April 03, 2002
I know that I haven't been posting a lot recently, for which I earnestly apologize. I've had much to say but little time. You may recall that we moved a week or two ago, and much of my time has been spent dealing with that: unpacking, sorting, sleeping.
We're house- and dog-sitting for my mother-in-law. Introducing her yellow lab to our two cats has been a lot of fun. The dog is quite excited about these new playmates. Our 16.5-pound Maine Coon runs and hides, but our little 8.5 pound tabby is very interested in meeting this rambunctious creature. He walks right up to the dog, sniffs her, and thwacks her nose when she gets too close. Guess we know who's boss.
I've also started to get really busy again working on a couple XML presentations that a colleague and I are doing at a conference in two weeks. It's pretty cool, the presentation slides themselves are XML files that we're converting to PDF using AxPoint. XHTML versions will also be made available, probably generated with XSLT. Much as I try to confine that activity to work, it does spill out occasionally. It happens when what I do for work and for fun are pretty much the same thing. AxPoint is marvelous. And now it supports SVG! Wow.
This is especially useful because I refuse to learn how to use PowerPoint. I like to learn about most things, but there are two areas of knowledge in which I would like to go through life remaining blissfully ignorant: how to score bowling and how to use PowerPoint.
Oh yes, through all this I've been trying to read a lot. Been wanting to highlight Steven Johnson's Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. Wonderful book, I cannot recommend it strongly enough. Someday soon I'll say more about it. For now, let me just say that I enjoyed the book so much that I will send a copy to the first person who asks for one. Seriously. Anywhere in the world, as long as it can be shipped there. Drop me a line.
Update:The book has been claimed. Thank you for playing.
