Binary in an Analog World

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open the book to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"Sometimes this is natural and clear; at other times it can cryptic."

The C Programming Language, Second Edition
by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie.
Prentice Hall, Inc., 1988.
ISBN 0-13-110362-8

* Thanks to a sweet doublet made by theblueleader, I now don't look like a scrub. Photographic evidence:
( Read more... )

* I was given the The William Blackfox Website Awards, Best Overall Website for my work on the Atlantian Rapier website.

* Four of my five children are in school this year. My wife starts her celebration soon.

* The banner that lisettelaroux and I made got an squeees, which was the expected outcome.
( Read more... )

Questions from the Pink Leader:

1. Why the bunny?

So, Kynny said my arms should be something that should represent me. I'm very "right or wrong", "yes or no", "black or white". Hense... the colors.

The bunny is in reference to my tons of kids. "You guys are breeding like rabbits." A rampant rabbit was as close as I could get without triggering the "Bimbo Afronte" response.

2. Have you gotten a replacement for the totaled RX-8 yet, and if so what?

Yes. A Volvo C30. Its a two-door sporty hatchback. It has more power and its more comfortable, but not as fun to drive because its front-wheel drive.

3. If Liam had been a girl, what Irish name would she have been given?

Not all of the kids have Irish names.

4. How did you and Carrie Ann meet, and given both of your pasts, what signaled that this time it was the real thing?

A single parent social network. We were both sorta flailing around with little to no social interaction. Its very hard to go out on a date with an infant. It didn't start as dating initially, mostly it was nice to talk to someone that was going through similar issues. Everything felt right very early on, even though we were both trying to not fall for the other, well... we did.

5. If, at the next event, you could only fight one person, who would it be and why?

Laura, after having put in biomechanical arms so she can stand to hold a sword for longer than a few minutes. The last time we fought, I saw the glimmer of the angel of death. Damn our bodies preventing us from doing what we want.

I'd like to fight more of the "old guard". Padraig, Sir Daemon, Niall... etc. I have been able to fight a number of the original rapier folks thanks to Gardiner's Companee. There is so much focus on "win win win" with some the younger crowd that I get bored, regardless of the outcome. The fights are not fun. When I have fought Alan, Jimmy, or Robert, or Gerlach, the fights were fun.

The best fight I've had in quite some time was with Alice at the recent Sapphire Joust. She chose to fight left-handed like me because of my injury. It was the first time I walked away from the field with my opponent by my side, laughing so hard my sides hurt. It was pure bliss.

I want more of that.

My first time acting as a sheep:

Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

These questions are from Belfebe:
1. How has parenthood changed you?

Just parenthood, not that much. My mom has done home-daycare since I was a toddler. I grew up surrounded by little kids. People always ask "How do you deal with 5 kids?". Except for the cleaning & scheduling, 5 kids is easier than 1. Built-in playmates are a godsend. The great short horde is a "yours, mine, and ours" set. I have two by blood, five by love.

2. What has been the biggest challenge you have ever changed?

Being a single dad. I was the primary care giver for child #4 for multiple years, starting at 1 year old. His mom and I separated not long after his 1 year birthday. I went from being extremely work focused (80+ hours a week), to focusing on very little but my son. I lost over 30 lbs during that period of time. Of course, I've gained nearly all of it back since getting remarried.

Being a single parent is rough. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

3. If you could go back in time, is there anything you would like to tell your younger self?

In order:
a) Being right isn't always right.
b) Never intermingle friendship and money.
c) Work to live, not live to work.

4. Have you ever considered a career in piracy?

Yes. I was my dad's movie going partner growing up. My mom hates movie theaters. We saw every shoot-em-up, war, spy, drug dealer movie that came out from the time I was 4 until I left for college. On the way home, we always critiqued the movie from a "what did the bad guys do wrong" point of view. We discussed what they could have done better, how they could have avoided getting caught, what the good guys should have picked up on and didn't...

My dad always said I was either going to be a Spook or a member of a Cartel. I've held a security clearance, worked indirectly for multiple spook agencies, and will probably end up doing it again after I get tired of startup life. I like to think of it as I was a spook that got paid better. :)

5. How did you and your wife meet?

My wife is (was?) a widower, I'm a divorcee. We were both primary care givers to our kids. We met through a single parent social network.

My children are all taking dance this year, even the boys. They enjoy it so I'm happy. At least that was the case until I sat down and listened to the songs they were dancing to. The song in question is Greased Lightning, from the 70s movie Grease. You know the song, "Why this car is automatic, It's systematic, It's hydromatic, It's Greased Lightning!"

The song starts out alright enough, but mid-way through I look at my wife and ask "Did they just say what I think they said?" Another round through the chorus and I stop the CD so I can rewind and verify that I'm not going crazy.

Check out these choice quotes that my 5 year olds are to sing along with:

"You know that ain't no shit we'll be getting lots of tit In Grease Lightning"

"You are supreme the chicks'll cream for grease lightning"

"With new pistons, plugs, and shocks I can get off my rocks You know that I ain't bragging she's a real pussy wagon Grease lightning"

Its been a few days, so this is from memory, which isn't so good these days.

( Alan )

( Freddy )

( Alan (C&T) )

( Roland (C&T) )

( Alice )

Kingdom Crusades was a ton of fun. The fighting started with a populace tourney, followed by a champion's tourney, then a melee, then a champions melee, then an open list. I was asked earlier this week to be on the Champion's team, and I was nervous for a while. I've never had others rely on my fighting, so this was a first.
( Polulace Tourney )
( Champion's Tourney )
( Melees )
( Marshals Court )
( Active Marshaling Sucks )

New people - The new people (Joe & Rebecca) were back. I worked with them on basic footwork & bladework. They are coming along pretty good. Master Robert took over for me, which let me get quite a bit more fighting in this week than last week. I'm pretty happy with their progress.

lisettelaroux - Working on her confidence issues still. We fought for a while, working on a number of different things, and she seemed to have fun at the end. Lisette got very frustrated with me at one point because she did what she was told and it didn't work as well as she wanted. attack_laurel made the suggestion to to Lisette to think less, which worked *really* well. Following Sir Corby's suggestions, instead of slowing my fight down, I worked on shots & footwork that I am less comfortable with. Hopefully, this makes it so both Lisette and I gain from the fighting.

Alice - I've noticed that none of her closing shots are actually threatening. Flat out ignoring them works just fine, since I know she is going to do something different when she actually throws a "real" shot. As such, she is using far more energy than I am, and I have the advanced knowledge of where she is likely going to be. I had a hard time pulling my shots because she was closing very fast, far faster than usual tonight. After the forth stiff shot in a row, I sat myself, even though she wasn't concerned at all. I don't like hitting hard, even if it didn't hurt & was an accident.

rolanddem - I tried to not let him control the range & tempo, which worked out better than it had in the past. He was using his monster sword, which required massive amounts of work on my part when using my 40". I switched to my 30 and was able to control his sword better. I need to work on owning the fight with Roland. When I take tempo & control range, it works FAR better. Easier said than done, and I'm willing to bet he knows most all of my tells by now...

Alan - Ah, Alan. We had the floor to ourselves, so I tried moving. As much as I could, I didn't fight linearly. I had a number of nice off angle shots, including a favorite of Alan's, the rising cross shot while dropping back. My "line" defense is decent. My linear shots are pretty accurate. However, Alan won't let me fight there. So, I need to continue working on non-linear fighting.

I have been quite sick for the last few days. I left work early on Thursday with a 103 degree fever. Of course, it has rotated through the rest of the family since then, which made this weekend oh so awesome. I've been unable to sleep much, rotating through the chills & then drenched in sweat and back for two days does that to ya. I was not able to concentrate for that long, so working on the site I promised rolanddem a while ago is out, and so is trying to teach myself to sew. (Kinda hard to sew if you soak the fabric in the process)

But I can browse the web. Its better than watching the infomercials that are on every channel at 3:37 in the morning.

I started out with reading up on Walsingham, since the book pinkleader gave me is interesting, but is rather dry. (Best taken in short stints... and not while sick, hard to concentrate) Well, that lead me to the Gunpowder Plot Society where I read more about Guy Fawkes. Which, btw, is a rather interesting plot that might have almost worked. The primary sources available on the GPS site discussing the investigation & interrogation of Fawkes is pretty interesting...

Anyways, that lead me to the ECW, which lead me to the ECW re-enactors in the states.

That looked kinda interesting. So, I went about reading on one of the sites about how to become a musketeer. And of course, that is where I came across this:

"buy your own so that you can spend those cold winter evenings when there aren't any battles polishing and rubbing down your barrel, lubricating your ramrod and waxing your butt"

Yes, re-enactors are weird.

Today, we had two new people come to practice. I worked with them for a while on the basics. We've had a ton of new people coming to practice lately. Thats great, I'm glad to have new blood. More people to fight the better. Only downside is I don't get to fight as much as I would like. This week, I got in two fights.

My first fight was with Sir Vlad, who has a great control of range. I was alright if I could keep him at *my* preferred range, but he's pretty good at putting me in position to make it hard to keep that up. He's not a knight for being good at knitting, thats for sure. :)

My second fight was Cut & Thrust with Master Alan. We fought for what seemed like a half hour, but was probably much less time. I was completely exhausted after fighting him. I worked *way* harder fighting him than I have in quite some time. I did quite a bit better than last time, but I still have quite a ways to go.

Two things I need to do:
1) I need to make a mask insert similar to Jimmy's so I can fight C&T before geting a helm.
2) I need to start some pell work. My muscles are seriously not used to the motions (both with good form, and my very poor form).

Three years ago, Chalice of the Sun God was my first event, if you exclude my first Pennsic. This event has been at the same site for the last three years. The last two years were done as a bear-pit. Honestly, I was looking for that Ponte Alto typical "fight til ya drop" format, but Geoffrey ap Clywd decided on a triple elimination tourney.

Everyone starts with single sword. After your first loss, you add a defensive secondary. After your second loss, you replace your defensive secondary with an offensive secondary. After your third loss, you were removed from the tourney.

( Connor Sinclair )

( Daniel )

( Flaithri )

( Thomas )

( Dominyk )

I did pickups afterward, but I don't remember them. I still need to pickup a notebook to put in my haversack.

I sat on the eve of becoming a Free Scholar nervous as I have been in quite some time. I was to kneel in front of a group that I have looked up to for some time, and for them to tell me that I was to become a free scholar. attack_laurel told me that I was already there, and that I should relax and enjoy the day. Easier said than done.

kpyke was my original teacher in the SCA, and my primary sponsor. He started off by saying that one of my sponsors, Sir Christian was unable to attend, but passed this message: "I know the quality of the candidate, and I need no proxy." It was touching that my third sponsor was ballistabob. He was the first person outside our local group that commented on my fighting, presenting me with my first token in the society.

There were many fights. I have notes from the fights that I took from that day, but I think I will keep those to myself. Many people said things ... things that touched me deeply.

Isobel's ... err ... my scarf is sitting atop my box of memories. I'm floored that she gave it to me. I will wear her scarf with pride, honor, and dignity. Many thanks to those that made the day what it was, a truly great day.

This weekend was the coronation of Logan and Rowan. I was sans children, which allowed me to get more fighting in than I have in quite some time. gabrell received his Queen's award of Courtesy, which put many people to tears. Many other deserving people received awards as well. Skorri has photographic proof that I was there. The photograph shows lisettelaroux looking spiffy dressed as a boy, and me looking like a bum. But my shoes are correct. :)


( Percy )
( Dante )
( Baron Jean Claude )
( Baroness Alyna )
( David (the vegan?) )
( Chris Cunning )
( Some young guy )
( Celric )

I know I fought others, but I don't remember their names (and at this point, probably not the fights). I really need to start with my notebook again, as that was quite useful.

A while ago, I told myself I would write comments about every fight I ever fight. I was doing it in a notebook, which fell apart. (Need to get a new one). Then I did it online on my personal site, but I fell out of the habit. So... I will try and start logging my fights here.

- Master Alan, single
( Alan )

- Master Kit, sword & dagger
( kit )

- Master Robert, single
( robert )

- Giacomo, my 40 vs his 30.
( jimmy )

I realized that my previous 7 things were all negative. So, I'm going to try again, this time with all positive things.

1) I am a Pokemon Master Trainer (tm). Seriously, I worked for Nintendo & WoTC for the Pokemon World Tour. In the process, I stomped on little kids dreams (We were not supposed to loose. I've had young adults come up and tell me I crushed their dreams when they were a kid, including the intern at work), I managed a rotating staff of (usually) hot models, I drove the pika-beetle, and I wore the Pikachu suit (once). Oh, and flew around the country playing video games & card games for a living. What was that mom? Playing nintendo would never amount to anything?

2) I built my first car, a "Caswell Special Construct Dune Buggy", if you ask the state of Virginia. My dad decided that the best way for me to have the proper love for cars was to build my first one. It took 3 years, and thousands of hours of work. No doors, no windshield, very little floor, gigantic motor. It was a sand rail that was street legal, and I terrorized Fairfax in it for 3 years.

3) I have only applied for 2 jobs in my life. I've had many others, but they came to me, not the other way around. On top of that, I've only been turned down three times. Twice because they thought I would be bored and would quit. That other one was because they couldn't afford my salary requirements.

4) I have been propositioned by 4 different "professional" women, but not for money. Two models, one stripper, and one hooker. They thought I was rich & powerful and could make them a star. Unfortunately, I'm not rich or powerful. I turned them all down, even the one that got access to my hotel room and was naked on my bed waiting for me to come back to my room.

5) I am published author and a professional speaker, with less than stellar written & vocabulary skills.

6) My aggression is tied to my body temperature. When I'm cold, I become passive. When I'm hot, I become aggressive. My coworkers have only just now realized this, well I guess I told them, but they want to get both a meat locker and a human sized oven, so they can adjust my attitude as the situation may require.

7) I am responsible for more than 90% of intrusion detection rules in use around the globe today. As such, the majority of attacks caught by IDSs are caught in part because of me.

1) I'm OCD. But only on a few things (so far, though more show up as I get older). One of them being software. I am *constantly* tweaking, twiddling, and toying with whatever software I'm writing at the moment. It can always be smaller, faster, better ... I have the technology, I can rebuild it. At least, thats what I keep telling myself.

2) I don't ever finish anything. Outside of school work, I think I've only "finished" 3 projects in my entire life. I either get bored before its done or I constantly fiddle with it. (See #1).

3) I don't say the right thing, like... ever. I'm regularly asked "Why are you being quiet?" Its not that I don't have things to say, its that I know I'll say the wrong thing. Nearly everything that comes out of my mouth is said wrong. I end up with my proverbial foot in my mouth often. I'm trying to get over it by thinking out every word I say prior to saying it, as kpyke can agree, its not working.

4) Every girl I've every dated, I wooed online. All of them. I've met some online, and others I knew in person prior to said wooing, but the wooing only happens behind a keyboard. I've got mad babe wooing skills on the keyboard, and none what so ever in person.

5) My parents thought I might be gay until I brought home the girl that was to be my first wife. It was after I asked her to marry me. Reason? My little sister started "dating" at 6. I was 11. My parents teased her to no end. I chose to never bring home girls because of it.

6) I am completely clueless about people. (Yes, you already knew that, but its more in depth than you think!) Once, I had a girl follow me around in awe. She tried repeatedly to get my phone number, to ask me out, basically anything to get me to be interested in her. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her, (smart, funny, hot, short, redhead... all great things...), I was just oblivious. Completely. My friends teased me for years for that. I've tried being nice when explaining things to people, only to have them in tears after only a few minutes. Things I think will be nice are not. Things I think will be harsh ... are also not. I just don't get it. I'd give up, but I'd probably upset more people than I already do.

7) I'm *VERY* lazy. The reason I got into software development is that I was that I found I was very good at taking tasks that took too much of my time and automating them such that I never had to do them again. I will much rather spend 2 weeks automating a task and never doing it again, than taking 5 minutes to do that task everyday. It bothers me to no end that people don't get automation. Why work, when you can get something else to work for you? Really? Now if I can only write some software to wash laundry and do the dishes, I'd be set.

Recently, I applied for the webmaster position for the Kingdom of Atlantia. I was turned down, only to find out that my resume & selected works didn't get forwarded as they were supposed to. Slightly annoying, but oh well.

I just finished the simplification of the Atlantian Rapier Marshal site. Here are a few screenshots up of sites that I maintain on a semi-regular basis just in case someone askes again in the future.

Atlantia's Deputy Earl Marshal for Rapier Combat. Simple, clean, professional layout for information about rapier fighting in the Kingdom of Atlantia.
( Atlantia - Rapier Marshal )

Cut & Thrust is a semi-new form of rapier fighting in the SCA. kpyke and I went through rules for cut & thrust in the various kingdoms in order to kick our kingdom in gear to allow cut & thrust. Of course, now that it is allowed, only 5 or 6 guys are doing it. Oh well, I still maintain the site, since rule differences between the various kingdoms in the SCA are pretty interesting.
( Cut & Thrust )

The office of the Newbie. The person in charge of making sure newcomers have what they need is the office of the Chatelaine. The "welcome to atlantia" site was... awful. Up until about 2 months ago, I could never get an answer as to if I was allowed to use pictures on this site. Now that I have approval, I need to redesign the site.
( Chatelaine )

In my "other" life, I maintain the website for Shmoocon, an hacker con in DC. My ticket purchasing system processed nearly $100k worth of ticket sales in a total of 3 days worth of sales.
( Shmoocon )

Only recently have I started having fun again whilst fighting. I was so focused on getting better, that I forgot that this is supposed to be fun. I was bothered that my fighting was lacking. I was bothered that my kit was far from correct. I was bothered that I had to choose between family and fighting, I couldn't have both.

This weekend, I was able to correct that.

I'm not embarrassed by my kit anymore. There is still much to be done, but I'm heading in the right direction. If all goes to plan, I should look mostly spiffy for nearly all of Pennsic.

My fighting has advanced by quite a bit. Thanks to studying Fabris, combined with added comprehension of the techniques as I read them from attack_laurel, kpyke, rolanddem, and Master Alan, I have been able to gain a much more detailed understanding of issues I had previously been struggling with.

This weekend allowed me to spend time with my family in addition to fighting. I had to leave prior to court on Sunday as Liam had a fever. But prior to that, I was able to get in all the fighting I wanted, spend time with my friends, and still talk with my wife, hang out with my kids, and wander around site for hours with Liam strapped to my back.

Oh, and I actually smiled a ton. A *TON*. On and off the field. It must have shown, as a number of people commented on it this weekend.

My performance on Sunday was something to write home about. I made it to the finals in the Arte of Defense tourney, in the process winning both Baron Alejandro's Scholar Prize (the highest placing scholar in the tourney) and the prize for the most accurate representation of a period master. Baron Alejandro had previously stated that if you bested him and was the highest placing scholar, he would make a donation in your name to the charity of your choice. Even though I did not best him, he still offered the prize to me. Since I don't have a charity in mind, I am deferring the choice to my Peer. (Hint, attack_laurel, let me know your choice, so I can let Alejandro know)

My kit, as of this weekend (Note, no doublet, as it was way too hot for that, and its borrowed for the moment anyways)


(Picture © Laura Martinez)

At this past "Night on the Town", I was raised to the rank of nobility by Val & Arielle. I had not yet registered my name and arms. During kpyke's reading of my scroll, when he got to the part where they listed off the recipeints arms, he gave the obligitory pause and the "This should be done by now..." look.

I had already been working on what I wanted for arms, and I had long since chosen my name. Of course, I had to get it past the heralds. While they were helpful, they required modification to my name. There were two problems.

1) Whilst there is "Morray", and "Murry", "Murraf" (pronounced the same as "murray"); "Murray" is not acceptable until 50ish years outside of the acceptable range.

2) "Brian McRay", already registered, is too close to "Brian Murray" in sound. As such, if I wanted to keep the "Murray" sound, I'd have to add "of" or "de".

So, hense forth, if the heralds win, in 9 months, I might be known as Brian de Morray, aka "The Eel". (Thanks Master Robert)

While I was at it, I went through the process of registering arms. Following kpyke's suggestion, I chose to make my arms register say something about myself. As my current blog subtitle-suggests, I am fairly inflexible about many things. At work, they claim I am merely a big state machine. I see only black and white, right and wrong. These make up the the chosen colors. We have 5 kids in my family. My wive drives a bus. She wants at least one more kid. 6 kids is a ton by todays standards.

I put those two things together, and I have my arms: Quarterly sable and argent, a coney rampent counterchanged.

( My submitted arms )

I have spent a decent chunk of time and energy to make the SCA around me a better place. I might have succeeded at that. I have tried, and others have smiled. That is about all I can ask.

Unfortunately, I've done so to the detriment of my own experience. My fighting has gone downhill. I regret going to some events. I don't spend as much time with my family as I would like at events. Heck, this Saturday, I only saw my kids at court.

I applied to be the kingdom webmaster, but frankly, I think it might be a good thing that I was not chosen. I would have done a good job. I would have made a positive difference. But I would have been very stressed at a number of things that don't really matter.

I need to figure out how to balance my own needs and desires with helping others to experience "the dream." I have this gigantic list of people that I want to be like, but I seem to fall short in so many ways.

Maybe I need to figure out what I want out of the SCA before I burn out before I truly get started.