Last night while driving home from work I had to stop at the Home Depot store in Tewksbury to buy some spray paint to artlessly put our house number onto our new garbage barrels. (too much information? Deal with it!)

While walking into the store I saw this:

Storm’s a-comin’.

At the very moment I exited the building the rain started. Lucky me, eh? It was very large drops at first, but not many of them. I got into the car without getting very wet.

Just after I got into the car, however, the sky fell on me. It poured. It only lasted about five minutes though and then it pretty much stopped and the sun came back out.

By the time I reached the junction with route 93 I saw this:

Rainbows are great, but look closely. You may have to click on the image and look at one of the larger versions of it to see the super cool aspect…

Do you see it?

That’s right, there are TWO RAINBOWS.

I saw a double rainbow. I think it’s only the second or third time I’ve seen one. I think that is wicked cool.

The only downside of those pictures is that you can’t see what I saw while driving around the bend on the exit ramp. The inner, brighter rainbow was complete. You could see the entire thing. You could see where it started, all the way up to the top, and all the way down to the end where the Leprechaun was hiding with my gold!

I thought that was cool. I just wanted to share it.

So there was this blog, hosted by Google’s blogger (just like this one that no one is reading right now) where this person anonymously trashed a model named Liskula Cohen. The title of said blog was the uber classy Skanks of New York. Terrible title for your site, but still better than the two rotten cruds I use. Anyway.

So Ms (Mrs? I’d look it up but I’m lazy) Cohen decides she doesn’t like getting the Skank treatment and sues. But whom does she sue? The writer of the Skank page is unknown. What’s a libeled fashion model to do? Smartly she goes after the company that hosts the skank site in an attempt to out the author so that she can sue the right person.

A judge (again, too lazy to get the specifics, like a name or a court) rules in favor of Ms Cohen and forces Google to unveil the author’s name, Rosemary Port.

Ms Port then decides to sue Google:

“When I was being defended by attorneys for Google, I thought my right to privacy was being protected … Inherent in the First Amendment is the right to speak anonymously. Shouldn’t that right extend to the new public square of the Internet?”

I think you’re out of line Ms Port. First of all, you have the right to free speech but you do not have the right to lie. Only Fox News, politicians, and baseball players caught using steroids have that right. Secondly, doesn’t Ms Cohen have the right to face her accuser? I know the 6th amendment refers to court cases, but shouldn’t that right extend to the court of public opinion? At least in cases like this where whether she is a skank or not can affect her profession? Who wants to book a skank for a photo shoot? Okay, well some magazines would gladly book skanks for photo shoots, but they are generally kept at the back or the store or in brown paper bags.

Okay, so I am getting off the point. The point is, if you want to write anonymously go ahead and do it. Have fun with it. Hell, Benjamin Franklin did it all the time. Just don’t expect that your anonymity gives you the right to commit libel. If you are going to go after some one make sure you have evidence to back up your claims, and don’t expect your hosting service to be your white knight and break the law so that you continue to break the law anonymously. It was a judge who told Google to out you. A judge. Do you understand that? It was a judge. Not a lawyer, not a reporter, not a politician… it was a judge. Did you really think that Google would ignore a ruling from the bench in order to let you continue to commit libel on your little blog?

If being anonymous is fun for you then go ahead and enjoy it. Just don’t use it as a shield against responsibility. You still have to play by the rules. If you don’t then you’re going to have your anonymity taken away from you. Rightfully so.

I’m tired of writing this post now so I am going to stop right here.

http://mashable.com/2009/08/24/skanks-of-new-york-lawsuit/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_amendment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Amendment

So this weekend we had three hair cuts. One each for 3/4 of the household. We bought tons of new school clothes for the 2/4 of the family who are going back to school. We had steak and cake for my little brother who turned 32 on Sunday. If he’s 32 then I must be really really old.

Sunday was a quiet stay at home kinda day. We did sneak out to Portsmouth for lunch and to see where Jen is working now. We also got a quick view of the ocean and a couple of light houses. I have decided that I really like light houses.

This week is looking pretty quiet. Laundry and food shopping and fun stuff. Some more work on our still yet undefined programming-at-home project. Maybe an episode of Scrubs or two.

Next weekend is still up in the air to some extent. We had a cook out with Mike and Tammy and Cecilia scheduled for this past Sunday that had to be postponed. One of the kids earned a Sunday full of being punished that was lightened slightly by our need to go out to lunch, but otherwise was stuck too all day. We are hoping to reschedule for this coming Sunday. I hope so it happens as I’m looking forward to seeing their new house. Jen also has a party with some old work friends on Sunday evening. Saturday is pretty much up in the air. There was some brief talk about maybe taking the kids to see the new Harry Potter. There is one scene that will undoubtedly result in nightmares for at least 1/2 of the household children, but I think we can work out a way to cover a pair of eyes or two when that scene happens. We’ll have to be spot on with our timing, but we’ll be able to pull it off. Still, that was only in the discussion phase. We might put that off for a few weeks more.

All of this is leading toward the One Big Event on the horizon…

The first day of school.

Not only is it the first day of school, but for one lucky little man it is the first day of first grade! I took a vacation day for that special day so I can join in on the fun. Hopefully all of the tears will come from a very happy and proud mom, and not from a nervous six year old. He’s going to do fine, but he does seem a little apprehensive. Lucky for him he has a big sister to help show him the ropes.

On a totally unrelated subject, I want to watch these youtube clips later if I get a chance.

On a slightly unrelated topic, my wife is much much smarter than I am.

I am on a quest to get ice cream.

I do so love ice cream.

I think grounding a kid for a day might be the most difficult thing ever.

The is the most painful Red Sox stretch in a long while.

They scored 11 runs last night against the Yankees and still got blown out?

Yankees 20 – Red Sox 11?

When does hockey start?

This sucks.

Last night my wife, the beautiful Jennifer I rave so much about on these here pages, finally had a holy-shit-that-was-fun! experience on twitter.

One of the top 10 trending topics was #songsincode. Song lyrics written in source code. She ate it for lunch. She was so good at it that after a little while she had two or three people telling her how awesome her posts were and she was being retweeted left and right.

Here’s what she posted. (I hope she doesn’t mind being retweeted outside of twitter. hehe)

1: int acceptKnock= 3; int deniedKnock= 2; if (wantsMe) assert(“Knock ” + acceptKnock.ToString() + ” times on the ceiling”);

2: do { document.write(“young”) };

3: SELECT * FROM ROCK WHERE YOU Like ‘Hurricane%’

4: if (forest.Unrest== true && trees.Trouble == true) maples.formUnion();

5: if (sprit.HasVision) { dream.HasMission = true} ;

6: for (int i=1; i<=4; i++) { assert(i.ToString() + " banana" } assert("Tra la la");

7: case (name == “love”): break;

8: if (!preacher.Son) !me.Reach();

9: if (you.Ready) { me.Ready = true; }

10: if (DateTime.Now.Hour == 5) { somewhere == true};

11: me.IsTooSexy(shirt) == true; me.IsTooSexy(milan) == true; me.IsTooSexy(NY) == true;

12: while (you.Breathe && you.Move) { me.DoWatch(you); }

13: you.GetOut(dreams); you.GetIn(car); me.Say(Yeah);

14: double money = 0; ArrayList chicks = new ArrayList(); foreach (chick in chicks) { chick.cost = money; }

15: if (me.Sing(!tune)) { you.WalkOut(me); }

16: leaves.color = #8B4513; sky.color == #A9A9A9; if (season == “Winter) { me.Dreaming(California);}

17: baby.color = #000000; me.feeling.color = #0000FF;

18: girl.dress.color = #000000; me.feeling.color = #0000FF;

19: me.GimmeThat(FiletOFish); me.GimmeThat(Fish);

20: if (!you) { me.Hear(birds) = false; }

21: debris.Contains(car); car.color = #DC143C; car.fireEngine(); foreach(Tire tire in car.Tires) { tire.SpitGravel(); };

22: ElderlyWoman.SetLocation(Pasadena);

23: if (DateTime.Now.Hour >= 9 && DateTime.Now.Hour <= 5) person.Working;

24: div id=”oldOakTree” style = “color: #FAFAD2;”>ribbon /div> (one

There you have it. 24 reasons why I love my wife.

answer key… if I know the title I’ll write it, if I don’t I’ll write the lyric… unless I can’t figure it out, then we’ll have to hope Mrs P adds a comment.

1: Knock three times by Tony Orlando
2: Forever Young by… Rod Stewart but he didn’t write that one, did he?
3: Rock You Like a Hurricane in SQL by The Scorpions
4: The Trees by Rush (I would marry her all over again just for that)
5: Mission by Rush (I would marry her all over again for that one too)
6: The Banana Splits Theme. Absolute Genius!
7: Stop in the Name of Love by The Supremes.
8: Son of a Preacher Man (is that the title?) by Dusty Springfield (I think? Yes)
9: I’m Ready by Allison Weiss. A massive twitter user’s song gets tweeted in code.
10: It’s five o’clock somewhere.
11: I’m Too Sexy… Right Said Fred? Was that their name?
12: Every Breath You Take by The Police.
13: Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car by some one whose name I forget. Billy Ocean?
14: Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. Freakin Brilliant!
15: A Little Help from My Friends by The Beatles. (I would marry her again for that one as well)
16: California Dreaming by The Mamas and the Papas. Pure #songsincode Gold!
17: Baby’s in Black by The Beatles (another worthy of marrying all over again)
18: This one I don’t know… girl in a black dress makes me blue. hmmmm
19: Gimme that Filet o Fish jingle. I wife is the most amazing person ever to exist among humans.
20: Till There Was You as done by The Beatles. Our wedding dance.
21: Red Barchetta by Rush. (do I have to tell you’d I’d remarry her for this? I would)
22: Little Old Lady from Pasadena.
23: Working 9 to 5.
24: Book ending with Tony Orlando… Tie a Yellow Ribbon.

How many bloggers? Did I mention I found new trash barrels at Home Depot and they are nice? hehe

I am the inspiration for this video!

C’Mon and inflate this red head’s ego some more!

I have a degree in Computer Science. I am a programmer. When some one can’t figure out how our application works I look directly at the code and tell them step by step what it does. I also have some nice tools that allow me to track data values as they are being operated on so that when a value is entered into the system and comes out as something unexpected or possibly even incorrect, I can track through and see where the fruitiness happens.

My beautiful wife is a Software Engineer. A really good one. If we worked in the same company she would be the one actually writing the application that my group uses. She’d be the brains behind it all.

When I was at Middlesex Community College my classes primarily used the programming language called C. I also spent one semester touching on C++ and another touching on Java. At UMass Lowell again most of the programming courses used C. One semester used C++. My senior project courses, 2 semesters, used a number of different things here and there including HTML, javascript, and Java Swing. There was also a little bit of lex and yak in a database class along with a little SQL, and one horrible semester’s worth of Scheme. (a shudder of horror just went down my spine)

When I started my job all of that went out the window. The company I work for uses it’s own language, it’s own database, it’s own operating system (in one of the platforms I work on), it’s own email client, it’s own word processor, it’s own calendar/schedule program, it’s own everything.

After a few years all of the language syntaxes and conventions and structures along with a lot of the design techniques I’d worked on in school were pretty much gone.

Then I met my wife. (Hi Jen!)

A lot of what I had done in school was already becoming obsolete when I graduated and Jen had already moved beyond it into new and better things. We had talked a lot about maybe trying to figure out a project that we could work on for fun that would have the side effect of keeping her skills sharp away from the office, and letting me see some of the cool stuff that has come along since I left school. Win/Win as far as I can see. Add to that the fact that we are very much two computer nerds who are inseparable and would enjoy nothing more than to sit side by side with a couple of computers hammering out geekiness for other people’s online consumption. Wouldn’t every married couple see that as a honkin’ good time? If they don’t then they should get the sticks out of their asses and do it.

Last night we finally got around to it. We have a couple of vague ideas for the overall project we want to work on. Maybe something social for families, or maybe something to catalog your DVD/CD collection. Maybe even simple things like a website for my father’s tax business. Who knows what we’ll end up with.

The first step, however, is getting me back up to speed using current tools. We started with Microsoft’s Visual Studio .Net. I had used Visual Studio 6.0, but the next version after that was the first version of .Net and it changed everything. I was very much lost poking around the development environment, but Jen cleared up what I need to get by for now.

We also played with a language that was totally new for me, C#. It is an object oriented programming language that I had never looked at before. C++ and Java are both object oriented too, so conceptually it wasn’t new to me, but I still had to dig the correct terminology out of the deep recesses of my memory, and get back into the swing of writing source code in a language that allows white space again.

We didn’t do anything terribly useful for anything other than a teaching tool. We defined a class that defines a person and then defined a second class that defines a student which inherits the properties of a person. Simple stuff, but I hadn’t used that portion of my brain in something like seven years. It was nice to brush a little dust off, and it was fun playing techie with my sweetie.

She wants to get into ASP .Net tonight. Server side programming. That’s a new one for me. I’ve done some web stuff using HTML and javascript and even a tiny bit of XML but it was all client side. I’m looking forward to the next lesson. Believe it or not, dorky stuff like this is fun.

And another one. These are the only three songs from this shoot that I know of. Are there more?