On the Lookout for Bugs

I'm always on the lookout for bugs. Since EMF has so few of them, I have better luck finding them in my garden. The big dragon flies are laying eggs now and this one doesn't seem to have her partner to help her:


If you time it just right, you can catch them in mid flight!


They're quite the amazing creatures dating back to the earliest days on earth when life first took to the skies. Good solutions have real staying power on this planet!

Closely Supervised Work

I recently gave up my office at the Toronto lab to work at home full time and to also enjoy the tax benefits of having a home office. You might ask yourself though, who supervises whether you are really working when you are at home and not just puttering in the garden of Eden, or is it the garden of good and evil? Anyway, let me assure you, my every keystroke is closely monitored at home more so than at the office.


As you can see Amber prefers to be on top and is far more vigilant than Ruby in her supervisory duties. You can imagine that neither of the girls likes it when I need to use the mouse, being right handed and all, so for their comfort and enjoyment, I bought a very cool USB ThinkPad-style keyboard with the UltraNav button right on the keyboard. Now they can rest their little chins and paws on either arm in style and in comfort without all those annoying lurches for the mouse. It's good to keep your supervisors as happy as possible!

The Road Not Taken

I'm sad that Kenn Hussey has left IBM.


I'm also sad that Wassim Melhem is leaving too.


Both will be working at Embarcadero. My sadness is somewhat tempered by fact that they will be working on technologies that involve EMF, so I expect that I will continue to work with them both.

All this makes me introspective and brings to mind one of my favorite poem's by Robert Frost titled "The Road Not Taken," which of course calls for a gratuitous photo I took on Saturday.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.