It’s been a busy day today, but I am finally squeezing in time to write about Carl Sagan. When I woke up this morning, the date was vaguely familiar, and it was on the train into work that I realized that it was 10 years ago today that Carl Sagan passed away. I am not…
I am in the midst of a bad reading phase right now, which happens from time-to-time. What I mean by a bad reading phase is either (a) just not doing any reading, even though I have plenty to read; or (b) not reading anything that seems to hold my interest. In this case, it’s the…
Up just after 8 AM and breakfast. Then I started on the conversion and migration of my book collection and reading lists databases from Booxter/MySQL on my local machine, to the instance of MySQL I now have through my ISP and I have been working on that most of the day thus far, making some…
Isaac Asimov wrote a series of history books for Houghton Mifflin company back in the 1960s and early 1970s. I think there were 14 books in all and that can be pretty hard to come by. Being a collector, I have 9 of them and today a tenth arrived from Powell’s Books, The Dark Ages.…
Yesterday, I worked at getting my story submission log online. Today, I began the process of getting my book collection database online. I’ve stated with a few simple, common queries and over the next few weeks, I will add in some additional features, including the ability to search the database. For now, you can see…
One of my co-workers brought by a copy of Ian Flemming’s Casino Royale today to let me read it. I liked the movie and I’ve never read an Ian Flemming book, but I’m told this is a good one to read (it also looks like a very fast read). When I’m finished with Hybrids I’m…
I went to see the new Denzel Washington movie, Deja Vu yesterday afternoon and I have to say that I was disappointed with it. The acting was good (it usually is with someone of Denzel’s stature) but the story itself was flawed in my opinion, enough so that it really took away from the movie.
For s.f. readers, you probably enjoy skimming through Locus’s list of forthcoming books. The latest issue has the list through September 2007, and while it is far from complete, I enjoy skimming the list because I like looking for authors whose books I enjoy reading. Here are some from the list that I am particularly…
It has already been a busy and productive morning, and it’s only 10:30. Much of my morning has been spent writing some perl scripts to transform and import a large amount of legacy data into a newly designed database for the data. It is a multi-step process but I’m pleased with the progress I made…
I was reading Humans on the train ride home this evening. I take the Yellow line to Mt. Vernon Square and then switch the Green line. It is so routine for me that I can do it with my eyes closed. I have an internal sensor that tells me when I’m at my switching point,…
There’s nothing like a perfectly constructed sack lunch in the middle of the day to take your mind off work and allow you to eat, relax and read in comfort. My book (which I don’t eat, of course), a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some cookies, a banana, carrots, and a caffeine-free CokeTM. Eat for…
I got a late start this morning and didn’t get into work until about 9:30 AM. It was like this: I spent yesterday afternoon doing nothing. I watched some TV, but really, I did nothing. Maybe a little laundry, and some grocery shopping, but aside from that, I was as lazy as I could possibly…