Montreal Tomorrow

I should be packing. I should be going to sleep early. But instead I'm messing around with my Mac. Leaving at O'Dark Thirty for Montreal. Really looking forward to getting out of town and into a different culture. Here's hoping that Balisage Conference 2009 will be as good as it sounds!

XML is Just a Three-Letter Word

Well, although XML has been around officially for 11.5 years now, it is still a controversial subject. The XML Wikipedia article is undergoing a major re-write, led by Tim Bray and Michael Kay with a cast of thousands. Would you believe, a handful? Check out the huge XML Category on Wikipedia. A bunch of XML geeks including Yours Truly will be headed for Balisage Conference 2009 in Montreal next week.

McCartney Mania, Redux!

The more you look, the more you find! More links to satiate McCartney fans:

Washington Post review of the concert: He Hopes You Have Enjoyed the Show (Paul McCartney, Still a Performer Without Peer ).

Another review with photos: Click Click: Paul McCartney @ FedEx Field

Flickr photos from the McCartney FedEx concert (all rights reserved, sadly).

Plenty of YouTube videos, here and here.

Here's a major find: Lyrics to every McCartney, Wings, and Beatles song!

McCartney Mania!

On August 1, 2009, I was fortunate enough to see Paul McCartney up close (well, not that close) at FedEx Field in Landover, MD last night. What a fabulous Washington area show! This was only my second time(*) seeing Sir Paul, the first being in Oct. 2005. [Thanks to Donna W. and Bob M. respectively.]

The show kicked off soon after dark with a hard rockin' version of Drive My Car, the first of 22 Beatles songs. Naturally the 2.5 hour show included a small sampling of Wings tunes (Jet, Let Me Roll It, My Love, Mrs Vanderbilt [ho, hey ho], Band on the Run). There were a bunch post Wings performances (Only Mama Knows, Flaming Pie, Highway, Here Today, Dance Tonight, Calico Skies, Sing the Changes). Highway and Sing the Changes are from the recent Electric Arguments album by the The Firemen. With the exception of Dance Tonight and Here Today, this period is not the highpoint of Paul's career, IMHO. [Not everyone would agree with this statement, right, Frank M?]

Relatively early in the evening, Paul added a fan favorite not played in NYC, dedicated to our First Lady, Michelle. (Hey, Paul, ya gotta work on the pronunciation of "Barack" or he won't invite you to the White House.) This was soon followed by a dedication of Here Today to John about whom the song was written (from the Tug of War album from 1982). Later in the set, he dedicated Something to George, playing a ukulele that Harrison had given him.

When Paul introduced Blackbird, a solo from The Beatles (The White Album), he said it was written in response to the 1960s Civil Rights movement, a total surprise to yours truly. Turns out this is connected to Paul's book of poetry (song lyrics) called Blackbird Singing from 2002.

Both Frank M. and John T. noticed a bit of Jimi Hendrix, which turned out to be Foxey Lady, added as an instrumental portion to Let Me Roll It. Seems like they do this often judging for past set lists.

Another highpoint of the evening was the auditory and visual spectacular of fireworks during the #2 single Live and Let Die. While this is certainly nothing new to Paul's gigs, it is definitely impressive live, especially when you are relatively close to the stage. The sounds of exploding pyrotechnics and the acrid smell of smoke were quite powerful.

Understandably for someone who has a whopping 22 solo/Wings studio albums (plus a half dozen live albums and a number of other projects), there were lots of albums from which no songs at all were performed. Hard to believe though that there was nothing from the first McCartney album, my second favorite only to Band on the Run.

Maybe it is my personal bias, but as excited as people were about Paul's Wings and solo material, the loudest reaction seemed to be from Beatles tunes which constituted nearly 2/3 of the show. There were two high energy encores comprised entirely of Beatles songs (EC 1: Day Tripper, Lady Madonna, I Saw Her Standing There; EC 2: Yesterday (solo), Helter Skelter, Get Back, Sgt. Pepper's LHCB (repise), and The End). In fact, if you count the encores, the entire second half of the set list (songs 19 to 35) was nothing but Beatles classics! Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Check out the complete Washington set list is available with lyrics and videos (various sources) for every one of the 35 songs. YouTube has a bunch of videos of varying quality from the FedEx show.

PS - The photo is from 2004 in Prague. Free to use according to Wikipedia.

And now for something completely different: Left 4 Dead - The Beatles. And you thought The Beatles Rock Band was going to be the best Beatles videogame?

(*) Never mind that I've seen 1964 The Tribute (Beatles tribute band) 10 times!

Good to go!

Well, I've booked my flight to Montreal for Balisage, but it was more costly than I'd hoped for. I guess dem's da breaks when you book less than 2 weeks in advance. Still, I'm really excited about visiting Montreal and attending this highly intellectual XML conference with so many thought-provoking topics. I'll be highlighting topics that interest me over the next 10 days.

Passport arrived on time

No more concern about my passport renewal since I collected it today from the post office. In typical government efficiency, I received my "automated" response to my status inquiry after actually getting the passport. Time to book a flight.

Balisage 2009, here I come!

I managed to get the conference rate for the hotel 17 days late. Sure hope they honor my confirmation number. Registered for the Balisage 2009 conference, arriving Sat., Aug. 8 and leaving Fri. the 14th. Next, to book the flight. But I am a little worried about whether that passport renewal will get here in time. I sent it in prior to deciding about the conference and didn't think there was an immediate need for it, but now there is.

How do you say "Markup" in French?

Answer: Balisage (root: balise - beacon, buoy, sign). I'm strongly considering going to the 2009 Balisage: The Markup Conference in Montreal in August 11-14. For many years, this was known as "Extreme Markup", an XML geekfest (and I mean that in the nicest way) held yearly in Canada. This is an event the draws the greatest minds of the XML world to wax theoretical and practical. The lineup for 2009 is quite impressive. And how can you not want to visit historic, scenic Montreal? (List time I was there I was 10 years old and I have the pictures to prove it.) Now if only my passport renewal arrives in time....

Berkeley Springs Photos

I've setup a webshots.com site for the Columbia Ski Club and I've posted photos from the July 2008 Berkeley Springs trip.


Berkely Springs, WV - July 2008

Play Date with Little Richard

No, not that Little Richard! I mean this one. Isn't he cute? Richard is the work in progress of 2 nice people, Ted and Jeannie. On July 5th, I had the privilege of being 5-day-old Richard's first play date. As Ted and Jeannie reported in their blog, the day before, Richard had his first cookout and dining out. I don't think he picked up the tab. Anyway, we had a good time on his first walk in his high-tech stroller. I'm pretty sure Richard slept through the whole walk; I guess he'll just have to read his parent's blog to remember it. Ted was a real natural when it came to feeding the little guy; Richard was totally peaced out cradled in Ted's arm. Jeannie spared me the diaper changing experience. And of course her maternal instincts came into play during the stroll.

So where's the head scratcher in this post, you ask? Why in the world does this stroller have a substantial PDF user's guide with more than 40 pages of supposedly self-describing drawings, yet the captions (in all PC multi languages) appear completely separate from the illustrations? Sure, in a printed manual this might work if you keep your place in both spots at once, but how can you do this with a PDF? Net result was this stroller was a real challenge to assemble. JHU and NASA should be proud of the Leoutsakos parents.

Cape May Photos - June 2008

Well, I finally broke down and registered for a free photo publishing web site called webshots.com. My main motivation was to publish photos I'd taken on a Cape May (NJ) trip with the Columbia Ski Club ("We do more than ski"). Pretty easy to use interface, especially when you figure out that you can upload a whole folder at once by multiply selecting all the files when you browse to the folder. The free account is limited to 1,000 photos but that's enough for many of us (except maybe Sue ;-)

Life Before Cell Phones?

Does anyone remember what our daily lives were like prior to the advent of cell phones? Way back when people could only reach you when you were home or at work (or thru email)? Back when you could go grocery shopping without hearing some loud mouthed idiot talking practically in your ear as they just happen to be contemplating the items on the shelf next to you, or standing behind you in the checkout line? Or carrying on some private conversation while standing in other store lines so loudly that you cannot hear or be heard by the sales clerk? Or when people generally used two hands and a mostly full brain to drive a car before they came to consider signaling and paying attention as optional while they are on their cell? How about riding a bicycle? The other day, I saw a teenager riding a bike on a busy road (175) at rush hour while talking on his cell phone. Do you think he was paying attention to the cars that were whizzing by him?

Don't get me wrong. I carry a cell phone and occasionally use it in public settings and when driving. But when I do, I try to be mindful of the people around me and I pay attention to my environment. I don't want to become a statistic. Do you?