Busy January Weekend

We had a "busy but full of rewarding experiences" kinda weekend.

Slushy, slippery, icy training run for me on Saturday that was supposed to be 15 miles but turned into 13 as the sidewalks and trails became more and more slippery with the freezing rain.

We then hit dim sum with the Rouses to re-fill the stomachs.

Hit the World of Wet Pets aquarium store for a new T5 light for the new 90 gallon and some Rotala indica for the older 55 gallon. I do need to post on our aquariums...

On Sunday, Trisha raced the Vancouver Lake Half Marathon (picture above) along with Ronda and Stacey. She did amazing job posting a 5 minute PR to finish in 1:57...on what may have been a long course! She is well on her way to nailing the Chuckanut 50 km in March. As well I have been bit by the need to race (cannot let Trisha have all the fun) so I am planning to run a 5km next Sunday to get the rust out of the joints.

While Trisha was racing, Cole was off to a LaserTag birthday party.
Leah and I went to church. Then I had the privilege of doing a "date" lunch with Leah at McDonalds. She loved the idea of just hanging out with her dad and I was proud to be out on the town with my little girl.

Back out the door to check out the Japanese American New Years celebration.

We watched a demonstration of Jared's Obukan Kendo club, Taiko and mochitsuki or mochi pounding...which Cole volunteered to help out with. All very cool cultural experiences and some quite tasty. Both Cole and Leah found the drums quite interesting commenting about being able to feel the drum beat in their stomachs :-)

I then snuck out for a short run to make it back in time for the annual business meeting of our church called Prime Time. I also had the opportunity to step up and take a position on the church board which I am quite excited about. For a retrospective on what occurred at our church last year check out: Life at Grace Point.

Phew...I propose 3 day weekends are needed to squeeze all this in for future reference :-)

This morning we were greeted with snow...again...in Portland. Beautiful!

EclipseCon Committer Hackathon

At EclipseCon 2008, we are organizing a Committer Hackathon that will run in parallel to the conference program.

Never heard of hackathons? Wikipedia defines it this way:

A hackathon refers not simply to one time hacks, but to a specific time when many people come together to hack on what they want to, how they want to - with little to no restrictions on direction or goal of the programming.

For all the details and for a great FAQ that Jeff crafted up please see the EclipseCon Hackathon page.

Events like these that I have been involved in the past have been challenging, rewarding and FUN.

When you need an interrupt from the technical talks, I would encourage Eclipse committers to bring your laptops, ideas and talents to come do some hacking.

EclipseCon 2008 Conference Program

The EclipseCon 2008 Conference program is available on the conference site for all to start to pick and choose your selections from the smorgasbord of tutorials, long talks, and short talks that are available.

And, yes, the food metaphor is on purpose...still planning EclipseCon exercise :-)

Something new for the conference this year is that there is no additional cost for tutorials.

As the Program Committee member responsible for the Committer and Contributor track I would like to point out a particularly interesting and valuable tutorial: API Design Workshop.

Besides the obvious value of this tutorial, the reason I bring it up is that you need to sign up in advance for this workshop and come prepared to participate to make the learning experience as rich as possible.
Please see the wiki for more details.

And I really do not know how it is possible to have any breaks in your schedule ;-)
If you are not in a technical session you should be out running...but then I guess you could run to the mashup? :-)

Introducing the Eclipse Architecture Council

I have an action item from the last Eclipse Architecture council meeting: Announce ourselves and describe what we are trying to achieve.

We believe that there are committers out there who do not know that the council exists. We are working to change this.

Who is the Architecture Council?
The council is composed of senior Committers with a proven track record of innovation, motivation and dedication to Eclipse. A list is available here.

What is the Architecture Council?
Cynically you could say it is a bunch of people who have worked on Eclipse for a long time and like talking to each other once a month.
While these might be two of the identifying traits of the council :-) we are actually on a group mission:

From [1], the council is "... responsible for the development, articulation, and maintenance of the Eclipse Platform Architecture and ensuring the Principles of the Development Process through mentorship."

From [2] the council is "... involved in both technical and process aspects of the projects in its quest to ensure the long-term technical health of the Eclipse platforms because the social and process structure of a project has been shown to have a direct impact on the technical quality of its extensible frameworks and exemplary tools."

For more please read here.

How is the Architecture Council going to achieve its mission?
"The Council will be as effective and useful as we make it." Rather obvious but it is amazing how often the simple truisms are overlooked.
We all have varied reasons for being involved with Eclipse but we all share a common goal: the desire to see continued technological success and innovation occur at Eclipse fostered by a healthy and vibrant Committer community.
The job of the Council is to look out beyond the current work and ensure that our processes and environment foster success rather than impede progress. Instead of just listing the problems (which is always the easiest path), we need to tackle head-on the issues that impact Eclipse, including but definitely not limited to release trains, UI consistency and project diversity.

The Eclipse committers can contribute to the success of the council by keeping us accountable and ensuring we are responding to any issues with the viability and evolution of Eclipse. Committers can communicate issues to the council using the eclipse.org-committers@eclipse.org mailing list or a Bugzilla entry against the Community product and the Architecture Council component.

To be successful on our mission the council needs to react to the current and future successes and challenges to Eclipse and to keep informed of developments from the committers. As well, we are tasked to lead by example within our own projects and within the role of mentor.

Please watch our work...it is guaranteed to be interesting...

Building picture credit: http://www.bigfoto.com/themes/architecture/index.htm

New Forest Park Maps

I love knowing the mileage I am going to run and also figuring out my mileage and splits after I am done for the day. Knowing where the hills and streams are is a total bonus as well.

So I am happy to see a new set of Forest Park maps that I can print out, spread out on the table and dream and plan to my little hearts content.

I was pointed to these from the Oregon Live blog and a post from Kelly Johnson. Kelly does a great job of talking about how the maps came into existence and all the work Erik Goetze did to make the maps a reality.

Check them out, print them out and hit the trails!

Jazz Team Blog

As indicated in a previous post, Jazz has opened the floodgates and is accessible to everyone.

I neglected to mention the Jazz team blog.

Point your favorite feed reader at the Jazz team blog: https://jazz.net/blog/

Numerous developers working on Jazz technology have posted and are planning to post within this forum to keep the community engaged and informed.

Watch, learn, get excited and get involved :-)

The Performance is about to begin...please take your seat

Rational Team Concert Beta 2a (or Beta 2eh to follow the Eclipse tradition) has been released and:

Jazz.net is now open to everyone!
Everyone is now welcome to join Jazz.net. A special thank-you to all our Rational customers and partners, the university researchers and students, and everyone else who was part of the Jazz.net early pilot program. (from Jazz.net this morning).

Jazz is built on top of Eclipse by some of the same people who were and are involved in the development and success of Eclipse.
I have had the privilege of being involved with the Jazz development for the last couple of years and watching it evolve into a tool that helps me build software more effectively.

So the title of this blog is not necessarily correct: With Jazz you do not just have to be a passive member of the audience.
Rather, you are invited to pick up your instrument, step up on the stage and start collaborating with the rest of us :-)

Spirit of the Marathon

Thought I would spread the word as this movie looks interesting and is only on for one night so it is easy to miss.

Spirit of the Marathon

From the PR web site:

Spirit of the Marathon is the first ever non-fiction feature film to capture the drama and essence of the famed 26.2 mile running event. Filmed on four continents, the movie brings together a diverse cast of amateur athletes and marathon luminaries.

As six unique stories unfold, each runner prepares for and ultimately faces the challenge of the Chicago Marathon. More than a sports movie, Spirit of the Marathon is an inspirational journey of perseverance and personal triumph; a spectacle that will be embraced by runners and non-runners alike.

I have not seen more than the trailer but I am planning to check out the movie on January 24th as my schedule allows.
I found viewing the trailer on YouTube to be the most reliable:

Mt Hood Snow Day

Cole and Leah have been begging to hit some snow over the Christmas break so today we headed for the hills and made it above the snow line.

We checked out the Mt Hood Ski bowl to do some tubing but we were underwhelmed. The hill was small, busy and not really cheap ($13 for 2 hours per person). Compared to the tubing we did last year at Mt Bachelor for Kai and Renata's wedding it looked rather lame and tame.

So we jumped in the car and drove to the Snow Bunny Sno Park . On weekends and some holidays there is a concession here and it costs $10 to use as part of the Summit Ski Area. But today it was free and perfect for our little snow hounds.

We made a snow fort and slid down some hills and generally enjoyed a nice short peek at winter.
Ended with a nice trip to "south of the border"...Taco Bell :-)