I've been battling with weight loss now for months. Nine of them, to be exact.  The first three months went very well, and I was excited about it. Thirty pounds down, and I was well on my way to my goal weight.  I was starting to exercise, and I really felt good about myself.

Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. I kept doing what I knew I was supposed to do, and yet the weight just wouldn't budge. And I know all about "plateaus." I've hit this brick wall before. But for some reason, this time, I just couldn't work past the roadblock.  I was stuck, and I was getting discouraged fast.

So I've spent the last 6 months, fudging and repenting, fudging and repenting. And getting nowhere, but down on myself. I want this to work! Why does it have to be so hard? Why can't I just keep doing what I've been doing, and the weight continue to come down?

Well, my sons and I went on a three-day vacation last week, to the beach. It was a fantastic time, and I really didn't want to come back. I love the beach, and this was a very quiet, secluded spot, really good for thinking and writing and just relaxing.

While we were there, we decided to go see a lighthouse nearby. I simply love lighthouses, and I just didn't want to miss the opportunity to see this one. Even if we couldn't actually go up in the lighthouse, I still wanted to drive by.

Well, lo and behold, we could actually climb the steps inside to the top! So we paid the small fee, and started the climb. It took a while to get to the lookout on top where the light is, but it was definitely worth it. The view was amazing! And thinking about it now makes me wish I was still there...

While we were at the top, a woman appeared from the stairwell, and began to circle the walkway where we were standing. After a few minutes, I heard her ask the attendant, "How many laps is that?" To which he replied, "three, I think!" Then, the woman continued walking, around and around the lighthouse. I was intrigued, so I stopped her on her next lap. "How many times do you go around this thing?" "Ten times," was her reply.

Ten times??? I thought to myself, wondering what on earth for. And then I took more careful notice of the woman. She was obviously my age, or very close to it; her face gave evidence of that. However, it was clear to see that she was more like a Size 6 than the size that I am (which is a piece of information that I won't divulge). Turning back around to look out over the ocean once more before we began descending the many spiral staircases, I contemplated what was really going on here.

On our way down to the level below us, we ran into this woman again. I noticed that she was heading back up to the top. So I chuckled and said, "Going up again?" To which she replied, “Yep!" Even more intrigued, I continued down with my sons, taking a quick glance upward as I saw her bound up the flight of stairs.

After just a few minutes, here she came again! This time, though, she was on her way back down, and there were a few folks coming up, so she had to stop. Realizing this would be the only opportunity that I would have, I ventured forth with a question. "Okay, I have to ask," I said as I smiled at her. "Just how often do you do this routine?" The woman smiled and said, "Three times a week, actually." I know my expression was what made her smile, when I replied, "Wow! That's impressive!" Then she continued on down to the next level below us, once the other people were out of the way.

Still again, we encountered this woman, on another level, due to more people getting in her way. Seizing yet another opportunity, I asked, "So do you go up and down only once, with ten laps around the top?" Even though the other people were now out of her way, the woman graciously took time to answer my question completely this time. "Oh, no. I go up and down this thing ten times, with ten laps on top." My expression revealed my shock and surprise, to be sure. "Ten times??? That's incredible!!" Then she said, "Yeah, but today I'm feeling it a little bit, so I'll probably only do eight times, and I'm on my sixth, so I need to get going." And then she jogged away, down the stairs.

I was stunned. Here was a woman in her 40's, to be sure, jogging up and down steps like she was training for the Olympics. And doing it in a lighthouse on spiral staircases, no less! I was amazed. So totally amazed. And then I heard a small voice inside of me:

"You could do that, too, you know."

For the rest of the flights of steps down to the bottom, I thought about that statement, and realized the truth in it. Seeing this woman didn't make me jealous in the least. I wasn't discouraged at all; instead, I was encouraged. Knowing that someone else my age could look that good made me want to try again. I'd been thinking about starting a walking program, and this was what I needed to push me to begin. I didn't need to look at models in a magazine, or compare myself to someone much younger than me. God knew exactly what I needed to see: a mom, who had lived some years, but who was taking control of her existence, and was determined to fight the affects of age, and beat the odds against middle-aged spread.

So I emerged from the lighthouse, with some illumination into my own situation.

Yeah, God. I get it!

Today’s Cookie  Crumb:

 "Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk."
1 Corinthians 7:17 NAS

From my personal experience, I've found the Moroccan people to be extremely friendly and welcoming.  Most in this country greet with a warm smile and humble demeanor, as well as a sense of humor.  With hard working locals willing to go out of their way to help a foreigner, you can expect to be put at ease when traveling in most established areas.

Another pro of choosing Morocco as your next vacation destination is value.  The value of the American dollar goes a long way in Morocco, with many great, flavorful meals costing around five $5.  Shopping is also a MUST in all of Morocco.  The most interesting objects such as: rugs, clothes, fossils, fabrics, furniture, art, spices, and so many other objects of beauty and oddity can be purchased in the many souks and stands of the old medinas and even road-side.  Be sure to have cash on hand, and sharpen your bargaining skills; great deals await!

There is a plethora of activities and sites to see:  ancient mosques, beautiful beach side villages, royal palaces, desert sand dunes the size of mountains, nomads, belly dancers, snake charmers, giant open-air markets, sprawling mountain ranges, rolling olive orchards, camel rides, and much more.

For a seamless and enjoyable trip, it is recommended that you use a tour operator who specializes in Morocco.  For more information, as well as set small group departures and customizable independent itineraries, I recommend you contact an experienced Travel Consultant at VIP Escapes and Standout Destinations.  www.vipescapes.com and www.standoutdestinations.com

~ this or that ~

So Bloomington, IN, you are being blessed with two of the most awesome bands around right now in the same weekend. Friday, November 7 is O'death and Saturday, Novermber 8 brings Ocean. Either I've got an aweful choice to make or I have to figure out a way to spend the weekend in Bloomington.

At Kauai Sands you fall asleep to the sound of the waves washing up on the shore and you awkaen to the sight of a beautiful sunrise. You can enjoy jogging/walking paths along theocean, take a dip in one of the two pools or the ocean, walk through the six acres of lawn, native plants and fauna.

Kauai Sands is sourronded by the ocean and beautiful beaches making this area an ocean sport island. There are boat tours, scuba diving, parasailing, deep sea fishing and snorkeling are all available.

Kauai islands is most famous for it helicopter rides over the valleys and gigantic waterfalls.

We have adopted a WOW service program here at Quality 1st Basement Systems in New Jersey.  In short, we want to WOW our customers, make them fans of our company.  As I always do, I looked up what our customers do to find us on the web and I can clearly see our WOW program has made a tremendous amount of fans.  Every website I find, there is someone commenting how wonderful it was do deal with such a great company.  People wishing their other contractors operated like us.  WOW.  So to all of our fans……THANK YOU!    We are grateful you chose us to do your business with.

I was actually beginning the UI development in my soon to be released Ocean Platform (details below) and found myself looking at creating 8 forms for Ocean's metadata maintenance and code generation.

I was thinking, if I lay Ocean down for a week or two, I can write a tool that will allow me to author Ocean's UI in no time at all.  Ocean has it's own built-in advanced UI generation but Ocean is designed to consume metadata.  Since I didn't have metadata yet, I needed to tool to help me author the UI forms. 

You see, I really didn't want to hand type 8 more forms if I could get the computer to do it for me.  So because I'm lazy, XAML Power Toys was born.

Time

Time is one resource that can not be replaced.  It goes by so fast and seems to slip between our fingers very easily.  It's vulnerable and somehow "things" inject themselves into our time.

As developers, we can (should) take steps to maximize our time.  We can maximize our time by having the correct tools, proven workflow and an understanding how to use these. 

We developers need to manufacture time by accomplishing tasks faster and with laser surgery accuracy.  In our world the goal is to deliver defect free, maintainable, standards based code.

The best way I know to meet this goal and to manufacture time is to generate as much production code as possible. 

This gives the developer more time to allocate to a better application design, to learn new patterns and to keep up with the flow of new technologies that can only be compared to the water flowing at Niagara Fall's.  I wrote Ocean to give me time back.

Ocean

Back in May of 2008 I wrote this blog post:  Metadata - a Voice Crying in the Wilderness, Hey! I’m Over Here.  This was a call to architects to consume the warehouses of metadata that most projects have but do not ever get into the hands of the developers.  You say that's not entirely true.  OK, then why do developers type ToolTip text into their forms?  Why is a developer typing XML comments on business objects? 

These are two over simplified examples of metadata that is located in a design document somewhere, but is not in a format or physical location that makes it easily consumable by the developer or a code generation product.  The term disparate data storage comes to mind.

I strongly agree with one of my mentors, Bill Jones that developers should own their code generation system.  We live in a very fast and volatile world.  Things simply change a lot.  Today's architects and developers need full access to the code generation system's data model, templates, template engine and generation code.  Yes, I know this will raise a few eyebrows, especially if your company provides Code Generation software.  But I wrote Ocean because I couldn't find an off the shelf Code Generation product that did what I needed, was easy to understand, manage and had examples for VB.NET developers.

Right behind code generation an application of any size requires a set of libraries that sit on top of .NET that provide the services a Line of Business (LOB) application requires.

Ocean provides a light weight, comprehensive framework that works in WPF and Silverlight.  This was one of the requirements of Ocean, that it support Silverlight. 

Ocean is divided into five assemblies and I'll be adding one more that is specific to Silverlight.  Below are some of the highlights of each assembly.

• Ocean is the UI for maintaining the metadata the Ocean Code Generator consumes.  It also makes calls to the OceanCodeGenerator to generate an object like a stored procedure, trigger, DAL, BLL, entity object or UI object.  I'm going to also add support to generate MVVM ViewModels.
• OceanCodeGenerator is an ASP.NET web that runs in a secondary AppDomain under Ocean's control.  This assembly takes a request from Ocean and generates an object.
• OceanFramework is the code that runs in WPF and Silverlight.  It requires no code changes between the two platforms.  This assembly provides declarative validation on business entity objects, UI case correction and business entity base classes.  The validation is attribute based, but can also be declared in code.  Compiled, this library weights in at only 62KB.  For Silverlight, that is a real winner.
• OceanFrameworkSQL is a light weight and super fast replacement for the DAAB I loved in .NET 1.1.  This library weights in at 29KB.  In addition to enabling single line of code database calls from your DAL, this library also has built in concurrency checking and object building from a DataReader or DataRow.  I've run tests and was able to build 19,000 unique objects per second using this library.  This is on par with LINQ To SQL and other object loading techniques.  Check out my three blog posts on Performance to review the test data.
• OceanFrameworkWPF provides WPF specific code, commands, converters, UserControls and Custom Controls.  Most of this code is already on my blog.
• OceanFrameworkSilverlight to be written soon.  Will provide Silverlight specific code and controls.

Ocean's Workflow

Ocean does not claim or attempt to be all things to all developers.  It is not a silver bullet.  It's a metadata driven LOB application development and maintenance tool.

Note that the Ocean libraries can be used without the code generation pieces.  You have probably noticed the XAML Power Toys uses the OceanFramework library.

My current workflow is:

• Design the data model using SQL Server Tools
• Sync Ocean with that database
• Enter in all metadata for the application
• Press a button and all the stored procedures, DAL, BLL and Entity objects are immediately generated
• Easily generate additional required stored procedures, DAL, BLL and Entity objects for subsets of a class.  For example, the customer class has 25 properties.  The customer search results only has 5 properties.  Ocean allows you to create everything for this search results class in a split second and assists you with creating the DataTemplate for the UI.
• Use Ocean to generate each UI object as the developer requires
• Ocean handles changes to the data model and application requirements with ease by allowing some or all objects to be recreated on demand.

Closing

So on nights and weekends, I'm back to working on Ocean and hope to ship, including detailed documentation by the end of October or early November.  When released, Ocean will appear on Code Project and my blog. 

I'll be presenting Ocean and doing walk through's in the open spaces at the Fall Raleigh North Carolina Code Camp on 15 November.  Register if you're in the area or can make the trip.

Have a great day.

Just a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.

Furuno radars at Bayfront Marine!

Radars are a necessity when you are out to sea. Select from a wide variety of styles and sizes at www.bayfrontmarine.com! They specialize in all boating/marine equipment from anchors to radars!

Bayfront Marine - FURUNO

This is probably strange news, as you haven't heard from me in more than a month.   Since early September, I've been busy learning how to tie knots, learning how to use a sextant, learning what angle to turn a sail in order to make best use of the wind, learning the history of whaling and fishing, learning how to navigate by the stars...

In a few hours, I leave for a voyage south from San Diego, into the Sea of Cortez, and down to Puetro Vallarta, Mexico. My bag is packed with more bandanas than shorts or shirts.

That's my home for the next six weeks.

You can visit http://sea.edu/voyages/current_seamans.asp to track where I am.

As for radioactivity, well, I'll leave you in suspense for a few more weeks.

There isn't much in the way of cell phone or internet reception 300 miles offshore, so you won't hear from me again until November 20th.  Maybe I'll send you a message in a bottle.

Until then,
Zena

Patri Friedman is working on a very interesting project to bring competition into government.  He has received funding to create floating platforms out in the ocean.  These platforms will not be subject to any one countries laws, and therefore will allow a variety of governments to flourish.  It has also been said that these platforms will be movable, allowing people to "vote with their feet", without having to worry about the immensive costs involved.  An audio recording of an interview with Patri Friedman is located here, and an article written by Reason is located here.  The official website for the project is http://www.seasteading.org/

FREE SAMMY THE SHARK!!!

Yeah! That's what everyone in the UAE are saying except some people in a hotel named Atlantis,just because they think that they own an aquarium to compfort a  60ft Whale Shark.As far as the protest against this the whole of UAE along with Gulf News are doing a pretty good job and their campaign to "FREE Sammy The Shark" is one of a kind!

Imagine yourself tanked up in a house aquarium....ok,humans are not fish,sorry! Imagine yourself restricted from all movement in a closet just like Harry Potter! What would you do? What can you do? Use a magic wand when you can't? This is what Sammy feels right now...living down in his Miserable Aqua-storey Apartment. Petro-dollars to mint money but no heart to feel how a whale feels.Well,so I thought how the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai was.

Be humans and have a heart people!!! FREE SAMMY THE SHARK!!!

We hiked up on the headland and walked past an old church that still stands there, looking out at the sea.  Nathalie says it was built in the 1700's.  It looks pretty well-kept.  I don't think they have services there anymore.  If I understood the Frenglish correctly, the congregation now meets in the eyesore warehouse a little bit north of the old church.  The land up there is very rocky- I had to stop a few times to dump pebbles out of my shoes.  If you go out onto the edge of the cliff you can see the waves crashing on the rocks, and you can hear Nathalie yelling at you to be careful over the sound of the thundering below.  It's very beautiful, and I understand why so many people come to look at the ocean, to be in its presence.  It's like the light of the heavens in Out of the Silent Planet, filling Ransom with joy and awe and a deep solemnity.  I know now why God gave so much of the earth to the sea.

THE COUPLE
Kahala Beach, Honolulu, HI

Downloaded and watched most of the movie Kinsey, which is the story of Dr Kinsley who basically started and drove the sexual revolution. The things people believed before he addressed the issues... are mind boggling. I really recommend watching it! Halfway through I had to run out to meet up with Tracey and Mel for lunch.

After lunch I drove over Yan Ming Mountain, which in retrospect wasn't the best idea given I was wearing a short skort. I would have hung out a little longer but I was too damn cold and couldn't take it so I drove a little faster, went back down the other side. I did get this really cool picture from it.

Post mountain I drove to my real destination, Mr. Ocean, my favourite. I didn't see much of the ocean as a kid growing up in the mountains, I love Love LOVE the mountains but there is something about the ocean. I really like to just sit by the ocean and watch and listen to the waves, ocean breeze. I found a little spot on the shore with the big cement-y bits and decided to chill there for a while. Took some pictures, made a couple of videos (ok I took like 50 pictures... lol mostly of me). When I started to freeze to death (poorly planned wardrobe) I packed up my books n' things and went off on the coast road back to Taipei, even though the mountain way would have been significantly shorter and faster, MUCH colder.

I consider myself to be a Texas Girl. Up until a little less than 2 years ago, I had lived there most of my life. Yes, it's hot there & it takes like 10 hours to drive all the way across it, but I like it... in fact, I love it. It's home. After living here in California for almost 2 years, I have made some observations about this west coast state... some of which I love and others that I get rather annoyed with at times.  :)

**Fires... Not just one little fire that gets put out easily in one day. HUGE fires that last for days and spread with the wind and turn the ground, and anything else in their way, completely black. October seems to be the main month of fire season. Fire #2 of the season, is currently blazing out on Camp Pendleton... around this time last year, fires # 1- 10 were all blazing together at the same time.
**Weather... it's pretty much beautiful here, all the time. It gets a little hot sometimes, but, being from Texas, it's pretty great to hear people complain about the 90 degree weather (that only happens for like 2 weeks during the summer!). :) Most apartments don't have air conditioning, which we were concerned about when we first moved in, but now I realize that it's not such a big deal. This week it has started getting cold and breezy at night. Love it!
**Grocery Stores... are STINKING EXPENSIVE!! (well, so is everything else, but seriously!?) And, of course, there is no HEB. :( bummer. At most grocery stores you have to have a stupid little card to get a slight discount on things. But you don't have the pay for the card, so you can get them from every little grocery store in town, and there's really no incentive to shop at any particular one... so why bother with the cards? seriously!
**Church... is different here, but I love it! Our experience with our church has been amazing. The emphasis on community is huge, and we have a cool group of people our age who have quickly become great friends. The best thing about my church is that it's challenging. It's not just a "come here once or twice a week and then move on" kind of place. (totally not implying that all churches in Texas are like that either, don't worry.) So it has been really cool to see my faith growing and being challenged in ways it never has before. ...but, there's no Sunday School here... which I kind of miss. ;)
**The Ocean... which I only get to see a much browner/less wavy version of in Texas, maybe once a year, is AMAZING. By far, my favorite thing about Cali is the ocean. Anytime I want I can make the 5 minute trip to the beach, and even in the winter, I can still go walk along it and soak up the sun. It is so beautiful. Some of my greatest memories are from the just north or south of the Oceanside Pier (including it being the place we got engaged before I even moved out here). And I am definitely going to miss this aspect of creation that I have been able to be a part of for the past 2 years.
**People... In general, people are a lot more "liberal" here. Sometimes it's kind of wierd being close to the most conservative person I know! lol. (Luckily we live right next to a Marine Corp base, and there are people from all over the country, otherwise I might feel grossly out numbered. ;) ) Not saying it's a bad thing, just different from what I'm used to in oh, so conservative Texas. :) I like to tease one of my co-workers, saying I'm glad my desk isn't in the same office as his liberal desk, and that I feel sorry for my friend Jennie who has to listen to his support of _______ all day long. (insert name of the presidential candidate you KNOW he supports here... but I'm not even going to go there right now.)  hahahaha ;) But, at the end of the day, he (and his wife - no political affiliation, though :) ) are some of Brian and my closest friends, and people who we absolutely trust and respect - liberal opinions, and all. :)
(and this is not meant to offend anyone! I'm just making observations here, and what I said goes for all my friends out here (and back in Texas)... you know I love you and I respect your opinions - whether they are the same as mine, or different... seriously, some of my best friends have a far different opinion than I do, and that's ok. :) )
**and finally, Running... running is one of my favorite things. And running in Cali is just so much more delightful than running in Texas. :) The morning air is in the 60's, the humidity is low, the smell of the ocean is all around (well, most of the time... sometimes it's the smell of the stupid manure they use as fertilizer for everything! ...insert barfing noise here...), and the view is beautiful. I have run 2 half marathons since living in California (the most I had run before leaving Texas was a 5K), and I love it! Hopefully I will be able to keep on running when I move back to Tejas... but, oh the humidity. ;)

So, these, among many other things not mentioned, are a few of my observations about Cali... a state I have truly grown to love, and will truly miss (well, mostly) when I move back to Texas.

THE MODEL
Kahala Beach, Honolulu, HI

The star fish is all orangey and ready to feast on the prey. The sea lion makes an echoing moo noise which is extremely devastating. The sea horse does the sea horse neigh and taking quick swim steps to get ready for the attack. The octopus waves all of its arms in every direction and makes its move slowly towards the captain and getting ready to embrace her in its venomous arms. The blue whale squirts out water from the top and opens its mouth wide open with the blue whale noise. The shark makes rapid swims and jumps with its fins and coming in closer. The jelly fish emanates its vicious jelly like substance that will get anyone who comes in its path.

Such was the situation, so dangerous and nowhere to go. But our captain has conquered the 7 seas. She has been there to every corner of the world and fought every creature in her way. She is no stranger to such situation. She can handle this with ease. Captain gets ready with her crouching stand with legs wide apart. It is the strongest of the stance and only experienced adventurers adapt it.

She quickly moves to the right and grabs the star fish with her palm and squeezes the juice out of it and throws it away. The rest of the creatures pause for a moment and get cautious. They come to know she is not an easy prey. She is a fighter and they have to beware. The sea horse quickly tries to make an attack from the back, but our captain is too smart. She grabs the sea horse by its stomach and squeezes its juice out of it and puts it in a container. The rest of the creatures are now really scared, they are not going to take the next step but will wait for her.

But she doesn't wait, She has got into her stance and there is no turning back for her. She now grabs the blue whale with her right hand and the jelly fish by her left hand and squeezes them and extracts an ocean of juice from them in just a few seconds. She growls and makes an angry face when she does that. It scares the big juices out of the Octopus and the Shark, who are the only ones left in the battle. They are not sure if they are strong enough to fight the almighty captain. Shorty pie puts one step further towards the octopus. The shark takes one step back. The octopus tries to bow down to the incredible pie but it is not forgiven. The shark tries to give an attack from the side but she is too clever and moves away. The shark now goes to her left and watches the captain squeezing the last drops of juice from the octopus.

It is now a duel between the shark and the captain. The shark makes one final attempt to jump on the captain. The captain catches the shark and squeezes the juice out of it too. The shark screams in agony but that is masked completely by the arrogant growl of the juice squeezing captain. Captain Shorty Pie of the bathian sea once again smells victory.

And this is how I see, when my daughter plays with her squirt toys in the bath tub.

this is wot it lukd like owtside wen dada came home

it luks like a tornado duznt it???? yikes!!!

this is the smoke frum the fire blowing off to the west owt to see gud playse for it yoo just keep going that way smoke!!!

in this pikcher yoo can see too of the sooper skooper airplaynes gitting reddy to bomb the fire with oshun water yoo go sooper skoopers!!!!  as yoo no i am not such a big fan of the oshun but if it can put owt the fire then that hole wayvs insident wil be forgivn

[wpvideo J22XEXaA]

heer is viddyo of wun of the playns sirkling bak arownd after bombing the fire go go airplayn go get more water and come bak soon!!!!

this is the fire about fifteen minnits ago it seems to be gitting bigger more playns pleez!!!!

this is the fire rite now it luks closer than it is becuz their is so much smoke

heer is the smoke trail in the sky yoo can see it is starting to bend away from us as the wind is shifting more to the north yoo go wind north is a gud direkshun!!!!! wel i wil keep evrywun posted ok bye!!!!

The falls months are something of a gem when it comes to California surf. Santa Ana winds turn to blow off shore and bring with it a warm and relaxing calm. The surf here has been great these past few weeks and looks to only be getting better in the following weeks. Went to Newport Beach this past weekend to snap a few and came out with some good ones. Check the Flickr account for a few more to the right but hopefully everyone is getting surf wherever they might be. See you in the water-

Daniel Franks

Copyright Ryan Cardone/Tidalstock.