at all, body language is useless no matter what the "language."

So we have do things that cause information to be sent from student to instructor in a different way.

One such method is an in-class survey, a poll that is taken while the lecture and teaching are in progress.

Specifically, students are explicitly asked, "How is the pace of material? Is it (choose one) too fast, OK, too slow, or this material is not of interest to me." And while the instructor talks, the students check and submit their answers.

When a high percentage of the class has answered, the instructor looks at the results and adjusts the delivery.

In the case where most of the answers are toward the negative end of the scale especially with several "irrelevent" votes, and even more so when the return rate is less than 100%, the instructor may choose to stop and ask the class, "What's wrong?" And, from the answers, choose whether to continue or move on to a different subject.

Another method of getting feedback to determine if the delivery is effective is to call on specific students and ask content-specific questions. If they know the answer, then the information is being understood. If not, then some kind of problem exists and the instructor can probe the student to try and determine what's wrong. With cooperative listeners, this is usually successful if the right questions are asked in a non-confrontational manner.

And although the goal here is not specifically to embarass those not paying attention, it does, nonetheless, serve to put the class on notice that they need to make an effort to understand what is being said because, well, they could be next.

Both of these techniques illustrate the same general strategy, that of eliciting feedback from students.

In pedagogical terms, this is the Socratic method, named of course for Socrates who described the technique.

This method is, without reservation, the most successful way of passing knowledge from one person to another. In essence, after the teacher explains some concept, the student explains it back but in different terms. A successful "translation" of that concept from the teacher's thoughts and words into the framework of the student's life experiences demonstrates the transfer of knowledge has taken place.

In a live classroom, much of the communication is done by body language.

In a virtual classroom, surveys and direct questioning are two techniques of opening up a reverse channel of information so the instructor can adjust the delivery.

We recently gave a humorous demonstration of the direct question approach at a conference. Sitting behind curtains with my computers and a microphone, I played the teacher. My only "student" for this class was on stage before the audience who could only hear my voice and see my computer's desktop.

The demonstration served to "teach" the audience that remote instruction doesn't mean no interaction. On the contrary, it means that it is no longer possible to sit in the back and be ignored. Rather than becoming a less intense environment as most intuitively expect, the remote classroom motivates students to pay more attention, take better notes, and be ready to give that information back on demand.

Because I am going to call your name.

And I am going to ask you to explain.

Expect it.

Lag It or Leave It

2009-02-04T06:28:00.003-07:00

Jet lag isn't something you avoid. Instead, you learn to live with it.

The best recommendations serve only to shorten it, but those practices don't always work.

Sometimes you're just gonna have a long night with little or no sleep, and then you have to get up shower, brush and dress, and smile your way through the day as if nothing were wrong.

That's just the way it works.

But you do learn a couple of "No-no" things.

Coffee, strong Starbucks mega-jolts in particular, are a bad idea.

But it's less from the caffeine than in what it just does to your stomach.

I can sleep jittery. That's not a big deal. Oh sure, I sleep less if I have caffeine too close to bed time but that's not as bad as going without any sleep which is what you get with a major upset stomach from some confounded french roast.

So I've learned to look at it this way: a sleepless night usually means I'll get a good sleep the next night.

Look forward to that good sleep, not back to the bad night.

And when the bad night is upon you, read a book. Eventually you will tire and get some rest, or the night will pass and it'll be time to get started.

Move on. This will pass.

Attitude, Counter Example

2009-01-09T05:45:00.007-07:00

Interesting Place

Comments such as this customer made are nice to get:

"Kudos to [your employer.] I can speak from personal experience [that] the training material / presentation / labs for your [X] product is far superior to the same training from your closest competitor."

This week's experience (of attitudes) was the exact opposite of my previous entry.

This week, they recognized they were working to better their careers and therefore they made significant efforts to capitalize on the instruction and lab time.

This is the norm. And it was wonderful to work with them!

Classes like the "sour grapes" bunch in the previous posting are unusual, very unusual, but they do exist. I've encountered a few over the years and it is always unpleasant. The only saving grace is that I'm gone after a couple of days whereas they have to live with it.

So I've learned a valuable philosophy about work. When it's good, enjoy it. And when it's not, try to make it better, hang on long enough to see if that's possible, but when it's not, move on before it sours you too much.

That kind of poison can ruin your life.

Good-bye!

The Origin of Attitude

2008-12-20T13:33:00.019-07:00

Rarely, only very rarely, do I teach a group that is close to if not completely indifferent to the topic at hand.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on how you look at it, I've had over the years a small number of classes where this has happened. And although the individuals concerned may have developed their attitudes as a result of different events, when you look deeper there is, I think, a common cause.

I'll give you an example of such a class and its specific circumstances in an admittedly "anonymous" way.

To set the stage, let me say that people are usually very interested in what we have to teach because it is "dead on" what they need to know. Most of my classes are like that. Students arrive early each day, ask questions throughout the lectures, raise their hands to resolve more questions during the hands-on labs and, through lunch with "time off" expressly provided in the schedule, they eat their employer-provided sandwiches and pizza but continue to dig into the theory and the labs. And almost to a man (and woman), they stay late more days than not.

Of course, I have to work to make it that way. I let my enthusiasm and enjoyment of the product show. Yes, I like working with the software I'm teaching, and I want them to know that. And I work hard to learn their names, their interests, and to draw them out so they feel comfortable interrupting the lecture and calling me over during the labs.

That's my job.

And most of the time, that's what happens.

But every now and then things are ... well ... different.

Cold, wet and foggy - Day 1

To begin, this group was supposed to have seven students but, at the appointed start time of nine AM, only two were present.

Maybe they can't find the classroom, I speculated. We were, after all, off at the far end of the corporate campus and around the corner of a large building that seemed more for storage and maintenance offices, not engineering. Maybe they've never been to this building and are having trouble finding it.

So we chatted a few minutes, waiting. But, after ten minutes of that, it was clear we would have to start regardless.

So I turned on the projector to begin. As it warmed up, I thought of the chill outside. Maybe the weather is to blame. It's near freezing outside with a strong wind, there's a mist that turns to ice on windshields and overpasses, and the campus is huge with large blustery expanses between buildings.

When my desktop came into view on the projection screen, we started with two in the class.

To be fair, these two were sincerely interested. I'll refer to one of them as "Mr. Senior" because, after our informal but on-topic chit-chat, it was clear he'd been in the business for many years. He had what I would term a mature perspective on the world, comprehensive, experienced, and carefully considered. He had some well thought-out conclusions. "Wisdom" was the word that came to mind.

His partner -- they worked as a team, they said -- will be known here as HereTodayGoneTomorrow, but not because his attention was flighty. On the contrary, he was good. He knew what he was doing and was interested in what was in the course.

The reason for his title will be apparent soon.

Two hours and one lecture chapter later, #3 arrives.

Now, to help me get to know the class as a whole and, in particular to know when any "exceptions" are present, I sometimes hand out a "pre-class survey". It asks about specific areas of expertise, number of years in the business, computer languages and so forth. Each person fills in a copy and turns it in. I quickly scan them at the beginning of class.

Normally I don't know who fills in which set of answers but, because this group had arrived in such small numbers or individually, I knew who had written each sheet.

The new arrival was "The Expert." On the survey, he indicated he had been using our software for several years. I guessed he was probably wondering if his time might be better spent elsewhere.

But I always relish these individuals in class because I know that with their at-work focus on solving their employer's problems, there are always several areas of our product they haven't seen, tools they haven't had the opportunity or free time to explore and that, by the end of class they will almost universally say, "Gee, I wish I'd known all this when I started!"

I knew his time in this class would be well invested. He would almost certainly learn a lot because I go much deeper than the materials suggest. I talk about "why" things work this way, not just "how" or "what". I give them a couple of key insights that explain huge tracts of concepts. And what they learn will put them in good stead for dozens of environments, not just ours.

So, I looked forward to watching The Expert and what I anticipated would be his growing interest and enthusiasm over the three and a half days that remained.

But participation by this group so far was related to when they arrived: early was good and late was bad. Mr. Senior and HereTodayGoneTomorrow gave good answers to my initial questions as I worked to pull them into the material. And they began initiating new questions on their own. That's what my initial questions are intended to provoke.

The Expert, however, was distant, more so than I expected. Although he may have felt he was going to be in a class beneath his needs, I had made sure to "deep dive" a couple of topics from the very beginning to engage his attention and curiosity.

But it didn't seem to be working.

In the lectures, he rarely looked up at the projected slide, preferring the book to any gestures I might make to emphasize or illustrate the points. And for the occasional "chalk talk" on the white board, he barely glanced up to see the drawing. He seemed to prefer looking at the keys of the computer in front of him, not touching them, just looking.

Of course during the labs, The Expert's experience showed, and in spades. Indeed, he was more than half-way through all the labs by the end of the first day. That's almost unheard of and far, far ahead of the others who were "on pace" in the labs with the lecture content.

Clearly, The Expert knows what he's doing.

But he asks no questions.

And he makes only the rarest of comments, and those often border on wise-cracks, but more about the other individuals in the class, not the software I'm there to teach. That software is sometimes the target of some gentle knife stabs but his focus wasn't there. Instead, his comments are what you hear when good friends kid each other about their shortcomings, but those were the only comments he was making and, after a couple in a row, I started to get the feeling that his associates didn't particularly appreciate them. They laughed them off, but the laughter was less and less sincere each time.

And the others said nothing in return. The back and forth of good-natured ribbing wasn't there. It was all one way.

I guess he finally sensed the one-sided-ness because he stopped and fell silent.

This group of three, Mr. Senior, HereTodayGoneTomorrow and The Expert, had all used the software to varying degrees but with a perhaps limited understanding of what the system is doing deep down. More significantly, although they'd probably solved complex problems, they may have only done so "the hard way." Sometimes you can put in a screw with a hammer, but it's not going to stay put. Ignorance of the different tools for different situations is going to hurt them in the long run. So, showing them which tool does what best and in which situation is an important part of what we teach in class.

Students like The Expert and Mr. Senior often benefit the most from the class because we're talking about things they've seen and used but, through the content of the class, they get to see what's really happening inside the system and, with the tools, how best to make use of everything, and in a way that benefits their work the most.

Just before lunch, #4 arrives.

His title (here) isn't a negative indicator. I'll call him "RealTime Novice" not for his age or any lack of professional experience, but rather because in the specific niche in which we are focused, he is a relative newcomer. He has been a software engineer for several years but in a different area. Accordingly, there will be a lot we will talk about that will be new to him.

Through passing comments in the initial chit-chat and during breaks, it is also apparent that several have unused vacation time that must be used up this calendar year. Indeed, two of the four have stated they won't be in class on the last day. And The expert has indicated that if we go beyond the middle of that last day, he'll be annoyed, very annoyed.

As is probably obvious, it's not my job to require them to give up vacation days to attend class. So, there's not much I can do. We have a quantity of lecture and lab material that, for the great majority of classes, take all of the available four days to complete, and even at that some students say they would have preferred another, a fifth day.

There's a lot to cover.

But this week, well, I'll have to give them a taste of all of Friday's content so, if nothing else, they'll be aware of what's possible. They'll still have to get it on their own but at least they'll have an idea. I wouldn't feel right without doing at least that much.

Like it or not, and lecture content and lab material or not, Friday will be a short day.

Warmer Weather - Day 2

The temperature was not as cold this morning and all four students arrived early.

Good!

The Expert was actually the first to the classroom, ahead of me. His tall cup of Starbucks was on the table when I arrived fifteen minutes before class was scheduled to begin. And I was pleased when, later in the labs, he asked for help when something didn't make sense. I explained what was happening in the three cases he demonstrated as "mysterious" and I could see when the light bulb came on in his head and he "got it".

Indeed, all four were more involved today asking questions, relating experiences from work and asking how to go about attacking different kinds of problems.

This was how class should go.

I was still disappointed that the customer had paid for seven when only four had shown up but at least these four were starting to get involved in the material, albeit a bit later than I would have otherwise preferred.

Then at lunch, HereTodayGoneTomorrow said, "Thank you. My vacation starts now and I won't be back." Dumbstruck, I shook his offered hand before he picked up his books and headed for the door.

Well, I can't fault him for honoring his vacation time. Indeed, if I were in his shoes I have to admit I'd feel the conflict between career and family. But since I'm not in his shoes and therefore can't appreciate his situation, I can only accept his decision and wish him well.

"Bye," he said and was gone.

A few hours later, late in the afternoon, a new face arrived.

"Sorry I couldn't be here before. What'd I miss?"

I think to myself, "A lot," but don't say it.

Instead I say, "We're about halfway through chapter five of thirteen in lecture and labs. The labs will let you jump in anywhere so you might want to start where we are now and review the earlier material. Let me know if you have any questions or problems." (And yes, I'll keep an eye on him in lab time so he doesn't get stuck.)

Unfortunately, this means he's missing the background material that each lab inadvertently builds upon so he may need extra hand-holding that might take time away from the others.

RealTime Novice tells me the new guy is his Co-Op.

So be it, he now has a name I can use here -- Co-Op.

Co-Op starts working the labs and, only a time or two, needs help with what he's missed. He's good but quiet, very quiet, but different from The Expert. Co-Op is working the labs, pondering what he reads, and occasionally trying something not in the instructions. Good.

And he seems to be good using the software and ferreting out the sometimes obscure instructions so maybe his late arrival won't be as much of a problem as I initially feared.

Still, there's a lot of good information he has missed.

And he's wearing flip-flops on his otherwise bare feet. The weather is grey with temperatures in the mid 40s. Not the sunniest of classes.

In the Fog - Day 3

(8:30AM) "Oh, we have a meeting at 9:00AM today," RealTime Novice tells me.

"We all have to go except for [The Expert]." (The Expert is from a different site.)

The planned lecture would take an hour but won't work if split in the middle.

"OK uhm," I say shooting from the hip, "let's use the next 30 minutes for lab time."

Even so, only fifteen minutes later the three depart for the meeting on the other side of the corporate campus.

It's me and The Expert. He explains he is from a different site in another town. He says there has been a reorganization within the company at its top levels but not so as it affects him directly. This meeting, he speculates, is to tell the local group pretty much the same.

And then I'm amazed to learn that The Expert has, at this point, completed all the labs. He's the first student in three years to have done so in only a little over one day.

"Well, I worked late and then came in early. I like to do that," he explains.

I suggest he use the time now and in the remaining lab segments to experiment and explore, maybe with tools not included in this course but still part of the product and that I'd help him do so but he says he'd prefer to read the hunting magazines he brought.

Again, I'm taken aback and, an instant later, a quotation flits across my mind but I don't say it; "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

So, I prepare the software for the next demonstration, he reads, and we fill the time in our own ways.

An hour later, the meeting is over and the three trickle back over a ten minute span.

"We've been re-organized but don't know how that's going to affect us."

Two hours late, we start chapter 6.

Doing a mental calculation between explaining concepts on the slides I figure a half-day has been lost with late arrivals, the meeting, and such. We now need to finish a four day class in three.

Well, I think to myself, maybe it's good they're not asking too many questions.

"Oh, by the way," Mr. Senior announces, "I'm leaving at three today when my vacation starts."

Ground Fog - Day 4

RealTime Novice is pushing buttons when I arrive. Mr. Senior is, of course, gone as of three o'clock yesterday and HereTodayGoneTomorrow was, well, here on day one but pretty much gone thereafter. And The Expert and Co-Op have yet to appear this morning. I wonder if they're going to show up at all.

"I'm almost finished with the labs," RealTime Novice reports. "These are cool!"

"Glad you think so," I say. "Seeing how things work and being able to explore like this is a great way to figure things out."

I'm encouraged by his enthusiasm.

The Expert arrives at our scheduled start time but there's no Co-Op yet. Again, we engage in small talk for a few minutes before Co-Op arrives.

We start our last day with lecture scheduled for the morning and labs, for those who wish to stay, in the afternoon.

At mid-morning, RealTime Novice gets a cell phone call and has to leave. There's a problem at the day-care center and it has to be handled now.

"I won't be back," he says and is gone.

We carry on and, just before lunch as they had hoped, we finish the lecture material but only by agreeing to move all remaining labs to the afternoon.

The Expert leaves immediately with, "Thanks!"

It's just me and Co-Op who is continuing the labs.

He's wearing socks today.

I look over his shoulder. He's about two-thirds of the way through the lab book but, then again, because the labs can be done in any order, it's hard to say what he has finished.

Regardless, he's making things work and seeing the system behave accordingly.

OK, I think, let him work.

I go back to my computer to do an experiment suggested in an earlier class.

Fifteen minutes later ... no kidding, just fifteen minutes later, Co-Op bails.

"Have a Merry Christmas," he says and is gone.

The classroom is empty.

I sit for a moment trying to put all the facts together to figure out what had happened. It's been years since I've finished this class early much less early by a half day.

Really small classes do go faster than mid-sized ones. Bigger groups of eight to twelve are ideal and usually take the longest. In still larger classes, people hide in the crowd and don't get out of their shells. But in really small classes of a handful or less, each person feels very exposed. So they hunker down hard to hide and avoid notice. We try to draw them out but, with that small a group, it's just hard to get through the shells sometimes. At some point you just have to accept what you get and move on to the next page in the lecture. There's only so many hours, you know, and all those pages have to be projected and talked about.

This class was unusually small. No more than four were present at any one time. And with the changing faces, my "drawing out" efforts came at the wrong time for some, or were diluted by all the changes.

And even though late in the first day and then especially on the second my efforts had started to pay off, when "vacation time" hit and Mr. Senior abandoned the class, it was jarring. Those left behind pulled back into their personal thoughts and feelings. When that happened, I worked to bring them back into the material and get them thinking and asking questions again.

Still, Mr. Senior was gone and they weren't. They were there and he wasn't. It had to gnaw at them.

And then another "vacation time" abandonment hit. And then the "day care" preemption struck. Expert's indifference of reading magazines during lab time didn't help to inspire his juniors.

I had done my part. The equipment was ready and everything worked. The lectures were spot-on, the extra examples, special lecture content and demonstrations I added drilled deeply into the system and showed the key concepts. And I answered all their (few) questions. Nothing went lacking.

All in all, I could see that each of their individual decisions when faced with "sacrifice your personal time but not company time for training" had been the same.

They had been scheduled for training at a time that seemed to force them to sacrifice personal vacation, to give up family time.

The schedule that had been thrust upon them by the company seemed to be saying, "Company first!"

And to a man they had said, through their actions, just what they thought of that attitude.

Remember when the Personnel department in American companies was repurposed as Human Resources? I guess the company had thought that's who they had sent to class this week, some of those "human resources."

Well, those resources this week unanimously said that company-provided training that costs them their vacations isn't valued. They'd rather keep their family time.

Companies rise and fall for a lot of reasons. Keeping good talent happy and productive is but one factor for succcess, but it is essential. And scheduling training in conflict with vacation time that cannot be rescheduled isn't going to be appreciated. This is not how you keep good people.

Instead, this is how you breed negative and resentful attitudes.

A company can only live on its past successes for so long. When the talent goes, so does the future.

"Good luck, guys," I said to the empty room.

Coming back to the here and how, it was time to pack the equipment for shipment to the next class. On the way out I would turn in the temporary badge and drive out the customer's gate.

Maybe I can get an earlier flight home.

The break for Christmas and New Years will be nice.

Tomorrow is, indeed, another day.

When It Rains, It Pours

2008-12-04T18:04:00.008-07:00

Transferring a Disk Image

Well, I thought this was a 1.5 day job in Alameda so I budgeted 2.5. As it happens, however, it's going to be 4.5 by the time I'm done, and that's only after farming out some of the grungy verification details to other specialists, all to be completed before New Years. (I doubt I made any friends among that group with this last minute chore.)

Next week I'll be an hour north of Philadelphia for a three-day compression of a four-day course.

"We'll just trim out the parts our engineers don't need to know about," their management probably said.

And I'll be the one to tell the engineers in the classroom,

"Sorry, but what you've asked about was excluded from the course -- we don't have time to talk about it.
"Next question, please?"

And the week that after has me an hour south of Dallas for the full four-day version of that same course.

Then comes Christmas and New Years and a much needed break ... Oh, except I forgot the follow-on of the grungy verification details I assigned myself from this week's work.

Well, maybe I'll get a couple of days of vacation in.

Maybe.

Shooting Bullseye at the Sunnyvale club last night was theraputic.

Encinal Yacht Club, Day #2

2008-12-03T09:46:00.006-07:00

Encinal Yacht Club, Day #2

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday was bright and sunny but this morning the fog is jammed down hard on the surface.

But I must add this is minor compared to the fog I encountered near Poole, England on the channel. The fog was so thick there it was difficult to see the centerline from the driver's seat. When I reached the neighborhood of the hotel, I had to park and go door-to-door to find it because the overhead neon signs were nothing more than glowing smudges.

Fog? In the bay area? Pshaw!

This evening I'll drive across the bay to the Sunnyvale Rod & Gun Club and shoot their twice a month Bullseye session. There is a 600 for 22 and then a 600 for Center Fire.

That's assuming we can see the targets, of course.

Encinal Yacht Club, Day #1

2008-12-02T11:17:00.005-07:00

Encinal Yacht Club, Alameda CA

The fog has lifted. Today is sunny and the morning sun on the yachts as well as the wings of the pelicans is warm and spectacular.

Snow-encumbered Chicagoans, eat your hearts out!

Special Meat Dumplings

2008-12-01T17:25:00.008-07:00

Thanksgiving is over and I'm back on the road but not to teach. Instead, I get to update the master images of the computers we use in the classroom with new licenses for next year.

At the moment, I'm in the corporate headquarters in the bay area making disk space in which to work. I've collected most of the equipment (hardware) needed, verified that the new license works for the mainstream products, looked at the oddball products and started a chart of the "funny s tuff" I don't understand, and I've touched base with the one guy who knows how all that weirdness should go together.

A good start.

So, there's a big band playing at Yoshi's in Oakland this evening. Cover is $15 which is pretty good for that venue. They start at 8:00PM and I'll sit towards the back -- with a name instrumentalist I'd want to be up close to watch but, with the whole band, any place in the room will be fine.

If you haven't been to Yoshi's and you want to be up close, buy your tickets early and be there at 5:00PM to line up so that, at 6:00PM, you can rush in and mark your seat with a PostIt-like note (supplied by Yoshi's) for the 8:00PM show. Then go and eat before coming back for the show.

East Ocean Seafood Restaurant
Alameda California

Then, tomorrow for lunch I will break the "no starch" initial phase of the South Beach diet my wife and I are following. I'll go to East Ocean Seafood Restaurant in Alameda. They are known for their various dumpling dishes. There are 9 or 10 of them, more than one person can eat, so I'll take the guy who's gonna help with the weird stuff -- he likes the place, too.

We will get all the dumpling dishes including the special meat dumplings.

Ordering them goes like this.

"And I'd like the special meat dumplings, please."

"We no have that."

"Yes but I'd really like to have the special meat dumplings."

"That on Chinese menu. You no Chinese."

"That's true but I would like to have the special meat dumplings."

Pause, then skeptically, "You sure you want special meat dumplings?"

"Yes, I'd like the special meat dumplings."

Again skeptically, "OK, I bring you special meat dumplings."

Trust me, they're wonderful.

Drive or Fly?

2008-11-24T19:25:00.008-07:00

We're just back from LA. I say "we" because my wife went along for this trip, too. (Sounds like she's got the "wanderlust" after our east coast trip?)

The class was in the main part of LA, a couple of miles south of LAX and within two miles of the ocean. Looking at the location, it was a coin toss between driving and flying from Phoenix.

Flying time from Phoenix to Los Angeles is one hour which seems like a lot less than driving but, then again, when driving I don't have to leave the house two hours before the trip starts, nor spend a half hour at the other end getting out of the airport. Plus, when I fly, the car stays home and I take a shuttle to the airport which adds another half hour to the deal.

So, when flying, my "in-transit" time is three (3) hours more than the actual flying time.

And then there are the delayed flights, weather and equipment issues, and all the other "fun" that goes with flying these days.

So make that "at least three hours" overhead when flying.

But to be completely honest, the drive to this part of LA would take us right through some of the worst of the LA freeways. We would leave I-10 just west of Banning, take a run on 60 and then on and on across what seems like the never-ending 91. The final mile or two of city street driving would be anti-climactic, for sure. Door to door, the drive would be seven (7) hours as opposed to four (4) flying.

And that's an equality in my book. Seven hours of driving even with two in LA traffic is equivalent to four hours in airports and being bounced around in the air.

So we drove, listened to jazz CDs through the Mojave desert, played hop-scotch with the cars and semis headed west on I-10, joked about telling the border patrol our names were Eduardo and Juanita (but didn't), marvelled at the 35+ MPG the rental Honda Civic achieved, and then went white-knuckled driving 80 along with everyone else in LA on 91 while we all totally ignoring the posted 65 MPH speed limit -- and were passed twice by Police cruisers!

While there, we found some really nice jazz and good food on a Wednesday evening in Hermosa Beach on Pier Ave -- it was a Spanish place but, sorry, I don't remember the name. You won't have any trouble finding the place, however, as it's the only one in the short pedestrian block that ends at the beach.

Indeed, the only problem we ran into was that, before they started playing, we couldn't look at someone and then tell if they were one of the musicians, one of the fans, or one of the neighborhood panhandlers.

An Honorable Man

2008-11-11T15:07:00.006-07:00

The saying goes that if you like where you're at, you better enjoy it because it will soon change.

Well, I've enjoyed the past couple of years working for the same individual. In that time, I've taught a lot of classes, helped several hundred engineers do better with the company's product than they might otherwise have done and, in the process, been to a lot of interesting places.

Whether or not those parts of my job will change or not, I can't yet say.

But I do know that I'm not working for the same individual anymore, and that I will surely miss. I don't know how the new boss will be but, taking nothing from him, it'll be hard for him to beat the one I'm leaving.

You see, I've been in "the business" for a long time, more than three decades. And in that time, I've had a lot of bosses. Indeed, at one employer I had eleven different bosses in a single twelve month span but, as you might imagine, that company had problems. I've had bad bosses, indifferent bosses, bosses who didn't show up, bosses who would stab their employees in the back if it worked to their advantage. And I've had bosses that were OK, that channeled the work and collected status reports and followed the rules but weren't ever really interested in what they were doing.

And rarely, oh so very rarely, I've had bosses that were trying to make a difference in the world, not just a profit, and not just to keep the paycheck going. Those latter two goals, profit and paycheck, are important because if you don't keep them going, you don't get to go after the first, making a difference.

And the best bosses have been the ones -- I can count them on one hand with a couple of fingers missing -- that did all that and, while they were at it, dealt straight with everyone, demanded the same in return, were smart enough to recognize when they needed to get people to hunker down and take shelter from the incoming rounds, and they stood by their people when things went sour as they surely will in this complicated world.

The boss I leave behind is one such individual. Oh, I'll still be interacting with him in the future as our jobs still overlap, but he won't be calling my shots. Someone else will now expect, and get, my allegiance.

My former boss has earned my utmost respect.

He is an honorable man.

And on this Veteran's Day, I am pleased to add that he's a U. S. Marine.

Thanks, Ken.

Electoral Voting System

2008-11-03T14:30:00.023-07:00

I don't normally listen to Howard Stern but my attention was recently called to a set of interviews he conducted in Harlem. They make a strong -- and sad -- case for continuing the electoral system. Listen to the recording at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyvqhdllXgU and see if you think the average American should directly elect the President, or if we still need the electoral process where, hopefully, wiser minds can prevail.

Electoral College Votes for 2008
(from Wikipedia)

Indeed, we have an "electoral" voting system because the founding fathers didn't think the run-of-the-mill citizen would be able to adequately assess the candidates and cast a meaningful vote.

This does not demean the average citizen. Instead, it is simply a recognition of the limitations of the era, and the limitations of individual human beings.

Remember that the late 1700s was a time of horse and carriage transportation, and the telegraph wouldn't be invented for several decades. Weeks and months might pass before citizens learned of a significant event. Indeed, the news that "The British are coming, the British are coming!" travelled no faster than a horse could gallop.

So, in the late 1700s, it made sense for citizens to elect representatives -- electors -- who would then travel to their respective state capitals, consider the candidates and then cast votes for the President and, separately, for the Vice President. Those who attend those gatherings and cast the decisive votes are termed the electoral college. Although they may have pledged to vote for certain candidates, they are actually bound by their good judgement, and in unusual circumstances, that "good judgement" might well come down on the side of a candidate different than what the elector's constituents expect.

This is the core-essential of a representative form of government and how it is distinguished from a pure Democracy where every citizen, whether masterfully or pitifully capable, participates equally. That is, to run our representative-based form of government, we elect individuals who are, we hope, better prepared and more capable in leadership areas and in the machinations of politics than ourselves. And we expect them to do things that will be in our best interests. Same with the electors who cast the essential votes to elect our President and Vice President. We elect individuals to cast those final votes, individuals whom we believe to be more capable than ourselves in making such choices.

But today, with our instant communications and wide dissemination of candidate's speeches, with our live public broadcast of their face-to-face debates, some citizens question the wisdom of the electoral voting system. They say that the popular vote, by a simple majority of the citizens, should directly elect the President and, indirectly, the Vice Presidential candidate chosen to run with that individual.

But after listening to the Howard Stern interviews (see link above), I am quite convinced that we still need this system of electors that was created by our founding fathers.

The popular election is tomorrow and it promises to be turmoil-provoking no matter how the count is tallied.

But the real vote, that of the electors -- the real vote that will determine who will be sworn in as President and as Vice President of the United States -- that vote will be by those we elect tomorrow.

So, who will be the electors for your state? Shortly after tomorrow's election, you should Google (search on-line) for "2008 Certificates of Ascertainment" to find out.

And then starting in December for the four years thereafter, we will see the wisdom, or lack thereof, in the votes of our electors.

The Travelling Duo

2008-10-22T06:49:00.006-07:00

On occasion, and with all the frequent fliers miles and hotel points I earn, my wife goes along for a trip. Such is the case starting today.

I have a two day in Boston and then a four day the following week in DC. She will burn frequent flier miles for the three flights and, other than food and sightseeing expenses, that'll be the total damages. (The hotel is the same for one or two occupants.)

And even better, she will sign-on as an extra driver and while I'm stuck in the classroom all day, she will have the run of two great areas. (We will pay the extra gas, of course.)

I was in both of these cities about a month ago but the trees were still green except for a rare smattering of color in Boston. This time I'm hopeful we will get the full treatment and, if it's too late in Boston then it should be just about right for Washington.

Dinner this evening will be on Federal Hill in Providence as we wait for the Boston traffic to thin. And the next two evenings will be at the Acton Jazz Club. Yeah, we're both jazz fans. (She sings, too.)

Fall colors, good food, good music and especially good company, here we come!

Amici Miei

2008-10-20T13:51:00.006-07:00

With several strong recommendations, my business associate and I went to this old town Pizzaria for the real thing, true Italian pizza.

"You want the Salsiccia E Friarielli pizza," I was told. "It's the original."

This is basically a sausage pizza with an unusual (to me) but wonderful green vegetable, the friarielli. You can't see much of it in the picture above (I'm on the right in the blue shirt) but, trust me, it is excellent.

Before that, I had a frittata with funghi, basically a flat pancake-like creation, very eggy, with mushrooms. It was more filling than I expected, so much so that I couldn't finish the pizza.

Sadly, the half bottle of chardonay left me cold as do all chardonays. Maybe I just don't have the taste bud for that white. And I do really enjoy the variety in many other whites but, for some reason, all chardonays disappoint me.

But the double cream puff "dolce" made up for it. They were light, creamy, and just the right amount.

Trattoria della Posta

2008-10-20T12:13:00.013-07:00

Trattoria della Posta

After the long airplane ride from Phoenix to Philadelphia, to Rome Italy, and then up to Turin ("Torino") Italy, it was very nice to find a small neighborhood restaurant ("Trattoria") within walking distance of the hotel. Before leaving the states, I had used Google Earth to find nearby places and then Google's search engine to see if there were any reviews or comments by other patrons. The Trattoria della Posta received several reviews, all positive, so it was on my "try this for sure" list.

My View

I arrived in time for the Sunday after-church meal but ahead of the crowd. My table was at the front corner across from the bar but with a good view of the room. The blue door to the kitchen was open and although I never glimpsed anyone back there, from the occasional clatter of dishes, it was clearly in use. Another dining area, behind the plant, was occupied by several regulars who kept the bar busy.

Libations

I ordered a bottle of "Frizzante" (fizzy) water and whatever wine they had that was local. I've since forgotten the name but it turned out to be a pleasant red, very drinkable and not overpowering.

Traditional Italian meals may seem confusing at first with the "Antipasto", then "Insalate" followed by the "Primo" and the "Secondo", "Dolce" but, in actuality, it's very much like an American meal. Here's the translation:

First, you might order something to nibble on. You can call that an appetizer but since the Italians often have this dish before the pasta, this warm-up dish typically contains anything but pasta. Hence, this is the antipasto dish. If you are expecting to make a night of it, order an antipasta so you have something to eat while considering the menu. If you aren't that hungry, skip it.
Next, at an American restaurant, you'd have a salad. And sometimes that salad will contain pasta. Well, in Italy, this course usually contains pasta, but you can get "Primo" dishes that don't. If you are hugely hungry, you can get both, hence the "Insalate" (salad) and the "Primo" (usually pasta) dishes. And remember that, at this point, you're still getting warmed up. If you don't want that big a meal, you could just have a salad for dinner, an "Insalate", or you could just have the "Primo" for dinner, the pasta dish. Nothing wrong with a small meal.
Then, if you're the "meat and potatoes" type, the "Secondo" is your course. This is the, well, the "meat and potatoes" course. If you've ordered everything up to this point, you have a much larger stomach than I do. Indeed, I'm good for a "Primo" and a "Secondo", but that will usually fill me up.
Optionally, you might add a "Contorno" or two, a side dish of salad or cooked vegetables.
But if there's still a corner of space left, then it's time for desserts. There can two two, cheese and fruits first, that's the "Formaggio e frutta", and then a "Dolce", a sweet. The latter be the very traditional and delicious "tira misu". And if you want, you can get a "cafe" with that. When Italians ask for "cafe", they expect what American's call an espresso. (You could ask for a "cafe american" but, hey, when in Rome, ...) And for your "cafe", you can ask for a double, and for decaf if you wish.

Friends

On the other hand, sometimes people just come in to stand at the bar, have a glass of wine and some good conversation.

Family

And when you find a nice neighborhood place, don't be surprised to find members of the multi-generation family coming in and all the work coming to a halt for the duration of the visit. Just lean back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Digestif

Oh, did I forget to mention the after-dinner "digestivo"? This one reminded me of the raisin wine we used to steal from a neighbor's illegal supply when I was a kid. I enjoyed this glass after my large meal in Italy as well as the memories it provoked of so many years ago.

On the menu, some of these will be speleed slightly different: Primi, Secondi, Contorni and Digestivi but just think of "pasta salad first", "main course second 'contorted' with a side", a sweet (Dolce) and then something for the digestion.

During my week long visit to "Torino", I would have another meal at this same place and it would be every bit as enjoyable as the first.

For my second meal I had the local red wine again, homemade agnolotti with butter and then the Finanziera (interior parts of beef cooked with vegetables -- and yes, that was *very* different!). I skipped the dessert and coffee and went directly to my favorite, a small glass of limoncello.

Oh, and as in the UK, all the public places in Italy are now "Vietato Fumare", No Smoking.

Very nice!

Check Pilot

2008-10-12T11:40:00.004-07:00

In-transit time: 25 hours
Flights: Phoenix to Philadelphia, to Rome, to Turin
Seats: Middle, aisle, aisle

I'm the "check pilot" for the instructor that will do the actual teaching this week. My job is to back him up, help in the labs, and at the end, say if he's able to teach this class on his own. But I know this person's abilities and have no doubt he will do fine.

So I've got a long list of other things I can work on if that's the case. I have a couple of "deep dives" I've been doing in classes. Each time, they get a little less rough and two of them are working quite well now. If I get the time, I will create the PowerPoint pages with "Instructor Notes" at the bottom so others can present them as well.

Shifting back to today and the long ride to Turin Italy, I've got two 4-5 hour batteries ready to go and, again, several things I could do while stuck in the seat.

Some passengers sleep across the ocean. I envy them because it just doesn't work for me.

Instead, I'll be the guy typing all night.

Ciao, baby!

Walking the Mall

2008-10-06T14:14:00.021-07:00

Sometimes I stay "out" for two classes. For example, I recently had a Tuesday-Friday in the Washington DC area and then a Monday-Thursday near Boston. Rather than flying home to Arizona on a Saturday, doing the laundry and then flying back to the east coast and Boston on Sunday, I visited a local laundromat Friday night, did some sightseeing on Saturday and Sunday morning, and then flew up to Boston on Sunday. By skipping that round trip to Arizona and back, the company saved more than enough to pay for the weekend expenses, I got some additional rest, and I got to do some sightseeing.

Washington DC is a showcase any time of year but spring and fall are the best. While this particular weekend was a tad early for fall weather, it was late enough in the season that summer's heat and humidity were gone. It was, plain and simple, a spectacular weekend.

Early Saturday morning, I set my goal to walk the mall from end to end and, over the course of it, visit the "homes" of the three interdependent cornerstones of government in the United States: the presidential White House, the Congress and the Supreme Court.

Part 1: The President

The President is called our "Chief Executive." Much of what the President does is in managing the day-to-day operation of the country. Although it is true that most of the details are left to others, the bottom line is that we look to the President first to take action when something happens. He "leads" the response to events that happen.

To facilitate this, the president has been granted certain "emergency powers" by the Congress and, by not ruling them as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has implicitly agreed. The "Presidential powers" are, thusly, defined by the Congress and the Supreme Court. Using those powers, the President can initiate actions to, for example, defend the country but only within a limited scope and time frame. But beyond those limited powers, the President has to get the approval of first the Congress, and then by not ruling their collective actions as un-consitutional, the Supreme Court must also agree.

Only by agreement of the President, the Congress and the Supreme Court, can any law be made to persist for a long time in the United States. Failing that agreement, the "status quo" reigns.

Change is hard, intentionally so.

Part 2: The Congress

Congress moves much slower than the President but what they do affects things for much longer periods. For example, when the President's reaction is to spend federal funds for disaster relief or to defend the country from an armed attack, he must then petition Congress for longer term and greater financial support.

Between its two parts, the House and the Senate, Congress creates new laws as befit the changing times. Either part can initiate a new bill that may eventually become law but before it leaves the Congress, both the House and the Senate, must approve it. With all the commitee studies, the debating and amending, the jockeying for votes and so forth, creating a new law is a very time-consuming affair.

Compared to the President, the US Congress seems to move very slowly. This is how it was designed. The Congress, with its two parts, bills, discussions, voting, and then needing the approval of the other half, is supposed to be slow. Because its actions last for a very long time, the designers of our government wanted it to take a long time, and a lot of effort, for Congress to create a change.

Part 3: The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court functions, in a sense, in a negative manner. It does not initiate new laws. It does not respond to disasters. Instead, the Supreme Court reviews laws that were created by the Congress and then approved by the President, or laws created by individual state governments, or laws originally created by even more localized governing agencies that have propogated out to national importance. And after hearing arguments on the issues and deliberating amongst themselves, the Supreme Court may pronounce specific laws as being un-constitutional and, therefore, null and void.

No matter who makes a new law or who approves it, if the Supreme Court decides by a majority of its justices that a law does not conform to the intentions of the founders of this country, that law is overturned.

This is an incredible power carried out by nine individuals who are elected for life. Barring extreme circumstances, a Justice of the Supreme Court can remain "on the bench" as long as he or she desires.

When a vacancy exists, either through death or by voluntary or sometimes coerced retirement of one of the Justices, it is up to the President and the Congress to designate a replacement. And, as before, Congress can reject a President's nomination, or the House and the Senate may fail to agree and, again, fail to "affirm" the President's nomination.

But even when a Justice is seated on the court, his or her powers are limited to stopping laws, never to creating them. The Supreme Court cannot make new laws. It cannot wage war. Nor can it send aid to the victims of some natural disaster. The Supreme Court "balances" the President and Congress by stopping them. It can only say, "No."

Looking East Along the Mall

Looking east from the Lincoln Memorial, you see several monuments with the White House off to the left and Congress in the distance. The Supreme Court is also there but in the background in both a figurative and a literal sense: it's building is behind the Congressional dome.

And looking at this long and broad expanse of space, I'm also struck with the long, broad and sometimes tumultuous history of the United States. The view across the mall looks green, healthy and full of life, but it is only so through the work of many and over a long period of time.

The history of the United States is the same way. It may look green, healthy and full of life, but getting there, and staying there, are fraught with hazard. It is, as they say, "fragile."

Indeed, there are a few periods in our history where "the United States" almost died. The first was shortly after it began, as a loose confederation of independent states but without any significant "federal" government. This first near demise was after the so-called "United States" had won their independence from Great Britain but then failed to make payments on the loans from other governments that financed the rebellion. These other countries expected to be repaid at the agreed upon rates but, basically, the individual states just didn't do it. There was no central "us" to be held responsible. Instead, it was up to each state to pay its portion, and that's where things came appart. After considerable squabbling over who was to pay how much and in what form and to whom, the leaders of this early confederation of the United States realized they (collectively) weren't going to be able to make the payments, and that the new country was in serious danger of collapse. That realization motivated the creation of what we now know as the "Federal Government." How that federal government works is what a later document, the Constitution, is all about.

The second near destruction of the union of these United States took place prior to Abraham Lincoln's election. Things were collapsing before he took office. Several states had already abandoned the "United" States, brought their representatives home, formed a new "union" with other break-away states and, in defiance, created a new country.

With the country already fractured, Lincoln's first job was, therefore, to preserve the union by returning the rebellious states to the larger union. Although slavery was a significant element in the picture, only later did Lincoln issue a Proclamation and, working through the House and the Senate of the then anti-slavery dominated Congress, make slavery illegal.

Sweeping changes such as this are rare. And it was only through the once-in-our-history application of force that this particular change was made into the law of the land. The slavery-approving Southern states were defeated, forced back into the Union and, in so doing, forced to release their slaves.

If you ask how could things get this bad without someone doing something sooner, it's because that is how the government is supposed to work. It is supposed to move slowly. It is set up in three branches that are intended to wrestle, disagree and keep each other from moving too quickly.

In a word, the government of the United States is supposed to be slow. The founders set it up so that each of these three elements, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches, keeps the other two from taking over. You've heard of a "Mexican stand-off" where two parties face each other with guns drawn and neither can shoot without getting shot in return? Well, the US Government is a lot like that except there are three parties, with a gun in each hand aimed at each of the other two. Each element can slow or veto both of the other two. Only when all three are in agreement can new laws and actions go into effect.

Abraham Lincoln's statue sits in his monument at the western edge of the mall. His eyes gaze out across the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument with the White House sheltered in the trees to the left but with the Congressional dome in the distance and the Supreme Court just beyond. As such, visitors can walk to and visit these three cornerstones of the United States government in less than one hour.

But putting together such a government took century upon century of trial and error. And I too would have to agree with Winston Churchill who said,

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Lincoln's genius was in understanding the structure of the system in which he had to operate, maintaining his personal sense of right and wrong, and choosing to remain within the system to both pull the union back together and, ultimately, do what was right. Other men, his contemporaries, had chosen to give up and rip it asunder. Lincoln chose to say, "No." He proceeded to re-assemble, by force, the country.

Today, his view from that chair at the west end of the Mall now spans a century and a half. He has seen the slow playing out of the ramifications of his Emancipation Proclammation, the development of US involvement in affairs of the world, and the larger consequences, both positive and negative, of the US's successes and how that contributes to the views of those outside as well as inside this country.

"Tumultuous" is an apt word. And for the havoc, the violence, the war and the blood that has been lost in all of them, "Birth of a Nation" is too small an idea.

For the nation of the United States was not born once. Instead, it has been born and reborn, each time with terrible struggle, often with blood shed and loss of life, over and over again.

This country was not born in the late 1700s. What was created then was a structure by which the nation re-births itself periodically. That period is not tied to the election of a President or members of Congress, nor to the election by the President and Congress of a new person to sit on the Supreme Court.

Instead, the United States is re-born when needs, sometimes expressed in violence, dictate.

The structure of rules crafted through the Constitution give us a way of dealing with change without having to throw everything out and start over. That fundamental way of doing things is its true value. The invention of these three branches of government, often struggling against each other, but ultimately making carefully crafted adaptations to the changing world, is what allows this profoundly changing country to continue to call itself "The United States."

As I watched the football games being played out on a sunny Saturday afternoon on the nation's Mall, all this history swirled around me as I walked. I spoke with a Vietnam Veteran at a water fountain. I listened to veterans of the Korean War speak at that memorial. And I gazed about at the beauty of the World War II memorial, imagining but admittedly unable to comprehend the horror and sacrifice it symbolized.

To those who struggled to preserve this country, I owe a debt beyond any measure I could ever repay. And from my well-sheltered, well-protected, and well-nourished life, I also know I am in terrible ignorance of the cost they paid. As a father and a grandfather, I can only hope that they had the same wishes that I have for my children and grandchildren, and that is to live in peace, in admitted ignorance of the horrors they don't need to know.

In another few weeks, we will have elected a new President.

I'd be real interested to hear, were he actually able to witness all these years and all the changes that have transpired, what Abe's thoughts might be.

But I also know that, ultimately, the future is ours to make. What Abe might think would be interesting but it is for us to say what we will do in each new moment.

It is up to us to understand the system within which we live, to decide what is right or wrong as we see fit, and to try and convince others of what we should do as a collective nation.

In November, I will vote to preserve the Union. Abe did too. And it was bloody. I pray we can avoid such a costly expense for the changes that are ahead.

Abe's statue will see the consequences of our choices but, like us, it is only with the passage of time, sometimes measured in decades or even centuries, that anyone will know if a vote was cast wisely or not.

But I am sure that Abraham Lincoln would agree with the following fervent wish:

God help us.

We are free to choose.

May we do so wisely.

"Two Utz" ... from Pennsylvania?

2008-09-19T17:20:00.005-07:00

With apologies to "My Cousin Vinny"...

Long One Coming Up

2008-09-13T07:17:00.002-07:00

My teaching calendar has me in the Washington DC area next week for a four-day, then up to Boston MA for another four-day. The first is Tuesday through Friday while the second is a Monday through Thursday class; I could fly home over the weekend but it's cheaper to just stay on the east coast. And it's a lot easier on the body.

This weekend is gonna be busy for that and other reasons.

Today (as in "now") is the last chance to cut the grass this weekend. (I can hear a neighbor's lawn mower as I write.)

Then, we're off to watch one grandaughter in a soccer game before helping our son's family and other grandaughter move into a new home. That latter activity will use up whatever time (and energy) is left after the soccer game through the rest of the weekend.

And the Container Store is having its grand opening in Scottsdale this weekend! Not sure we can work that one in to the schedule...

Monday is an airplane day.

Tuesday through Friday is teaching time.

The following Saturday will be nice as I'll have some time to sightsee DC and take in some places I haven't been able to visit in the past. (The NRA museum is on my list for this trip.)

And there will be a little more sightseeing Sunday morning before flying up to Providence (on Southwest) and the one hour drive to Boston.

Then it's back into the classroom there for four days before finally returning home the Friday after.

The grass will be long by then.

Figure-Out-Demos Week

2008-09-05T17:37:00.003-07:00

A holiday, an extra "sick" [of work] day, two days of "office" and one to figure out some demos for a web-based class, that was my week.

The demos are used in a two-day class where everyone sits and watches their PCs and listens to me talk. Their PCs display what my PC is doing. About 75% of the class time is lecture and I show PowerPoint slides and talk about them.

But after each lecture there is a demonstration and these fill up the remaining 25% of the class time. Many say this is the most valuable part of the class.

There are several "hard parts" to these demonstrations.

First, the class is presented not more than once a month and, in practice, about every other one is cancelled so when I pull out the class notes, I have to re-remember what this is all about.

Secondly, the equipment set up is, well, incredible! All together, I use four different computers, sometimes all at once, in the demonstrations. "Complex" is an understatement.

First, there's my usual Windows XP PC. That's the one I'm showing to everyone -- er, that is, everyone can see the screen of that machine. So I do all the PowerPoint slides there.

Next, there is a so-called "Linux development system" running a Red Hat distribution to which our product has been added. Via some computer magic, I can run our development engine on that system but have it displayed on my Windows PC screen (so everyone can see it). Unix (Linux) gurus know how to do this kind of magic. [Ahem!]

Also, I need a "shell" several times to that system that can be seen on my XP's desktop to do something that everyone needs to see.

The third machine is a "Linux target system" again running the same Red Hat distribution but without our product. I use a "shell" on Windows to connect to this target system (via "ssh", similar to "telnet" if you know what that is). Again, everyone needs to see what I do in that shell.

And finally, there is a PowerPC standalone target board to which I build and download a VxWorks system and various software pieces to try them out. That board is connected to the Linux development system via a serial port cable and I display what happens on that wire in a "terminal window" on that machine which is then shown on my PC's display, again so everyone can see it.

During class, there are often more than half a dozen windows that need to be simultaneously seen to understand what all is happening and, yes, the people that sign up for these classes do understand this complex setup.

As you might imagine, getting all this configured and hooked up the first time was interesting. It actually took quite a few attempts and, to be honest, I'm still tweaking things from time to time. (There's a "Preparation" section in the demonstration document and every tweak has to be recorded. If I don't write it down, I won't be able to "do it again" and something will fail in the demo during class. That's bad. And embarassing.)

And with classes coming up only once an average of every two months (or worse), I have to be able to replicate that setup "on demand" rather than have it cluttering up the place for the remaining 58 or more days it isn't being used.

Hence, the super-detailed demonstration instructions I completed today.

And it's a bear of a document at 68 pages of single-spaced instructions including the spoken dialog I'm supposed to say and the keystroke and mouse instructions for what I'm supposed to be doing that goes along with the dialog.

And just to make things fun, the software doesn't work like the documentation says (but you were expecting that, I'm sure).

Or the documentation has things like this (I'm summarizing):

Do something to get started;
Now do something else;
Do something and type in "7";
Do something else;
Do something entirely different;
Oh yeah, you have to type "0" in step #3 and if you didn't, you need to start over;
The next step; and
The next step; and
So forth.

Now why couldn't someone have just gone back to step #3 and changed the "7" to "0" before they published that?

But no, they didn't. And each "step" was about a paragraph long so there was no way to see that broadside coming in step #6.

That cost an hour, thank you very much.

But then again you all know computers and how much fun they can be, yes?

So now it's Friday and 5:00PM (actually more like 6:15PM!).

Time for a brew.

I'm out'a here!

Central Pennsylvania

2008-08-26T18:34:00.004-07:00

Central Pennsylvania

Workin' In The Fun

2008-08-26T18:13:00.005-07:00

Those who work in offices try to work in some enjoyment in the evenings and weekends.

Same for us road warriors.

I'm "out" for the great majority of two weeks at a time, sometimes three. A typical trip has me outbound on Monday morning and arriving on the east coast late in the day, teaching four days and then flying back home on Saturday. As often as not, the following week will be the same and a "full weekend" at home, both Saturday and Sunday, is a rare pleasure.

You might object that I could go home Friday evening and that's certainly true. And I'd have that full weekend. But long practice has taught me that if I work for 8 hours in the classroom, pack equipment for shipment for another hour and then take on a 5 hour flight fighting the jet stream back to Phoenix, plus another hour in moving through the airport and across town at each end, then that 8 hour day becomes 16. If I do that, by the time I get home I'm exhausted, stressed out from the noise and commotion, and in no condition to get a good night's sleep before the lawn mower starts calling my name the next morning. And we've learned that if I fly home Friday night, I'm no fun to be around on Saturday.

For the sake of our marriage and for the sake of my health, I stay out another night and fly home Saturday. And the lawn gets cut on Sunday.

With that much "out" time, I've also learned to try and carry on normal life as much as possible while traveling. I pay bills through on-line banking, chat with the wife by Skype when the hotel's wireless bandwidth is good, do the laundry, watch a favorite TV program or two, have the occasional "nice meal" and, when its possible, make holey paper.

That's paper with holes, in case you hadn't guessed.

Specifically, I shoot target pistols.

The sport is formally named Conventional Pistol and the rules are defined by the NRA but everyone just calls it "Bullseye."

According to the rules, all shooting must be done one-handed and no magnifying optics are allowed. We stand 25 or 50 yards away from the targets and shoot a couple of different pistols and in three different forms called Slow Fire, Timed Fire and Rapid Fire.

Slow Fire is ten rounds in ten minutes at 50 yards. The 10-ring is a little over three inches in diameter and good, really good shooters will hit it with eight or nine of those shots. And occasionally someone will "clean" it with ten shots in the ten ring for 100 points. If two people tie with the same numerical score, then you count Xs. The "X" ring is in the center of the ten ring, and is only a little over one inch in diameter. I've never seen anyone shoot a "tenex" in Slow Fire. (An "X" for me in Slow Fire is as much luck as skill, maybe more so.)

My Timed Fire Target Being Scored

Then, targets are moved closer, to 25 yards, and the Timed and Rapid Fire portions are shot. Again, it's ten shots per target. "Clean" targets are much more common than in Slow Fire, and "tenex" targets, although still pretty rare, do happen.

But the better scores at 25 yards are not just because the targets are closer. Indeed, most people shoot better when they think less.

"Don't f___ing think," Coach Pat used to say. (He would also shout "Jerk!" in my ear everytime I'd yank the gun instead of moving the trigger smoothly to the rear.)

Timed Fire at 25 yards consists of two strings of shooting. You load five rounds and, when the time starts, you have 20 seconds to shoot those five shots. You then reload with another five rounds and, again when the time starts, shoot the next string in 20 seconds. There's enough time to aim and shoot, but not enough time to think about what you're doing.

Not thinking is good. Most people shoot better when they don't have time to think.

I'm told the same is true with golf, badminton, archery and just about every other sport. "Quit that stinkin' thinkin'" applies to just about every physical skill.

Remember how hard it was to learn to ride a bike but, once you "got it", how everything just seemed to happen automatically?

Driving a car is much the same way. It is primarily a physical skill.

Of course, it's also true that the brain is involved, very much so. But a lot of what happens is done in that automatic part of the brain we don't think of as "thinking". You don't experience words. Instead, you just see and do.

Same with the sports, and the same with Bullseye.

To do well at Bullseye, you have to train the body to do the right thing, and then get the brain out of the way to let the body perform.

But I diverge.

Back to the shooting.

Rapid Fire is pretty much the same as Timed Fire but now there's only 10 seconds to get off that same 5 round string. You still aim and shoot but "aim" is no longer the right word. A better phrase is "get close to where you want and hope the gun goes bang at the right time." This form is often called "Ragged Fire" for obvious reasons.

Regardless, "clean" and "tenex" targets are still fairly common in Rapid Fire, just not as much as with Timed.

So, when my business travel permits, I take my guns.

And yes, you can travel by air with guns but only in the checked luggage and only by following all the airline rules, and by following all of the federal regulations, and only after checking the local gun laws at every airport, state and city you might pass through. Lots of cities have banned handguns (but a recent Supreme Court decision has ruled a lot of those are un-constitutional). And a lot of states make it exceedingly difficult to pass through, much less stay overnight, with handguns in your possession.

The federal and airline rules are pretty straight-forward. The guns and ammunition must be in checked bags. No carry on allowed. And everything must be in locked containers. And it behooves smart travellers to put the valuable-looking and locked gun cases inside another piece of luggage, something shabby and uninteresting. When checking in, you state that you need an "Unloaded Firearm Tag". This is a piece of paper that goes into the locked case. Typically the airline agent looks to see if you're following all the rules. Then, you stay with the suitcase while it is X-rayed by TSA and, if they want, give them the keys to unlock and inspect everything. This happens a good proportion of the time. At your destination, the bag comes out with all the other luggage and is just as vulnerable as anyone else's bag to being picked up by the wrong person and walked out the door. So there's that financial risk to consider as well.

And, of course, I only take my guns when there's a competition where I'm going, or within a drivable distance thereof. All in all, this means that my "out" an average of two out of three weeks over the year, I get to shoot in competitions maybe six times a year.

For a sport that requires a lot of practice at both shooting and not thinking, I don't get a lot of practice. So my rating, Sharpshooter, is not very advanced. If I'm lucky, diligent and unthinking enough, I might make it to Expert this year. Or maybe next. Master and High Master seem impossibly distant and, as long as my travels continue at this pace, that's probably true.

Did you know that the oldest individual to win a medal in the Olympics did so in a shooting sport?

That's true, you can look it up.

So you see I have hope of a second career when I stop travelling. (Where are the 2020 Olympics going to be held, I wonder?)

My next class is in Pennsylvania. It's a rare five-day class, a full Monday through Friday booking so I'm guaranteed of seven "out" days.

But I'm leaving even earlier, on the Friday before, because there's a Bullseye competition in Palmyra Pennsylvania the Saturday before.

And, a friend whom I've never met -- we share the Bullseye passion, blog about it separately, comment on each other's blogs, and subscribe to the same e-mail list that passionately adheres to this one sole topic -- lives near the range. We've been watching for a chance to meet and this is it. And he invited, and I accepted, to spend Friday and Saturday nights at his place and, in between, shoot the competition on Saturday. On Sunday I'll wave good-bye and drive to the location for Monday's class elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

Expense-wise, I'll pay my own bills on the extra days, pay for the drop-off charge on the one-way car rental that was necessitated by flying in to one city but back from another, and for the extra day on the car. And I'll pay the match fees, extra ammunition costs -- the 11 pound federal limit to what's in my checked and locked luggage means I'll have to buy 22 ammunition there. All totalled, and including a bottle of wine for Saturday dinner at my host's home, I'll spend an extra $200, maybe $250 for the weekend.

And if you'll pardon the pun, my weekend will be a blast!

10s and Xs! (A traditional Bullseye farewell.)

'Tween Week

2008-08-18T16:03:00.025-07:00

Hard At Work

I'm back in the SOHO - the Small Office, Home Office.

Jet-lag is the major fight to be won for the first few days. I can't stay awake any later than 8:00PM and then I'm wide, WIDE awake at 3:00AM.

Coffee mid-afternoon doesn't help. It just makes me jumpy when awake, puts a knot in my stomach, and when 8:00PM arrives, I can't stay awake but find myself sleeping in fits and starts.

But then again, I'm back on a plane this Friday for Pennsylvania and a pistol competition near Palmyra on Saturday, and then over to a Pittsburg suburb for a five day custom class next Monday through Friday. So starting this Friday, I'll need to be on east coast time and if I just add three hours to the above times, it's like I'm already there.

Fly 18 hours from London to Phoenix, cross eight time zones, and find your body is just about in the middle of all that.

Go figure.

Besides, I get a lot done at 4:00AM in Phoenix with no one around. I just have to re-do it midday when I see how foggy my brain was with the first effort.

And then I run out of steam about 3:30PM.

But the footwear is great!

A Civilized Game

2008-08-16T11:22:00.008-07:00

If you want to learn Cricket, perhaps because you are jet-lagging and just about *anything* out in the sun will suffice, do this: find the local village green with a friendly game and have a seat with the team that's batting. They'll explain it all to you and, best, you may not have to buy any beer at all, not a single pint.

Littlewick Green, Berkshire

For the team in the field, it's all about maintaining control of the ball. If you control it, the other team can't score any runs. In that sense, Cricket is a lot like American baseball.

The Brits have a term they use to say that something is all messed up. I heard it several times last week.

"It's a cock-up!"

And in Cricket, the rules for batting and scoring runs are very British. They are a "cock-up."

First the lad holding the wide, almost flat-faced bat -- he's the "striker" -- he has to defend the "stumps", the wicket. If the "bowler" (pitcher) throws the ball and hits them, that's bad.

Rule One for the striker is, therefore, protect the wicket!

With a very good bowler who can throw all sorts of pitches (er, bowls), the striker can be hard pressed to do this. At times, the best he can do is deflect the ball or maybe stop it, but no more than than. This will defend the wicket but, sadly, no runs are scored.

To score runs, the striker has to not only defend the wicket but, more so, knock the ball into an area of the field where the fielding team cannot recover it, or can't do so very quickly.

While the ball is out of their control, that's when runs can be scored.

Good strikers will hit the ball into un-populated areas of the field and send the fielders scrambling to recover it. Meanwhile, back at the wicket, the bats-man runs back and forth (counter to the alternate bats-man who, up to this point, has had nothing to do but wait) from one wicket to the other, touching the ground each time. When both bats-men successfully cross the "pitch" (the area between the two opposite wickets) and touch the ground, a run is scored.

As long as they successfully touch ground and don't get caught between the wickets by the returning ball, they are safe and can continue racking up runs as long as they can.

The fielders are, of course, attempting to recover the ball and stop the scoring of runs. They do this by throwing the ball and knocking down the wicket. If either of the strikers is not safe, when the wicket is knocked down by the ball, the play is stopped and that final run is not counted.

Watching the game in the village green, I absorbed this much along with several pints and I also remember there is something about six outs, innings (always with an "s"), another meaning to "wicket" that had something to do with how the game is measured in terms of length, and that if the ball is struck and rolls out of the playing field, that counts as four runs, and if it does so completely in the air, that's six, and you don't need to run those four or six.

After that, however, it's all a Guinness blur.

Still, with everyone in white, you have to use a red ball and that looked rather civilized, too.

And the local clubs have short rain delays where everyone retires to the pub on the edge of the green.

Very civilized.

The Shire Horse, near Littlewick Green, Berkshire, UK

2008-08-10T19:10:00.027-07:00

Sunday dinner, like all evening meals when I'm jet-lagging, is an appetizer. No more than that.

That and a cider, of course.

I drove past The Shire Horse on the way to the hotel. The Shire's "car park" was nearly full at the time, midday Saturday. That spoke well for the place. And Sunday evening when I asked the hotel desk for ideas, it was mentioned. That sealed the deal.

Waiting for Dinner

Like most proper British pubs, you can sit at the bar for dinner or find an empty table. In the latter case, if you want a food order you note the table's number recorded somewhere on top of, screwed onto the side, written on the wall behind it or hand-written on the malt vinegar bottle, leave something to stake your claim to the table and then go to the bar and order. The barman takes your drink and dinner order, fills one and enters the other. You pay directly -- er, immediately -- or he can hold your card if you want to run a tab.

I always pay -- one pint is plenty.

And in case you don't know, there's no tipping.

I must say I really like this arrangement. It's so much better than the service I get in the states. At a proper British pub, there's no sitting around waiting for the wait-person -- ever wonder why they're called "wait"-persons? -- to leave the menu but jet off with no more than your drink order, return a couple of minutes later with the drink but, again, disappear before taking your order. Then, the US-style server will come back again -- this is the third visit, mind you -- and take your food order.

And invariably after that, it seems my "party of one" and the miniscule tip it is now imagined I will leave takes a distant back seat to the party of six on their third round of drinks. And so my order sits in the warmer until exceedingly overdone, and dry, and then it gets carried all around the restaurant with other others, meanwhile fanning my food to tepidity (is that a word?).

All that rigamarole is there, of course, to make the server seem all the more important, all the more essential, and somehow guarantee you'll leave a bigger tip.

But wait, we've got this backwards!

Bribes have to be delivered up front or they don't work. Doesn't "tip" mean "To Insure Promptness?" Shouldn't we be giving our nickels and dimes, well maybe stacks of quarters and dollar bills each step of the way? Wouldn't that make more sense?

But no, we wait until the very end. That way, we're all pissed off at the lousy service and the server finally realizes she's neglected you, discriminated against you, was prejudiced from the very beginning and now she just wants you to get the hell out of her sight.

And don't give me any of that crap about, "It's not her fault."

Bull!

I worked in a restaurant. I waited tables. Hell, I roller-skated orders to cars in the parking lot and got zero tip as the customer complained, "Send the girl next time."

Look, the server can toss the meal back to the cook if it's bad. And if the cook doesn't like that treatment, he can go to the manager. [Yes, it sounds like I'm being sexist but I'm not. I just know that most servers are female, and most cooks in restaurants are male. I'm just using the majority-term. If we're gonna have "wait-persons", let's require they all be named Pat, OK?] And after that chain of complaining, if the manager comes down on the server, then it's a crappy place and the server should forget her tips and just try to survive until she can find a better place.

Yes, the server is responsible.

If I piss her off with a small tip, she'll ask herself why. And if she figures out the food was cold, was burnt, took forever to get delivered, maybe, just maybe she'll keep an eye on things a little better next time.

The idea is it's money in her pocket.

If the customer is happy, they'll make her happy.

That's how it's supposed to work and, in the finer restaurants, perhaps it does.

But most of us don't eat in those places on a regular basis.

For most of us, if we sit down to a meal where there's someone to take and deliver our order, it's in some nationally-known chain where dinner with all the trimmings is $10-15 so the tip is, what $2-3? So from the wait-person's (yes, OK, I can say that, too) from the wait-person's perspective, just how much kowtowing is worth three bucks? (Probably not much.)

So, now the diner thinks, should I cut the tip from $3 to $2, or to $1? And if they're really mad, some diners might even consider leaving the ultimate insult, two cents, to say, "No, I didn't forget your tip. Guess what this means?"

But then the gets messed up because, after a lousy meal in the states, many diners now get cold feet about expressing their true feelings. They say to themselves, "Well, maybe it's not her fault this dinner took so long, or that the food was overdone, or that it was cold," or rationalize some other reason not to risk a confrontation.

So they leave their usual 15-20% tip which tells the wait-person everything was fine, or more likely it says that the customer is an idiot with no taste buds, no ability to grasp the subtle concept of "hot" food, and whose mother probably served the original Swanson TV dinners still frozen.

Dining in a British pub, on the other hand, is civilized.

You place your order, drink or food, when it suits you. The barman doesn't expect a tip. Instead he wants to get it out of his hands as quickly as possible, so it goes right to the kitchen. And when the food comes up, the kitchen doesn't want to see it anymore so they instantly call someone to make the delivery "to table number 46 ... and here's one for 14 while you're about it".

Oh, and when you're finished eating at a proper British pub, you leave. There's no need to look for your server, flag her down by waving your credit card in the air, and no feeling of obligation to add back that dollar you mentally deducted for some affront you now rationalize that you imagined, possibly out of thirst or hunger that were obviously your own fault for waiting so long to place your order in the first place.

No, in a proper British pub, when you're done, you go.

This was to be my second jet lag dinner. My plan when traveling internationally is to have light dinners for the first three nights to get through the jet lag. During that time, I don't read the whole menu. Just the appetizers.

Today's Menu

And there, first on the list of the Shire Horse's "Starters" menu, were scallops.

I love scallops!

And I love spinach, and the "Chili and Seasame Seed Sauce" -- is that the British spelling? They would be a nice contrast with the scallops. It would be a nice light meal but with some protein, vitamins and minerals.

At the bar I ordered, "Table 46, I'll have the scallops and a pint of Strongbow."

"That's 8.95."

In US dollars, that's about $16.00 at this time -- pricey for such a small meal, yes, but perfect to what my job requires that I go through to be ready to teach the next morning.

Yes, it's a tough job sometimes but, by golly, someone's got to do it and this time it's me that's up half the night unable to sleep, and then struggling through class to stay awake and give well thought out answers to tough technical questions the next day.

So yes, when I'm travelling, I watch what I eat and try to take care of my body and brain so they can function and do what my employer expects me to do.

I hand the barman my credit card, sign the receipt a few moments later, pick up my cider and walk back to the table that I left under guard by my reversible raincoat and folding umbrella.

And, true to form, less than one-third of my pint later, someone never seen before drops off the food still steaming from the skillet.

Scallops on Toast
with Fresh Spinach

"Bravo," I think as I look at the nicely seared scallops.

"Good sized, not too many for my stomach, spinach looks very fresh. Hope the chili has some pizzazz."

At the first bite, my tongue tells me the scallops are done "just barely" as they should be. Someone in the kitchen knew exactly when to get them out of the skillet so that, as they were rushed to my table, they would finish cooking with the residual heat.

And the spinach is fresh, very fresh, obviously grown somewhere nearby or, worst case, driven in just that morning from a plane through Heathrow 20 miles east of here.

A little more "jazz" in the chili would've been all right is my only complaint, and a weak one at that. Just my personal taste.

Of course, it was a small meal, a very small meal. I was done in five minutes, and that only by cutting each scallop in half and, at the end, using the last few gobbets of bread to mop up the sweet chili sauce.

Two-thirds of my pint were gone with the last bite.

I set the empty plate on the other side of the table, pushed my chair back slightly and leaned back to savor the atmosphere.

And I suddenly realized, no one was smoking!

There was no smoke in this otherwise most proper British pub!!

Nor was anyone smoking at the Bird in Hand for my lunch of split pea soup with a pint of Guinness even though that extremely traditional Inn had roots back to the thirteenth century.

No one smokes in British pubs anymore!

So I have to say this for the Brits: they not only know how to run a proper pub that caters to its customers -- oh yes, I'll go back to the Shire Horse all right -- but they're also not afraid to see something that works somewhere alien with decidedly silly ideas called "tipping" that obviously aren't working, try this other idea called "no smoking" to see if it works for their British clientelle, and to adopt it when it does.

Well done, England!

I think I'll have another pint, if you please.

Long Ride Today

2008-08-08T05:31:00.002-07:00

Phoenix to Charlotte, then Charlotte to Gatwick. That's today's agenda.

Counting ground transportation, security delays and air time, it will be about eighteen hours from door to door with the last hour spent remembering to stay left on the road.

It'll be about 10:00AM when I get to the hotel but my body will feel like it's the middle of the night. Aching tired, distant nausea, foggy brain. Not a good time to go sight-seeing. But the hotel probably won't let me check-in until the afternoon so there's several hours to kill -- of course, it may take that long to find the hotel on those twisty roads.

I went to Pigot once, in the south of England. Driving down from Gatwick, there was a major fog. The locals said it was "typical". But I couldn't see the edge on the other side of the road and no signs, neon or otherwise, were visible, much less readable. Searching for the hotel, I couldn't find it so I parked along the edge of the road in what I hoped was out of the main flow and walked up to the first door I could find. It was glass and I could see what looked like a restaurant inside. So I went in and asked which way was the hotel. The waitress gave me a quizzical look and pointed through an opening to what I then saw was the Reception. I checked in but had the bellman help me navigate the rental from the street around to the parking lot in the rear.

Hope tomorrow morning's search won't be as challenging.

After some spotty sleep Saturday night, Sunday will be a "foggy" day; my body will be rested but the circadian clocks will all be out of sync and my brain will be prone to stupid mistakes.

"Get lots of sun in the daytime," I've been told. "It helps reset the clock."

So I'll be out and about as much as I can in the UK daytime.

I've never seen central London, seen Big Ben, the Parliament and all that. The train goes through Maidenhead to London and, if it runs on Sunday, that'll be a good adventure with only a minimum of driving between hotel and train station.

Then I'm teaching for four days a handful of miles from the hotel.

And shooting air pistol with a local club Monday night with their guns. That should be fun meeting them and then embarassing myself on their range.

And finally back the other way Friday midday and arriving Friday evening, both "local" but different time zones. It's a longer ride going back against the jet stream, an additional three hours, plus a longer connect time in Charlotte. And my body clock will be mostly on UK time but instantly pick up on the coming stress. The ride home will be harder.

I don't like these really long rides. Body-clock changes of more than three or four hours are, well, I guess "unpleasant" is the closest fit to how it feels. There's no one discomfort to point to. Instead, lots of things are out of kilter. But, in time, you learn what to expect. You know the pain and the mild nausea will pass in a few hours. You learn to accept. And to wait. The ordeal will be over in a few hours. Knowing there is an end helps.

The final hour before landing is the worst. First, you know it is almost over but the plane hasn't started its descent yet. So you wait. Then we start going down. Good! If it's a nice morning, I'll see the ground and find distraction there. That helps. But if it's cloudy or foggy, then you just wait, and wait, and wait until finally the ground appears again. The thump of the landing and then the braking are very welcome. But then there's the interminable taxi to the gate, and then waiting for all those in front to hurry up and get off the friggin' plane, will ya?

I don't sleep on planes. Maybe I know too much about them. Then again, my tall body just can't get comfortable enough in those coach seats with the ever-decreasing leg room.

So I'll have a book; there will be a couple of movies; and I'm taking an extra pre-charged battery for the notebook computer.

I wonder what the flight attendants will serve for breakfast?

Confounded DVD Burner!

2008-08-04T14:09:00.004-07:00

Whenever we develop training materials with labs, we have to be sure everything can be reproduced in the classroom. This means that not only must the steps of the labs be verified, but also that the lab systems themselves have to be in the same initial configuration for each class. For the instructor, this means that one of his/her first jobs before starting a new class is to re-image the lab systems back to that initial configuration.

And for the individuals who are developing those courses, we have to create those images in the first place.

Well, I'm in the midst of creating some demonstrations for a new class, one that will be presented on the web. Although the students don't get lab systems, I do, and I need to be sure the system I'm using is "back to square one" before each class. So I'm responsible for creating, and testing, the lab system image.

We use Ghost from Symantec for this. It is very reliable and relatively easy to use. Because it uses "multicast" network addressing, we can restore ten machines in about the same time as it takes to restore one (minus equipment hook-up which is predictably longer with more machines).

Creating the ghost-copy of the lab system was a snap. The 4+ Gigabyte image took a few minutes to pull off the lab system disk drive, move it across my office LAN, and deposit it in a folder on my Windows machine.

"Shoot," I thought, "I'll be done in no time."

Well, that erroneous thought was hours ago.

What's holding up the works is the DVD burn.

Indeed, my trash can currently has no less than eight DVDs where something either failed during the burn or was picked up during the verification.

I don't know if the DVDs are at fault, the connection to the PC, the DVD burner itself, the phase of the moon or what.

The DVD burner is a good brand name and the DVDs are from the same manufacturer. Ought'a be compatible, you'd think.

The burner is an add-on, a USB plug-in, so maybe there's something going on there. I moved from the USB connector on the monitor that was plugged into the USB connector on the back which is internally connected to the USB connector on the side, to the USB connector on the side. And I've disconnected the two network connections just in case something was "banging in" with a lot of overhead at an inopportune moment. And I'm steeling myself to just sit-and-watch instead of pushing buttons and trying to get other work done because, with so many failures, maybe it's somehow due to the other programs I've been running. (Windows is not real good at multi-tasking. I know because that's the business we're in. We know real-time, they don't.)

But each of my trial-and-error attempts to burn another DVD "burns" 20-30 minutes. And you can calculate that eight bad DVDs in my trashcan means there's about four hours of work sitting at the bottom of my trash.

Oh, I suppose I could try and be positive by saying that's "four hours for things I won't have to try again" but, regardless, there are other things on the plate for today that are less and less likely to get finished.

Four hours gone is four hours gone.

And ... Wait, what's this. No errors?

Eureka! My first good burn-and-verify! Hooray!

Oh, quick, what did I change? What did I do that made this one work?

Aha, I rebooted before trying this burn, and left the machine off the network, and disconnected the other USB devices, and didn't touch the keyboard, and didn't wiggle the mouse, and didn't even look at the screen. (Not sure what the phase of the moon is now but I'm sure it hasn't changed much in four hours.)

Can I do another one? As flakey as this process has been I sure would like to have several (3?) copies that *might* be goood.

[12 minutes pass]

So far, so good. (I snuck a peek.)

[5 more minutes pass]

Hooray, that's two!

Go for three?

[18 minutes pass]

Yes, halleluyah, I've got three, count them three questionably good and reportedly verified copies!

(I think I'll keep the copy on the hard drive for a while.)

Now, what was I *supposed* to get done today?

Oh, boy...

Shift Gears

2008-07-24T16:40:00.003-07:00

Next week's class is canceled or at least delayed for several weeks.

Ok, cancel the air tickets, hotel and car, cancel the early morning shuttle to the airport, note the air ticket confirmation numbers so they can be re-used for credit on the next booking (without penalty or fee, thank you Southwest Airlines).

I'm wrapping up study of the avionics product this week. Next week I will shift gears and write some demos for web-based class presentations of a different, defense-related product. We already have the training materials for that class but only for in-person presentations with hands-on labs and equipment. For web-based presentations, however, I demonstrate the different capabilities and, presumably, the students go try it on their own later.

But the class in question is presented rarely and there's enough time between them that I forget how to do things, or at least I'm afraid I won't do as thorough a job if I don't write it down.

Instructors who are inclined to take greater risks might just "wing it", and I could probably do that but, for a couple of hours effort, especially since we're being paid to create them, I'll be sure. (And I'll sleep a lot better with things written down.)

So next week will be "course development" (demo development, actually) instead of "face time."

So be it.

I just wish it wasn't so darn hot. It was 115 today on our thermometer. In weather like this, we simply don't budge outside the door. Sitting on the patio with notebook and reference manuals to do work is not an option.

Down Week

2008-07-22T15:33:00.003-07:00

I'm home for a week after being out for two.

Things on the agenda include:

Enter course evaluations from previous classes;
Print and file course evaluation reports from previous classes;
Answer outstanding questions from students;
Answer new (email) questions from former students;
Do monthly expense report by checking-off receipts in on-line report, copying and mailing receipts to accounting, and then clicking the "submit" button;
Find out if next week's trip is a "Go" or not, change travel plans if it's been delayed;
Find out if UK trip next month is enough of a "Go" to purchase air tickets, and do so if "Yes";
Renew product licenses for the next 60 days;
Get completed example of a certification document;
Create certification documents for two of the courses I teach;
Experiment with one OS to get a better insight into what it is really doing (in spite of what the manual says);
Write product demos for another OS appropriate for web-based lecture presentation "once in a blue moon" (which means I need detailed blow-by-blow steps because I won't remember them when presented so rarely); and
Dispose of bad Li-Ion batteries from notebook at Home Depot (apparently they have a bin) [Update: They only accept batteries from rechargeable tools. A block away, however, the folks at Batteries Plus were glad to accept them.].

All subject to change when the boss sends email, chats me up or telephones.

And of course there's the yard to cut, rocks to push around where the three palms were removed, checkbook to balance, bills to pay, toilets to fix ... you know, the "usual".

Some target practice at the range would be nice but, then again, the monsoon season has started so the humidity is either high with 100 degree temperatures, or the air dries out and the temperature goes up to 111 -- that's where it is now [3:52PM]. Maybe I'll skip the range until mid-September when the highs go sub-100 and the humidity disappears.

Gotta fit "Family" in somewhere this week. (I took my daughter and her family to "The Dark Knight" for the early show at the big screen theater here this past Sunday. Excellent writing, great characters, spectacular action. I recommend it. Won't be nearly as good on some puny DVD.)

Not-So-Nice Classroom

2008-07-21T09:35:00.004-07:00

Our classes -- some would call them seminars -- run two to four days and are presented in company conference rooms, ours and theirs, and meeting rooms in hotels.

The quality of the room is, not surprisingly, directly related to its cost. The up-scale hotels, for example, start off at about the same rate as the cheaper hotels but require the purchase of refreshments at exhorbitant rates -- $2/soft drink, $25/pot of coffee, $1/cookie -- and then tack on an 18% service fee. And if you include a plated-lunch, that's another $25/person plus 18% service fee as well. These additions will more than double the per-day cost.

Mid-level hotels charge about the same daily rate for their meeting rooms and refreshments, but often don't have a lunch service.

Some of the companies that present these seminars provide lunch and, when using one of these mid-level hotels, the instructor takes everyone out to lunch. These usually work out quite well with students getting more one-on-one time with the teacher as well as a nice meal. And the teacher gets to sit down for a while. That's also very nice.

And some of the companies that present these seminars don't provide lunch. Right, wrong or indifferent, that's just the way it is. Basically, students are on their own for an hour or so.

Of course, the instructor has to eat and. if he's from out of town and someone knows an interesting place, students can get some extra one-on-one time if they invite the instructor to go with them, all paying "Dutch". [Interestingly, the Dutch call going out in a group but with each person paying their own meal, "Going American".]

Teaching classes in company meeting rooms is where the most variation in quality happens. Some rooms are very well set up for seminars. They will have a good quality projector hanging from the ceiling with the end of the video cable at the front of the room with space and power for the instructor's computer. The projection screen will roll up and disappear leaving a white board behind it so the instructor can "write on" a projected slide. And there will be a second (or third!) white board on a side wall -- with enough floor space so the instructor can get to it. Drawings on the secondary white boards are placed there so the content can be visible for a while. They deserve more thought and need to be in view longer. And finally, the room will have a flip-chart pad and a roll of masking tape for important diagrams that can be taped to the walls and left in view for the full run of the seminar.

We need a lot of desktop space in our classes. Each lab station gets a notebook computer and a target computer board roughly that same size. We put two students to each lab station for the reason that, if working alone, students stop when they get stuck for some reason but, when working as a pair, they usually figure out the problem and, as a result, they learn far more.

All that equipment needs power. We take power strips and extension cords with us but it helps when the customer's conference table accommodates our power needs directly.

And it should go without saying that the room should be clean, quiet and comfortable. And most are.

But there are exceptions.

A while back, for example, I was shown to the conference room on the first day of class. As my escort opened the door, he apologized for the room and then quickly disappeared.

My first impressions were of cheap paneling, folding tables, badly water-stained carpet tiles and a strong musty smell. The white board had several unrelated drawings in a mix of permanent and supposedly-erasable markers.

"Well," I thought to myself, "this certainly sets a new low record."

But there was nothing I could do. So I moved on and started planning our needs for that class. There would be eight students at four lab stations and, with the shape of the room, I decided to move the tables into two rows of three tables with four chairs each.

As I dragged the first table into place, I noticed the legs kicking up a cloud of dust.

I decided to hold my breath, move all the tables as quickly as possible and then run from the room before inhaling God knows what.

Returning a few minutes later, I picked up the chairs and carefully put them in place and did the same gentle manipulations for the instructor's projector and lab system table.

Next, I started to get ready to re-image the disk drives of the notebook computers. (The lab systems are constantly on the road. Instructors are responsible for preparing the equipment at the beginning of each class.)

I opened the shipping cases and removed five notebooks, four to use and one for backup. I hooked up their power supplies, plugged them into a power strip and plugged that into a wall outlet.

But nothing would power up. The wall outlet was dead.

I added an extension cord and quickly found that all the wall outlets in the room were off.

I then remembered there had been one extension cord already in the room when I entered and now I knew why it was there; it was the sole source of power in the room.

An hour later, all the notebooks had been re-imaged, the books removed from their shipping boxes and distributed to the eight places for students along with the four notebooks and target computers. Two of our extension cords and three power strips completed the set up.

Looking at the white board, I knew it was hopeless for Day #1. It would not erase and using the stinky cleaner at this point would just make the room uninhabitable for hours.

There would be no white board this day.

Fortunately, no one was using the adjacent training room so I commandeered the best-looking flip-chart pad and a box of markers and moved them into my classroom.

At the beginning of each class, I usually go around the class and have each student introduce themselves. I ask for their name, where they were born, and what they do for fun. The goal is to break the ice and start getting to know them as individuals.

But I go first because I have an ulterior motive.

"I'll go first," I say. "My name is Ed Skinner, I was born in Memphis Tennessee, and for fun I do a precision pistol shooting sport called 'Bullseye' where we shoot paper targets at 25 and 50 yards."

My ulterior motive is to find out if there are any shooters in the class and, just possibly, find a local group of Bullseye shooters with a weeknight regular competition to which I could visit and shoot. That's a long-shot, no pun intended, but even without finding that, often there are shooters in the class who want to talk about their guns, and sometimes there are those who are just curious and want to ask questions. (I do make it clear that I only shoot paper targets. I don't have anything against hunters but am confident that's not for me.)

But for this class, I modified my question. I added, "And you each has to make one positive statement about this room that no one else has made."

Since I was going first, my addition was, "And I'm pleased to see the company has saved money on expenses by using this same carpet in what I would guess are several different installations and in spite of the obvious water damage -- and they've not beat it to death with the use of a vacuum cleaner."

"Positive statements" from other students included the "cost-effective choice of paneling", "saving money on white-board erasers and cleaners" and "not wasting money on a handicapped-usable ramp down into the classroom instead of the abrupt and otherwise unmarked step since this entire floor of the building was wheelchair inaccessible with no elevator and a steep staircase with no light."

Fortunately, they all understood that my attempt at levity was just an acknowledgment of the common suffering over which we had no control.

They laughed, I laughed, and we moved on. Class began in earnest after that and we had a good four days. The equipment worked, they asked good questions, we had neither too much nor too little content, and nobody fell down the step, nobody developed a wheeze, and no one went into epileptic seizures.

And the Course Evaluations they wrote at the end of the course were actually quite good. Of course, the "facility" fared poorly, but not as badly as I had expected. Indeed, the room received a "1" (poor), the lowest rating, from half the students, "2" from two more and, go figure, "4" (good) from the last two. (Perhaps those last two had tested some of the anonymous drugs that were offered during the week or perhaps I have misunderstood what they were doing in there?)

My summary of complaints for the facility went only to my management to do with as they saw fit. It included:

Dead bugs in all corners of room (example: 7 in SE corner) and under student tables;
Live bugs wandering through the classroom;
Filthy carpet (heavy footsteps raise cloud of dust);
Obvious black mold on wall in adjacent classroom in adjoining corner (presumably in the common wall);
Public notice in the lobby warning of asbestos in the building but assuring us it had all be "immobilized" (the air conditioner duct across the ceiling of the room was encased in a plastic tube, and the ancient hot water lines running to the radiators had several coats of paint on their fiber-looking insulation);
Fire Extinguisher sign in room pointing to location from which the extinguisher had been removed including the bracket and the remote control for the air conditioner placed in its stead;
Missing ceiling tiles and exposed "works" in ceiling;
Water stains in majority of carpet squares;
No warning of step down into classroom;
Room felt damp all the time unlike other buildings in area;
Entry-way closed two of four days for anonymous drug-testing in adjacent room: used back door to enter classroom;
Restrooms on classroom floor closed two of four days for same reason: had to go up one flight (no elevator, no light on steep stairs);
No handicap access to classroom (not an issue for this group of individuals);
No preparation for locking/unlocking the classroom around lunch (building is open to public access);
White board unusable for two days, returned to marginal service by instructor after repeated cleanings but required liquid cleaner each night to "survive" the next day;
No flip chart (instructor "borrowed" one from adjacent classroom);
Wall power outlets not functional;
No trash containers; and
No refreshments.

I forgot to mention that we were in the basement beneath the basketball court.

If the "employer" whose training room we used isn't completely obvious to you, I'll just add that it was your tax dollars that furnished the room.

Mixed feelings are, therefore, appropriate.

Eating in Atlanta

2008-07-13T16:57:00.010-07:00

I was really impressed with Atlanta.

The company at which I taught the four day class did not have any place to eat so I went out for lunch each day and was accompanied by some of the students on three of those days. One of them, John, had some strong ideas about places to go for lunch so I let him choose. I wasn't disappointed.

Junior's Grill

On the first day, four of us hiked 15 minutes across the Georgia Tech campus to Junior's Grill. They had the expected student-fare of burgers and fries, but also a cafeteria-style selection of better but still home-style dishes. I had the meat loaf with sides of black-eyed peas, spinach and a piece of cornbread. Everything was very good, far better than the name "Junior's Grill" had led me to expect. Whoever was back in the kitchen knew how to cook these dishes. And they obviously had a large iron pan in which to make the cornbread; southern cooks will tell you that's an essential "ingredient" for a proper cornbread.

Chinese Buddha

Only John and I went out together on the second day. We walked east instead of south to an upscale Chinese place he knew, Chinese Buddha. I had the Kung Pao chicken. When delivered, I was delighted to find the ingredients fresh and not overly done. And the sauce was spicey but not so much as to overpower the flavors of the other ingredients. And it was nicely presented in a large semi-bowl shaped white dish.

The Varsity

Day #3 I was on my own as the others had a meeting to attend where the boss would be providing lunch -- pizza. She didn't ask so I didn't have to say, "No thanks." Left to my own, I relied on the advice of several who had mentioned, and warned me about, the local greasy-burger tradition -- since 1928 -- the Varsity. It was said to be historic in appearance, in cuisine, and in the age of its grease with the onion rings being particularly notable in all three categories. After checking my computer bag to be sure I had a roll of Tums, I committed.

I had to circle the parking lot to find a place to park. Getting out of the car, I noticed the line was out the front door waiting to get in.

"This looks interesting," I thought.

Once through the door, I found the menu up on the wall in several places over a very long counter with several stations where an order could be placed. I chose the "Express Line." The fellow ahead warned it was "Express" because you had better know what you want when you get to the front. I ordered a cheeseburer, ring and a big orange, no frills, nothing fancy, just straight off the menu. The tab was five-something and the food was in front of me in less than a minute. Taking my tray, I checked a couple of rooms before finding an empty seat.

The burger was small, utterly plain, but good. (Note to self: order it with something, *anything* on it next time.)

The rings were, as had been said, the real thing, prepared and cooked correctly. These were not from one of those machine that chopped and shaped "rings of onion" that the fast food chains use. Nope, these were real onion rings, probably rinsed in a milky solution before battering and frying. And the batter was solidly glued to the onion inside so there was no danger of the onion coming out of the batter tube. Nope, these were perfect rings.

I went back for another treat. I'd seen them on many trays, the chili dog. But, alas, I must say I was disappointed. The chili was bland and the dog unremarkable. Maybe onions? And cheese? And some tabasco. Definitely some tabasco.

Two hours later back in the classroom and halfway through the source code debugger lecture, a single burp forced its way out mid-sentence. When I excused myself I added, "The Varsity." Universally there were excusing smiles in the classroom.

Spoon

On the last day, we took a third compass direction and walked to Spoon, a Thai place about ten minutes away. And as with the other places, the atmosphere was great. The place was busy with lots of people and with an amazing number of waiters (that's a sex-generic term, by the way -- "wait-persons" is so ugly, don't you think?) bustling about.

I had the Panang with shrimp and scallops. Uncertain of the chef, I ordered medium-hot. I'll go "hot" next time, maybe even Thai-hot. As with John's other selections, the food was excellent.

The dinners didn't score quite as well but, nonetheless, I found some places worth repeating.

Luckie's

First, however, the "miss". The hotel had a 10% off coupon for Luckie's, on Luckie.

The first omen was the fellow standing outside the door. I noticed him while still half a block away and wondered if he was waiting for a ride or something. He had a nice suit, a tad on the bulky side for his physique, but didn't look like a druggie waiting for someone to mug.

Intending to walk past and see if there were other restaurants around the corner, I cut across the parking lot in front of Luckies.

"Please stay on the sidewalk. This is private property," he said to me.

"I'm going to go in and eat," I answered. "I just wanted to see what else there might be."

"Well, that'll be just fine then, sir. Go ahead and have a look."

I took a few steps and had my now obligated glance down the cross street. There was a burger place next door but that was it.

"I'll go on in now and eat," I said.

"Yes sir. And I hope you weren't offended by what I said."

"Not at all," I answered but thought to myself that he looked awfully silly trying to shoo folks away, and was undoubtedly driving away the occasional customer who wouldn't overlook the affront as I had.

Strike one.

As I entered through the front door, I saw again this was a mistake. The decor was as trendy as you could be with strange shaped light fixtures, a slithery bar, some raised seating as well as normal, and an open view into the kitchen with tall flames jetting up from the stoves.

Strike two.

But I had walked several blocks to get there after standing and walking around the classroom all day and, frankly, I just wasn't up to the walk back without getting some energy first. So I read the unfortunately predictable menu, ordered the top sirloin medium with the caesar salad and have since forgotten the sides. I ordered a local beer, a 402, while I waited for the food. The food was nicely presented and nicely done and the wait-person smiled and was nicely patronizing to the single while the six-top waited, but the whole experience said this was a place to bring someone when you want to impress them with your snobbishness.

But when you're by yourself as I was, why bother? Who's to impress?

So I ate half the meal as I'd intended and took the rest back to the hotel to refrigerate and then nuke tomorrow for dinner.

With that, Luckies provided my dinner for the first two nights while forcing me to suffer their atmosphere and insults only once. That's the only thing I can say for the place.

Osterial del Figo

Fortunately, that was the only downer on this trip. Dinner on the third evening was back up to another pleasant surprise, and was via another suggestion from John. I had asked for Northern Italian. He said, Osteria del Figo on Howell Mill Rd.

Reportedly this is a local chain, and unbeknownst to me, the location on Howell Mill Road I chose was the least fancy of the trio. But what I found suited my interests and fatigue perfectly. It was very casual, out of the way, and not the least bit ostentatious. The decor was nicely done but more like sitting on someone's patio rather than in a fancy restaurant. Everything seem to say, "Come on in, relax, we'll take good care of you."

When I entered, I picked up a menu by the cash register to decide if I would stay or not. That only took a moment; there were several intriguing possibilities with pasta and sauce were ordered separately. I could customize my own order. I like that.

Orders are placed before being seated so I chose the capellini, the shrimp and zucchini in white wine sauce, and a glass of the house Pinot Grigio. My three item-order was tallied and my credit card processed. They handed me a green-painted pepper grinder as the marker of my order and said, "Please sit anywhere you like."

I chose a table by the window with the chair positioned so I could also watch the other patrons. They appeared to be locals, many of them students or young professionals. There were couples, groups of 2-4 women, and two other singles like myself.

My tumbler (!) of wine came. I eyed it apprehensively before picking it up. Wine in a heavy glass tumbler is almost always a bad sign. But not this time. The Pinot Grigio was light and fruity as it should be with a faint lemon tang. Well after each sip, no bitterness came.

"A good start," I nodded to myself.

A server brought bread but before I could stop her, she poured a plateful of olive oil.

Uh, oh!

You see, Italians refer to this manner of dunking and eating of bread as "American style." Italians would say that anyone with even the feeblest of manners would know that the proper way is to first hold the bread over the plate and then to dribble olive oil directly onto the bread. The only purpose of the plate is to catch any oil that drips through.

Pouring out a lake of oil as the Americans do is just crass.

But with that plateful of oil before me, what could I do?

Looking about, I did not see any obvious Italians -- check the shoes, you can always tell from the shoes -- so I decided to be one of those Americans.

I ripped, I dunked, I dabbed, I leaned over and slurped in the bread and oil.

And to my very pleasant surprise, it was superb!

It was obviously a very good quality first squeeze, a virgin virgin. It had been infused with herbs and red peppers but then filtered to remove all sediment. It appeared to be plain oil but, oh that red pepper!

As I finished the bread, the capellini arrived and, without going into details, it was next to perfect as well.

Originally intending a light meal but with three "hits" already beneath my belt, I decided to take on extra innings.

"Espresso and tira misu, please."

Again, both were excellent.

After driving back to the hotel, I slept well. Probably with a smile. Figo's made this tired traveller glad he had stopped there for a meal.

Six Feet Under Grant Park

By the fourth night, I'd struck up a passing friendship with one of the hotel valet drivers. On my way out for dinner on this last night in Atlanta, I told him of my earlier disappointment with Luckies, how much I had liked Figo's and that, for my last night, I'd just like to get a nice piece of fish without a lot of pretense and maybe a beer or two. He immediately suggested Six Feet Under Grant Park.

"It's across from a graveyard," He added.

I smiled and thought yes, that could be my kind of place.

Before setting out, I looked up the restaurant and reviewed their menu on the internet. Several dishes looked interesting so I noted the address and headed out. Plugging the address into my GPS, I was there in a few minutes.

I ordered a locally brewed ale, the home-made potato chips appetizer, the shrimp and scallops in parchment, with sides of spinach and greens. It sounded like too much food and, yes, it was. The potato chips with sour cream dill dip were an interesting diversion but not worth repeating. The shrimp and scallops, on the other hand, were quite good with the parchment keeping them good and hot as I ate. And the vegetables were also good but I soon found myself running out of steam. The pepper sauce was helpful, as always, with the slight bitterness in the greens but, frankly, I had reached the point where my excesses of the week had pushed me into the wall.

I could eat no more and a doggie bag was out of the question.

Four interesting lunches and two such dinners in four days; that's a rare score. Both Atlanta and John are going into my book for good eating.

I'm on my way up to Newport Rhode Island on Saturday for a class there the following week. My food budget, while not abused except for that one unfortunate "Luckie" choice, was close to full and I suspected my stomach would also feel that way for a couple of days. Indeed, often after one of these trips I find myself nearly fasting for a few days.

"A cup o' noodles for lunch? Why yes, that sounds just about right. And maybe some saltines for dinner."