I'll have to tell you, I am not a big fan of New Year's Eve, but I am a fan of the new year.

Another blogger just said 2002 sucked. True, although compared to 2001, it had to be an improvement (just for the absense of 9/11/2001).

But I think more than any recent year I'm looking for the new year to bring better things. Of course, I'm hoping for our family of two to become three. I'm hoping that the economy improves. I'm hoping we don't have a war, and that maybe people start working on peace again in places like the Middle East, and that more kids all over the world will dream of becoming something great - or at least not of becoming a suicide bomber.

And I also hope that I'm happier this year, and that all of you are too!

And hey, I can't drink much anymore so someone out there is going to have to make up for me (but please, not you drivers!)

Happy New Year!

I got John Mayer's Room for Squares for Christmas. I knew and liked a couple of songs from the album ("No Such Thing" the best known), but the disc is starting to become very habit forming. Highly recommended. (His official site)

If the word "pastime" comes from "pass time" then the Web has no equal.

I started out noticing that someone found this blog while searching for Christmas music sung by cats. I felt bad about this - this site really should have such a thing. So I followed the link to the search, but did not immediately find a free .wav file I can put up here.

But somehow I stumbled across mention of John Ashcroft's alleged fear of calico cats. I am not sure if this is true but I wish to believe it is true. The mention was in a set of parody songs which, much as I dislike Ashcroft, I won't link to because they were not nearly as clever as they should be.

This chain of links came soon after this entry led me to this blog written from Iraq, and a link there took me to someplace I've now lost track of which brought me to an account of Jews being killed in Iraq by Nazis during World War II which then led to various things on 8-minute dating for Jewish singles (followed for no practical reason as I am neither single nor Jewish).

The point of all this? None, absolutely none.

Beating the Eagles, 10-7, in OT. A game full of fumbles, missing fields goals, and whatnot, but what the heck, the season continues. Go Big Blue!

jen is at it again, spreading holiday cheer, so steal this baby and tell us all about it.

Just got back from New York a couple of hours ago - it was a trip to get away from some things, really. It was a great trip, but mostly now I feel burned out.

But I also feel like writing about 10 entries - but since I'm lazy this is going to be one big-ass entry.

First some pics. Probably no captions are needed (click on thumbnails for larger version):

Overall, I really love that city - I only worked there a couple of years and never actually lived there, but it still figures pretty big in my life.

Our trip: We arrived Christmas day on the Acela - great train, and we beat the snow. The snow didn't really amount to that much in the city anyway -- it was a little messy that night, but we only had to walk a few blocks to find a good Thai restaurant (Lemongrass Grill, at Park and E 36 St. I think).

Next day, our first trip to Ground Zero since 9/11. I had already moved to Boston by that time, but before that I had worked in the Woolworth building nearby, and commuted through World Trade everyday.

The site itself now is just a big empty space - not much to see. But I found the way the sun streamed into the area a litte unnerving - if you didn't now how it got that way it would look, frankly, like a big improvement for lower Manhattan.

More emotional is the church fence opposite (see photo). Items from all over the world, T-shirts, signed banners, all sorts of things - many tattered by the weather. A reminder that clearing away rubble doesn't clear away memories. So many towns I knew in New Jersey that lost someone, for one thing.

And yes, stopped by a place near where I used to work to get some REAL pizza (sorry Boston, the stuff here doesn't cut it).

Later that day we saw the musical Flower Drum Song. Well worth seeing. This is a Rodgers and Hammerstein show from the 50s with some good songs, but the original is rather offensive to Asian-Americans, so it has faded from the repertoir. But David Henry Hwang (of M. Butterfly among other things) wrote a whole new book to frame the songs. It now pays tribute to the struggle of immigrants to preserve their culture while also embracing American ways.

It's moving, but also just a lot of fun - wonderful costumes and dancing and superb performances (one of the actors playing an old character now was in the original as the male lead, kinda neat!)

Lea Salonga (most famous for Miss Saigon) is simply amazing - tiny woman, giant voice. Jose Llana does a great job opposite her.

Then a great Italian dinner with my wife's brother and his friend.

Next day, just walking around and doing things like the obligatory visit to the tree and just enjoying the sun.

Back home, tired and cranky, of course we discover that the snow did indeed manage to fall on the Boston suburbs, so tomorrow is a snow-clearing day for me. More exhaustion!

On the way back from two days in nyc. A good change of scene, which is what we were after. When I get to a real computer some photos will make their way here. Meanwhile, hope you survived / enjoyed / ignored Christmas the way you wanted.

Friday, I bought a new motherboard and processor at the Micro Center in Cambridge.

(Side Note: P4 2.53GHz, 533Mhz front-side bus, takes DDR233 RAM which they didn't have in the store so I had to go to CompUSA to get 512MB worth (didn't have any bigger ones!)).

Christmas Eve, who but Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were seen shopping there. (The actual paper Globe has a security camera shot of J-Lo (or was it J-Mo?) but it does not seem to have made it online).

So I am down with the stars or what?

The short version: Warm greetings and a Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it, and thanks for reading.

The longer version: The title of this post is of course the name of a well-known Christmas song, one I've always liked.

But in the sticky sweet mix of holiday music, the lyrics - in the original version - are worth an extra listen.

It's one of the few secular Christmas songs that allows a little room for not being totally in a party mood:

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more

Through the years, we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

-- Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane

When searching for lyrics to this song a lot of the versions I found didn't have the "muddle through" - according to this NPR account, Frank Sinatra had the lyrics made more upbeat when he performed the song in the '50s.

In the interview linked above, James Taylor recounts that while he recorded the song earlier in the year, with the original lyrics, it struck a chord after 9/11.

It makes sense, because this song was written - for the movie Meet Me in St. Louis - in 1944. In the midst of wartime escapism, the songwriters allow (in a subtle way) that we might be missing a friend or lover. One who of course might never be there again.

(Today it seems that sadness in songs has to be hammered into our heads, but sometimes I think the sadness of some of the World War II tunes cuts much closer to the bone: "I'll be Seeing You" for example. In times like those and these, fake grunge depression doesn't quite cut it.)

This Christmas song has often felt right for me since I've grown up. My childhood was very happy and Christmas was a warm, family time - just the three of us, simple but nice.

But in later years it often seemed that I was far away from someone I loved - or thought I loved. Or I was trying to figure out just what my life was actually about.

This year I am lucky in many ways. I am with someone I love, I have a job and a house and two cats. These things can't be forgotten. But there are still echoes of pain from the past in addition to our recent loss of the adoption referral - a child that we thought might be with us for Christmas next year. And I miss my mom, who is healthy but visiting her sister in Florida, and my father, who won't ever see our child - whoever he or she is. And there are a lot of friends that are far away, or who seem to not be friends any more.

Mostly I think because we were looking towards Christmas next year as a bigger family, we decided not to have a big tree this year. We did do Chanukah, but after learning about the adoption thing I decided not to put up any lights or anything for Christmas.

Too all who are happy this year, have a wonderful Christmas (or whatever you might be celebrating, winter solstice, etc. - I'm way too late for Chanukah greetings now!). And to all of you who must "muddle through", may the fates allow for next year to be better.

Just stumbled across this note about the Challenger disaster and the engineer's warning about the O-rings that management decided to ignore.

It just got me thinking - is the corporate culture really enought different now to prevent something like from happening again?

Sure, companies are focusing on quality. We are doing a better job where I work than we were a year ago, which is good.

But the question still is - in a high-profile situation, who is gutsy enough to say "no launch."

And this reminded me of Richard Feynman's last book, "What do you care what people think?", and his first-hand account of the hearings on the disaster.

Feynman always is a great read.

But that section in that book stands out. It is probably one of the best accounts of how the military-industrial complex can fail, and fail horribly - especially when voices of dissent are stifled.

It's a pretty crummy holiday season for me. So when I first saw this wreath thing my first instinct was to holler out another Merry F-ing Christmas.

But then I realized that reading blogs of friends is one of the things that will help me get through the current mess. And jen who doesn't like being called sweet is, well, kinda sweet after all - we'll say sweet, yet tangy, like Texas barbecue sauce.

(Not that I've actually had a taste, now, we're just being metaphorical here, OK?).

Hmm, where was I? Oh, that's right, the wreath ... so maybe steal this wreath thing and stick it somewhere and link back to here or whatever.

Check out the Pared-down Bill of Rights. Could give Ashcroft some ideas.

Link ripped off from here.

I am very sorry to have to report that our plans to adopt a little boy from Guatemala have fallen through.

We are both pretty shaken up and will need some time to think about next steps, but I felt the need to post this here because so many people have been so supportive in their comments.

In the adoption world this is called a "lost referral".

Obviously, I have never experienced actually losing a child, but this is the closest I've come to that so far in my life.

Of course, we hope and pray that this boy will grow up a happy child where he is.

That's all for now.

I'm not sure if this is a rehash of an old idea, an improvement to it, or something totally useless, but here goes:

j-mo talks about wanting her blog to immediately express her mood. Lots of people have various icons on their entries on Live Journal and other places to show current mood.

It always seems that some days are bad mood days for lots of people. This time of year often has a lot of those days.

The idea of measuring this is a little like imood and their "mood of the Internet" - but that is a single service that you have to register for. I don't really think that scales very well. It seems like an open system that all could use for whoever they wanted to would be better.

What I'm thinking about is a standard XML tag that could be read by the various RSS aggregators and such (read Scripting News and the links there if you are interested in more about this).

This could also be worked into blogging software - set your mood and it sets the styles or whatever you want automatically.

Anyone could them compile a "mood" index for the part of the world that interested them - ranging from just their friends to everyone listed in one of the big indexes.

There is at least one use for this - it would be a good reminder on days when you are down to see that you are not the only one.

There is some stuff at imood.org that might be a step in this direction, but I'm not sure.

I just don't think it is likely that one company can get everyone to sign up.

I keep rethinking this entry so it may eventually go away, or something, but here it is.

I just read an entry on attacks on women at the University of Illinois that seems amazing and frightening. Possibly as many as 50 women have been attacked in total.

avocadocouch is asking for support on this.

I am not sure how best to respond (I know form emails are often not likely to be effective, and if I send something I'd like it to be well researched), but in the meantime I feel I should at least call attention to this.

Just started putting catches on cabinets and drawers. With the hoped-for arrival of a 2-year-old boy and the two cats we already have - and the younger one is starting to climb up things more for some reason now - it is hard to figure out where to put our stuff where it won't get broken, eaten or stolen (the young cat loves to steal things like toothbrushes, glasses and cough drops).

The breakage thing is not a new issue - we've had cats a long time now - but safety is. Cats, even kittens, tend to be pretty smart about not eating toxic things. They won't even eat fish that's not super fresh. But for some reason they all love to eat tiny crumbs off the floor. Go figure.

First a sad comment, then a rant.

1) I find it so depressing to read about children who are used as pawns between two parents who have split up. I don't feel like linking to the blog entries about this but they are pretty easy to find.

I can understand marital problems, divorce and all that (I have not been divorced but know well the strains that can come in a marriage). But I cannot understand when a parent uses their own child as a tool to hurt their ex. If you really love your child why would you do this? If you don't, why not just let them be?

2) The official pre-adoptive parent rant ® - In which I compare what you need to do to become an adoptive father to what you need to do to become a biological father.

To get the to the point we are now - waiting to bring a little boy home - we had to go through a several month "home study".

People who don't know adoption think this is a social worker coming to look at your house and saying "how beautiful" and signing off.

Bull!

I won't go into all the details of our own home study, but let's talk about the process:

A home study in Massachusetts involves - at least with our agency - at least four interviews, for a couple. One with both of us, one with each of us alone, and the final visit with both of us at home.

You must get a criminal background check and a child-abuse registry check.

You must submit reports from your personal physicians.

If you have had any counseling you need a letter from each doctor/social worker saying you are a fit parent.

You need three letters of reference.

You must prove you have a job and earn enough money to raise the child well, and that you have enough money to pay for all adoption costs. Thankfully, the government now chips in $10,000 toward this, and my employer adds another $2,500.

This is just for the home study. For Guatemala, where we plan to adopt from, you need two letters of reference -- in Spanish, and various other documents that must be certified in various ways.

This is all BEFORE you even get a referral for a child.

So, let's compare that to the biological process.

Stick you dick in.

Notice that nobody has done anything to check to see if this guy is actually going to be a good father or a just a "donor", or even if they are going to hang around five minutes.

My point? Over the last several months I have been forced (not that I wouldn't have anyway, because I'm a worrier) to examine myself and think about what I need to do to be a good father. I am sure I won't be perfect, but at least I've had to sign off on the real concept of fatherhood, in triplicate.

So, you guys out there planning (or not planning) to be bio dads might want to give a couple minutes to this question before you do your thing.

I've had some days recently where I've felt pretty blue, and I noticed an effect I've seen before -- sometimes I think I am a better code debugger when I'm down.

I've also solved a tough problem that has been bugging me for quite a while -- after a few hours of sitting and staring at it, and feeling like I was going to get nothing done today.

I think this is because I'm feeling better, I tend to think I'm a genius and the first thought that pops into my mind must be correct.

But when I'm feeling less self-esteem, sometimes the second or third - and much better - thoughts have a chance to bubble up.

Robert M. Pirsig describes something like this in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - he relates it to the Zen concept of "no mind".

I don't really know much about Zen but I think there is something to this - sometimes by feeling small you can think big.

The Sopranos season finale was a major letdown - maybe it should not have been surprising, considering this season has been sub-par all along.

But to make us wait so long for the season, and then, even at the end, to leave so many things hanging - ouch!

If you are still waiting to watch a tape of it or the encore, don't read any further ...

Actually there's not too much to spoil because not too much really happened.

OK, Carmela throwing Tony out is a big deal - but couldn't we really get something else to happen in a extra-length episode?

A marriage broken up by a man's infidelity is not really all that entertaining as a plotline. And at the rate things have been moving recently, we could spend the entire next season slogging through will-Carmela-let-him-back-etc.

The craft of this show is still very high - but I think David Chase has become too much in love with his craft, and the skills of his performers.

The thing that makes this show work is that amid the day-to-day stuff in the life of a family in the Jersey suburbs, violence is always around the corner.

Tony's killing of Ralphie was violence for sure, but it has not really led anywhere since then.

And what about the Russians? Chris is out of rehab, now what? Is the FBI really getting anywhere? What will Paulie do?

It is fine to build up things like that over a season - but eventually you need to resolve some threads.

And we don't really have an interesting cliffhanger.

I do however badly want that house in Sea Bright.

Ok, if jen or any of those other Texas bloggers ever has us all over for a beer, we better make sure the fridge is well stocked or else this might be something to worry about.

(Link stolen from lucy.)

We went to friends last night for a Chanukah party, and had tons of good food. The dessert was worth photographing:

As we were leaving I realized I didn't take any pictures of people, only of food. Maybe that says something about me.

snazzycat reminded me of a joke we have around our house.

At the beginning of TV shows like the Sopranos when they say "Warning, this program contains adult themes" , I always expect something like:

Tony: I really think we need to look into refinancing

Carmela: Maybe, but I don't think we can put any cash down now -- my dentist said I really need to see the periodontist

Tony: Well, the way my 401(k) is doing, we better do something

(you get the idea...)

Actually, I do not feel at all adult -- just like a kid having to deal with adult things!

Sometimes I really wish for some White Out (anybody remember that) for the book of life.

Sometimes it is pretty stupid, small stuff I'd like to erase -- a word taken the wrong way, an email that went too far (or not far enough) to make the point, a call not returned, etc.

Trouble is, sometimes you don't know what went wrong. Did I say something wrong, or fail to say something? Or would it have made any difference after all?

Most of the time these days I want to move on and look at the future.

But sometimes the past just won't go away -- sometimes you thing all is well and then fall through a big gap in the fabric of life -- you remember when it ripped, you know the gap is there, but you were doing better than usual at forgotting and then all of a sudden, bam, there it is again.

This may make little sense, but for some reason I'm hurting right now and I need to write it anyway.

How's that for a jaunty title?

To beat a dead horse into a minute pulp ...

... a great deal of the people I know in the business fall into two groups:

1) People who are out of work

2) People who have a job, but don't really like what they are doing very much.

In general the people in group 1 are having a lot of trouble finding anything, and the people in group 2 have very little hope of moving anywhere they like better.

I have to say that this business seems like a fairly bad place to be these days.

I'm wondering if realistically we can excect this to change in the near future, or should many of us seriously consider another line of work.

I was originally attracted into this business by several factors:

1) The chance to innovate
2) The freedom to not feel chained to a given employer

I wanted to make money, good money, but I never really expected to get rich. I have made and still make pretty good money.

Along the line I got convinced by many people that stock options would make me rich. Yeah, I fell for that shit.

But I think almost everyone with a job feels like they are pretty much stuck with it -- good or bad.

And the chance to innovate is much reduced -- many companies are more focused on pulling themselves out of the current ruts -- or simply surviving -- that really, really new stuff is hard to do.

I get to work on more of that kind of thing that most people I know, so I don't have a right to complain.

But I still wonder if this line of work will really be what it was again, and whether it is worth waiting for that to happen.

Met a lot of nice people at the first event of the Boston-New England Tribe of Ryze. Thanks a lot to Sooz for finding the place and helping to get everyone together!

It's nice to make more connections outside my usual work world.

If we are supposed to be fighting to keep our way of life safe, will that really matter if the freedoms we have keep slipping away.

The Supreme Court is getting a chance to overturn its Miranda decision, which for decades has required police to inform those being questioned of their rights before interrogation.

The case now involves a man continually questioned after being shot by police. Under questioning, he admitted reaching for an officer's gun.

Let's assume the police were justified in shooting this man.

Is it really a good idea, however, to say that police can shoot a suspect and then not have to give him his rights because he might die?

The Justice Department is backing the challenge to Miranda, saying it wants more power to question terror suspects.

I believe that rights such as the Miranda warning are one of the main reasons I think this country is worth fighting for. This administration is endangering those freedoms right now.

If I had not been reminded,
I would not have posted a link to World AIDS Day.

Frankly, just putting a link here doesn't feel like I'm doing much to help, but maybe someone reading this will read that and do more - or maybe be more inspirational than I am right now.