Fifty Years Ago

As a reward for enduring torture sessions with my Huntington Park orthodontist, Dr. Elsie C. Schildwachter, the embodiment of a German Nazi in my own mind (if not in reality), Mom always took me out for a treat: often to a nearby Newberry's, where I might get a malt at the soda fountain - or a record from the music department. Those 78 RPM singles were my first pop records, and I played them over and over.

I can remember them to this day: off-brand covers of pop hits such as "Learnin' the Blues", "You Gotta Have Heart", and "Wake the Town and Tell The People."

Chavez Ravine

I picked up Ry Cooder’s new album, Chavez Ravine today. How many times do you play an album a second time immediately after hearing it for the first? For me, it’s almost never. Listen to Chavez Ravine. It's a "concept" album featuring some of the chicano musicians who were around during the heydey of the community, leading up to the evictions and city / corporate takeover for the building of Dodger Stadium.

I've been a huge fan of Ry Cooder, from his earliest albums through the Buena Vista Social Club sets - and Chavez Ravine maintains the same high level of excellence.

Gobbledeygook

I spend my days getting mainframes to talk to application servers to talk to clients, in both directions. This is J2EE, TCP/IP socket programming in Java, Cobol, C/C++, and mainframe Assembler language, with resource adapters, connection pooling, subscribe/publish messaging - requiring additional knowledge in IBM mainframe Cobol, TSO, JCL, CICS, IMS/DB, IMS/TM, DB2, Oracle, and their associated interfaces: CICS Transaction Gateway, IMS Connect, IMS Connector for Java.

None of this has anything to do with electronics or hardware. It’s all computer programming. Nothing that I program will last more than a few years, and none of the above terms and acronyms will mean anything to even the most technical of my grandchildren.

It sure would be nice to get into doing something more lasting, and of more help to the world.

Old friends

Robin, Cynthia, James & I went to the Music Center to see the New York City Ballet – Fred Zlotkin doing a great cello solo for the Saint-Saens “swan” segment from Carnival of the Animals. We walked over to the Omni hotel afterwards to meet Fred, he coming with us back to Northridge for dinner at Village Tandoor, then to our house. David, Kenlyn, Rachel, and Ryan met us there, joined later by Jon Pincus (a guy I remembered from junior high, but hadn't seen since), and his wife Linda.

Saraband (2003)

Ingmar Bergman says it's his last movie. Sigh. When you see this movie, you know you've been run through the ringer, and seen something extraordinary. It's Ingmar Bergman, so of course it's bleak, and everything you'd expect from Ingmar Bergman. This is an astonishing film.

Battle Hymn of the Connectors

Battle Hymn of the Connectors(to the tune of Glory Glory Hallelujah)

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of Five-O;
So forget about your next day off
And favorite TV show;
'Cause your boss has come and called you
And you better not say no;
Code on for SeeBeyond!

Chorus
Get to work and build that eWay;
Proof your doc and run your QA;
It's not long until release day;
Code on for SeeBeyond!

Our humble servant leads us onward,
Bravely Ward-ing off our foes;
He is trampling out the classpaths
Where our Five-0 forest grows;
Leaves and branches keep on falling,
And the core is full of holes;
But still we code along!

Chorus
So get to work and build that eWay;
Proof your doc and run your QA;
It's not long until release day;
Code on for SeeBeyond!

-- Kent Kanouse

Paris

A day of sightseeing. Walked from my hotel to the Place de la Concorde, ate breakfast at an outdoor café in the Jardin des Tuileries, and spent an hour at the Louvre. Spent the afternoon taking a tour bus to Chartres, visiting the medieval town and cathedral. Back in Paris, had a fabulous dinner at a sidewalk café near my hotel.

Paris

Did a presentation with Jean-Francois at Mederic (in Nueilly) in the morning, met Alex, Marjo, and Paul at Generali afterwards, went with them to lunch at Atlantique. Back at my hotel by 4, took a nap, then went out walking, ate dinner across from the Moulin Rouge.

Paris

Breakfast at the hotel with Marjo. Checked out, walked to the customer offices (Generali insurance group), spent a day making good progress on the Cobol API project; got it working in CICS, nearly so in batch. Lunch with Marjo and Paul Myall.

Checked into Mercure Royal Madeleine (29 rue de l’arcade), where I’ll be staying until Sunday. Went out by myself for a nice walk and dinner.

Paris

Arrived Paris 2:20 PM, took a taxi to the Mercure Hotel Opera Garnier at 4 Rue de L’Isly. Went out for a walk, had a beer at a sidewalk café, then took a nap in my room (6-9). Marjo arrived same hotel at 10, we took a walk, had drinks at one café, dinner at another. Back to the hotel at 1:30.