Bounty
Went to the Farmers' Market at Cabrillo College after we took the dogs to the beach. Cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, garlic, flowers, avocados, fresh fish, Castroville sausages, farm-fresh eggs, oysters, tomatoes, onions, artichokes, all fresh and mostly organic. I broke into the English shelling peas during the drive back home. Is there anyplace in the world better than here?

War and Peace, one more time
One more on the puzzling absence of those WMDs. OK, I'll stop now.

Music
Woo hoo! Lori Carson's latest, House in the Weeds, is now available at her site, so I ordered it. During the last week, I've rediscovered Stars and finally appreciated its musicality and subtlety.

Why is it that I always need to listen to the female voice (Lori Carson, Bebel Gilberto, Aimee Mann, Kathleen Edwards) when things are tough?

Culture
I really need to finish reading Gilligan's Wake. The professor's chapter was hilarious and not a little scary. I'm getting about half the pop-culture references, so I'll probably have to go back and read it again.

Politics
Winning the war was easy. Winning the peace will be much harder. I predicted to T. that our occupation of Iraq would end up being "death by a thousand cuts". I'd like to be wrong; I'd like to see a stable and peaceful democracy in Iraq. But I'm not hopeful.

Love
"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become impenetrable, unbreakable, irredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable."
C.S. Lewis

Software
More Richard Gabriel:
"My overall bias is that technology, science, engineering, and company organization are all secondary to the people and human concerns in the endeavor. Companies, ideas, processes, and approaches ultimately fail when humanity is forgotten, ignored, or placed second."

War and Peace, cont.
More on those curiously missing WMDs, courtesy of The Agonist.

Politics
David Weinberg points us to Kelly Kramer's version of the Shrub's resume.

Software
Richard Gabriel, discussing Alexander's Quality Without A Name as it pertains to software:

• It was not written to an unrealistic deadline.
  
• It modules and abstractions are not too big.
  
• Any bad parts were repaired during maintenance or are being repaired now.
  
• If I look at any small part of it, I can see what is going on.
  
• If I look at any large part in overview, I can see what is going on.
  
• It is like a fractal, in which every level of detail is as locally coherent and as well thought out as any other level.
  
• Every part of the code is transparently clear.
  
• Everything about it seems familiar.
  
• I can imagine changing it, adding some functionality.

He then asks, "Think about the quality without a name when you look at your software. Do you think your software possesses it? What would you do to make your software have it?"

Life, cont.
Wine at the H's, where we get invited to meet them in Italy in 5 weeks, then grilled halibut for dinner, and the dogs on the bed while we watch West Wing. Ain't this life so sweet...just gotta convince S. to go.

Work - Black Wednesday
As an antidote to the beach, we had layoffs today. 10 more lost to mismanagement and stupidity. I wish I'd been one of them; well, at least I'll get to leave on my own schedule.

Life
The beach, the dogs, the surf - some days you're just glad to be alive. Is there any more beautiful place to live than here? The clouds are drifting off and the sun is breaking through.

Words
Speaking confidentially
the fire that burnt inside of me
has turned to ash the tortured tree
that grows beside the anguished sea
Speaking confidentially

Speaking metaphorically
the earth I trust beneath my feet
is moving now ever so slightly
I shift my feet but feel no relief
Speaking metaphorically

Speaking kind of cryptically
the seas that raged beside the tree
burning bright for all to see
it just might mean the most to me
Speaking kind of cryptically

"Speaking Confidentially" Cowboy Junkies

Life
Screw work. There, I said it. It's a beautiful day here in Santa Cruz.

Tech News
Turns out the iLoo is a hoax, according to Slashdot. Now where am I going to dump Longhorn and Palladium?

Business
OK, so they're indicting Frank Quattrone. That's good, but when are they going after Skilling and Lay? Yes, I know that they have nothing to do with one another. I would like to see all the corporate thieves get prosecuted - not just the easiest targets.

Software
Ideas I need to put together and write about: I'm reading Christopher Alexander's A New Theory of Urban Design, written a few years after A Pattern Language. If you're a software geek, you should know all about Design Patterns. If you don't, start here. A New Theory of Urban Design is built around one overriding rule: Every increment of construction must be made in such a way as to heal the city. In other words, the whole must always be considered in each and every addition.

I'm also reading Robert L. Glass's Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, in which Glass states that maintenance is the most important life cycle phase of software. He supports this by pointing out that 60% of maintenance is really enhancement, not error correction.

How do these ideas intersect? Both assume that they're building in and around what already exists. Both believe that solutions must be designed within the existing context, and that those solutions should improve the whole. Glass provides the justification for the importance of maintenance. Alexander provides an intellectual framework that can be adapted to software maintenance in the same way his pattern language was adapted to software development.

Music
7 months later, I finally discover the latest from Aimee Mann. Better late than never, especially when it's the one bright spot in yet another depressing day at work. You know it's bad when songs like "Humpty Dumpty" [All the perfect drugs and superheroes/wouldn't be enough to bring me back to zero] actually cheer you up.

Culture
Long-term bets for philanthropy! I wonder if William Bennett is interested?

Politics
The drive for total media consolidation continues. Dave Weinberg and Larry Lessig sound the alarm.

War and Peace, cont.
More from Molly Ivins on those pesky WMD's.

Life
It's a glorious spring day in Santa Cruz and the dogs would like to go to the beach.

Mother's Day
My mother was a Master Sergeant in the Air National Guard in an era when women were emphatically not senior NCOs in the military. It didn't help that she was pretty, divorced, and independent-minded. I didn't realize how tough she had to be and what it took to get there when I was a kid. All I knew was how tough she was on me. She had to raise me and my sister without much help from anybody (especially her family), weighed down by the expectation that she would fail and all of us would never amount to much of anything. Sometimes she worked two jobs to get a little extra money and keep things going. But there was always food on the table, the bills were always paid, and we felt that things were always getting a little better.

She met my stepfather at the base. He was a Major and was in line to eventually be base commander. He also was getting divorced and had given up drinking (a critical career as well as social activity). This was an era when officers (him) and enlisted (her) didn't fraternize (openly) and they sure as hell didn't get married. They were a scandal, and that pretty much ended Roger's chances of being base commander. Not that he minded. They finished raising us, finished their careers, and retired before they were 50.

Both her children and her second marriage turned out to be very successful. We got the hell out of Duluth, Minnesota and all ended up someplace better.

My mom and I didn't get along when I was a kid. I didn't realize that I was following in her footsteps when I rebelled against the circumstances I was raised in and dreamed of a better, freer life somewhere else. Sometime during my late twenties, we simultaneously came to the realization of how alike we really are.

I am my Mother's son.

Have a good Mother's Day, Mom. You've earned it, and earned every other good day in your life.