John Moltz

There will be a brief intermission...

I'm converting this blog to WordPress.

Back later.

Comments are down

My hosting provided is pushing me to move to WordPress. I think I'm going to.

Whew

OK - looks like things are back to normal. I'm approving comments for the time being just to try it, so your comment won't appear immediately after you post it. I doubt I'll keep doing it that way though as it seems a pain.

Fucked

Well, I can post but the whole thing is screwed. The MT style sheet is hosed for some reason - everything is just aligned down the left side - and many of the buttons don't work.

Gah.

Housekeeping note

A bad trackback spam attack is forcing me to upgrade to the latest version of Movable Type so things may get wacky for a little while.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

After an unscheduled night in Portland due to what we from the East Coast would call an "ice storm", Karen, Hank and I are back home (one of us for the first time). It's frustrating to travel for 16 hours and maybe five thousand miles and then get stopped short just a two hour drive from home. But the ice closed Interstate 5 so there was nothing to be done.

But we're here now! We're still dealing with a jet-lagged 1-year-old, but hopefully posting will pick up here and on CARS soon.

Hank Moltz

Please welcome Henry "Hank" Sisong Hucks Moltz.

Xi'an

We're in Xi'an today to see the terra cotta warriors and then off to Chengdu tomorrow morning where we'll meet our son in the afternoon.

Here are some pictures of our time in Beijing.

Beijing

Greetings and Happy New Year from China!

New Year's Day here was pretty much a non-event from what I could see. The big show is the Chinese New Year which isn't until February this year.

On our first day, we dragged our jet-lagged asses out of bed to go see the Temple of Heaven. After spending about a year and a half living in Japan, the scale seems more impressive here. I'm eager to see the terra cotta warriors when we travel to Xi'an on Tuesday.

We've had three excellent meals so far - including dim sum for breakfast, Sezchuan for lunch and a great eel and garlic dish for dinner - and the fact that you shouldn't drink the tap water is just a good excuse to drink beer (although I did lay off at breakfast).

Other than our guide, the most impressive English we've heard was from the barista at Starbucks who got "double tall non-fat hazelnut latte" with no problem. When the waitress at our western-style hotel who couldn't get "Perrier" without bringing us the drink menu and having us point at it, you have to hand it to Starbucks.

I did manage to order us rice at lunch by writing the character for it (which, of course, is the same as the Japanese character) on my palm with my finger, so I'm doing what I can.

Interesting note: it looks like Blogspot is blocked from China, or at least from this hotel. I can't get to Atrios or any of the other Blogspot blogs to the left.

Comments are down

You'll just have to find other ways to amuse yourself.

Boggles the mind

The death toll in Asia is approaching 60,000.

My brother and I agreed to exchange charitable donations this year instead of buying Christmas presents and, what with everything going on chez me, I still hadn't gotten to it. Now I know where to give.

What's up with Johnny?

I promised some programming notes and, as I've posted the mildly humorous CARS version, here's the real skinny for those of you in the know.

On Thursday, my wife and I are winging our way to China where we will spend a few days sight seeing in Beijing and Xi'an before we got to Chengdu to meet our son.

Yep, after 15 months of processing, we're adopting a boy from China who turns one tomorrow. We didn't try to have kids on our own (although we practice a lot) - we just decided that we wanted to do it this way. I'm not going to blog the whole thing, but I think there are some aspects that you might find interesting.

Like, what does one wear to meet one's son for the first time?

Um...

I don't know, actually. I was hoping one of you would know. Khakis and a shirt are always nice. Is that good? See, I don't know what he'll be wearing so I don't want to look too dressed up. I don't want him to feel bad.

What to pack is becoming something of a dilemma. Beijing will creep up into the mid-30s while we're there, but Guangzhou, where we leave from, will be in the mid-70s.

I'm currently prepping my travel laptop, a 12-inch G3 900 MHz iBook, with all the essentials, including some old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. My regular iron is a 1 GHz G4 Titanium PowerBook, but it's dicey trying to use it in coach and the iBook is lighter and more durable.

If Internet access is good, I'll provide some updates and maybe even some pictures, but I'm planning on turning comments off tomorrow as I don't care to be knee-deep in comment spam when I get back.

Wish us luck!

Merry Christmas

Personally, I'm celebrating Christmas by using an entire bison, much like the native Americans celebrated Christmas.

Um...

Actually, I'm not using a whole bison, but I do have a bison pot roast marinating in red wine, onion, garlic, and olive oil and my wife got me some shoes made out of bison leather.

Frankly, while I like the idea of using the whole animal, I'm glad I'm not sitting around on Christmas day trying to figure out what to do with the ears or the anus. That would be weird.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'll have some programming notes in the coming days. It's a big year ahead of us chez Moltz.

I hope this morning finds you all happy, healthy and in the company of those you love.

$&#^$%#^&#&#!!!!

Good news: my copy of The Return of the King Extended Edition arrived today from Amazon.

Bad news: it had TWO "Part 1" disks and no "Part 2" disks.

Gaaaaaaahhhhhh.....

Today is my birthday

I am 40.

As often happens to us in life, I didn't get the one thing I really wanted for my birthday - the one thing I certainly would have given up all the others for.

So, I'm left to console myself with a 46-inch HDTV. Bad for the country, but good for me.

Tomorrow night we will bowl and drink in my honor and I will revel in the company of my friends. Yes, as I said below, I shall take these lemons that life has handed me and I shall make delicious lemonade.

And, knowing me, I'll probably put some vodka in it.

Comments down

Particularly nasty spam comment attack that MT-Blacklist didn't protect me from. My hosting provider had to rename my comment script.

Looks like I'll have to upgrade this site to MT 3.1 as well.

UPDATE: Comments are back.

Comment issues

A couple of folks have written in to note that they haven't been able to post comments with a "gmail.com" domain in their email address. I think Mike must be right that it was the "mail.com" part so I've deleted that entry from the spam filter and you should be able to use your Google Mail address now.

Grrr....

Anyone know any good methods for getting rid of a mole (rodent-type, not skin lesion-type)?

Since moving we've discovered we have a mole that loves nothing more than making big piles of dirt in our front lawn, my EyeTV has up and died on me (they're replacing it free of charge), my Power Mac's hard drive had to be replaced ($120 to go from a 40 GB drive to 120 GB which I wanted to do anyway) and now my PowerBook has to go back to have IT'S hard drive replaced (covered under AppleCare).

Poltergeists. That's all I'm sayin'.

Wow

No one has complained about the new design.

I mean... sure, I knew Tom and Dori were going to like it, but... c'mon! Let's hear a little chatter out there folks!

Also, if anyone has experience upgrade from MT 2.5 to 2.6 and doesn't mind a really stupid question, please email me.

Hey, I kinda like this

While I reserve the right to continue to tweak, I think I like this. I was able to make use of a picture I took in the Canadian Rockies of a raven along the Ice Fields Parkway. Those birds grow big up there. I don't know what the hell they eat (anything they damn want to!), but they're big, beefy birds.

Lookie, lookie

I'm playing around with the style sheet. After lots of complaints (admittedly, almost exclusively from the fine folks at Backup Brain), I finally saw what they were talking about because, in my new house, my desk faces out a window and I found the site hard to read with light behind the screen.

I'm not done - I'm just playing around right now. I'm notoriously bad at this, which is odd because I'm very good at picking colors for painting in our house.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know you're at the right site.

Vacation

Off for a week of adventure. And, since I learned how to turn comments off for all posts, I'm going to do so to keep this place from being knee-deep in spam when I get back.

Have a good week!

Whoops!

Ambrose thought I had banned him but in actuality I put a blank entry in the list of banned IP addresses, effectively banning everyone. It's fixed now.

Moving Day!

Yes, tempting fate, we moved on Friday the 13th. And a surly representative of Tacoma's Click! Network hooked us up and we're now enjoying the miracle of Airport on our fabulous back deck.

My feet are killing me and I smell bad. But food is here and I'm happy.

Helloooooo?

Sorry for the absence, but the whole move thing has heated up as has work (just another series of cleverly designed "coincidences" that should lead you to believe that I am, indeed, both Atrios AND Tom Tomorrow - no wonder my schedule is so packed!) and some other (good) stuff in my personal life.

So, don't cry for me, Argentina.

Paraguay can go ahead and cry for me, for all I care. Don't get me started about Paraguay.

August looks to be a busy month for me, so I don't know when exactly things will get better.

Um... probably September, actually. That would be the month after August, right? I frankly can't even remember.

Plus, to make matters worse, I bought The Return of the King video game on Saturday when I got my new Airport Extreme Base Station and Dr. Bott antenna.

I'm looking for a buyer for my old graphite base station if anyone's interested. Make me an offer!

And, as long as I'm throwing out random thoughts, I really like Jell-o.

No, I mean it. It's light and sweet and... well, what's not to like?

Link update

Hesiod of Counterspin Central has, it appears, given up the ghost (bloggingly speaking).

I wish him well on his future endeavors and will miss reading his posts.

Please welcome TBogg to the pantheon of blogging gods on the side menu.

Sheesh!

To compound my crappy record with technology this week, Laughing Squid's server went down, so this site was hosed all day Thursday. I hope the despair of living without me for a day wasn't enough to drive you to the brink.

John who?

It's been a long few days but, come hell or high water, this project has to be presented tomorrow. I hate to say how many hours I've spent struggling with Ant and Tomcat as opposed to actual coding. Somehow I've managed to fuck things up on my account on the server at school so badly that I can no longer get anything to run on it. Hopefully my PowerBook won't have any trouble plugging into the projector.

Blech. I'll be glad when this is over.

FYI

I've got a database project due in two weeks that will be taking up a lot of time, so posts will be light to non-existent, unless I'm suddenly struck by a bolt of realization that unveils all the secrets of Java Server Pages and MySQL.

Busy

I'm busy today - actual work. It's a travesty.

Whaaaaasssaaaap?

CHA-LAAAAAAA-BI!

Anyway, if you're wondering what's up with Johnny, we're spending a few days at a hotel in town (the Silver Cloud of Crazy Apple Rumors fame) while our hardwood floors are refinished.

For some reason I can't get share the Internet connection in the room via Airport. At least to the point that it works. My wife's iBook says it's connected to the Internet, it can ping Yahoo, but she can't get mail or open web pages.

So, we're sharing the connection. But still, I'll try not to be a stranger.

Summer is here

Perhaps not on the calendar, but as I'm sitting on the porch with a gin and tonic enjoying the wonders of wireless technology after a day of house stuff and (finally) a Mariners drubbing of their opponent, summer has arrived in every other way.

Apropos of nothing

I watched a Simpsons rerun last night and now I can't get this song Homer sang out of my head (to the tune of that "I get knocked down, but I get up again..." soccer hooligan song).

I drink a whiskey drink,
I drink a chocolate drink,
And when I have to pee,
I use the kitchen sink.

Whistler pictures

OK, remember, it's not about me, it's about the beauty of nature.

And... uh... I also get commission on certain rental properties up there.

Off

We're off to Whistler for some skiing for a few days. Hope it doesn't rain, but the weather report doesn't look so good. Fortunately, we have a strong backup plan.

Drinking.

See you next week.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Lucien Dupont, this quarter's Quarterly Karma winner! A delicious $10 gift certificate to the iTunes Music Store will be one its way to Lucien shortly!

Quarterly Karma reminder

Get me your name by 9 AM tomorrow if you want to be in the drawing for a $10 iTunes Music Store gift certificate.

Busy, busy, busy

Final tomorrow so I'm grinding away. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, most likely.

Quarterly Karma reminder

Late on Friday I announced this quarter's Quarterly Karma give-away. Don't forget to email me before Friday to enter.

Quarterly Karma

OK, I realize that the end of the quarter is approaching and I haven't taken care of the promised Quarterly Karma, soooooooo I decided to pick something easy:

This quarter's Quarterly Karma will be a $10 gift certificate to the iTunes Music Store!

Rules: Send me an email indicating your desire to be entered into the Quarterly Karma drawing. One (1) winner will be picked by a little Java app I wrote that is totally unbiased to integers. I take no responsibility for determining if you can spend a $10 gift certificate to the iTunes Music Store from whatever country you're in. In other words, if Apple hasn't made the iTMS available in your neck of the woods please do not enter.

Friends and family of John Moltz are not eligible. I'm not sure why, really, since it's my money and I can do whatever I damn well please with it...

Actually, you know what? Screw that. Family members are not eligible (they can buy their own damn music), but friends are.

Oh, and previous winners are definitely not eligible.

The drawing will take place next Friday!

Shoop-shoop

In case you're curious about my absence today, I'll take the chance to gloat. My lovely bride worked yesterday and got today off instead so I took the day off (like I have anything to do - ah, the life of a student/hourly contractor) and we hit the slopes.

There's nothing better than walking into the Starbucks at 9 AM on a Monday morning dressed in snow gear.

The people loading up on caffeine just to survive the day are sooooo jealous.

The snow wasn't perfect but, you know what they say... a bad day skiing is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

So far this year, two of the three times I've fallen have been when I was standing still. Strangely, I take great pride in that.

Who needs satire?

Polaroid Warns Film Users Not to "Shake It"

Outkast fans like to "shake it like a Polaroid picture," but the instant camera maker is warning consumers that taking the advice of the hip-hop stars could ruin your snapshots.

Next they'll be telling me not to "get jiggy wit it."

Whew

I spent the morning covering the Apple keynote on CARS and then went out for some cross-country skiing, right from my front door. It's still coming down here in Tacoma, but is expected to turn to rain around 5 pm.

Happy New Year

It's snowing again here in Tacoma, for a nigh-unprecedented second time this week. What a great way to start the year. Here's hoping for good things.

Happy Holidays

We here chez Moltz celebrate the solstice and are happy to know that this is (give or take a few days) as short as the days get in the Pacific northwest. The change of seasons, rebirth, rejuvination, etc. It's about marking the passage of time and spending some of it with family and friends.

Hopefully by tomorrow morning, we'll also be celebrating the successful landing of the Beagle 2 on Mars as well (although it's been two hours - I'm a little nervous).

Whatever you celebrate chez vous, I hope you're enjoying it

Back

And my Computer Architecture final continued my unbroken streak of studying completely the wrong things. Eh, as long as I passed the class. If anyone asks to look at my GPA at my age, they're not going to be someone I'm going to want to work for anyway.

Busy

I have a Computer Architecture final today. Back tomorrow.

New York, New York

OK, so "light blogging" turned into "no blogging", but I was in New York for a few days to celebrate my mother's 70th birthday.

I'm not sure where she was...

No, no, the whole family flew in and spent Friday night in Connecticut where my parents live. We had a raucous birthday celebration and I managed to steal away for a few minutes and score some of my old toys from an upstairs closet.

Here are some eBay examples. I snagged the Fisher-Price barn (the one that moos when you open the barn door) and the old metal Batmobile with the Batboat (the hitch has gone missing) and the little Batman and Robin. Right with it was the Green Hornet's car, Black Beauty. I also found two Dinky toys from the erstwhile show UFO, the Interceptor and the Mobile 2.

Ah, for the days when parts were choking hazards and were shot out of toys with a velocity that'd poke your eye out. It's too bad our Thing Maker is long gone or I could also have suffered third degree burns and possibly electrocuted myself.

I would like to meet the enterprising toy designer who thought that what amounts to an inverted iron that you pour plastic on was a good thing for kids to play with.

On Saturday we went into New York City and saw Hairspray (not the John Waters film, but the musical based on it). After the show, Harvey Fierstein auctioned off his cast jacket from La Cage aux Folles for an AIDS benefit and I came this close to getting it, but was beat out by someone across the way. I did drive the price up $200, though, so that was good.

On Sunday we made the obligatory trip to the SoHo Apple Store and had dinner at Nobu, an excellent Japanese restaurant. Karen and I went out to The Blue Note afterwards. On Monday we walked around town with our friend Skip, a recent transplant, and flew back in last night.

All in all, a great trip and I think my mother had an exceptional birthday. The hotel had an 802.11 connection so I thought I might make a post or two, but when you're in the town so nice they named it twice you don't want to spend your time in the hotel room.

Light blogging

There'll be light blogging over the next few days. Things should get back to normal again on Tuesday.

It's my birthday

Starting my 40th year (I'm still 39, just to be clear, here).

Can I start saying "I'm gettin' too old for this crap!"?

What were you for Halloween?

I know what Lane and Tina were (I like the scuba outfit, by the way - very Johnny Quest).

Here's me trying unsuccessfully to kill Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It's just... I'm not... I'm not a very good vampire. I try to kill people but... I'm just... it's not... I... I have... issues... with the killing. And, plus, the Slayer... I mean... I'll be honest, I had some performance anxiety.

6,000 degrees of separation

So, Atrios asks for funds for a new laptop and not only does he get more than enough cash, someone just outright buys the laptop for him.

I run a give-away of a great book and I get nine people to submit their names.

That, then, would be the difference between his site and mine. Ah, well. Site stats would indicate I have more visitors than nine. Maybe the other 125 have just already read the Al Franken book.

Actually, truth be told, I get a LOT of hits because I mentioned Kerry Wood's wife. Remember, if you want to increase site traffic, all you need is three magic words: hot lesbian action.

We have a winnah!

Congratulations to Ryan Bayne! He's the winner of the first ever Quarterly Karma prize: a copy of Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them!

Ryan will also get to have sex with the Different Strokes cast member of his choice!

OK, I made that part up.

Quarterly Karma

Hey, kids, remember you've got until midnight tonight to email me your name using the link to the left to get in on the drawing for a copy of Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. I conduct the Java-y drawing over the weekend and announce the happy winner on Monday (it's a really slow application).

So what are you waiting for?

Quarterly Karma

When I started this blog back in July I promised special deals for you, the reader, and now I'm prepared to deliver.

I used to read a blog by a guy who turned the usual "buy me something off my wishlist" thing upside down by offering to buy a reader something off their wish list. I thought that was a good idea. Then, a couple of months ago my wife and I were in an airport bar and we had a nice chat with a guy from Alaska who bought us a couple of beers as he got up to make his flight. He said he was just spreading good karma.

I consider myself a fortunate person, a happy person. I think it's a good idea to spread whatever happiness you can.

So, here's what I'm offering. I'm offering to buy a random reader a gift of my choosing every quarter. I've got a little Java app that I wrote that will randomize up a name from a list and I will then purchase said chosen quarterly prize and ship it off to the randomized winner.

If you win, you are not eligible to enter again for a year. Prizes will be awarded in the first month of the quarter. I will solicit names and provide a date by which your name must be in to be entered. All prizes will be of my determining and will be announced beforehand so you can decide if you want it or not before you enter.

None of the prizes will be expensive. I'm talking DVD, CD, book, etc. But I'm also talking free to you, the reader!

If... you know... you win.

So, let's get to it!

This quarter's Quarterly Karma prize is... a copy of Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them!

So send me your name (or pseudonym) by Friday, 10/10 and I'll enter you!

Uh... OK, that came out wrong.

I will have to get an address from the winner, so don't enter if you want it delivered by courier to a locker in a bus station.

You know who I'm talking about.

Eugene.

Back

Spent a week in the San Juan islands with my lovely bride. Beautiful weather, but it's been so dry there was a burn ban which made our camping nights less enjoyable than they might have been. What good is camping if you can't make smores?

So, we cut the camping short and found a nice place to stay. A little biking, a little hiking and a little kayaking and you've got yourself a nice week there, mister.

Back in the saddle soon.

I'm off

I'll be back in a week.

While I'm gone I want you to think about what you've done.

You know what I'm talking about.

You know.

It's a vending machine.

I happened to purchase a soda (a pop, for those of you in the midwest) today and noticed the sign on the machine that said:

Do not attempt to tilt vending machine which may cause it to topple, resulting in serious injury or death. Vending machine will not dispense free items. (Italics mine.)

Ah! Hence the name! Vending machine.

I remember in college someone had left a sign on one of the machines in the dorm saying "This fucking machine doesn't work." This being Kenyon College, populated by a bunch of snarky English majors who take everything literally, someone had put a sign underneath it that said "You're obviously not using it the right way."

Quotable.

Seattle Mariner's icon Edgar Martinez on the Yankees trading for Aaron Boone:

"I was surprised the Yankees needed a third baseman."

Well... well... you're right, Edgar. They didn't need one. It's just that there was one available... and some other teams wanted him... and... there were these large piles of money lying around...

Jon Stewart on the gay marriage flap:

"I don't know if this is really the issue or not, but are they going to make us marry gays? That's... because I don't... if... I don't... my... my wife would not like that. Don't make me marry a gay man. And I think it's going to be mandatory because otherwise, why would anyone really care? ... Unless the government is going to force you to make man-love, I really don't know why it would keep you up at night."

If you're not watching the Daily Show... what's wrong with you?

We're up.

OK, now we're cooking with gas.

Let's talk about the deal. The deal is, this blog is whatever bothers to make the journey from my brain down to my fingertips.

Which are usually covered in the sticky coating that's on Screaming Yellow Zonkers.

Mmm.

Where was I?

OK. I've had blogs in the past. Yes indeed. I won't try to lie about them. My wife knows all about my relationships with blogs. You can't blackmail me. Well, not for that, anyway.

But that thing back in college... Whoo! Boy, was I dr...

Anyway, that's all in the past.

I've had a Mac blog, a personal blog and a political blog and, man, that's just too much trouble. So here it all is. And you can comment on it.

Unless you get snippy. I don't like people who get snippy.

There's more to come. More tweaking of the template and more special deals for you, the reader. So, thanks for reading. Hopefully you'll find something interesting or at least amusing.