Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe and the biran fguiers it out aynawy.

Thanks to Scott for the interesting email. I've noted before (and have used it in teaching methodology) that kids have a tendency to be able to repeat the first and last things in a list that you read to them, or that they read for themselves. But, the in-between stuff tends to get jumbled up somewhere along the way. I wonder if this phenomenon is related - must be. Cool.

Those who read regularly (all two of you) will remember that almost exactly one month ago, my neighbors gave me a cat as an early birthday present. Yeah, kind of a weird birthday present, given that it's a live animal and all, and it's kind of hard to re-gift a cat, but since it had less than 24 hours to live, I guess it was not a bad decision.

People have been asking me TONS of questions about the cat (many of them the same), so in the interest of full-disclosure and all that crap, here you go - Operation CAT Update:

• I have not been converted into Cat Person - I have never disliked cats per se, it's just that given a natural choice, I'm more of a dog person. However, I am finding that cats are kind of cool, even if they are conceited and annoying.
• I have not named the cat - Yeah, yeah, I know... Any number of people have already given me crap about not giving the cat a name. The only ones I've come up with so far are not ones that I would use in polite conversation, so to date no name. Besides, it's a freakin' cat; If I give it a name, it'll just look at me with disdain, swish its tail back and forth, and give me that “screw you and your damn names” look.
• I can live with the allergy - I'm a little allergic, but I can live with it, so far.
• I know she's a cat, but she thinks she's a dog - I have never seen a cat roll over on its back - over and over and over and over - like this one. Weirdo.
• Random access computing has a new meaning - I have several random browser bookmarks with names like “nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg” because this darn animal won't stop walking on my keyboard when I'm not looking.

Overall, it's not a bad deal, and she's a nice cat, so I guess she can stay. We'll probably have to transition to being a semi-outdoor animal this summer, but we'll see.

I was catching up on blog reading and noticed Jim Blizzard points to Infopath training now available on MSDN. Very cool. I need this. For those who don't know, Infopath is basically an Office 2003 app that allows you to create and use XML forms - it's a pretty powerful front end. Sharepoint 2003 supports it, too, as do a few workflow tools that are offered by third-party channel partners.

He also points to a day-log session on April 21 in Portland being put on by Microsoft called “BizTalk Server 2004: Developing the Integrated Enterprise.” Registered.

I've never attended a Portland Nerd Dinner before, but as much blog reading as I am doing by the participants, and since I am sure Scott will be going (he's tried to get me to go before), I might just stop in and see what its about.

Interesting interview over at news.com with John Levine, co-chair of the Internet Research Task Force's Anti-Spam Research Group.

“I tell people that dealing with spam is like curing cancer. For example, cancer isn't one disease; it's 100 diseases, and you will need to come up with a 100 cures for it. Another way spam is like cancer is that when you try to cure cancer, you need to come up with something that will kill the cancer without killing the patient. If you kill the patient, it is easy to get rid of the cancer.”

Not sure I agree with all his positions, particularly with the stated need for new laws (although I agree the ones on the books now are ineffective). He may be right, but technology changes are what's really needed in the absence of laws that will actually work. Besides, I'm not exactly a big fan of lots of laws.

Good read though. And if you're a security-watcher, The Get Up To Speed on Enterprise Security feature at news.com (RSS feed here) is a good place to watch.

Yes, I jumped out a perfectly good airplane.

Yes, it was a blast.

Yes, I will do it again.

Want to see? Click here. It was a bad hair day, but hey - what the heck. These day's they're all bad hair days. Not enough to go around anymore. 

If you ever happen to be in the Southern California area looking for a fun weekend, check out Jim Wallace's skydiving school in Perris. Jim, Gail Sims and crew are truly awesome. Jim has more than 17,000 jumps and more than 276 hours of free-fall time in his career - Number one in the entire world! He's the one in the yellow t-shirt in the video. And on top of that, he's a really great guy. Gail's also a world-record holder.

In fact, I had more fun this past weekend than I have had in a long time. Not only did I do the free-fall thing, I also had the opportunity to spend a few hours walking and climbing all over the USS John C. Stennis, a *huge* aircraft carrier, with my friend David, who is stationed on the ship. He's also the one I went skydiving with (we both had birthday's this weekend, and it seemed like both the best and craziest thing to do to mark the occasion). We spent four days pretty much just wandering around southern California with no real plan. Unplanned time - wow, what a concept, and quite a relief from the usual!

I also purchased a replacement for my digital camera that was stolen last year. I managed to find a Nikon D70 kit, which was quite a challenge because they have not shipped very many since its release a couple weeks ago, but we found one out in the middle of nowhere. It's a great camera, but more on that later. In fact, it was that camera-finding detour we took that routed us through the skydiving capital of the Western Hemisphere, or maybe even the whole world: Perris, California.

Our original plan had been to go to California Adventure up at Disney - that was going to be our fun for the weekend - you know, roller-coasters and stuff. While driving between the town where I bought the camera and Anaheim, David looked out the window and saw a bunch of parachutes. Now, understand that he works on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier and pretty much anything that flies is cool to him. So, since we didn't actually have a real plan or any kind of schedule to follow, we decided to take the nearest exit and check it out. Within 30 minutes, we'd decided Disneyland/California Adventure was for wimps, and that we were going to jump out of an airplane instead.

So, that's what we did. Captured on video for all to see. It was great.

And then we went ahead and drove to California Adventure, anyhow. Heh. This new Disney park is pretty cool - the big roller-coaster there is damn fast and they have some good fast-action rides. They closed at 10, so we ran over to the Disneyland park and did the obligatory Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean rides (classics and still great).

I wished I could have spent another week in California, but my Mom's birthday was Tuesday and she turned 60 (happy birthday, Mom), so I flew there from Cali and got to spend a couple of days catching up with family.

It was a great weekend. Not sure I can match that one again, but I am sure I will try sometime. Pictures coming soon.

Ok, so on April 29th, I am going to be arrested as part of a fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association - you know, Jerry's Kids.

I need your help, so I can get out of there and back to work, and so MDA can do its great work. What I need from you is one or both of two things:

1. Make a donation. Comment here or email me (greg-AT-greghughes-DOT-net) and we'll figure it out. Cash, check, credit card, whatever - and it's tax deductible as allowed by law. I'm not going to ask for specific amounts, but I'll be donating probably $50 to my own cause to get things started. I need to raise at least $1800.00, and not much time to do it (that's what I get for going on vacation eh?). HELP!
2. Post a link to here (that's http://www.greghughes.net/rant/PermaLink.aspx?guid=db77e9d1-f2fd-403d-9e57-9d4533d88310) from your blog. BLOGGERS FOR MDA! Cool idea eh? Let's see how much we can raise for them that way! Alternatively, email people you know (no email spamming though, please).

Help me, help them, help help help! Sure would be cool to see the community turn out for this one!

 - greg

While heading for Disneyland, we changed our mind and stopped short. Found something that beats Disneyland hands-down. Got out at 12,000 feet, flew through the sky, pulled the cord at 5,000 feet, landed standing up. Fun way to spend your birthday when you're starting to feel your age, I highly recommend it!

Found an open network. Skipping Disneyland, gonna do something more exciting. Film at 11 - April 11th that is.

At the gas station in Tecumunga or some name like that. Filling up the tank, $2.45 a gallon. Wow.

I've decided to go have a little fun, so I'll be traveling on a birthday whirlwind trip for the next week. My birthday falls on this Sunday (also Easter), my friend who is in the Navy and happens to be in port in San Diego this weekend has a birthday on Monday, and my mom's birthday (60!!!) is on Tuesday. So, I'm off to California Thursday night to spend the weekend hanging out there, then over to New Mexico to spend my mom's birthday with her, take her out to dinner, get her something nice.

If I can bring myself to spring for it (dunno when I got so freakin' cheap on some things) I may pick up a new digital camera to replace the one that got stolen last year, and in that case maybe I will have some pictures to post from the trip. We'll see.

For those of you who work with me, you know how out of character this vacation thing is, so please - don't call me, I'll call you. And thanks to Mike and Debbie for watching the animules for me.

I'm going to be arrested on April 29th. A warrant is being issued, and I'm going to jail at Red Robin, and I need you to bail me out. Seriously, if I spend too much time there, I'll get fat and stuff, so help me here, friends!

Apparently they'll be coming to arrest me at work, and I'll be stuck in holding til people help me out and I can post bail. Of course, it's all a fundraiser to benefit MDA, so it's for a good cause.

Wanna help? Contact me. I don't think I particularly care to share a burger with some guy in a flower dress named Bruno. Save me - Please.

I'll post more when I have it.

Intel has served up a (very addicting) simulation game that will give you a taste of what it's like in my little corner of the universe. Think you've got what it takes? Heheheh, give it a try... May not be as easy as you think!

The IT manager - overworked and underappreciated. You know the story. Back in school, always the last to be picked for football, but the first one they ran to when they accidentally deleted a homework assignment. Not much has changed since then. But the fact is it takes a special skill set to manage an IT department. As IT manager you need to monitor industry trends and administer mission-critical resources for an entire company. At the same time, you have to manage increasingly tighter budgets - finding ways to do more with less - and possess the people skills to oversee staff and run interference with top decision makers.

The Intel® IT Manager Game tests your entire skill set - people management, resource allocation, strategic analysis and planning. It also tests your courage under fire - can you stand up to the scrutiny of top management along with that of your peers in the industry? Will the decisions you make result in breathtaking profits or devastating losses? Will you enjoy the sweet taste of victory or the bitter agony of defeat? Are you destined for management glory or will you be the kid sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the bell to ring? Find out by playing the Intel® IT Manager Game now.

Thanks to Scott for sending me the link.

Check it out - something new has been released from the MSFT secrecy stronghold and has suddenly hit the 'net for all to see. And it's pretty darn cool.

http://channel9.msdn.com/

This is cool stuff - it's all about the conversation.

• Michael Howard on secure coding (or current lack thereof)
• There's only supposed to be one space after a period (yeah, darnit)
• Homo Sapien 1.0 - the most important OS

Anyhow, this is a new idea, and it looks to be promising. It shows how thoughts and ideas are just as important as techniques and skills.

I rented a tractor yesterday. They dropped it off here in The Middle of Nowhere(TM) at about 9 a.m. yesterday, and picked it up this morning. It cost me $200. Sure, that's a lot of money, but I've decided it's more than worth it. Here's why:

1. I can stand up straight and I slept last night - I have a bad back. The doc says I'm not a surgical candidate yet. Operative word there. No pun intended. Anyhow, I'm not ready to go under the knife, and I prefer to be able to stand, walk, lie down, etc. without the extreme pain I've endured from time to time because I pushed myself too hard. I'd rather give my money to the rental place, and avoid the wasted time, pain and insurance deductibles.
2. Got more than a few day's worth of manual yard and garden/other work done in one day - And I even made a trip to the store in the middle of the day, so in reality, it's was just a partial day of tractoring. Among the things it helped get done include moving 11 cubic yards of soil to several above-ground planting beds, excavating a flat space in a hillside for a new raised bed (otherwise a couple days worth of work by hand), repairing the quarter-mile gravel driveway (which runs up and down a couple of steep hills and tends to get ruts and bumps galore).
3. Helped the neighbors - Last year I rented a heavy-duty rear-tine tiller to break up the ground for a back-yard lawn. It didn't work - the ground here gets so hard (clay soil) that even an 11-horse tiller can't break the surface. Horsepower means nothing if you can't get through that top layer. I saw yesterday that my neighbor had rented the same tiller as I had last year (coulda sworn I had warned him when it didn't work for me), and was attempting the same task. Feeling his pain, I pulled the tractor up and offered to rip the ground to make it easier to till, and he gladly accepted. Box scraper implements with big nasty digging teeth are amazing, and the neighbor was able to move on to tilling other areas of his yard. 'Nuf said.
4. Tractors are Fun - Ask any guy who's used a full-size commercial tractor and they'll tell you, these are real men's toys. God Bless John Deere.

Back when I was a teenager I spent a couple summers helping out/working now and then on a horse farm that some friends owned. One of my favorite things about it was the tractor. It was cool then, and it's still cool today.

Yee Haw.

I must say, I was just a little surprised at how many people actually thought I was being serious earlier today... I mean - DOG SEAT BELTS??? Come on!

My story was borrowed from a pre-planned radio show on 1190-KEX here in Portland. The radio personalities notified some listeners a day ahead of time, to have them help to make it that much more believable. It worked.

The first person I heard from among many today was my friend, co-worker and neighbor, Mike. He seemed shocked that my dog, Buddy, was in jail.

My reply: “Can you *believe* that crap????”

He wasn't the only one.

Once the radio show started this afternoon, not only did the phone calls start rolling in to the KEX studio, but the local and state police offices started getting a lot of phone calls, too. The Portland Police Bureau was warned ahead of time, and it sounds like they were ready, but the Oregon State Patrol wasn't aware or prepared for a bunch of phone calls from angry and confused people wanting to know what the heck was going on with this “new law.”

Classic.

Anyhow, Happy April Something-or-Another.