Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in sorek's LiveJournal:

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Monday, June 30th, 2008
9:10 pm	So I'm just hours away from the start of my Vegas Vacation. The link is also available from my profile page. Unfortunately livejournal doesn't allow javascript (for valid reasons) so I can't figure out a way to display the countdown clock directly in my profile page. Anyway, Vegas Baby! This will be my first time in Vegas. I'm combining attending the four day long Westercon with a general "Vegas trip". I often foolishly overstuff my vacations, and this time is no exception. My itinerary is as follows: Tuesday early flight out arrive in Vegas and check into the hotel Find one of the kosher restaurants and grab a bite to eat. Check out the lions as well as the tigers and dolphins. Who needs bears? Check out the Atomic Testing Museum and Star Trek Experience Find another kosher restaurant and eat some more. Go back to the hotel. Maybe gamble some or more likely just crash. Wednesday Early trip to the Hoover Dam. I'm doing the complete package, including a ride on the Colorado River. Arrive back in Vegas at the hottest part of the day. Probably crash. Maybe gamble some. May go see Lance Burton pull a rabbit out of a hat, if I'm not too tired and tickets are still available. Thursday Westercon! Almost certainly gamble. Friday ...more Westercon. Frantically shop for Shabbos food. Thankfully I have several leads. Shabbos ...and still more Westercon. Maybe gamble after shabbos, although probably not. Sunday Westercon ends. Take sunset helicopter ride to see the Grand Canyon. Maybe gamble afterwords although probably not. Monday Check out of hotel Catch afternoon flight home Arrive home late evening. I'm hoping Wifi will be available, but if not I'll find some other way to check in. Current Mood: bouncy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
8:42 am	HP Aquires EDS. Sorek outlives yet another company The company that pays me just got bought out by HP. And so I outlive yet another company that I've worked for. No idea how it impacts me yet, although I'm not too worried at the moment. That's because right now I'm in the shock/denial phase :) I'm sure the worry will come later. Current Mood: numb (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
11:43 pm	tonight's episode of Smallville I don't know if this is a regular thing or not, but tonight's episode of Smallville used Torchwood's scene-change sound. The sound I mean is the one that's vaguely like the whine of an insect, sort of like "wheeeeeaaaah". It was terribly annoying. Hey Smallville! Get your own scene-change sound. Other than that, I thought the episode was ok, except Lex surviving a bullet to his head, long enough for the rest of the episode to work. On the other hand I got used to that sort of thing watching Alias. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
11:42 am	Construction outside my place...again Another day, another construction job appearing outside my place. This appears to have something to do with water and/or sewer systems. The construction workers outside sure are using a lot of profanity. I'm guessing the job whatever it is, isn't going so well. Ah well, at least they're not drilling/using the jackhammer as much as previous jobs. Current Mood: annoyed (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
11:00 am	"...but outside it's so delightful" Weather outside is a gorgeous 60+ °F with just the right amount of humidity for me. It's humid enough that it doesn't dry me out, but not enough to make me uncomfortable. Anyone who doesn't get outside for at least a few minutes today should be ashamed of themselves (or have a really good excuse. :) (Comment on this)
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
12:29 am	test posting from ljcharm test posting using ljcharm. This uses vi.I'm an emacs guy.Yuck. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
9:44 pm	another test posting through ljtalk by way of pigin this works but is a major pain (2 Comments |Comment on this)
9:39 pm	Posted using LJ Talk... test from pidgin (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
2:49 am	Test 789 test 789 (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
11:34 pm	test 456 test 456 (Comment on this)
7:12 pm	[LJ2ME] Test Test 123 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
9:57 am	great article on the history of Avista Energy Bert Caldwell has a great article on the history of Avista Energy. Unfortunately, only the first page of the article seems to be accessible without a subscriptionand in fact the link I've used seems to be flaky as well. For whatever reason it works through google news. Sorry folks. In any case the article really got to me, as in a way it describes aspects of my life from 1999 to the present day. Current Mood: depressed (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
7:57 am	*whimper* google is reporting 89F degrees in Brighton and that feels accurate to me. I'm thinking I want to spend the next few days in a pool somewhere. Does Dell make notebooks that function under water? Current Mood: hot (Comment on this)
Monday, June 25th, 2007
5:34 pm	Dead Zone rant, small spoilers Not only did last night's episode of the Dead Zone have a very predictable ending, it was something of a cheat as well. I have no problem with Johnny misinterpreting a vision if it was one of those "two dimensional" type visions where he can't do a 360 slow motion of the scene (e.g. Washington D.C. being bombed). I have no problem with Johnny misinterpreting a vision of insane people; they're crazy, there's already a problem with reality :) What I have a problem with is Johnny doing a classic 360 slow-mo (ala the matrix) walking around the scene, and not seeing a whole other person?!?! The writers were lazy this episode and cheated. Not the first time either. Similarly, when Johnny visions himself as someone else, it's usually a writers trick to hide the surprise reveal. For instance last season with the search of an escaped convict holding up traffic, in his vision, Johnny appears as the convict so that the surprise can be revealed at the end. Back to last night's episode, should an out of body Johnny show a reflection in a mirror? I know he isn't a vampire, but still he's not really there. If they've been consistent about it I don't have a problem with it, but to me he's not really there, so he shouldn't cast shadows or reflections. Just something that disturbs my Willing Suspension of Disbelief. (Comment on this)
5:28 pm	Last 25 minutes of The Dead Zone, no spoilers Good evening everybody! Please raise your hand if you saw last night's episode of USA Network's The Dead Zone. Good! Ok, show of hands, who did NOT predict the resolution of both the "A" plot as well as the "B" plot, essentially the last 25 minutes of the episode, if you include commercials. Show of hands? Anyone? Yeah, that's what I thought. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
10:23 am	The Kosher Blog is now reporting Beacon Kosher to close, not sold The Kosher Blog is reporting now that Beacon Kosher will close, rather than being sold to the owner of the Butcherie, as the blog had reported last week. I should have known something wasn't right when I couldn't find any other information except other references to the blog's article. To me that's the difference between a blogger and a journalist. If the deal wasn't done the article should have said the two stores were in negotiations. I told my sister, who used to be an occasional journalist, that she should have covered this story and try to sell an article to the Brookline Tab at least. Meanwhile, the Tab reported a few weeks ago, that Kupels is being sold. My family has known the Kupelnick's, possibly as long as I've been alive, if not longer. May has been an unusual month for kosher establishments in the Brookline area. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 21st, 2007
7:07 am	Kosher Blog reports Butcherie has purchased Beacon Kosher The Kosher Blog is reporting that Max Gellerman, owner of The Butcherie, has purchased Beacon Kosher. I actually consider this good news. The Brighton community will still have a place to get kosher food without having to shlep to the JFK Crossing area. while I'd love to live in that part of Brookline, it's inconvenient for shopping from Brighton, unless you have a car. As for the glatt/non glatt issue, that doesn't bother me personally, as I've never been that fastidious about keeping glatt kosher. I'll eat Empire products without a second thought, although I don't eat Hebrew National products. More important to me is that they run the place like a business. With Beacon Kosher I never knew when new shipments were coming in, especially of frozen entrees, of which I buy a lot of. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
2:39 pm	Tom Kyte web conference A couple of hours ago Tom Kyte delivered a one hour web conference "Oracle 10g Application Development Features". It had some interesting material. The topic (which wasn't made clear by the conference title) is "New features in Oracle's 10g database for people who use sql or pl/sql". That's what the "Application Development" in the title is referring, in others words, "developers" as opposed to "dbas" Some of the topics were: 1)"Transparent" case insensitive searching. This is done by way of a new, specific kind of function-based index. Once the index is created for a specific column and a setting is set, no further developer code is required 2) Transparent code optimization. In some cases inefficient pl/sql code written by developers when compiled is now compiled as if the developer had written a more efficient version, the developer and users never notice the difference except it's faster. 3) Transparent use of array fetching. In other words even when you don't use the BULK COLLECT feature in "for loop" cursors...you're using it, making your code faster. Other topics included: 1) "Transparent" use of encrypted columns. Once the dbas sets everything up, if you have rights to select the column in question, you see it, if not, you get an oracle error. This also improves security in case the database is ever "stolen" 2) A "bad" table for any dml similar to what happens currently when you load data from sql loader or when creating a constraint. Great for those "insert into blah select a whole lot of rows at a time" inserts. With 10g, the valid rows get inserted and you can tell which rows failed to insert and why. 3) Native support for xquery queries. I'm sure xquery was available in 9i in a dbms_something type package. As I understand it, now it is completely built into the database, which means it should be faster and should not require the xml schema objects to be created. There may also be a topic or two I've forgotten. The presentation ran roughly 45-50 minutes with 10-15 minutes worth of questions and answers. Tom Kyte used both a Power Point presentation as well as precanned scripts to show stuff in a sql*plus session, so it's more than just a 45 minute power point commercial for 10g. Current Mood: impressed (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
1:25 pm	Avista Energy Operating Assets to Be Acquired by Coral Energy I have close to a nine year old relationship with this company even though technically I've never worked for them. All questions should be forwarded to Avista Utility's PR office :) Edited to Add: wow was that dumb, considering I did actually work for Avista back in good old 1999 after they aquired the company I was working for. In my defense at that time I didn't change jobs, bosses, or even my desk. I blame hunger for my temporary memory loss :) (Comment on this)
Monday, April 16th, 2007
9:52 am	"How evil am I" quiz results for Sorek How evil are you? I think I "gained" evil points for using IE (hey it's a work requirement, I'm just following orders :) (Comment on this)