I’ve just posted the August issue of Ex Libris Reviews. Have fun!

It’s about ten o’clock, and we’re just back from dinner. About twenty of us went to the Cottage Inn, which is the local place for deep dish Sicilian pizza (along with many, many other things). It was great, although they don’t seem to understand the notion of a “personal pizza”. The smallest hand-tossed pizza was 12″, and the deep dish pizza comes in two sizes: half-tray and full-tray. I ordered a half-tray pizza, and it was approximately three times as much as I needed. I figure some of the rest of it is breakfast for tomorrow, which will make a nice change from Frosted Flakes. (They serve breakfast here, but it doesn’t amount to much.)

I will say three things in favor of this hotel, though. When I asked for another pillow, they had it to my room in five minutes; when I woke up with a headache (which was not the pillow’s fault, so far as I can tell) and went to the front desk to ask where I could get some Tylenol, they gave me some; and all of the staff have invariably been both cheerful and friendly. This makes up for some of the maintenance problems, like the lamp that doesn’t work and the clock radio whose volume control is stuck on Way Too Loud. According to Clif Flynt, the previous owners ran the place into the ground, and the new owners are trying to bring it back.

It’s still a genuinely weird place, though. Apparently it used to be a rather non-descript L-shaped motel with outside doors on the first and second floors–the kind of place where you park just outside your room. They’ve since enclosed it; the space on the inner angle of the L is now the atrium, and the outdoor pool is now the indoor pool. On top of that, they replaced the front wall of each room with a plate glass window, just the thing for transmitting sound into the room. And since there is no sheer curtain, only a black-out curtain, most people leave the curtains drawn all the time anyway.

As for the conference, it’s going nicely. I went to two tutorials today, one on Starkits (which I use to deliver my Notebook application) and one on a nifty database called Metakit, both given excellently well by Steve Landers, a Tcler who hails from Perth, Australia. I already knew a little about both topics, and the tutorials filled in the gaps nicely.

Tomorrow the technical sessions begin, and on Friday morning I present my paper.

Good news–they finally got the network squared away so that it’s working satisfactorily. It’s slow, but no slower than my dial-up at home. So things are looking up.

I had another pleasant evening with Ian last night, though we didn’t stay out nearly as late. He admonished me for referring to him as a gentleman and a scholar, and I humbly apologize. He’s really a cheap gunsel with a line of patter so gaudy it ought to be on sale at K-Mart who somehow manages to do a good imitation a gentleman and a scholar. Don’t tell anybody.

I’m here in Ann Arbor at the 10th Tcl/Tk Conference, held at the Best
Western Executive Plaza on Jackson Road, which is, by coincidence, just
across the street from the nicest hotel in town. Or so Ian Hamet tells me. Ian and I had a
fine time yesterday evening; not only did he buy me a nice Italian
dinner, he gave me an inscribed copy of Nevil Shute’s book “Pied Piper”
for my birthday. (Inscribed by Ian, that is, not by Nevil Shute.)
There was much discussion of books and movies on into the night. He’s a
gentleman and a scholar, and I hope to buy him a drink this evening.

I’m sitting in the atrium of the hotel as I write. We’ve cobbled
together a rather hit-or-miss wireless network; when the conference
organizers lined up this hotel, there were plans to install high-speed
internet through out. The hotel’s top management subsequently decided
that no such thing was necessary, and so we’re making do with a net connection
that’s too bizarre for words. Consequently, blogging and (especially)
e-mail might be much lighter than I’d hoped over this week.

Later…

They’ve come up with a different bizarre network solution which I’ll try
tomorrow; with luck it will work better.

Today was the first day of the Tcl/Tk conference, and as usual consisted
of “tutorials”, that is, half-day classes on topics of interest. I
attended two: “Enough Expect to be Dangerous”, and “Advanced Tcl”.
The former, taught by Ken Jones, was quite good. Expect is a tool that
you can use to automate terminal dialogues, and it’s much more
interesting than it sounds. For example, I’ll be able to use it to download
data to my website automatically–very, very cool.

The second tutorial was taught by Clif Flynt, the conference organizer,
and was also good, except that it wasn’t as advanced as I had hoped. Or
I’m more advanced than I’d realized, which I’m beginning to think might
actually be the case. At least, Clif was very pleased when he managed to
come up with a small fact I wasn’t already aware of: variables
initialized in a namespace at file scope are in fact standard global
variables rather than namespace variables unless previously declared
using the variable command. I had not known that. As my friend Pat
Olguin says, I can go from Zero to Geek in five seconds.

After the second tutorial, a large group of us walked down the road to a
shopping center, where we found sustenance at a Tex-Mex place called Rio
Bravo. It’s a chain here in Michigan, and one I’d never heard of before.
As we approached, though, I saw the slogan “Fresh Mex” painted on the
wall by the door, and a certain suspicion arose in my mind. Yup–it’s
just Chevy’s with a different name–and somewhat less heat. I ended up
sitting with Michael Cleverly and Steve Landers, two folks I’d met at the
last conference, and a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow there are two more tutorials, one on MetaKit database
programming and one on the Starkit application packaging solution, which
are also more interesting than they sound. I’m particularly looking
forward to the Metakit class; the principle Tcl interface to MetaKit
these days is called “oomk” for “object-oriented MetaKit”–and it’s
written using my own Snit
object framework. I’m agog–these guys have taken Snit places I’d never
imagined.

Anyway, that’s enough for tonight.

…begins with a blog post announcing that it’s about to happen.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I’m getting on a plane to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I’ll be attending the 10th Tcl/Tk Conference with a large quantity of similarly minded Tcl nerds. I expect to be online regularly throughout the conference, as there will be a wireless net set up in the conference center (way cool), so don’t look for any major interruption of service.

There may well not be any posts tomorrow, however, as I’ll be travelling most of the day, and in the evening I’ll be meeting a certain Banana Oil salesman for festivities as yet to be determined.

Oh, and the big news, just for you folks who’ve read this far…tomorrow is my 40th birthday. Yes, as of tomorrow I will officially be out of warranty.

I dug these two out of the “take to the used bookstore” box after
discovering that, yes indeedy, I do enjoy her mysteries. That was before I
trotted myself down to the Large Chain Bookstore, unfortunately placed just
down the road from where I work, to buy 6 more. I’m sure they are all at the
library but, gosh, we are going on vacation in a couple weeks and if I got
them now and didn’t read them right away there are those nasty, nasty fines
and we don’t want that, now do we? Much cheaper just to buy the books right
up front.

Died in the Wool takes place first of these two. Detective Alleyn is in
New Zealand during the war searching for spies or “fifth columnists” as they
are called in the book. He is called in by the nephew of a deceased woman MP
there to investigate her death. Seems she was smothered and then packed into
a bale of raw wool at her wool ranch in the backwaters. They didn’t find her
til weeks later when someone noticed a wonky smell in the wool warehouse and
makes the mistake of cutting open the bale to look for the dead rat they
think is in it. It was the bale hook going in and coming out with goo on it
that did me in. Eeuuw!

Now the house is in the possession of her nephew, her husband has since died
of heart disease and the people who live there all agree to tell their side
of the story. Oh, and the nephew and another nephew, both injured in the
war, are working on a top secret magnetic fuse for missiles to use against
the Germans. The secretary has stayed on as a gardener. Her ward is still
there. The butler, who seems to be the top candidate since he was
recommended before the war by a Japanese gentlemen, is still there. And it
again wool shearing time so all the itinerant workmen are back on the ranch.
Detective Alleyn must listen to all their stories, find the motive and
figure it all out. And one of them is likely a spy.

A Clutch of Constables takes place while Alleyn is off in the States
investigating an international art forgery ring. His wife, Troy, whimsically
decides to take a riverboat cruise of a twisty turny river in England after
a big show of her paintings. She hopes to do it anonymously. The passenger
list is the usual assortment of odd eccentrics including a lepidopterist, a
preacher from Australia, an American brother and sister with loads of camera
equipment and an annoying nosey woman who had discovered journaling and
writes down everything. Troy discovers that the passenger whose place she
has filled was found murdered in his flat in London, there is some weird
stuff happening on board and then, the annoying journal writer disappears.
Fortunately, Detective Alleyn returns just in time to figure out the whole
mess and save his wife.

Both of these were light and entertaining. What I like about Marsh’s
mysteries is that she gives all the clues plus a few extras to trip you up.
They are wonderfully complicated without being difficult to read. I didn’t
figure out whodunnit in either of them until the end. And Detective Alleyn
is growing on me—sort of the tall silent type.

I just received an interesting piece of e-mail imploring me to join in a nationwide boycott of Border’s Books and Music stores. The offense? It seems that a singer named Julia Rose was performing at a Border’s store in Fredericksburg, Virginia last night. Between songs, Rose, who is a body builder, made a joke about President Bush, accusing him of having “chicken legs”. According to the e-mail, which included a clipping from a local paper, that was the extent of her political commentary.

Apparently some of the Border’s patrons in the audience were offended, and complained to the store’s manager, who responded by banning Rose from any additional performances in the Fredericksburg store (several more were scheduled). Note that the ban applies to that store only; she can still perform at the several other Border’s stores in the vicinity.

My correspondant wishes me to call Borders’ corporate number, and also the manager of the Border’s in Fredericksburg, and tell them that I will be boycotting the Border’s chain until this ban is lifted. She assures me that all the Democrats in that part of the state (I assume that’s what she meant; she called them “DEMs”) were joining in.

And I have to ask…what’s she smoking?

Q: Why does Border’s have musicians come and perform?
A: To attract customers.

Q: Why did the manager in question ban Julia Rose from future performances?
A: Because Julia Rose offended some of her customers.

If you think it was a bad decision, correspondent mine, then by all means contact the manager and ask her to reconsider. She’s in the business of pleasing her customers, and if it’s clear that most of her customers think the ban is inappropriate she’ll likely change her mind. If you’re polite, that is. But boycott the entire chain because a not particularly outrageous decision by one manager? That’s just plain silly.

If this is representative of the DEMs these days, then they badly need to acquire a sense of proportion.

Will

I’ve just posted Chapters 20 and 21 of my novel Through Darkest Zymurgia! For those who were wondering, we’re now halfway through.

It’s immodest of me to say this, but…

I wrote all this four or five years ago, and I haven’t really looked at it since. While I remember the overall story perfectly well, I’ve forgotten lots of the details, and I’ve certainly forgotten almost all of the actual prose. So as I re-read it, which I’m doing as I post the new chapters, two chapters every week, it’s almost as though I’m reading someone else’s work.

And I have to say, it’s surprising how much I’m enjoying it. It’s really pretty good!

When Katherine Hepburn died recently, I browsed the library stacks for the
movie “A Lion In Winter.” I hadn’t seen it in years and the kids and husband
had never seen it so it seemed a good choice for our traditional Sunday
night movie and popcorn. Of course, all the way thru the movie they are
asking me questions about who’s who and why is she shut up in the castle etc
etc. While I have a sketchy, at best, grasp of the history of the period,
the whole thing piqued my curiosity to know more. Clearly if Hepburn’s role
was any indication, Eleanor was an interesting woman. And I just happened to
have this book on my shelf from last Christmas so I got it out and started
in.

Eleanor was indeed a very interesting woman, though Hepburn’s role is
romanticized and modernized to make her more palatable to the public. Henry
II was too. What struck me most is how little is really known about her.
Weir makes very clear what is known fact and what is supposition in her
biography and where sources give no information about Eleanor, she fills in
the gaps with what is known about Henry II. And Weir kindly includes a map
contemporary to the times making some of the geography much clearer. France
then was a small state surrounding Paris, powerful yes, but geographically
miniscule compared to what Henry II and Eleanor ruled over jointly. And we
must remember that no one was speaking English in England except the
peasants. French and more specifically, a dialect of Provencal, was the
language of court and the aristocracy.

The biography itself is easily read and understood. She gives the reader a
general understanding of what life was like for a young woman of good
birth, how girls were raised, what choices they had and didn’t have and what
levels of education they were given. She reminds us continually the role the
Church plays in the ruling of nations and of the importance of alliances by
marriage. And then she goes on to show how Eleanor breaks just about every
rule there is. She is taught to read, though not to write since writing is
the occupation of scribes. She marries Louis, King of France and takes up
the Cross with him on a Crusade, scandalizing everyone. While there, she has
a scandalous affair with her uncle and eventually annuls her marriage after
her return on the grounds of consanguinity. She turns around and marries the
King of England without consulting her former husband who is her guardian or
the Church.. She gives him sons who eventually become Richard The Lion
Hearted, and King John. Henry, unfortunately, is a bit of a bounder and they
have a falling out. She sides with her sons against Henry in what is
essentially a failed hostile takeover and he shuts her up in a castle for
years. And that’s the first two thirds of the book. Eventually, she enters
a convent as a guest and dies at the age of 82.

She was an amazing woman. We have no representation of what she looked like
aside form her effigy on her tomb and some dubious statuary and paintings.
The only surviving artifact from her life is a crystal vase she gave Henry
as a gift. Most of the castles she lived in are in ruins. And yet, she
still inspires biographies, movies and novels. I was utterly enchanted by
her.

This is the first book in a new series, “The Corean Chronicles”. It’s
about a young man with extraordinary powers he slow learns to use.
Once he does, he finds himself in a position to destroy a serious evil; moreover, no
one else is likely to be able to do it. In the meantime he grows up and
becomes quite remarkably talented at the trade which is thrust upon him.

Oh, and he falls in love too.

Put that way, this sounds rather like The Magic of Recluce,
doesn’t it? The magical underpinnings and history of our hero’s world
are entirely different (which is refreshing), as is our hero’s trade;
instead of being a woodworker, he’s a sheep herder (which is trickier
than it sounds) and an amazingly lethal soldier.

In fact, the bulk of this book is really just military fiction. If you
like reading about advances and retreats and strategy and tactics at the
level of a cavalry trooper, it’s not bad. But it’s a long slow book, and
things really only pick up toward the end.

I dunno. The book’s well-crafted, certainly; it was long and slow, but it
wasn’t–quite–tedious. But it’s maybe a chest of drawers where I was
looking for something more like a grand piano.

I’ll most likely read the next book in the series.