My First Entry

Greetings to all who read this...

It's lunchtime on a Tuesday (9/20/2005). I found out this morning that my nephew Josh Bizeau has a blog here, and spent time time reading it, and thought to myself: "This is interesting and cool! I want to do this too!" Also, my wife Molly has had a blog here for some time (http://MollyBlaisdell.blogspot.com) , and I can't let her be more hi-tech than I am!!

So, you can thank Josh and Molly, or blame them as your fancy dictates.

What am I thinking about today? Well, for one thing I'm waiting for a software project build, so I can test some bug fixes I made. I'd tell you all about that, but when my bosses found out I was discussing company secrets on a public internet site, I'd probably get the ol' can. So suffice it to say that my software project had some minor glitches, and I have fixed them, but need to test the fixes. How exciting, eh?

Since we're talking about software.... For all you computer users out there (that's all of you, I assume), let me pass on a little truth which you may not have discovered yet. It's a LAW, meaning that it is always true, for all times and places. And like gravity, if you don't know this law, it may often drag you down. I first heard this from a wise old veteran when I was just starting out in the software industry, and I've been a software engineer for coming up on 20 years and it's still just as true. Here it is:

"There's no such thing as 'good software'".

That's it. See, software companies are always trying to sell you on the idea of "good software". They will always tell you that THEIR software is the "good" software, but they are LYING. There is no such thing as good software.

This law can also be stated, with equal veracity as:

"All software is crap."

That's how I usually state it when I experience its effects. Sometimes I use more colorful metaphors (yes, I'm a Trekkie too), but I'm trying to cut back.

And that's enough about that. What else am I musing upon? How about what I'm reading? I'm actually reading three books concurrently. One is Omega by JackMcDevitt. It's sort of a sequel to Chindi which I recently read. I highly recommend both these. Excellent sci-fi!

Another book I'm currently reading is Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. It's another sci-fi novel. This one's by the same author as The Forever War which won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel. The Forever War is a truly great masterpiece. So far I'm not far enough into Forever Peace to tell much about it, but it's certainly got my interest. It's not a sequel to the former book, despite the similar title. The two novels apparently have nothing to do with each other.

The third book I'm reading is Fractals which is a fantasy/sci-fi novel that my wife Molly (www.mollyblaisdell.com) is working on. It is really great! She's implementing some improvements that a big-time editor (whom I will not name, but trust me, we're talkin' BIG-TIME) recommended, and I must say the changes are for the better! In a month or two, she'll be sending the new manuscript back to this editor, and by this time next year you'll be seeing it at your local Barnes and Noble!

Now for what I'm listening to. Right at this moment I'm listening to U2's "Wild Honey" from their album All That You Can't Leave Behind. U2's probably my favorite band right now. For a long time it was Enigma (run out right now and get La Roi Est Mort, Vive La Roi, it's so awesome!) but their latest album, Voyageur was a real let-down. After four awesome albums, they go and release this thing that sounds like an amatuer with a synthesizer. It was a sad day.

Another of my favorite bands is Coldplay. From the moment I first heard "Clocks" I was hooked, and now I have all their albums.

Well. lunchtime is over and my build is finished. I've gotta do some work now, but as my favorite cyborg-governor is fond of saying, I'll be back.

-Tim