Monthly Archives: September 2007

New Orleans

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So as I say, I spent this past week at the 14th Tcl/Tk Conference, which was held at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in New Orleans, pretty much smack dab in the middle of the French Quarter. The 2nd Tcl/Tk Conference (which I did not attend) was also held there, as was the 11th Tcl/Tk Conference (which I did).

Thus, I saw the Quarter about a year before Katrina, and now I’ve seen it about a year after. So what’s changed? The answer is, I’m not sure. That is to say, I noticed changes; but whether the differences I noticed represent real changes in the nature of the French Quarter I can’t say. Anyway, here’s what I noticed.

Overall, things seemed more or less the same. There was little flooding in the Quarter, as I understand it; apparently the first settlers built on the high ground.
Last time, there was an aura of (I suspect carefully cultivated) seediness about the French Quarter, especially the residential areas. This time I noticed much more fresh paint, much more repair-work-in-progress, combined with more real disrepair.

It seems to me—I can’t say for sure, and it’s entirely possible that I’m mis-remembering—that the T-shirts on sale in the tourist shops, as well as the general tenor of Bourbon Street, are several degrees cruder and ruder than they were a few years ago. I dunno.

So much for the bad and the icky, now it’s time for the good. The high-points of the trip, tourist-wise, were a visit to Preservation Hall to hear the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, something I’d gladly do again even though Preservation Hall is rather a pit, and café-au-lait and beignets for breakfast at the Café du Monde.

And then, of course, there was the conference, which as always was fabulous. Thanks much to Gerald Lester and Ron Fox, the committee chairs, as well as (in no particular order) Steve Landers, Steve Redler, Donal Fellows, Michael Cleverly, Clif Flynt, Joe English, Sean Woods, and the rest of the gang (practically speaking, I can’t list everybody). It was a small conference this year, but we had attendees from Canada, England, Australia, and Germany—four from Germany alone! I’m still digesting everything I learned, and I’m in my typical post-conference state: really excited and inspired, and too tired to do anything about it. Time for a few quiet evenings at home.

The Chequer Board, by Nevil Shute

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Ian has an uncanny knack for locating copies of now obscure books by Nevil Shute in used bookstores which would seem, to the average customer, to contain only multiple copies of A Town Like Alice and On The Beach. I don’t know how he does it; I certainly never find them.

Anyway, this is the latest Shute he’s sent my way—if you can use the word “latest” with respect to a book published in 1947—and as usual I enjoyed it thoroughly. It takes place two or three years after World War II, and mostly in England.

At some point during the war, four men end up in the same ward in a small hospital in Cornwall. One is a pilot named Morgan, injured in a plane crash; the other three are up on charges, their days in court waiting on their recovery. Captain Turner, the nominal viewpoint character and the most seriously injured, was arrested for selling three truckloads of His Majesty’s sugar on the black market. Duggie Brent, a paratrooper, will be standing trial for killing a man during a stupid brawl. And Dave Lesurier, an American soldier, a negro, is accused of attempted rape of an English girl.

The book begins several years later, when Turner, now simply Mr. Turner, has come to see a doctor. He was convicted, and has served his time, and has several years has been working in the sales department of a flour manufacturer. He’s been having fainting spells, apparently due to the wound that put him into the hospital originally. He finds he has at most a year to live. What will he do with the time he has left?

He’ll look up the other three, of course (with this set up, how could he not?). But therein hangs the tale, and I’ll not spoil it.

Find a copy, if you can, and enjoy. As for me, I have to give this copy back. Hmph.

Wildlife

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I was going through some of the pictures I took this summer, and found a couple of wildlife shots taken at the Huntington Library and Gardens. Here, for example, is a splendid example of a bonsai tree escaping from its container.

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And here is a Rainbird in its native habitat:

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Finally, here’s a shot of the Japanese Garden. The bridge used to be that bright Japanese red, with black highlights; alas, it’s been allowed to return to natural wood tones.

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The Protector’s War, and more, by S.M. Stirling

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I just realized that I hadn’t posted anything about S.M. Stirling’s The Protector’s War, which is the sequel to Dies the Fire. I won’t try to summarize it at this late date; I’d only get it wrong, which would be embarassing. But I liked it, and had fewer qualms about it than its predecessor, and I’m looking forward to the next book, A Meeting In Corvallis, which is just out in paperback.

Digging a little deeper, I find I’ve also neglected to speak of Against the Tide of Years and On the Oceans of Eternity, which are the follow-on books to Island in the Sea of Time. I liked those, too, and would buy them again. As before, I won’t try to say much about them months after having read them…but the series is worth finishing, which is really what you wanted to know, right? Of the two, I’m enjoying the Dies the Fire books a little more, though.

(As you might have guessed, I’m tidying up my study. I’ve got six months or more of books to put away. Just because I wasn’t posting doesn’t mean I wasn’t reading.)

Dream Careers?

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Stolen shamelessly from Jaquandor:

1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/.

2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.

3. Take their “Career Matchmaker” questions.

4. Post the top ten results.

So here are (ahem) mine:

1. Multimedia Developer

2. Industrial Designer

3. Computer Programmer

4. Interior Designer

5. Fashion Designer

6. Desktop Publisher

7. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator

8. Computer Engineer

9. Video Game Developer

10. Website Designer

Remembering the questions they asked, it’s clear that the folks who put this together have a different notion of “creative work” and “design” than I do. Fact is, I can’t draw worth a darn, which would seem a requirement for a number of these.

(For those who don’t know, I’ve spent the last seventeen or eighteen years working as a software engineer. As to whether I’m well suited to it—well, I’m supporting a family of six, so objectively I’m reasonably successful, and as for subjectively…I do this stuff even when I’m not getting paid for it.)