Lunch With George!

January 9, 2003 - Samurai Sam's

Agenda

• Shopping the Google Way
• Trip Report
• Show and Tell: A Ken Onion Special
• Easter Eggs
• Firefly
• (Nearly) Infinite Monkeys
• Software Development

• "Kelty Tornado" - This resulted in exactly what I was looking for-- good prices on a Kelty Tornado internal frame backpack.

• "Yankee Pennant 2002" - Nothing useful. ;-) Seriously, I could not find any using this method, but regular Google worked!

• "Lord Rings Figures" - A great bunch of hits! Teri ended up ordering a special set of toy figures from the Lord of the Rings.

The only frustration for me is a missing feature: SORT BY PRICE. Froogle lets you filter by a price range, but that's not the same. It's still a "beta" application, so I guess I should let them know!

Trip Report

	Sedona Trip Report
The Canyon Wren - Cabins For Two

Palatki Cliff Dwelling Ruins

Teri and I managed to escape for four days to a hideaway just six miles North of Sedona: a cabin at

While we were there, we hiked to a vortex, ate at the local hangouts, and visited a Sinagua cliff dwelling (Palatki) which has only recently been opened to the public by the Forest Service.

Planting Calendar

Nearby Palatki, we toured a sheltered spot underneath the canyon wall where almost a thousand years of rock art was available for viewing. This included a rendering of the mountain range visible to the West, along with markings indicating where the sunset would intersect with the range during different parts of the year. A large black triangular mark occurs at the precise location which would indicate the beginning of the monsoon season!

We asked around for the best local restaurant for a good breakfast, and everyone said "go to the Coffee Pot restaurant!" We did, and found a menu featuring 101 different omelettes. We also found 101 booths and tables overflowing with patrons... a good sign. Unfortunately, we found a very mediocre meal. In spite of over one hundred omelette varieties, Teri had to pay extra to get one the way she wanted. The eggs were ok, the hash browns were unremarkable, and the toast was uninspiring. Given the name of the restaurant, I had great hope for the coffee-- but these hopes were unfounded. I would have much preferred Denny's to the Coffee Pot Restaurant.

My Mom owns a restaurant in New Mexico called the the Laughing Lizard. While in Sedona, Teri and I ran across the Grinning Gecko and the Laughing Coyote! I may just start an image collection of establishments whose name is a happy animal.

Show and Tell

The Scallion has a few advantages over other knives:

• SpeedSafe(tm) torsion bar mechanism for assisted opening
• Polyamide scales on the handle for excellent grip
• a blade safety
• Thumb grip on top

George claims it is yet another "hysterically" sharp knife-- and he was wearing a band-aid to prove it!

Easter Eggs on DVD

It seems that most big production films include some easter egg on their DVD. Steve noted that he discovered at the website an easter egg on the DVD for Memento (a film discussed at some length during the February 22nd Lunch from last year) which allows you to see the film in chronological order! Boy, I could have used that one. I used the "Select a Scene" menu in a semi-successful attempt to do just such a thing. I decided immediately that I would visit dvdeastereggs.com, get the secret code, and rent the film again to see it in chrono order. sadly, this feature is only included on the region 2 version (for sale in Europe), and not on the Region 1 disc. Bummer!

Firefly

Even though the series has already been canceled by Fox, George just discovered and really likes the show

Here's a synopsis from the official web site:

Set 500 years in the future in the wake of a universal civil war, FIREFLY tells the tale of Serenity, a small transport spaceship without a homeport. Captain Malcolm ("Mal") Reynolds commands Serenity for legitimate transport and salvage runs, as well as more "entrepreneurial" endeavors.

Serenity and its crew flies to the border planets, many of which are barely inhabited, because they want to stay away from the Alliance and below its big radar. Thrust together by necessity, the disparate men and women of Serenity face constant challenges, which test and reveal their true identities. FIREFLY is about their unpredictable lives and relationships, as well as their search for meaning in a very uncertain time.

I found several unofficial websites, and this one looks pretty good: Firefly at ScifiSpace.com. Whedon is shopping the show around to other networks, hoping to find someone to pick it up. Word has it that UPN, CBS, ABC, NBS, and SciFi have all passed. Fox still has three un-aired episodes-- maybe they could at least show them!

If you are interested in helping to at least get Firefly on DVD, go to tvshowsondvd.com and vote for Firefly.

Infinite Monkeys

Software Development

George also did some reading lately on Aspect-oriented Programming. Aspect-oriented programming refers to a way of modifying unrelated classes simultaneously. The common example is to enable installation of trace statements at the beginning and end of all the methods in a number of classes. The appeal to George was that there is a Java version called AspectJ, that simplifies stubbing. Basically you can just include code in your unit test that allows you to stub out calls to methods in other classes and specify what they should return. Boy would that help a bunch!