Tuesday - January 04, 2005
Bob's Blog
This is Bob's Blog; you can email me here.
I started this blog on January 2, 2005 I intend to post links to interesting things and to write about whatever strikes my fancy at a given time; I also find that it helps my memory, like any photo album, to keep a journal fo things that happen; I use my web site for this purpose as well. I write a very short review, sometimes with scans and more extensive notes, for all the books I read. There will be technical and non-technical stuff here, but expect to read about all the books I read, the movies I see and some of the places where I eat and visit, among other things like stories about Saudi Arabia and The Netherlands (two places I've spent some time).
Some background on me to start. You can read my professional resume here and read a little about my history here, both are pointers to my website at http://www.alephnaught.com/. I have three operating systems running at home now:
- two desktops of Windows XP
- one desktop of SuSE Linux 9
- one PowerBook laptop running Mac OS X
- one MacBook Pro laptop running Mac OS X
Work was taking me to Amsterdam a lot, which was cool because I like to travel and sometimes my spouse, Aviva, comes along; we try to go someplace interesting every year (often to Italy because that's Aviva's favorite - Amsterdam is still my favorite city in the world). You can see where we've been here. My main web site is at http://www.alephnaught.com/.
I joined Flickr (and I hope that now I have some time on my hands I can get more stuff loaded up):
Personal page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/electricbob/
Photos page: http://www.flickr.com/people/electricbob/
I've got a MySpace page, which I haven't had time to customize much yet - I'm not sure what I want to do with MySpace yet frankly:
http://www.myspace.com/electricbob
I'm using iBlog to write this - it works well with the Mac and its iLife toolkit. I'm upgrading to the 2.0 version (using the RC2 release now) - it has some problems and I'll need to reformat some of my old posts, but it runs much faster on my MacBook and it has some nice features (like tagging).
Sunday - May 04, 2008
The Good That Men Do
Title: The Good That Men Do (Star Trek: Enterprise)
Author: Andy Mangels, Michael A. Martin
Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Star Trek (February 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743440013
ISBN-13: 978-0743440011
The first (and as far as I can tell only) pulp fiction book based on the Star Trek: Enterprise TV series. It uses a technique familiar to that series - going forward in time and telling a story in the past, in this case that Trip, the chief engineer on Enterprise, secretly survived his apparent death and became a spy planted in the Romulan empire.
I liked the book generally, and I'm glad I read it. I wish they'd write some more; I think this period (pre-Federation) takes a look at some serious issues that had been resolved by the time of the later series.
Saturday - April 05, 2008
My first tattoo
Got my first tattoo today!
This morning while pondering my breakfast of waffles, it suddenly dawned on me what tattoo I should get. You see, Aviva and I have talked about getting a tattoo for years, but we've never settled on a design. And, you do have to live with it (and if you're Jewish you live with it forever).
So, after handling the latest crisis in our move from Chicago to Los Angeles, I went to Nathan's at the suggestion of the new woman at our apartment complex, Amanda. Javier did a great job I think, and we had fun doing it (it hurt a lot at first, but I got sort of used to it and even watched some of the filling-in).
So, here it is - its on the inside of the right wrist!
Sunday - March 23, 2008
Moonshadows Restaurant in Malibu, CA
20356 Pacific Coast Hwy., Malibu, CA 90256
I'm moved into my temporary housing, Aviva goes back home Monday to finish getting the house ready to vacate, so we decided to drive to Malibu and have a nice dinner.
The service wasn't great; I think our server forgot about us a couple of times. The menu is interesting and modern. The shrimp cocktail only had four shrimp. I had the pork chop, which was in a mustard seed and organic bacon sauce with an sweet potato puree with anise seasoning. The chop was a bit dry, but the food was flavorful.
Friday - February 29, 2008
24 Declassified: Collateral Damage
Title: 24 Declassified: Collateral Damage
Author: Marc Cerasini
Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: HarperEntertainment (February 26, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061431184
ISBN-13: 978-0061431180
A very guilty pleasure of mine - I love the TV series 24, and the books are just as good, maybe better.
This one is set in the new NYC Counter-Terrorist Unit (CTU) headquarters, where Jack Bauer is helping get the new office running. But, his team is ambushed on their way to the office and the action doesn't let up until the very last explosive minute.
This series is being authored by three people now, and so far I've found all the books to be quick and fun to read.
