I was looking up the credits of Intermission on IMDB, then decided to look up my brother, David Reilly, the actor of the family. I found him.

I couldn't find any IMDB listing for my other brother, Mark Reilly, the filmmaker.

Then I looked up my own name. I wasn't there, of course, but I did find Der Spleen des George Riley, a German TV production of a Tom Stoppard play, Enter a Free Man.

I did quite a bit of work for Irish television in the mid-to-late Eighties, but it was all behind the scenes computer graphics work for such timeless gems as Murphy's Micro Quiz'M, Rapid Roulette, the Carroll's Irish Open, and the weather maps. The only thing that was of lasting value was Live Aid. The weather display software was still in use for most of the Nineties, so I can honestly say that my work has been widely seen by millions of people. I don't think my name ever appeared in the credits, though, just that of my then employer, Lendac.

Via DailyKos, Will Ferrell as Dubya making a Special Announcement on Global Warming.

Via Larry Osterman, Triumph the Comic Dog delivering the weather forecast in Hawai`i. Very apropos, after yesterday's snow in Seattle.

Via Emma.

I'm indifferent to most fantasy books, but I've been a fan of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, since I read the first book, A Game of Thrones, in 1997. I read the second book A Clash of Kings, in 1999. The third book A Storm of Swords came out five years ago, and I've been awaiting the fourth book, A Feast for Crows, ever since. After several postponements, it's finally out.

It's an epic tale of love, war, and intrigue. Five Kings are fighting for control, by sword, by guile, and sometimes by magic. Strange creatures are rising in the frozen North, beyond the Wall. Dragons are reappearing in the South. The young Starks, separated by fate and a cruel author, strive in vain to reunite. The Lannisters, mad and bad, seek to dominate.

I'm re-reading the series and rediscovering how good it is. The characters are clearly drawn, the plotting first rate, the writing excellent.

George R.R. Martin is on a book tour of the U.S. and appears at the University of Washington Bookstore on Monday, November 21st, at 7pm.

Bill Moyers speaking at the 50th anniversary of The Texas Observer:

McCarthyism was a raging plague in the 1950s and the virus rampaged across Texas like tumbleweeds in a wind storm. ... The low point, said Maverick, came when the state Senate passed a bill to remove all books from public libraries which “adversely” reflected on American and Texas history, the family and religion. Even the state teachers association endorsed the bill, in exchange for a pay raise. ...

That was the lay of the land in the 1950s. And Democrats were in charge, remember? That’s right: Texas was a one-party state; Republicans were as scarce in high office as Democrats are today. No matter the players, one-party government is a conspiracy in disguise.

...

Everything President George W. Bush knows, he learned here [in Texas], as the product of a system rigged to assure the political progeny needed to perpetuate itself with minimum interference from the nuisances of liberal democracy. ... With the election of 2000, he and his cohorts arrived in Washington like atheists taking over the Vatican; they had come to run a government they don’t believe in.

A year ago, I ran into a problem with Skype squatting on port 80, which I had long forgotten about. Today, I ran into one with Skype squatting on port 443.

I was trying to set up SSL on my Windows Server 2003 dev box. My ultimate goal is to experiment with client certs and server certs for SOAP, but that's a story for another time. I was running into all kinds of strange problems, exacerbated by the relatively strange IIS configuration on my machine.

I tried SslDiag. In hindsight, it pointed me towards the underlying problem, but I couldn't see it at the time. I did a lot of digging around on Google. Eventually, a newsgroup thread on ListenOnlyList gave me CurrPorts, which showed me that Skype was listening on port 443. I suppose netstat -anob, TcpView, or Port Reporter would have told me the same thing, though CurrPorts had the friendliest view. WFetch from the IIS 6 Resource Kit Tools was also useful in looking at raw requests and responses.

Last Wednesday night, Emma emailed a dozen of our friends, inviting them to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. One reply arrived the next morning. Then nothing.

By Sunday evening, I had grown exasperated enough to send out a snarky followup:

The courtesy of a belated reply would be appreciated. So far, we've got exactly one RSVP.

It served its purpose. Replies cascaded in. Most, alas, said "no"; they had other plans.

Would that this were an isolated incident. Time and again, I've issued invitations that were not responded to. A simple "yes" or "no" is ideal. A "maybe" is acceptable too, especially if you follow up with a "yes" or a "no".

RSVP is not a meaningless formality. It's a vital planning aid. I need to know ahead of time whether to expect three or thirteen for a dinner party. It's rude and thoughtless to leave me hanging in limbo. If I assume that everyone who's been invited will show up, and cater accordingly, and many of them don't come, I've gone to needless expense and effort. If I guess that only half those invited will turn up, and I underestimate, then I'm embarrassed by not being able to feed my guests properly.

It's almost as big a sin for you to say "yes", then fail to show, without a word of warning.

When the stakes are low, such as a large drinks party, the lack of RSVPs is a minor matter. For a major production, it's inconsiderate at best.

The Wild Geese Players of Seattle strike again. This time, we're counterposing William Butler Yeats against Walt Whitman, the Dueling Poets. We're leading off the evening with some real dueling between fencers from the Academia della Spada.

Fri, Nov 18, 8pm
University of Washington Faculty Club

More details here.

See what Thunderbird 1.5 RC 1's spelling checker flags as misspelled words.

Seems to be a known bug.

I finally updated my blog to run on dasBlog 1.8. Not too painful. I unzipped the binary distribution, downloaded the content folder from my server to my local drive, ran the provided upgrade utility, and used WinMerge to update the configuration files.

The most obvious change is that I'm using a new theme (skin), which gives the site a very different look. The previous default theme had problems if your browser window was too narrow, due to some hardcoded table sizes (I think).

I also figured out how to post to dasBlog via w.bloggar. I looked for info on configuring w.bloggar a few weeks ago, and couldn't find it then.

Followup: the multiword links in this post are mangled when they appear in a browser. I think this is an issue in dasBlog's XML transforms. Specifically, it only seems to happen when the multiword link contains "dasBlog": ego-surfing, perhaps. Reported as dasBlog bug 1354987.

Followup #2: the problem turned out to be one of the out-of-the box rewriting rules in site.config. Commenting out

  <ContentFilter find="dasBlog" ...

These rules seem to be generally useful. The default configuration allows you to convert several varieties of smilies to graphics:

:-o
:-S
:-D
:'(
;-)
:-)

as well as Google searches, $g(bush sucks) → bush sucks, and dictionary.com lookups, $d(defenestration) → defenestration. (The preceding examples were escaped by bracketing the first character in the pattern with a <span> tag.)

More details on ContentFilter at the new dasBlog documentation site, dasBlog.info.

On Tuesday night, Emma sent this out to our list of friends.

Subject: Decision about evacuee housing
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:22:32 -0700
From: Emma Bartholomew <emma@...>

Hello all,

Thank you to everyone who has assisted George & me in our attempt to ready our home for hurricane evacuees.

Regrettably, I have come to realize that I'm not emotionally able to make this commitment after all. I thought I could open my home to others, but I have sunk into a depression over the past few weeks that has finally convinced me that I tried to bite off more than I could chew.

George & I are still committed to helping evacuees, but we will now be doing this through donations of time and money to a local group, Katrina Housing Northwest www.katrinahousingNW.org I have attached the latest Katrina Housing Seattle Alert to the end of this message so you can get an idea of what the group is presently doing.

We will be reimbursing those who gave us cash donations and having a party to thank those of you who gave of your time and effort. Thank you again for all your hard work on our behalf.

Warmest regards, Emma

PS from George.

This hasn't been an easy time for Emma and I know she feels that she's let you (and herself) down. I wish that matters had worked out otherwise. I thank all of you who selflessly gave of your time and money. It was inspiring to both of us.

/George

---

Hello KHNW supporters!

This past Thursday a meeting was held in downtown Seattle with Representatives from the American Red Cross, The Emergency Management Division, The Seattle Housing Authority and many community organizations, and private ones such as ours. A representative kept us informed of the meetings results:

The Goal: To communicate the Housing Sustainment Plan for the over 1000 evacuees in our area right now. Specifically, funding and availability of LONG TERM PERMANENT HOUSING in their own homes.

The Answer: They have not arrived at an answer yet.

True, that is frustrating, and I could spend plenty of time venting about the details of the lack of planning, or the level of frustration my families and many others have experienced. However, the immediate needs of our evacuees still remain, and our mission is to meet those needs. Wherever and however we can. I am thoroughly committed to that.

The good news for us is that I have partnered with Representatives from the American Red Cross King/Kitsap/Olympia chapters to help identify individual needs, and we are working directly with the International Rescue Committee ( www.theirc.org) who are excellent allies in the progress towards KHNW being successful in their mission to assist.

We are fortunate that we get to skip the red tape in all this. We are fueled entirely on the kindness of our local supporters. You have all been a key part of improving the lives of these people!

We still have needs for these families and our organization. Those needs are:

• Private housing for 12-18 months (evacuee family only) i.e empty apartments in Seattle area, (services are in the city and they need to be close)

• GIFT CARDS: For Target, Fred Meyer, Safeway, QFC, WALGREEN'S, Sears, Ikea, Rite Aid, Office Max, COSTCO for household items, etc...

• GAS CARDS: For our volunteer drivers who are burning through the fuel to drive these folks around until they get bus passes, cars etc...

• A Tax Attorney to offer pro-bono time to assist with the 501c (3) status filing.

• A PT Non Profit Accountant, volunteer

If you are interested in any of these items, just email me at nhnorthwest@gmail.com and/or northwestRR@gmail.com (that is Jessica's email, our amazing admin) Want to get a group involved? Please organize support through your office, schools, places of worship, etc... we can provide you with posters/flyer's etc...!

This continues to be a very important and increasingly more organized effort. We have surpassed the point where we only coordinated short term emergency housing, and now we are in it for the long haul, providing solutions for many needs.

Thank you ALL so very very much for your kindness, support, assistance and generosity. I never know how to express enough how much it means to me, and all the people you help, that you have done so much in such distressing times for them.

Truly,

Noelle Hunt Bennett
Katrina Housing North West
North West Resource Relief
Seattle, WA
www.katrinahousingNW.org

We received some very touching, understanding responses from our friends, often acknowledging their own struggles with depression, and thanking us for doing what we had so far.

As for the basement, Chuck came over this morning and helped me frame out the 11-foot opening. The carpet layers are coming in at the end of the week, and I expect the window people to come next week.

The basement looks far better tonight than last night.

Yesterday, I removed all the lower panels along the entire front wall, and filled in the cracks with concrete. I also bought some inexpensive folding doors that will require some framing.

Today, Chuck came over after the BiNet Brunch and helped me put back up the panels and finish all the painting. It looks intensely yellow. The dark blue carpet will help tone it down.

After I've framed the doors, the carpet can be layed. I'm busy all next weekend, at Tim Grey's Photoshop Seminar, so I'll have to do it in the evenings.

I have not yet been able to order the window. Although the window was measured on Monday afternoon, the dimensions had not yet been sent to Lowe's as of Friday evening.

This afternoon I would have said that the basement was close to being finished. The painting was almost done, the carpet was due to come in tomorrow, and the window will arrive in two-to-three weeks. But we've had a setback.

Since the last update, I have finished painting the spare bedroom. Emma will move in there as soon as I finish writing this post. She was waiting for the paint fumes to dissipate.

After Lowe's sent someone out to measure the new window hole, I boarded it up with some plywood and 2x4s.

Dipankar spent Wednesday afternoon helping me paint the basement -- at least the parts that we could do with rollers.

This evening, I was going around the basement, filling in the spots that the rollers couldn't reach. I was crawling along the floor, painting the bottom of the panels on the walls, when I noticed a very small amount of water seeping out from under one of them. If I hadn't been painting the bottom of the wall, I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

Four years ago, we had a leak in the basement. The kitchen waste water pipe, which runs along the front of the house, had collapsed, as seventy-year-old concrete pipe is wont to do. Water had built up and found a crack in the foundation wall. We came down to the basement one morning, after a night of heavy rain, to find two inches of water in the basement. The carpet that was down there at the time was destroyed. We had to rip off half the panels on the walls to isolate the problem.

We had a contractor come out then. He drained the water from the basement, and ripped out the sodden carpet, exposing really horrible linoleum tiles. He dug down to the bottom of the foundations on the front (west) and south sides of the house, and sealed the walls on the outside.

We never got around to fixing up the basement, until the last few weeks, when we put up replacement panels, along with a host of other work.

I looked around outside and found that the downspout was misaligned with the drainpipe. It's been windy all day and raining all night. I cobbled together a funnel out of an aluminum foil pan, which seems to be working.

In retrospect, we recall seeing occasional small amounts of water at the bottom of the west wall, but we had never done anything about it.

I'm going to defer the carpet layers from tomorrow until next week, so that I can do something about sealing the inside wall. And that means that I have to rip down the panels that we put up last weekend. Aaaargh! At least this happened before the new carpet got put down.

What has to be done to complete the basement? (Not in strict chronological order.)

• Seal the walls.
• Finish painting the trim in the basement.
• Finish painting the wall around the furnace.
• Hang the bifold doors in front of the furnace.
• Order accordion doors for the entrance; get them installed.
• Have the carpet layed.
• Finish the window well.
  
• Have the window installed.
• Install fresh paneling around the new window.
  
• Haul away the debris.
• Bring in the furniture.
• Find the people!

Work on the basement proceeds.

Our neighbor Leo helped me out with carpentry in the basement on Saturday. Emma and Delf went to Oregon on Friday for the Flock and Fiber Festival, and didn't get back until Saturday night. Leo and I stablized the framing around the furnace, put up all the paneling, routed the TV cables above the ceiling, and replaced the missing ceiling tiles.

On Sunday, we planned to paint the spare bedroom and the basement. It didn't work out as planned. Just before lunch, Emma fell off a stepstool while priming the walls of the spare bedroom, and hurt herself. She spent six hours waiting in the Emergency Room at Swedish Hospital. She has a severe contusion of the heel, and will be on crutches for a while.

Delf and I did some additional framing around the furnace, and tried to figure out what to do with the 11-foot-wide doorway into the new basement bedroom. The floor is uneven and the height of the opening varies from 74 to 76 inches. Standard doors are all 80 inches high: 82", if you buy a pre-hung door in a casing. It's not practical to cut six inches off the bottom of a hollow-core door. I think we're going to put up some plastic accordion doors for now. Not great, but it will provide some privacy and keep heat in. Eventually, we'll level the floor and build some custom doors.

Louise finished priming the spare bedroom and helped me demolish the frame around the basement window, and to seal off a 6'x6' area around the window with plastic sheeting. Dakota Concrete Cutters cut out a 39"x19" lump of concrete at the bottom of the window, dropping the bottom edge to 40" above the basement floor. Amazingly, he made almost no mess and vacuumed up most of what mess he did make, so the remaining cleanup will be easy. Milgard are coming out this afternoon to measure the hole, so that we can get a window put in.

Last night, I painted the ceiling of the spare bedroom. Emma is going to be the first tenant of the spare bedroom. There's no bathroom upstairs, where we normally sleep, and she can't climb the stairs. Last night, she slept on the fold-out couch in the living room. I'll paint the walls of the spare bedroom this afternoon, and it should be habitable by tonight.

It's a good thing that I don't start work at Atlas until next Monday. I should be able to finish the painting during the week, and the carpet should be installed towards the end of this week.

Two weeks ago, I completed a year as a contractor at Microsoft. After the permatemps lawsuits, no contractor may work more than 12 months at Microsoft without taking a 100-day break. (Contractors are free to work elsewhere, of course, during the break.)

Emma quit her job at washington Mutual the same week in order to set up her own business. It will be months before she starts making money, so it seemed prudent for me to find a full-time job.

Last week, I interviewed with Amazon. This week, I interviewed with the group at Microsoft that I just left, Atlas DMT, and Google.

Microsoft and Atlas both made very attractive offers. This afternoon, I accepted the position of Senior Software Engineer at Atlas.

I had a very good year at Microsoft in Windows Emerging Markets. I did some really interesting work on an as-yet unannounced product (some day I hope to be able to talk about what I did) and I worked on a first-class team. I have two longtime friends on the team, Muhsin and Delf, and the three of us became very close to my officemate, Dipankar. Dipankar's contract ends next week; he received two offers of fulltime jobs from Microsoft this week, and he's accepted the position on the codec team.

While I very much liked the team and the product, I'm not nearly so keen on Microsoft the company. Between full-time employment and contracts, I've spent almost 10 out of the last 13 years at Microsoft, and that's more than enough. (It seems mildly ironic to be writing this on the day of the annual Microsoft Company Meeting, celebrating Microsoft's 30th anniversary.)

Atlas is a technology company, specializing in web advertising. I'm joining a team that's working on advertising in video-on-demand. I was very impressed by the team when I interviewed there on Wednesday, and they liked me too. They were a sharp bunch of guys who conducted a well-balanced series of interview that was both testing and welcoming.

The team has been using Scrum for a while and they've migrated towards XP, which they speak highly of. I've wanted to get first-hand experience in Agile development for years. They're also using C# and .NET. After 15 years of C and C++, I'm ready for managed code. They seem to be very committed to work/life balance. Not least, they're in the International District of downtown Seattle, 3 miles from my house. Every job I've had in my 13 years of living here has required me to commute across Lake Washington.

Last weekend, we made good progress on the basement. On Saturday, Dale and Ernest helped us out, doing some demolition in the basement, and bringing loads to Goodwill and to the dump in their truck.

On Sunday, Jill and Delf helped us clean the remaining stuff out of the basement. Louise excavated a hole outside the window that we're going to enlarge. Deb, currently hors de combat with a pinched nerve, dropped by to provide moral support, as did Frank and Lyndol. Delf spent nearly twelve hours with us that day, and thanks to his experience in construction, he and I built framing around the furnace.

Peter and Lucinda have provided some cash to help cover our costs, and Deb has promised to give us some furniture as soon as we're ready to take it.

Tomorrow and Sunday, we'll have more work parties, which should largely complete the basement. We need to finish the framing, tack up some panels around the walls, add some new ceiling tiles, and do something about the ten-foot wide entry into the basement bedroom. We also need to prime and paint both the basement and the spare bedroom.

On Monday, the concrete cutters will be enlarging the basement window, so that area of the basement needs to be sealed off to stop dust blowing everywhere. We've arranged for someone to measure the opening on Monday afternoon, so that a new window can be installed ASAP. We bought carpet a week ago, and it will be installed early next week.

We still do not yet have Katrina evacuees lined up to stay with us. We have not been able to reach Roy, though we did hear early this week that nobody had seen him in the preceding week. Perhaps he's gone to New Orleans? We heard from the same source that he had mentioned Emma's offer to him, so we know he hasn't forgotten. Meanwhile, we've posted offers on several websites, such as Rainbow Relief.

Hurricane Rita is sure to swell the numbers of homeless. The best thing we can do is to finish up the basement as soon as possible, so that we're ready to take people in.

We extend our profound thanks to everyone who's helped out. (I think I've mentioned everyone. I apologize if I've left anyone out.)