Welcome To My World

Back to Elizabeth Moon

2011-02-06T12:01:00.001-05:00

After a bit of a hiatus, I've begun reading Vatta's War. You can kind of think of Kylara Vatta as the "anti-Heris". Where Heris Serrano, at the beginning of the Serano Legacy, is tossed out on her ear after a storied and decorated career, Kylara is tossed from her military training after a brilliant start as a cadet. The progression from disgraced former to cadet to civilian trader captain at war with virtually no resources is well told and well thought out by the author. It is a story that invokes only the barest ghost of the earlier series. Some of the tragedy in the latter books of the series I felt were a bit rushed through compared to the way Kylara lingered over and dealt with similar tragedy early on. I also felt that way about similar points in the final novel in the Seranno Legacy. This, however, is the only detractor I found in Vatta's War. An excellent series for sci-fi fans, or those who just want a good story.

Exile... Bridge to Speaker For The Dead

2011-01-30T18:28:00.001-05:00

Well, I was not entirely honest in my last post. I have not yet read "Trading in Danger". It is still sitting on the headboard of my bed. The reason for this? Books-A-Million had in stock "Ender in Exile". This novel, by Orson Scott Card, tells the story of Ender and Valentine from the time they leave earth and runs through, and a bit beyond, Ender's discovery on Shakespeare (a small spoiler, but he actually came up with the name of the colony while en route). My initial response? This was a BAD-A$$ novel. It was the perfect continuation of the story lines from not only Ender's Game, but also the Ender's Companion novels. I won't say more, but if you are a fan of the series, and have not read this novel, go out and get it. Right now.

I have also ordered the collection of short stories that Card published as well. The collection is titled "First Meetings. At least one of them, "Investment Counselor", is right along the lines of a continuing opening up of the Ender universe. If you've read the series, I'm sure that by this point in my narrative, you can guess what and who that tale is about. Or, if you read the after-word for "Ender In Exile", you certainly know. I don't often read short story collections, but I am making an exception here. Now, I can only say that I hope Exile isn't the final book written about the time between "Ender's Game" and "Speaker For The Dead". Three Thousand (or thirteen) years does, after all, give one a lot of time for stories to tell, even skimming along at the speed of light.

Quick Book Update

2011-01-27T00:26:00.000-05:00

I finished the Serrano Legacy tonight. I'm going to roll straight into Trading In Danger tomorrow. I have a couple of new books in mind that I will probably purchase in the next couple of weeks. I must make a list. I know I want the new Tom Clancy novel that I wrote about here. I also have a couple of Frankenstein novels to pick up. For anyone who is a Koontz fan, who has not read these, I highly recommend them. I don't want to spoil anything, but they are NOT a retelling of the Shelley story. The new Witch and Wizard novel, titled The Gift, by James Patterson is out and I need to buy it in the near future. I'll definitely be buying Angel when that comes out on Valentine's Day.

The loss of a good man.

2011-01-22T00:24:00.000-05:00

An old friend of mine, Ted Bechtel, was laid to rest this week in Virginia. It has me thinking about life, and the loss of life, and the passing of a man who has left memories. Though we had not seen one another in years, Ted was such a person to leave memories that last. The last time I saw Ted face to face was in December of 1999. We shot pool and had a couple of beers and reminisced a bit about our time in the Corps.

Whenever someone dies, especially when it happens at such a young age, the grief it leaves in the hearts of those who are left behind can seem such that the falling of our hearts can never reach bottom. My prayers go out to Ted's family and loved ones. Such a man does is a rare thing. You will be missed by all whom your life touched, Marine. Rest now, the rest of the honorable warrior. Semper Fidelis.

'And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also." - John 14:3

Magento Cart Installation Testing

2011-01-06T23:27:00.001-05:00

I have begun my installation for the new Magento-based redesign of Caraccessories.com by copying all of the files to their web server. I first, of course, ran through the entire procedure on my own equipment (Running XAMPP). The main thing is don't take shortcuts. The install procedure for Magento 1.4.1 is fairly touchy, though I found install instructions for XAMPP and with some Googling of the various errors that cropped up, was able to get the correct settings in all of the configuration files. I found very quickly, that the PHP script which creates the databases needs to be changed. Most of the install scripts seem to handle being run after an initial install attempt fails fairly easily. Except for the file 'mysql4-install-1.4.0.0.php", which will error out the installation if you attempt to re-run it.

The purpose of this file is to create the tables in the mysql database. It contains a list of commands which begin with:

CREATE TABLE `{$installer->getTable('sales_flat_order')}` (

The problem is that there is no logic in the php scripts to check to see if the tables exist. Creating a MySql table which already exists is, of course, not going to work. You could add a conditional to simply not run this function after checking for all of the tables. However, that is a lot of duplication, and it must be taken into account that our installation has failed. Even if the tables in the script installed correctly, it doesn't cost much in the way of time or processing to re-create them. A simple solution presents itself. By modifying this file, we can delete each table, before it is created, like so:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `{$installer->getTable('sales_flat_order')}`;
CREATE TABLE `{$installer->getTable('sales_flat_order')}` (

The extra line of code is pretty self-explanatory. $installer is a variable set at the top of the script to $this. MySql simply deletes the table if one exists. Then the script continues to run. Installing on Windows requires a bit of hit and miss since much of the data is scattered in several different guides. I will be posting a complete installation walk-through procedure here as I am performing the production installation.

Me on Memolane

2010-12-30T19:23:00.001-05:00

After reading this posting by Ed Brill, I decided to check out the site for myself. It is still in beta, but it seems like, at the least, an interesting interface to aggregate various social media. I don't know that I will use it all that much, but, we'll see. I do like the timeline interface.

My Memolane timeline

Another aspect of Memolane that I believe I will like is the ability to show what I have been listening to on last.fm. Lately, that hasn't been much. I primarily listen to last.fm via Xbox live, and I have no idea if "scrobbling" works in this interface. I haven't really paid attention to whether or not my last.fm account is tracking the songs I listen to via the 360. Time will tell.

Tom Clancy's New Jack Ryan (Jr) Book is finally out

2010-12-22T20:57:00.001-05:00

The Teeth of The Tiger came out about 8 years ago, and picks up the story of the Ryan family with Jack Jr. starting his first job out of college, and his first steps in his father's illustrious footsteps. The premise behind the novel was a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on the US by militants who attacked "everyday Americans" in shopping malls. Which should strike a chord considering the news this week of documents found indicating Al Qaeda has, indeed, made at least some plans for just this sort of attack. The novel ends with a very leading statement indicating that more is to come. Then Clancy retired somewhat. Now, he's back with the new book. I plan to pick it up (along with others) after Christmas and I will write more about it after the new year begins and after I have read the book, obviously. The jacket also indicates that John Clark and Ding Chavez will be prominent in the new book.

Considering Clark's "sunset tour" job as the founder and head of Rainbow Six and the fact that the twins, and now Jack are working (I particularly liked the guy who fell in front of the trolley, ouch) on the Continent, this may portray a bit of a collaborative effort between the Campus and Rainbow. Rainbow is in something of a "dark gray" status in that intel. shops other than those directly involved with the unit somewhat know of its existence (this was hinted at in a conversation Gerry has in Teeth, and if memory serves, was also hinted at in The Bear and the Dragon). It will be interesting to see how this interaction plays out, since the Campus is, and must be completely off the books. Hendly has a few loyal career people at CIA and NSA to ensure he can get intel, and a couple of people at the FBI are aware of the work the Hendley and Assoc. performs in addition to its trading work. Clark of course knows, and by extension, his intel staff and Ding and Peter (the strike team leaders) may have some awareness of the Campus, though not necessarily.

It will also be interesting to see how much more fieldwork Jack is involved in. He was travelling home with the data from the target's laptop at the end of the last novel. As the hunt for the Emir picks up, he is likely to see more time in the field in an intel support role for the twins. With all the time Clancy put into describing his father's attitude towards such things, and his coping with having killed men in the line of duty on a couple of occasions, as well as the look he gave into Jack's cousins at the beginning of "Teeth of the Tiger", I look forward to the insight and character he builds for "Little Jack" as he copes with having killed another human being for the first time.

Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010 Express

2010-12-17T14:21:00.005-05:00

I recently completed a project for a client who initially wished to have a "javascript widget" built for their intranet portal page which would get data from a Domino database. The portal, they told me was written in ASP. My initial review of the page led me to the conclusion that Javascript wasn't the way to go, mostly due to cross-domain issues. It would be simpler to build the application in .Net. Which lead me to Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010.

On the upside, I found that, once I understood the principle (using a repeater) in about 75 lines of code (including variable declarations and helper functions for building strings, etc.) I had a robust, scalable application which would get the xml (also using built-in functions), and place it in the repeater. The Express version is also available for FREE, which is a big plus. In addition, it comes with a trial of Visual Studio 2010.

On the downside, I found that documentation online is scarce.. for instance, there seems to be built-in functionality to build the hrefs, but it appears to be only for those typed in manually.. not links created dynamically. After much searching, I gave up on this concept and built my own in a loop. A LARGER problem seems to be very complicated deployment packaging processes which need to be installed on the IIS server for each application you build. When building a classic ASP application, you ftp the files up to the appropriate directory on the server and that's it.

I ended up re-building this solution in classic ASP, because the client is using .NET 1.1 which doesn't support ASPX applications. I definitely like the development environment. I'm just not sure about the, sometimes many, resulting files and procedure required to "install" them on the server. Even Java servlets are easier to install. I may, however, be missing something simple in the whole deployment scenario.

It seems that Blogger's editor doesn't like having code posted in it, so I will have to work on that a bit.. but I will get it posted.

Acheron

2010-12-12T23:47:00.005-05:00

In my efforts to read more novels, I have finally read Acheron. I read this novel in its entirety today. It is part of Sherilynn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. Technically, I suppose it was the first since Acheron had a big hand the creation of the Dark Hunters in the first place. Kenyon's protagonists, at least in the two novels I have read, are always tormented souls who, for all their power, are quite powerless to their inner (and sometimes not so inner) daemons. It says something about the human condition, that we revere power, and blind ourselves to the fact that sometimes even the most powerful of us, are themselves powerless before the realities of life.

Happy Birthday To Me

2010-12-08T01:22:00.004-05:00

Just another day. Nothing special planned. I went to dinner with my brother and his wife last night..... probably just going to work today and relax a bit.

Yes, I can read.

2010-11-28T23:33:00.004-05:00

I've decided to start blogging about books I am reading. I am an avid reader, and have been all my life. I don't remember the children's books, but I do remember when I began reading the Hardy Boys and Trixie Lee Belden novels at around 8. I have the entire original Hardy Boys novels. In fact, I have all first-edition, first-printing hardbacks of most of them. One day, I will find those I lack.

Around 1998, I switched to reading only series, instead of individual novels. The reason for this was primarily financial: it was not a rare occasion that I would walk into a bookstore and walk out with a couple hundred dollars worth of paperbacks. The switch meant that when the series stopped, I would not buy any books until one of the series picked up again, or I found a new one that I wanted, and I try to keep this latter to a minimum or I'll be back to spending way too much money on novels again, as appealing as the idea is to me. The most expensive book I have ever purchased is a computer book required for a college class I took on SQL and Oracle 9i, for which I paid around 130 USD.

The reason I have decided to blog about things I'm reading is that I just finished my first book in over a month, an extreme rarity for me. I have simply not been reading lately, except for blogs and programming books, due to my work load, and I will admit, a bit due to Netflix, as I've been going through Legend of the Seeker, season 2. I have read the entire Sword of Truth series, of course. In fact, it is, along with Witch and Wizerd by James Patterson, the only set of books I own that I have not read at least 5 times. I will also admit that I have read Stephen King's novel The Stand (Unabridged version released in, I believe, 1989) 34 times. Five of those were in less than a week, during a period when I read the novel twenty-six times in one year. That was when I first bought it in 1994, while I was in the Marines and was caused by a bit of ribbing I took when I read it the first two times. That set did involve two back to back readings of the novel. Perhaps that's odd, but in my defense, it is an excellent novel.

SPOILER ALERT!
On to the books! I have just completed the Brian Lumley novel, Necroscope: The Touch. This is a bit of a prequel, set immediately before and after the second "death" of Harry Keogh on Starside (just in case anyone who has actually read the series happens upon this). I actually bought this book over two months ago, along with Acheron, by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I finally had time to read it Saturday evening. To prepare for the novel, I went back and read the entire Necroscope series yet again, minus the three lost years volumes, for a total of 11 novels. Then, as I said, I got a bit side-tracked with work-related reading and just plain work. It was worth the wait, however. I'd been somewhat dubious about the plot, and how it would fit into the time-line once I learned it was set just before the end of book 5.

SPOILER ALERT!
I thoroughly enjoyed Scott St. John as the new, albeit, temporary Necroscope. The whole concept of space aliens being the new evil made me wonder when I read the synopsis, but Lumley does a good job of making you believe that this is, indeed, a job for Harry Keogh, even though he is dead. The raison d'etre behind St John as the vessel is well thought out and executed. The concept of millions of 3-person individuals working together their entire lives was especially intriguing. The number three is used for the synchronicity Lumley is trying to create around that number, at least in part.

It occurs to me that this "three-unit" could be ideally suited for a variety of tasks in many different disciplines, and industries. Each individual would know the other members' strengths and weaknesses intimately. This is similar to a system used in military training, of course. Taken throughout a society and indeed becoming part of the fabric of society, possibilities can be seen for how such a formalized team spending their entire careers learning to focus on what is best for the three and not the one, could be more productive, innovative, and potentially much more effective. Competition in the workplace would be reduced organically by the change from competing between individuals to the competition between the three-units. Jealousies would spring up of course, just as they do in any environment, but how would the dynamic possibly be changed when ALL endeavors were the responsibility of a functioning, non-changing team who achieve no personal rewards or praise, but only as a unit? Again, something like military training, but taken to an extreme (in terms of focusing on only three-units (or whatever size is determined to be optimal).

If anyone has links to published studies focusing on the optimal size for a working unit - in any field, and preferably in multiple fields, and most especially a generic study not related to fields of knowledge - please comment and add links to the data. I would be most interested.

Blogging

2010-11-08T08:31:00.002-05:00

I really should start blogging more often again. Too much going on at the moment.

It's not a love affair, yet, but I do like what I see in jQuery starting out

2010-10-10T00:27:00.006-04:00

This is just a quickie.. may get more involved in blogging about this topic later, but as my good friend would say, "it's tired." I am currently involved with doing development for a client involving jQuery for the first time. I must say, while I'm just beginning, and have just picked up my first book on the topic, I am impressed. While there are some things I still prefer in the Dojo architecture, there is a lot to like in what I've seen from jQuery so far. I look forward to blogging more on this topic in the coming weeks.

Freefall Velocities From 13000 feet

2010-08-18T01:14:00.001-04:00

13000 FT
190 lbs (170 of me and 20 of gear)

Terminal Velocity
Normal Stomach position:
185.16 fps
126.24 mph

Head Down position:
338.06 fps
230.49 mph

Dido - Here With Me

2010-07-19T00:50:00.000-04:00

I didn't hear you leave
I wonder how am I still here
And I don't want to move a thing
It might change my memory

[Chorus:]
Oh I am what I am
I'll do what I want
But I can't hide
I won't go
I won't sleep
I can't breathe
Until you're resting here with me
I won't leave
I can't hide
I cannot be
Until you're resting here with me

I don't want to call my friends
They might wake me from this dream
And I can't leave this bed
Risk forgetting all that's been

[Chorus]

Moonlight and Sand

2010-06-28T16:22:00.003-04:00

Beams of soft light rain down on me
Under a blanket of pitch we lay,
Twined together, clinging at the edge of the Abyss
Wetness gently laps at us as two become one
The waves pounding the shore ring loudly...
Or is this roaring only in my ears?

The tide threatens to overwhelm me
as I gaze helplessly upward.
Your eyes block the glimmer of all lesser stars
While I drown in your tranquil sea.
I find you soft and smooth as the water
Varied as the sand that shifts with every movement of our bodies.
Silky, like your hair in my hands
And as lovely as the milky way of light
Shining on your back.

Darling, I long to bury myself in you.
To ride your waves and be swept away
In the rising tied of your heart
As it beats against my chest
In the rhythm of the surf.

Running Away

2010-04-22T23:08:00.001-04:00

She's standing on the corner
She's walking down the street
There's something in her eyes
As she picks up speed
She can't face more lies
While she's running away from me.

With those tears in her eyes what can she see?
Is she blinded by love?
Why is she hiding from us?
She rips me in two, before we even start
Oh, can't you see...

The tears in your eyes
When you're running away?
The pain in your sighs
When you're running away?
The bitter goodbyes
When you're running away?
Oh, baby, don't cry.

I see you standing in the corner
Baby, you're looking at me
It's been so long, darling can't you see...
Since we've been apart,
there's nothing left of me.

After all this time, what can you feel?
Are you numb with hate?
After all those nights, oh can you still...
She rips me in two before we even start
Oh, can't you feel...

The tears in your eyes
When you're running away?
The pain in your sighs
When you're running away?
The salt in your lies
When you're running away?
Oh, baby, don't cry.

She's standing in the rain
She's running down the street
Love is in her eyes
She's coming to see
She screams "No more lies!"
Falling into me

Are you blinded by lust?
Does it scare you away?
After all these fights, do you want me to stay?
She rips me in two, before we even start
Oh, can't you taste...

The tears in my eyes
When you're running away?
The love in my cries
When you're running away?
The salt in your lies
When you're running away?
Oh, baby, don't cry.

You can't blind your heart
Love is in your eyes
I told you from the start
It's written in the skies
Can't you see our love?
We won't let this die.

May I kiss the tears in your eyes
If you're running away?
May I hear the love in yoru sighs
If you're running away?
May I hold your heart inside
If you're running away?
When you're running away?
Oh, baby, don't cry.
I love you, girl
Even if you're running away.

The tears in your eyes
If you're running away
The love in your sighs
If you're running away
The pain in our cries
When you're running away
I love you, girl
Even if you're running away
If you're running away (fading)

Drive... From 50 First Dates

2010-04-22T22:41:00.004-04:00

Who's gonna tell you when,
It's too late,
Who's gonna tell you things,
Aren't so great.

You cant go on, thinkin',
Nothings' wrong, whoa ho...,
Who's gonna drive you home,
tonight?

Who's gonna pick you up,
When You fall?
Who's gonna hang it up,
When you call?

Who's gonna pay attention,
To your dreams?
And who's gonna plug their ears,
When you scream?

You can't go on, thinkin'
Nothings wrong, whoa ho...,
(who's gonna drive you)
(who's gonna drive you)
Who's gonna drive you home, tonight?
(who's gonna drive you home)

(bye baby)
(bye baby)
(bye baby)
(bye baby)

Who's gonna hold you down,
When you shake?
Who's gonna come around,
When you break?

You can't go on, thinkin',
Nothin's wrong, whoa ho...,
(Who's gonna drive you)
(who's gonna drive you)
Who's gonna drive you home, tonight?
(who's gonna drive you home)

Ho..., you know you can't go on, thinkin',
Nothin's wrong,
(Who's gonna drive you)
(Who's gonna drive you home)
Who's gonna drive you home, tonight?

(bye baby)
(bye baby)
(bye baby)

Sanctuary - A Song

2010-04-22T22:37:00.001-04:00

I wrote this originally way back in 2002.

Running through alleyways
My heart pounding with fear
As I scramble through the darkness,
Seeking the distant light.

I pray for sanctuary,
I pray for the strength of your arms.
I long for sanctuary,
I long for the solace of your heart.

(whisper) I long to be...
(soft) Loving you in the night.
I lay huddled in the rain
I cling to the hope of you
Finding warmth in caring,
A respite from cold and pain.

I pray for sanctuary,
I pray for the strength of your arms.
I long for sanctuary,
I long for the solace of your heart.

(whisper) I long to be...
(soft) Loving you in the night.

I run to you through the screaming wind,
My face streaked with tears
At last you're in my arms again,
And our love melts away all my fears.

I smile at our sanctuary,
I adore the feeling in your arms.
I hold you in sanctuary,
I hold you in the love of my heart.

(whisper) I live to be...
(soft) Loving you in the night.

(Repeat refrain and post refrain)

(soft) Loving you in the night.

Delicious

2010-04-21T23:30:00.003-04:00

I have long known about this site and had looked at it, but never before used the site. Recently, I began to use Firefox pretty much exclusively (except for testing)... something I had not done since IE added tab support in v7. I found myself with a need to pull in my bookmarks from IE and get them re-synched with FF. Remembering this site from the past, I added it as a plugin. I love the search feature, and the grouping feature delicious brings to bookmarks. Even with my RSS feeds, I find there are a lot of blogs that interest me, but that I don't frequent very often, just because they're buried somewhere in my bookmarks list. I foresee Delicious rectifying a lot of this "lots in the gray"... along with my increasing list of RSS feeds for popular (to me) sites.

Social Overload

2010-04-21T00:05:00.000-04:00

My client has recently asked me to assist them in adding/updating their social networking sites in order to raise the visibility of their company and increase sales opportunities. I have generally constrained myself to blogging personal, and now professional, activities and information on this site. I've mostly kept up to date on social networking in business, but only as a passing interest. Now it seems to be attacking me from all sides.

Recently I was invited to join a group being put together of former IBM professionals and others involved in the IBM world in various capacities. After accepting, one of the things which was requested of me was that I sign up for LinkedIn and join the group being created there. In speaking with one of the co-founders of this group, we got to talking about the various ways I could contact her, and to make myself more available. Thus, I am now on Skype, LinkedIn, oDesk, and my lowly 10 year old Hotmail (MSN Messenger) account, which I got when the free e-mail I was using at the time, Onebox.com, started charging a monthly fee. I have also signed up for Skype and Google Talk to facilitate communication with this community.

I am looking forward to this opportunity and excited about the possibilities raised in my conversation tonight in regards to what the future of this community could be and the things that it could bring my way. Work obviously is one, but also greater interaction with professionals in my field, beyond what I have traditionally involved myself with.. in other words, reading blogs. Some (ok, one) of those I see icons for in the trueBlue Team Room, I have followed for years via professional blogs or via comments on another blog. It will be good to work with all of you (if anyone from the group happens to read this).

Lotus Domino Hosting Sites.. what are the choices now?

2010-04-18T17:50:00.000-04:00

I have not hosted a domino site since 2003 and am now wondering what services are best. My host back then was DDN, which I had no problems with and see is still around. However, I know there are other options these days, and wonder what recommendations everyone might have? The only one I have actually looked at so far is Prominic. I'd like more options before I choose one if anyone has anything good (or bad) to say about a particular site.

Managing time when working from home

2010-04-09T12:06:00.000-04:00

I remember seeing someone blog about this a while back. I don't remember who or where, so if anyone has an "AHA!" on this, let me know and I will update this posting. I am finding that, working on my own, managing time becomes very important, though the hours can be a bit odd. What thoughts do you have on the "standard" hours one should work when doing consulting? My current project, for instance, is for a client in the western United States. With the time difference, much of my communication with them is in the late morning and into the afternoon/early evening. I am also a night owl. I have always been, and my favorite work schedule was Sa-Th Midnight to 8am doing support right after I got out of the military. I was much younger then and enjoyed being able to party on Thursday night, you see.

What do you think? Standard 8-whenever hours or a more flexible schedule? Which is more efficient? What are the pitfalls of a flex-schedule? I can see where more time-discipline is needed when setting my own schedule. I always make it a point to work the SAME set of hours and in the same location (my office), though I can't resist spending a few hours at Books-A-Million at least once a week. I think getting out and working in a different, more open environment helps keep me engaged and energized. I'm a geek. I love books, though I wish there were NO MORE PAPER. I'll write more about this in the near future.

More Skydive Jax Annoyances

2010-03-29T19:36:00.002-04:00

When I made my last post, I'd just sent an e-mail to Skydive Jax. asking about whether or not they were fun-jumping there (I'd tried to jump there several times back in '06, but due to a lack of jumpers, they never took any loads up while I was there). I got a response back from them that basically stated that one of their fun jumpers had an altercation with the airport athority and they were not currently taking fun jumpers, but only students. He then went on to say that I could jump with them at SCC (Skydive Space Center) which is about 200 miles south of Jacksonville (and, more importantly, 50 miles south of Skydive Deland). Thus I write back as below:

I currently have 173 skydives. Will probably continue jumping at Deland primarily with some jumps other places. If this situation changes, please add me to any inform-lists as I would like to jump closer to home on occasion.

Now, I would probably not make skydive jax my primary dz even if it was run efficiently, as I prefer to jump out of larger planes than the cessna 182s that they have there. I'd rather make the trip to Deland and jump out of a cargo plane (great exits) or their Super Otter or their PAC (great climb rate.. all the big DZs are buying them.. almost a million a pop). However, I would like to sometimes jump close to home, which is why I asked about Jacksonville in the first place and I feel I made that pretty clear. This is the response I got, and is part of the reason I have never jumped at Skydive Space Center, but will travel past there to go to Skydive Sebastian (100 miles south of Daytona/Deland). THE EXPERIENCE OF JUMPING THERE AND THE COMPETENCE/FRIENDLINESS/ACCESSABILITY of the staff....

Sorry, currently the airport at Skydive Jacksonville will not allow fun jumpers
Don't forget to take our Survey at skyjacksonville.com after your jump.

Duh, hello. I'm a fun jumper.. I can't jump there. Focus on your customers and maybe you'll actually have some interest. It also struck me to wonder if the survey even works (In my earlier post I was complaining originally about the problems with parts of the skydivejacksonville.com site not working). Yeah, I think I'll just keep going to Deland or maybe Palatka, or even St. Mary's. Anywhere but SkyJax. It's sad. This location could be great for skydiving... even better if they'd moved the operation up to Amelia Island as was indicated (I thought it was them anyway..SOMEONE was talking about doing it a few years ago). Alas, they're content to half-ass things.

Things that make me go hmmmmm.....

2010-03-15T21:45:00.002-04:00

First and foremost is why Skydive Jacksonville's prices are 2.00 higher than Skydive Deland's. Deland has 3 planes that hold at least 15 people. Jacksonville has 2 Cessnas which hold 5 people. Deland is much better run (I say this because the 2 times I tried to jump in Jax, I never got to go up (both on a Saturday) due to not having any tandem skydivers there and thus, not being able to get a load up. I was the only jumper there both times if I remember correctly. Deland never has this problem, nor does Palatka. I just don't get it.

I also recall that in 2006, someone had a website up for a skydiving operation that they were going to be opening on Amelia Island. They had a plane and were getting all the facility permits together or something. Then poof. I can't find anything about it. It would be very nice to know what happened here. I pesonally would support the idea of moving the Skydive Jacksonville operation to Amelia Island (since I THOUGHT that the operators of Sk J, SK Space, etc were the ones doing this. Apparently not).

Anyone who comes acros this, feel free to chime in with anything you may know... or just tell me to shut up and stop whining.

Twilight of the soul

2010-02-28T17:19:00.004-05:00

I feel as if twilight is descending upon me. The bright warmth is leaving me, and I face a darkness I have known before.

I'm standing on the hard line
taking my sweet time
praying that you see why
the tears are drying on my face.

Meep meep

2007-01-18T14:03:00.000-05:00

I feel like a Yugo.

What car am I????

2006-11-27T12:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Sigh. I like this song. It makes me think about things though, that make me sad

2006-05-20T15:54:00.002-04:00

dance.. your final dance.
this is.. your final chance
to hold the one you love
you know you've waited long enough

so believe that magic works
don't be afraid of being hurt
don't let this magic die
the answer's there
oh just look in her eyes
and make, your final move
don't be scared, she wants you too
it's hard, you must be brave
don't let this moment slip away

now believe that magic works
don't be afraid, afraid of being hurt
no, don't let this magic die
the answer's there
yeah, just look in her eyes

and don't believe that magic can die
no, no, no this magic can't die
so dance.. your final dance
cause this is.. your final chance

Days Go By

2006-05-09T03:42:00.001-04:00

The littlest things can cause so much pain. My heart is aching, my soul crying, drowning in tears of loss. I feel so torn, blown by the wind, ashes in her mouth. My tears fall, watercolours in the rain. My mind is racing, my eyes watering, "from the wind", I lie. We both know it is a lie, and the words are ashes in my mouth. I want to say that time passes, languidly, but it's ripping me as each moment, each thought, each ache rushes through my body. Fictons, the basic particles that make up the story of life, cut me into microscopic pieces and scatter my life on the pages. Good for the pages, but what about me?