We certainly filled up our weekend this week.

Saturday

On Saturday we got up, and Matthew and I went down to pick out new frames for his glasses thanks to one of the twins being helpful and breaking them for us (warranties are a good thing). While we were out we got my Venture nametag engraved, and picked up some home improvement stuff from Home Depot including a new ladder. As soon as we got back, Becca and Sarah left to go to a birthday party for one of Sarah's friends. During the party the twins and Matthew helped me mow the front lawn. And right after the party we attended an art show put on by Matthew's school showing the art that the kids have made. We then went to the park and played for a bit and then came home gave the kids baths and put them to bed. I took some pictures of the kids at the park. Joshua refused to pose which is why he is missing from the line-up. :-)

Jacob wishing daddy was pushing him on the swing.

Matt is happy playing in the sand.

Sarah making a sand hill.

Sunday

You might think Sunday is the "day of rest." If so you have never been to our house. I got up very early for a weekly Sunday meeting I have at 7:30 a.m. I then drove home to pick up Becca and the kids for church. After church we headed home where we finished mowing the front yard, put down some moss killer, did some trimming with the weed whacker and I got the fun of removing wasp nests from one side of the house. I then had to change back into a shirt and tie for a youth program taking place at the church that night.

There are sometimes I wonder why I am so tired at the end of the weekend. Reading the above brings a lot of focus onto that problem.

• Nick Malik has posted a series of articles on SOA governance. Basically he points out that software is good at management, but not at governance. After spending some time over the last few weeks evaluating various software packages I would have to agree with him.
• I find it interesting that the European Union is claiming that it will impose harsher penalties in the future on antitrust cases due to their view that Microsoft hasn't quickly moved to comply. (via Bloomberg) I am on the side of Microsoft here. The EU gave Microsoft very unclear directives as to what had to be done to comply and now is trying to further punish the company because the steps that were taken didn't match what the EU wanted. That is why it needs to be spelled out.
• For the past few months I have been getting counseling for depression. This was a difficult choice for me because of the stigma that can be attached to talking with a professional about your problems. At the same time I also met with a psychiatrist to approach the depression as medical problem as well. The results have been very good. The main thing I have noticed is that I can recognize the signs that I'm getting depressed quicker and work to change the circumstances so that the depression doesn't overwhelm me. The medicine has also been very helpful in helping me to control it. I guess the main lesson I've learned is that it is better to approach the problem in multiple ways and it won't go away if you try and ignore it. In any case I feel much better these days and can tell in my work and interactions with Becca and the kids.
• Jeff Atwood addresses and interesting question when asks if Open Source software is so great where all of the billionaires are? He makes some good points. I have often wondered if the problem with Open Source software isn't more a value proposition problem. What I mean by that is that we often value something more if we paid for it, rather than were given. There are exceptions of course when it comes to heirlooms and the like. I was thinking about this last week when it comes to financing college. If I pay for all of the costs for my children to go to college will they work as hard at it, and value the learning they are getting less than if they have to pay at least some of the costs themselves. I think they will and that is why I think people aren't making a fortune in the Open Source software market. It is an interesting thought at the very least.

This weekend we took the Venture Crew out to hike the Dungeness Spit. The Dungeness Spit is a tongue of land that runs about 5 miles out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca with a lighthouse at the end. It is a very nice, although long hike and is well worth a visit.

We started out early in the morning and went to see Deception Pass first. It was a beautiful morning, and it was fun to walk across the bridge. I took  some pictures to show the bridge and the current running through the pass.

Here is a view of the bridge.

I took a picture to show how fast the current was through the pass.

We then took a ferry over to the peninsula and drove up to the town of Sequim where the spit is located. Once we parked we took a nice trail that took us down to the actual spit. I took a picture at the beginning of the hike of the crew members that went on the hike. Don't they look happy?

Here is a shot giving some idea of how long the distance the hike is. You can see the spit going off to the right in the picture and along the horizon.

At the end of the spit is this beautiful lighthouse that was built 150 years ago.

We didn't get home until the evening, but I think the hike was well worth it. I hope the youth did as well so they can help convince their friends that the activities we do are fun, and educational.

After a few days off I am back to blogging. It has been an interesting few days. I have been really busy getting ready for some upcoming scouting activities the youth in my church are involved in.

Before I write my thoughts this morning I want to put in a disclaimer. All of my thoughts today are political in nature. While I feel they are well thought out I realize they may be offensive to some. Consider this as a warning before reading further.

• I have said on many occasions I am a conservative. While I generally take that view point on issues, I find myself in agreement with one of my coworkers today that Alberto Gonzales needs to resign, or be fired. I doubt President Bush will do that as he has proven to be quite stubborn. The Attorney General looked incredibly incompetent yesterday in his testimony before congress. At the same time I do feel compelled to point out that congress should not be looking into this mess in the first place. Attorneys serve as the pleasure of the President and congress has no role here. Of course this is different from when Clinton was President when interns served for the pleasure of the President. :-)
• After the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech this week there have been many discussions regarding gun control and the 2nd Amendment. I am a believer in the right to own guns, but I have always been of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with requiring background checks and getting licensed just like we have to in order to drive. In my mind this licensing could involve some safety courses, as well as testing prior to obtaining the license. Much like a driver's license the bearer should have to get a renewal every few years. I also believe all guns should be registered, once again like a car.
• Finally this week, I applaud the Supreme Court on their decision about late term abortions. It is important to keep in mind they simply said the law that was passed by the U.S. Congress was constitutional. No matter what the press says, women are not losing their rights here. At the time late term abortions are performed there is no health benefit and this type is murder.

I have to admit that after the shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday I am not really in the mood to post my normal combination of random thoughts. My heart goes out to all of the people impacted by this horrific event. I would hope that judgements on the actions of the police and administration can hold off for a bit so that an investigation can take place. My prayers are with those impacted.

• This will be a short post today. I am attending a deep dive lab for some work I am doing on operational excellence today and tomorrow. I am hoping the information will be useful and applicable to my project.
• I want to do an article on operational test cases. The longer I work in IT the more surprising it is to me that deployment and monitoring aren't considered as test cases, equally as important as testing the code.
• The Mariner's took 2 of 3 from the Rangers this weekend. So far this season the only series the Mariners have lost was to Mother Nature. The best news if you are a fan is that the offense woke up and scored some runs.

• BugTrap is a tool designed to catch unhandled errors and exceptions and deliver the reports to remote servers. It looks like a pretty cool tool that I need to dig more into as part of some work I am doing on monitoring and exception handling. (via Larkware News)
• As I have been working on a complete monitoring solution for a project I am on, I have been giving a lot of thought to change detection alerting and management. In my experience when troubleshooting issues in test and production it is quite easy to make several changes in a short period of time from raising lo levels to modifying an end point. It can be difficult to determine all that was changed since many of these configurations are being done under the pressure of an outage. It is important to be able to capture all of these changes so that they either rolled back after the outage, or marked as the new "gold" standard configuration.
• Nick Malik addresses if a "quick win" software project is really an oxymoron. From my time in IT I have to agree with him. Most of the time when a project is deployed in an expedited fashion the time is either spent fixing it in production or doing continual small upgrades for the rest of time. As I tell my daughter, do your work quickly and well, but don't do it so fast the quality suffers because it takes a lot more time to redo the work rather than do it right the first time.
• On the heels of my entry about mobile data centers a few weeks ago comes an article about "bathtub computing." The idea is that computer chips run more efficiently, cooler, and use less energy when they are submerged in oil. This research has been done by Very-PC, a company in the UK. I had two thoughts as I read the article.

1. Oil must be the key, I know someone who dropped a computer in the bathtub once and the performance went down...way down. Of course his speed at getting out of the bath went way, way up! :-)
2. I wonder if you can recover the oil and use it to make dinner. "Look, my computer is faster, and here are some doughnuts." You've got to love those multi-purpose products.

• Wow! It certainly looks like Felix Hernandez is the real deal. I complete game 1 hit shut-out is very impressive, but especially in Fenway Park against one of the most hyped players coming into the league this year. If the rest of the Mariners' pitchers can just hold serve the team should have a good year.
• With IT shops having to cut costs, how can companies reduce the price of maintenance? Joel Dehlin addresses this and has some good ideas. He does a great job with his ideas. I would add that by designing you systems to be highly flexible the costs for maintenance should go down. It is also much better to spend time up front and ensure that it is very clear what the expectations of a system are so that it doesn't have to get tweaked forever.
• While I love the new UI in Office 2007 I know it isn't for everybody. Many users have trouble finding the locations of common features. If this is a problem for you there is now a tool that restores the menus from Office 2003.
• Joe McKendrick addresses the issue that many companies have limited SOA experience and no way to measure success. This isn't a surprise to me for a few reasons.

1. There still isn't one standard definition for what a good SOA is...well unless you read my series on this a while back. :-)
2. It seems to me that companies aren't good at knowing what the cost of each individual application they have is. If you can't break down your current costs then it is really impossible to determine the ROI of SOA.
3. It is interesting that successful SOA implementations seem to be directly correlated to the level of governance. I think that is a key point, because a good SOA requires disciplined governance to ensure the value is truly being generated and maximized. Since governance is difficult and can be seen as a roadblock to implementation it is also easy to marginalize the governance components.

• My wife and I attended a parent group meeting for my daughters school last night. It is a sad commentary to me that in a school with 500 students only 8 parents bothered to show up. If things don't change it looks like there won't be a parent group next year. Both my wife and I are signed up for positions, but it needs more than just a couple of parents to be successful.
• The NFL announced the regular season schedule today. It looks like the Seahawks will have a tough road ahead in order to make the play-offs this year:

• Microsoft Patterns & Practices has released some excellent source control guidance for use in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. I have been reviewing it as a part of a project I am on and there is some great material available. (via J.D. Meier)
• Since I teased Gianpaolo about his hard life in having to travel to Brazil I felt I should mention his write-up on the questions that companies are asking about SAAS. I was interested in the areas of trust and composition as I feel those will be important to address in order to help SAAS take off. Gianpaolo was also nice enough to comment about my entry.
• Harry has been doing some work with the Guidance Automation Toolkit recently. He makes some interesting points about how user un-friendly it is and some improvements that are coming. I think he raises some valid points about why it might have been easier to define a recipe in the code instead.
• Finally this morning the Mariners lost 14-3 to Boston yesterday. I think that Hargrove needs to remember that if you are down by more than 1 touchdown you have to put the ball in the endzone and not kick the field goal. I think that two strait losses (6 days apart though) by a 9-0 and a 14-3 score doesn't bode well for the hometown nine.

• How cool would it be to have an Internet connected GPS? The Dash Express is going to let us find out. What I really like about this is that it can suggest alternate routes to avoid traffic. It gets information based on historical information about the route and based on information from other Dash users so it may take awhile to get enough users to make that a useful service. Since I commute about 3-4 hours per day this would be a product I would be very interested in. (via O'Reilly Radar)
• Joe McKendrick discusses using the U.S. government as a model for SOA governance. I was tempted to rip this idea, but he makes some interesting points. Just like the government he breaks up the governance model into 3 parts:

1. Executive - IT Operations
2. Legislative (Executive Management and Board of Directors)
3. Judicial (Enterprise Architectural Boards)

Of course in theory this model only works if all three branches are equal. That doesn't seem to be that way when one branch is made up of the executives and board. There are no checks and balances in this scenario so I wouldn't take it too far. NOTE: I will refrain from comparing this analogy to our current political climate.

• I am really exited to have BioShock release on the XBOX360. It is worthwhile to check out the trailers. What I find very interesting is that the creatures in the game act much more like real creatures displaying real intelligence. What that means is that many of the creatures in the game won't attack you unless you get to close or attack them yourself. This will definitely be a game NOT to play in front of the children as it is quite graphic, but looks great!
• There have been several comments (here, here, and here) about the idea of a Blogger's Code of Conduct. While I find many of the reasons for this proposal compelling I just can't get on board. To me, the freedom to communicate on the Internet freely is one of its greatest strengths and weaknesses. The way I see it, you can't legislate civility.

It seems to me that holidays are also more fun when you have children. They get so excited about the upcoming celebration, and the magic of having visits from Santa, the Easter Bunny, The Great Pumpkin, whatever...

In our house we have 4 kids and they were so happy yesterday morning to get into their baskets. It was very cute. I tried to take some photos, with mixed results as you can see.

Jake (left) and Josh (right) having breakfast.

This was the best of multiple attempts to take a nice picture of the kids in their Easter attire.

From left to right we have Josh (2), Jake (2), Sarah (6), and Matthew - looking unhappy (4).

In our family what we do is have the kids leave their baskets on the dining room table just prior to going to bed. At some point during the night the Easter Bunny comes and in the morning they have full baskets and in this case new outfits to wear to church. It is hard to see in the picture above, but Matthew looked very sharp in his suit. Sarah was also very cute in her new dress.

We have our church at 9:00 a.m. so the Easter celebration was quick and then we went to church. After church we had a great dinner with ham, au-gratin potatoes, and roasted asparagus. We had an Easter Egg hunt just before bedtime. It was a fun day and I hope the kids enjoyed it.

• Microsoft released a new CTP of the Longhorn server for testers. This is in preparation for the Beta 3 release. What is cool about the CTP is that the Virtual Server and Powershell capabilities (via BetaNews. If you haven't tried it yet, Powershell is an awesome tool. I have been trying it out off and on over the past few weeks and love it.
• It looks like John Kerry and Newt Gingrich are going to meet and debate global warming and the ways congress should approach it. I admit that I am a skeptic and a right winger, but I would rather see an intelligent debate among respected scientists than two politicians (via Redstate).
• Skyscrapr has an interesting entry about creating a service-layer separation of concerns. As the article points out a strength in this approach is having multiple classes to handle the same message type. I can see several scenarios where this could be very powerful.
• I really am too much of a nerd, but I found some emails for Nardo Pace, an engineer for the Empire, to be hilarious. My favorite is an exchange between a stormtrooper and Nardo about the accuracy of blaster rifles (via Somethingawful).
• And finally this morning, we send out good wishes to Gianpaolo Carro in the difficulty he has working for Microsoft and talking with people about SAAS. I don't know how you do it Gianpaolo. :-) I'm sure there are people in the company who would be willing to assist you with your hardship.

• It looks like Microsoft will be joining Apple in selling DRM free music. It will be very interesting to see how this works out. On a related note, I have been very happy with the Zune purchased for my family. So far I have had no problems and think the interface is great!
• The Talking Points Memo makes an interesting argument that the majority of Democrats will support any of the top three candidates running for President, but the majority of Republicans wouldn't support their top three candidates right now. I kind of have to agree with that. As a Republican, I am not really jazzed by Giuliani, McCain, or Romney. That probably explains the momentum behind Fred Thompson at the moment.
• Ray Ozzie gives an interesting interview, including his vision of the future of software to Knowledge@Wharton. Even if you are a Microsoft hater I would still read the interview as I believe he correctly discusses the direction that the software industry has to take.
• I'm not sure how many of you have looked in the semantic web, otherwise known as Web 3.0. If not Scoble discusses it briefly on his blog today. It really looks like Radar Networks is doing some interesting work. It is worth checking into.
• It looks like the Mariners won't go 162-0 this year. They finally dropped a game to the A's last night. The funny thing is that while the Mariners won the series 2-1 they were outscored 13-12 in the series. Of course a 9-0 loss will help with that.

Based on some conversations I have with coworkers over the past several weeks, plus some time thinking on my own I am not sure SOA is the dramatic revolution that it is claimed to be.

I realize that there are numerous definitions for what SOA is, from every IT pundit, as well as many of the big software vendors, but are we really making a dramatic leap? It seems like baby steps are being taken in most cases.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing though. I believe that as parts of legacy applications are broken off or even as interfaces are exposed to allow for common messaging that we are gradually working toward a true SOA evolution. Joe McKendrick writes that many companies have what he calls an Agglomeration of Services (AOS) instead of a true Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). I agree with him, but ask if that is terrible? It seems to me that at least companies are starting to think in terms of services. Once the value starts to be seen then it is a smaller leap to go from AOS to SOA over going from legacy applications to SOA. So while an AOS isn't nearly as efficient as a true SOA it still gets enterprises moving in the right direction.

I think that Joe does a great job in breaking down the differences quite well. One thing that really strikes me is that he calls AOS reactive and SOA proactive. In my experience this describes many enterprises quite accurately. The problem with being proactive is that the ROI isn't there immediately. That is why in my opinion a true SOA will never get built as a part of a business project, but instead must be centrally funded as an IT infrastructure initiative. In that way the business can continue onward and IT can build out a SOA using best practices and show the ROI that way.

I don't know how many IT professionals read this blog, but I am curious if you have seen companies approach this differently. If so I would like to hear about it, because if I am wrong I would like to know.

• Keith Richards admitted to snorting his father's ashes during a drug binge. On one hand that is a really sick thing to do, but on the other he really nose his father now (groan!). He has now come out and said that it was a joke. The interesting part to me is I doubt anyone would of been surprised if it was true.
•  I see that Al Gore bans the press from attending his speeches. What are you afraid of Al? Could it be that someone might question your "facts" on global warming. We can't have that now can we?
• The Seattle Mariners are now 2-0. Normally I wouldn't read too much into that since baseball has such a long season, but I think it means a lot more when they have beat a team that had their number last year (2-17).
• Sam Gentile wrote about why he decided to spawn a new blog. He makes points I have thought about myself. Since I use a public blog I feel free to write about various aspects of my life. Of course there are limits, but those have been self-imposed. I decided fairly early on that this blog would be a mixture of technical items, sports, humor, and whatever I am thinking about that day.

• What a great game yesterday! Felix Hernandez looked tough! He pitched 8 strong innings only giving up 3 hits and getting 12 strikeouts. The Mariners won 4-0 and so started off the season on the right foot. Kudos to our manager Rick for an awesome team morale event.
• Congratulations to the University of Florida for winning the national championship. While I picked 3 of the final 4 I had UCLA winning so ended up back in the pack in the team pool.
• Mark Cuban has some interesting thoughts on the music business. In my mind the way to make it really work is to use some sort of flash drive that can be plugged into your computer, a music player, car stereo, and home system that allows you to listen to music whenever and wherever you want in as simple a fashion as possible. I would be willing to buy into a model like that.
• I read a good article summarizing the search for Jim Gray. While it ended up being unsuccessful it is still fascinating to see how hard work and technology were combined to do a very in-depth search for him.

• It's Opening Day for Major League Baseball today! Our team will be attending the Mariners game today. Hopefully we will see Seattle get off on the right track and defeat Oakland, something they couldn't do very much last year.
• Nick Malik has an interesting entry up about trusting your experts in IT. I agree that when the business comes to IT with the problem and solution that there is an issue. However, I would argue that the solution should be developed collaboratively with the business and IT to ensure that it is the best fit. On a side note, Nick is a heck of a game show host (see below), and Alex Trebeck should be afraid...very afraid.
• We had the opportunity to meet at the IT Architecture Community on Friday afternoon. It was great to meet and interact with some many of my fellow architects within IT. The event was very well organized, with informative presentations, and a fun game of Architect Jeopardy to finish the day off.
• My church had their semi-annual General Conference this weekend. It was great to hear from my church leaders and feel of the great desire they have to help us become better people.
• Jacob, the older of my two twins decided to climb into our shower this weekend and cover himself head to toe with conditioner. Of course this took place after he had gotten his bath and was all ready for bed. Sometimes you just have to laugh as a parent though so I got to takes off his slippery clothes and give him a quick shower. On the plus side his whole body now has a nice glow. :-)