At work this week, I moved to a new group where the development environment is Adobe Flex. It is a breath of fresh air for me. Today it all became fun when I had a bug in my code and could acutally set a breakpoint and debug the code. For the past several years this simple process was torture. Found a bug in JavaScript? Good luck on finding where it is. Bug in JSP code, have fun finding it. Will an interactive debugger help? I am sorry it should be easy but it is not. Even using IE developer toolbar or Firefox Firebug it just seems like too much work to find a little bug. The best thing about Flex is the UI components, but it is the small things in life that make being a developer enjoyable in the daily trenches.
For the last couple of weeks at home on my Mac, I have been learning Flex by completely rewriting my Attentive 2 Design personal web site in Flex. I covered some of the things that I had always wanted to do in DHTML but never was able to get them working in all browsers. A custom dialog with clickable content, drop shadows, show/hiding content on mouse events. I used Flex Builder 3which was a great Adobe decision by making it work within Eclipse, since that is the development IDE of choice for Java for many years. I am looking forward to having fun again after many years.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
perfection vs. addiction
Is it possible to be perfect? How about close enough so you don't cause grief? How good is good enough? Does it matter if we cannot be perfect on this earth? Such big questions don't normally come up very often. For some odd reason I have been thinking about it lately.
At the same time I have been reading another book on drug addiction beautiful boy: a father's journey through his son's addiction by David Sheff. I must say that this book helps more than A Million Little Pieces by James Frey or The Heroin Diares by Nikki Sixx. Having lived a couple of years through our son abusing himself and drugs and the hell it caused, I must say as in everything there is always someone who has it worse than we do. Yesterday I asked my son if he ever did crystal methadone and he said no he did not but every one he knew in San Antonio did. Now that is just another reason we are happy that we left that stage of our lives behind and returned to NC. Maybe a couple of quotes from this book:
There has to be a middle ground somewhere. Either way the mental institution is just a heart beat away if he try to attain perfection in ourselves or our kids.
At the same time I have been reading another book on drug addiction beautiful boy: a father's journey through his son's addiction by David Sheff. I must say that this book helps more than A Million Little Pieces by James Frey or The Heroin Diares by Nikki Sixx. Having lived a couple of years through our son abusing himself and drugs and the hell it caused, I must say as in everything there is always someone who has it worse than we do. Yesterday I asked my son if he ever did crystal methadone and he said no he did not but every one he knew in San Antonio did. Now that is just another reason we are happy that we left that stage of our lives behind and returned to NC. Maybe a couple of quotes from this book:
- We pretend that everything is all right. But we live with a time bomb. It is debilitating to be dependent on another's moods and decisions and actions. pg 228
- A using addict cannot trust his own brain - it lies, says 'You can have one drink, a joint, a single line, just one.' pg 261
- An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie about it. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you find it. Part of me is convinced that he actually believes that he will find it for you. pg 265
- If they don't die or do too much damage, there's a chance, always a chance. pg 272
- I said, I'm a drug addict and alcoholic. He shook his head. No, he said, that's how you've been treating your problem. What is your problem? Why are you here? pg 295
- Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. pg 302
- I want to open up and hear Nic and believe him, but I am unwilling to tear down the fragile dam that I have constructed to protect myself. I am afraid I'll be drowned. pg 303
There has to be a middle ground somewhere. Either way the mental institution is just a heart beat away if he try to attain perfection in ourselves or our kids.
Monday, March 3, 2008
kids and cards
It must have been the perfect weather with a cloudless sky and spring like temperatures that finally got all of the kids outside at the same time. I started washing my filthy car as it had not been bathed since last fall, mostly due to the water shortage in this region. Before I knew it my daughter came out to help me. By the time we moved onto my wife's van, I looked up and was shocked to see the boys watching us. Not that they were there to help but at least they were out of their rooms.
Later in the afternoon, my daughter and I played cards for the first time in a long time. We failed miserably to win any of our two-handed solitaire games, but as usual we enjoyed talking to each other about everything in general and nothing in specific. After several attempts we gave up and moved onto Uno. It is one of my daughter's favorite card games. She just likes to play and is not worried about who wins really.
Both of these events remind me of my childhood. I used to play all kinds of games with my mother but was a really bad loser. I still don't know why she played with me, but it must have been the word "love". I would get physically angry when I lost at any game as I was so competitive about everything I did. I played football, basketball and baseball in leagues, but I guess I brought that with me when playing games at home with family. Looking back that just seems so stupid of me. That was not the height of stupidity as I did many other such things that would rank much higher.
The other thing I remember is that it seemed like endless chores. On every other Saturday morning I dusting all of the furniture in the house - now today, who even knows what in the world that means? At least I had a sister who did it the other Saturdays. I chopped wood for our fireplace and sometimes did the same for a couple of elderly women in town. I mowed several lawns and at least got paid for doing them. I had to weed our nearly one acre garden. I had to wash the dishes every other night after supper. Most of these responsibilities increased when I became the official man of the house at 14 years old, after my parents divorced. That is when I got to paint the whole outside of the house, fix things that broke around the house and wash and wax the cars. Looking back I am glad I grew up on a small farm as I learned the definition of hard manual labor and responsibility, mostly from forced chores. I did not like the divorce as my family life was not pleasant in that regard and this one event single handily changed the course of my whole life for the worse. That is one of the reasons I am so determined to not let that happen my own kids.
So let the kids and car washing followed up by playing cards continue...
Later in the afternoon, my daughter and I played cards for the first time in a long time. We failed miserably to win any of our two-handed solitaire games, but as usual we enjoyed talking to each other about everything in general and nothing in specific. After several attempts we gave up and moved onto Uno. It is one of my daughter's favorite card games. She just likes to play and is not worried about who wins really.
Both of these events remind me of my childhood. I used to play all kinds of games with my mother but was a really bad loser. I still don't know why she played with me, but it must have been the word "love". I would get physically angry when I lost at any game as I was so competitive about everything I did. I played football, basketball and baseball in leagues, but I guess I brought that with me when playing games at home with family. Looking back that just seems so stupid of me. That was not the height of stupidity as I did many other such things that would rank much higher.
The other thing I remember is that it seemed like endless chores. On every other Saturday morning I dusting all of the furniture in the house - now today, who even knows what in the world that means? At least I had a sister who did it the other Saturdays. I chopped wood for our fireplace and sometimes did the same for a couple of elderly women in town. I mowed several lawns and at least got paid for doing them. I had to weed our nearly one acre garden. I had to wash the dishes every other night after supper. Most of these responsibilities increased when I became the official man of the house at 14 years old, after my parents divorced. That is when I got to paint the whole outside of the house, fix things that broke around the house and wash and wax the cars. Looking back I am glad I grew up on a small farm as I learned the definition of hard manual labor and responsibility, mostly from forced chores. I did not like the divorce as my family life was not pleasant in that regard and this one event single handily changed the course of my whole life for the worse. That is one of the reasons I am so determined to not let that happen my own kids.
So let the kids and car washing followed up by playing cards continue...
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