Journal

On friday I had someone in a tight armbar and he tried to roll out of it, so I rolled with him as I held on. For a while I had all my weight distributed between his elbow and my forehead, which was on the mat, and now I look like someone pummeled me repeatedly to the side of the head. I’m getting strange looks.

.: Microsoft DevDays ’09
Yesterday, I went to the Microsoft Developer Days, held this year in The Hague. While I couldn’t really find any work-related presentations that I wanted to go to, I made my selection on the fly. My choices were pretty good with the exception of the Win7 introduction by two obviously carefully picked Microsoft pre-sales consultants, who obviously did drink the KoolAid.

I had been a little concerned with the possible level of experience needed for the talks, but that turned out to be no problem…until I got to the last presentation of the day titled “Threading, Tasks and Parallel Processing.” While the subject wasn’t something I had any experience with, but I did know most of the concepts and terminology. Or so I thought. The guy who gave the presentation was so fast, so sharp and so intelligent that I had a hard time keeping up with him. My understanding kept lagging behind about fifteen minutes (which also meant that I only figured out the last fifteen minutes of his presentation when I was already on my way home.) Interesting stuff, though.

I think that of all the presentations given, for me, the Visual Studio 2008 IDE Tips and Tricks talk held by Sara Ford was the most directly beneficial. I liked her presentation because it wasn’t so self satisfied. She was obviously a bit uncomfortable on stage, which gave her a nervous energy which boosted her outward enthusiasm, which, in turn, was very contagious. She had been on the VS2008 testing team and really knew everything inside and out and she was obviously very genuinely passionate about the IDE, however disturbing that might sound.

All in all pretty good stuff, and I was very proud of myself when I walked out without any useless shwag.

.: Evil Care Bears
Were there ever any evil care bears? OR should they be called Neglect Bears? Anyway, the smurfs had evil, green smurfs, and I’m certain the snorks had some evil-doers among them, but I can’t remember the care bears. On my way to work I worked out which “stare” the neglect bears would have if they were followers of one of the four chaos gods of Warhammer 40K. Nurgle’s followers would obviously vomit pestilence and disease in a stream of bile from their little bellies, while I could see followers of Khorne shooting red hot magma. Tzeentch’s followers would shoot a ray that would warp everything it touches, causing painful and cancerous mutations. Obviously, followers of Slaanesh would just have a devastating laser beam.

.: Dragonflies
I have had some time to go driving the last few days and I was forced to several conclusions. In no particular order; being outdoors on a beautiful day is healthy and cathartic. I am prone to sunburns, and when driving around with the top down, wearing glasses will turn me into a raccoon. I don’t care if it makes the car impractical, a convertible is where it’s at. The Netherlands are beautiful, with many, many undiscovered gems. Dragonflies have returned, and I am happier with that than I thought I would be. I want to be independently wealthy, or be paid to do this for a living. I want to know a little bit more about the several noble families of the Netherlands’ last five or six hundred years or so. Modern windmills, of which the Netherlands has many, are cool in a slightly creepy way. I am a decent, though not great driver and with more hours logged, I will improve. Grass can look like it’s thick, lush and bountiful, but looks can be deceiving. Frogs are very, very weird, yet amazingly cool. While I still don’t know why anyone would live in the eastern part of the Netherlands, I totally get why they’d want a second home there. There is so much out there to discover!

.: Two Years
It’s hard to believe it’s already been two years since my father died. It’s been pretty busy since he died, and so I haven’t really had the chance to take some time to process it. I think about him every day — literally — but it’s different than really taking the time. My sister and I went to the park on the water where we scattered his ashes, and spent some time reminiscing, having a few drinks and shedding some tears.

At about 1 am the park was completely empty, which was a bit strange since it had been a really warm day, which usually means that a bunch of winos hang out in the park after dark. The weather was crystal clear, and it was completely windstill, and the lake looked like the polished surface of a mirror. Not a cloud in the sky, the heavens were awash with a tremendous amount of stars, most of which are usually not visible on an average night, due to the light pollution. You could even say the stain of the milky way across the sky.

Now that I think about it, we’ve had the most amazing weather recently. Beautiful, warm weather, crystal clear evenings, and one of the most violent thunderstorm the Netherlands has seen in the last decade. I love it.

Due to the fact that my instructor couldn’t make it in time for the class on Friday evening, I spent an hour free-rolling with two other guys, both of them blue belts. I am not supposed to stand a chance against either of them, but I performed well enough to get a lot of praise and supportive comments during and after the class. I notice that I am very strong compared to most others, probably due to the size and weight advantage I hold over most of them, about ten kilograms, I suspect. While it doesn’t stop them from frequently tapping me out with their superior technique — let’s not forget that I have only been practising pure no-gi jits for about two months or so — my wrestling and strength give me the option of powering out of situations and achieving more takedowns. It is also not so easy to get out from under me when I have a dominant position, and if you commit to a sloppy armbar it is easy for me to reverse positions. I also, because of my long legs can put many people in a figure four body triangle, which I often use. But all of that doesn’t mean I don’t get manhandled. (As was evident from the many terrible bruises I carried all weekend.) I am very susceptible to triangles and often I just don’t know enough techniques to finish even though I am otherwise bullying my sparring partner. But so far I’m progressing nicely, and I’m thinking of doing straight jits next to the no-gi classes I follow now, just to get some more time on the mat.

I have a strong preference for music without or with a light vocal element. This is because of two reasons I have been able to identify; the first is that I find it hard to keep music from constantly asking for my attention where there are vocals. I either try to figure out what’s being said, or I try to sing along, both super-annoying when you just want some pleasant background noise as you are working. Second is that few vocals really grip me, which is why I don’t like the majority of hip-hop and rap, because the vocals are the main element. Sometimes, especially with some of the newer stuff being produced, there’s something about the vocals that makes it more of an instrument than the center of a song. But usually I just want to find the instrumental version of a song, good examples of which are Hoedeplank by Opgezwolle and In the Club by 50 Cent, the former of which I am still looking for, in case someone can get it for me.

Anyway, I told you that story to tell you this one; lately, I’ve been getting back into Battlestar Galactica, the incredibly engaging, multi-layered SciFi show that got me completely hooked…until they postponed the last few episodes for a dog’s age. (When I mean the last few episodes, I mean the last episodes of the series.) So I had decided to take a break until those had aired and I wouldn’t have to wait for the conclusion of the series once I had caught up. So I had stranded at episode 04×06 or so when life happened. (Parents dying, etc.) I started watching again recently, and once again, I am hooked. The last episode I saw — oh, this is where the spoilers start — Starbuck and her crew came back from looking for Earth and they’d takena bunch of Cylons along with them. They wanted to help destroy the central reincarnation hub so that no Cylon could download into a new body when they died. (This because a few of them had seen an eternal life as something that blocked them from truly appreciating life.) During the mission Gaeta was shot in the leg by Anders (who looks a lot like Dane Cook, have you noticed?) and is brought to the infirmary. Where he first begged for his leg not to be amputated, he is convinced by Dr. Cottle that it’s a necessity in order for him to survive. He still, however, doesn’t want to “wake up without [his] leg,” so he doesn’t want a full anaesthesia, but a localised one. They cut away from the scene, almost entirely focussed on his frightened face, save for a few, quick shots of the doctor and his saw, right after you start hearing the whirring saw bite into his leg. Really powerful stuff, and masterfully acted, directed and shot. Later, two characters, I forget which, are talking about him, and how the doctor told him that if the thought of him having lost his leg overwhelmed him, he should sing, in order to cope.

This reminded me of a good friend of mine, who does the same thing. When afraid, she sings. When I heard those two characters mention that, because of this, I got sucked into the episode even further.

As they often do, the episode ends on a cliffhanger, and the last part makes a sprint for the finish, like an avalanche, the tension is built up so much it can split atoms. In this case Starbuck reveals something that she’s not supposed to be able to know, that the president’s cancer had returned and that she’d been hiding it. The president demands to know how Starbuck knows and she tells that the hybrid, a single Cylon, submerged in a nutrient gel at the heart of the Cylon base ship they took back from their mission, like a central, bionic computer, told her about the president’s cancer returning. The president immediately goes to the Cylon base ship to talk to the hybrid, who had been disconnected following the arrival at Galactica. Spurred on by the urge to find out how the Cylon knew about her cancer she orders it to be reconnected. Due to some other stuff happening at the same time (Boomer shooting one of the sixes) the moment the Cylon is reconnected it jumps the entire base ship away.

Now, the above might sound like a bit of a dull retelling of what happened. Trust me when I say that I am not doing it any justice whatsoever. The important bit is that Gaeta’s singing is laced throughout all these scenes. It’s so well done. The action and excitement intertwined with Gaeta’s lamentations. I’ve linked a video below that kind of cuts all of Gaeta’s singing bits together to give you a slight impression of it. This isn’t the best representation out there, but it’s the only one that I could find.

(Second, not such a good compilation.)

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
with my three wishes clutched in her hand.
The first that she be spared the pain
that comes from a dark and laughing rain.
When she first finds love, may it always stay true,
this I beg for the second wish I made too.
But wish no more, my life you can take,
to have her, please, just one day wake.
To have her, please, just one day wake.
To have her, please, just one day wake.
– Gaeta’s Lament