Ravings of an Intermittent Fool

A Palestinian man donating his son's organs to Israelies is a very touching story. Hopefully this small, but immensely kind gesture in the time of great personal tragedy will be a bridge between these two peoples. If this man's selfless gesture can help bring a bit more peace in that part of the world, it will be a great thing.

Ask Metafilter has a question I've often wondered: Why don't American use bidets more? More info can be found here.

Today's SharePoint frustration of the day involves the Lists web service. This web service provides operations that can return metadata about lists in SharePoint as well as provide the means to create, update and delete (among other things) items in the list. So here is what I found out recently that surprised me.

If a field in the list is marked as Required, you don't actually have to give that field a value when creating a list item using the web services.

If a field in the list has a list of valid choices associated with it, go ahead and feel free to choose some other value for the field. SharePoint will be happy to accomodate you.

If you try to add a list item and give it no field names and their associated values, it silently ignores your request and doesn't tell you if it suceeded or not. You'd expect some sort of error but alas, that isn't the case.

The only error I was able to generate was trying to add a list item with a field that the list didn't know about. That at least worked the way I expected it to.

This is a pretty funny observation.

I've always been told that I need to network more. Here is great example of good networking at work. Say you are looking for an XML job, wouldn't if be great if one of the inventors of XML vouches for you. I'm sure this guy didn't stay unemployed for long.

Its a sad day. Word is that Fox is canceling one of the funniest shows on tv, Arrested Development. Save our Bluths is the fan petition site set up to save the show.

Update: I now know why people seem to be finding this post as of late. Welcome all. I join in your sadness that we might loss this show. I just got thru Monday's episode and I was tremendously impressed. So very self-referential, so mocking of the network and very funny. I am surprised the network let them poke fun at them.

Angela and I did our our first 10K today, the Montgomery Inn Rib Run. The weather stayed decent for the race and it didn't rain on us. Also it wasn't too terribly cold at the starting line. I ran the course in 57:30 and Angela did it in slightly under 58. Jeff did the course in an amazing 45 minutes flat. If I was a bit more confident in the beginning of the race, I could have run a slightly faster pace. Oh well, I am sure that is a skill that I will learn over time.

Wow, P&G is spawning comedians left and right. First, my former co-worker Josh Sneed, now I found about Rajiv Satyal, aka The Funny Indian. Check out his site and his podcast. Its quite funny. I can't wait to see him in person.

If you've ate at Nicholson's in Cincinnati, you've had a chance to try their bread before your meal. Its hearty, filled with tasty seeds and has a chewey soft center. Its very yummy. I now have an idea on where they source their bread.

While shopping for a loaf of bread to accompany the lasagna I made last night, I found a loaf of par-baked bread at Kroger's. It was from the La Brea Bakery and it was remarkably similiar to what is served at Nicholson's. Looking at their website (which sadly acts flaky in Firefox), they state that they specifically cater to resturants across the nation with their products. So give it a try both at the resturant and now at home.

Lost Remote is reporting that a company is making celebrity voices for GPS Navigation systems. If I had a car navigation system this is what I would want. Maybe not Dennis Hopper or Burt Reynolds as my voice of choice but I can think of others that would work. I would also think that it might be fun to have a belligerent voice that yelled at you when you make wrong turns, but then again, I'm weird like that.

In my first brief piece on how to be a better spouse, I wrote about compromising on the little things that don't bother you but make you spouse really happy. There are probably lots of good reasons why you chose your spouse (hint: a mail order catalog doesn't count), but deep down inside a lot of it stems from the quality of actions and character that you see in the person across the dinner table from you.

The trouble is we often don't express gratitude to our loved ones. We think it internally but don't stop and show an overt expression of our wonderment that we found such a wonderful person. This is espacially true the longer our relationships last when we naturally expect our partners to know what we feel about them. The trick is while they do probably know deep down inside how much we care, they could always stand to hear it from you again. Its only human nature.

The mindset that you have to break is that it doesn't hurt to state the obvious or that you are stating something you expect your partner already knows. Disregarding this rule will set you on a course for keeping your apreciation bottled up inside. If you don't express thanksgiving for the wonderful attributes your spouse brings to the table, you risk making it seem like you expect goodness rather than being eternally grateful for the presence of goodness.

The greatest thing about this is that it is very easy to put into practice. A simple Thank You will work wonders. Finishing the statement, "I really apreciate it when you do..." can also work. Leaving a note, or an email or a voice mail when thoughts of your spouse cross your mind, shows that you think and care about this person. Also when your co-workers, friends and relatives tell stories of bad behavior in a relationship, use that as a springboard to frame expressions of gratitude. "Honey, I am so glad you don't do..." and just fill in the blank.

That's all for now...

AOL recently automatically added bots to your buddy list. Its kind of annoying but not over the top. What disappoints me the most is these bots have no personality. They could have made these things fun to interact with but alas they are pretty cold and wooden. Remember back to the days of games like Police Quest where you could have fun trying to provoke a reaction from the computer. That kind of interaction is sadly lacking in these bots.

I was inspired by eating at Bella Luna to put together this salad dressing. Its very simple to make and very yummy. In a bowl appropriate for wisking, add
A Pinch of salt
A Pinch of ground black pepper
A Tablespoon of a mild honey (my preference, feel free to experiment)
2 - 3 Tablespoons of Balsamic Vinegar

Wisk this together while streaming in olive oil until you get the consistancy that you desire. From there taste the dressing and adjust the amount of salt, honey and vinegar as appropriate.

I haven't seen a single place that describes everything that you need to do in order to use Apache Axis to access web services that are protected using IIS's Integrated Windows Authentication (or NTLM) scheme. Its not very hard to get the product to support it, but the documentation isn't all in one place.

In order for Axis to support Integrated Windows Authentication, you need to tell the Axis client to use a different class for HTTP communications. In Axis parlance, these classes are called Handlers, that is they are subclasses of Handler. By default, the Axis client uses the HTTPSender for its communications. The CommonsHTTPSender however is the one that supports Integrated Windows Authentication. The easiest way to use to instruct the Axis client to use this class for HTTP communications is to create a custom client-config.wsdd file. Here is a simple one that enables using the CommonsHTTPSender class for HTTP communication:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deployment name="commonsHTTPConfig"
xmlns="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/"
xmlns:java="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/providers/java">

</deployment>


One easy way to make sure that Axis notices your configuration file is to store this file in the classpath at the location org/apache/axis/client. The client will find this configuration file dynamically at runtime. There are several other ways configure the Axis client that may be more appropriate to your situation.

Lastly, make sure your classpath includes Apache Jakarta Commons Http Client and Apache Jakarta Commons Codec. If you are using Apache Axis 1.3, you must use the 3.x series of Http Client.

Once you have done this, you should be able to use Apache Axis against web services that are protected by Integrated Windows Authentication.

Update: To answer Yuhua's question from below, specifing usernames and passwords is no different than any other Axis based webservice. For whatever generated class implements the Stub interface, you can call the setUsername(String) and setPassword(String) methods. The username component would consist of your domain name as well as your username, seperated by a backslash.

The Chief Leatherlips outdoor sculpture looks pretty neat. I don't think I would drive to Columbus just to see it, but if I were in the neighborhood, I would check it out.

I know its a very cliched thing to post this time of year but if you do stop and consider things, most of us have been truely blessed. I know I am entirely thankful for having:

• a wonderful, caring, sweet and friendly spouse


• supportive friends that are there for me in good times and in bad


• a large, extended family that all get along and enjoys celebrating holidays


• a good job that I enjoy doing


• high speed internet access (dial-up access at your parent's house will make you apreciate this more)


• my improved health, weight and metabolism (which means that having Thanksgiving and a wedding in the span of three days won't wreck the bottom line on my waist line)

There is definitely more I am thankful for but hey, I just woke up some cut me some slack.

Update: I have some Thanksgiving pictures available in the photo gallery.

Well another set of friends, Kelly and Mark, have taken the plunge into matrimony. Back when Angela and I were married, we were told that the party went on til practically dawn, hours and hours after we had left the reception. Kelly and Mark's wedding gave us an opportunity to participate in something along that lines.

The evening started at the Norman Chapel here in Cincinnati. I had never heard of this before but it is an 125 year old building with great stone walls and awesome exposed wood beams supporting the ceiling.

Next stop was Brentwood Bowl since there was an intermission between the ceremony and the reception. The women in the silly shoes and dresses and the guys bowling in suits was quit the sight.

Next was the reception at Molloy's on the Green (which was pretty hard to find in the dark). Lots of dancing and consuming was done by all. And then more dancing and even more still.

After a long night of dancing, eating and drinking, it was decided that we needed to do some "decorating". So off it was to the friendly neighborhood Meijer to pick up some supplies. We even took time out for Jeff to ride the horse near the checkout ailses.

The results of our hardwork was this masterpiece.

The evening couldn't end there, so off it was to Jeff's house for more celebrating. Much more was consumed and much more dancing took place. Jeff has either some very understanding neighbors or they are very sound sleepers.

So for the evening it was 6 different locations starting at 2:30 PM and going until 3 or 4 in the morning. That makes for one great time. Sorry Mark and Kelly that you missed out on half of it. :-) Oh and you guys need better neighbors since apparently none of them called the police on us.

Of course, there are more pictures available in the gallery.

Any surprise that this was the harpist for Kelly and Mark's wedding?

Entomophagy: who knew that there was a word that meant, "the eating of insects by humans for food"? Try dropping that one into your next meeting or as a pick up line at a bar.

My friend Josh has recently gotten into listening to podcasts so thought I would help him out and list out some of the feeds that I find worthwhile. Eventhough I am no fan of OPML I'd post a listing of my subscriptions but sadly iTunes for Windows doesn't offer OPML export. As an aside, how hard would it have been for them to implement this? Not sure why it was left out (well I hope its not for the cynical reason that I can think of).

Anyways, to the list (in alphabetical order because that is all iTunes offers):

Between the Lines ( Feed ) - This is a series of commentary and interviews done by Dan Farber and David Berlind who are ZDNet reporters. This feed has been interesting as of late because of all the reporting David has been doing on the Massachusett's ODF proposal.

Cincinnati Edition ( Feed ) - This is a new show on WVXU that is trying to be a weekend magazine show. It airs a different episode on Saturday and Sunday. So far I have found the shows to be ok, nothing special, but its not an overwelming amount of content and it does fulfill the local news niche.

Fly with Me ( Feed ) - An interesting behind the scenes look at the aviation industry from a pilot. He interviews other pilots, flight attendants and passengers. Its got a very highly polished feel to it, espacially considering he is an amateur in terms of audio production.

The Funny Indian ( Feed ) - Rajiv Satyal is a marketing exec at P&G who moonlights as a standup. His podcasts range from observations about life in cincinnati and what its like becoming a standup. He's had some cool experiences in his fledging career like opening for Dave Chappelle that he goes into detail on his podcasts.

IT Conversations ( Feed ) - This is series of conference presentations/sessions and interviews with people from the world of science and technology. I presume the site started off focusing on the IT industry, but has grown to include bio-tech, future tech and more tech industry insider stuff. The feed I linked to includes all their content which frankly can be overwelming at times. I mean who has time to listen to 8 or 9 hour long presentations a week. Truth be told not all the topics interest me but the summaries are well done so it gives me a good idea of what topics I want to listen to and which ones i should skip. If you want a more narrow scope, their site offers a myriad of different more targeted feeds.

Left, Right and Center ( Feed ) - Weekly half hour roundtable discussions about the news of the day.

NPR Story of the Day ( Feed ) - Exactly what it says, they pick out a story of the day and present it here. The stories could be entertainment related, or sad, or hard news or whimsical. I haven't really determined a pattern.

On the Media ( Feed ) - Weekly hour long show covering the media in our world.

The World's Geoquiz ( Feed ) - Infrequent very short quizes about the world usually with a short informational piece about the answer to the quiz.

Science Friday ( Feed ) - Weekly show that covers science topics.

Brian Lehrer Show ( Feed ) - General purpose news, call in and interview show from New York. Ocassionally the show is very New York City focused but most of the time it is of general interest.

Leonard Lopate Show ( Feed ) Another general purpose show from New York although it tends to be more interview based.

Leonard Lopate's Please Explain ( Feed ) - This gets a special call out because the feeds for the two WNYC shows listed here only seem to include the first segement of each day's shows. Please Explain never happens to be one of those segments and they have thoughtfully included a seperate feed for it. I'd really like if the show's main feeds included all the segements, but I digress. Anyways, Please Explain is a weekly segment that invites experts in to explain in detail about how something works. Previous topics have include automobiles, the economy, and vitamins.

That's all for now. Its enough to keep me busy while exercising and walking from the garage to the office.

You know its cold out when you run and you can feel your snot freezing.

So I learned a bit about car maintence today and that there are some nice helpful people that live around me. About two blocks away from my house this morning, I discovered that I have a flat tire. Frustrating for sure, but no big whoop I thought. In fact I had a similiar issue several weeks ago with the other front tire (that situation was bad because my spare tire was so low on air that it was unusable). So out come the jack and spare (now fully inflated thank God). I got the car raised off the ground and the lug nuts off in short order but wouldn't you know it, the wheel wouldn't come off.

Man did I curse while trying to get that wheel off. I tried seemingly everything but nothing would work. In the meantime two older gentleman stopped to help me. Very friendly guys, one happens to live across the street from me. The other turns out to have remember the first guy from decades ago (he apparently had caddied for him at a local country club). Small world. Since I was getting no where fast with the tire, one of the guys offered to call a friend of his who knew a tow truck driver. 25 minutes later a guy from Bramble Towing shows up and takes one look at the wheel and knows the problem. Aparently aluminum wheels can corrode over time and that corrosion adhears the wheel to the axel. He took a large piece of wood from the back of his truck, got under the car and beat on my tire. It came off in short order. He didn't even charge me.

Thanks to the Bramble Towing guy, Jim and Don (I think that was his name...Jim identified him as an owner of a funeral home in Mt. Lookout Square which is Rohde Funeral...sadly no website for me to check up on). I learned something new about cars and what good people live around here.

Update: I had the bright idea to check out a church bulletin since funeral homes advertise there and wouldn't you know, it certainly was Don Rohde that helped me out. Thanks man.