Saturday, December 30, 2006

ITV Dramas - Introduction!:
This has to be the best thing shown on television that I can remember. It's called "After Thomas" and was screened on Boxing Day on ITV1. It's about a young couples struggle to cope with their son with autism.

Kyle (the child in question) is probably a bit lower-functioning that Alex. But it really struck a chord with Deb and me. It was finally something on TV relevant to our lives. In fact, I think it was probably the closest television representation of our life that I can imagine. It wasn't complete, but everything presented was pretty accurate for at least our experience of being parents of a child with autism - the little victories and defeats, the breakthroughs that lead nowhere, the difficulty of going shoe shopping.

The bits that got missed out were the trauma of the diagnosis (although it was referred to by the mother, who stated that she'd been accused of having Munchausen's syndrome) and the statementing process - with easy assumptions made about their ability to change Kyle's school.

Well, I hope you watched it. A regular complaint by me is the failure of television to really screen drama that feels relevant. Well this was it - probably have to wait another 10 years for anything this good.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Ecumenical Patriarchate:
Oh, and it's kinda nice to know that there's still an Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople/Instanbul.
vladmir.gif (GIF Image, 239x327 pixels):
And while we're on the subject of Byzantium, I may as well post this. Mostly because I can, and it's pretty much the most famous icon of them all.
Dionysios Of Zakynthos:
Apparently, today is the feast day of Saint Dionysius of Zakynthos in the Greek Orthodox church. At least according to www.iconograms.org I'm currently listening to the monks and choirs of Kiev Pechersk Lavra - streaming over the internet on my laptop from Magnatune:
Monks and Choirs of Kiev Pechersk Lavra: Chants of the Russian Orthodox Church:
I've been doing some Byzantine reading to follow up on my reading of Psellus, so I thought I'd get in the mood. After reading the relevant bits of Ostrogorsky and Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World by John Haldon I do have some thoughts on the lead up to Manzikert and collapse. May have to blog about this sometime - perhaps over Christmas. I'm not sure I agree with Ostrogorsky and the 'standard' interpretation. Will keep you posted.

I think the retreat into Byzantium is a desperate attempt to ignore what's happening in the Ashes.

By the way, Alex was a 'greeter' at his school play, dressed as Father Christmas. Not, as we thought, having lines in the play itself. Bit disappointed. Then again, he did fine the first time, but ran off and hid on the second time (when Deb wasn't there). Guess he hasn't come that far after all.

Roll on Christmas!

Had a visit by my parents over last weekend. I thought it went really well. It's taken me a while to blog about it because of our normally busy week.

(What with Brownies, Judo, and other stuff - I wish I had my kids' social life!)

On top of all that, Alex hasn't been very well. He took Wednesday off school because he was sick during the night, and didn't feel too good in the morning. He's back in school today, and I shall have to add blog entry later to update with how he got on in the school play (he's got the part of Santa Claus, and has therefore been practising his "ho's" for a while).

Back to the parental visit. It was a little mini Christmas. Something we've done for a few years now, where my parents will visit in the run up to Christmas to bring the kids presents. Mainly because the journey over to them is just too long around this time of year for the kids (4 hours plus in the car).

So, a nice day out together, and a nice evening meal in the pub down the road. Alex over the moon with his new model of Mallard, and Jessica enjoying her Clarice Bean book, among other presents.

I'll let you know how Alex got on as Father Christmas later (ho, ho, ho...).

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

BBC NEWS | UK | Tough new powers on child support:
Another thought. Does this mean I need to alter the CSA contribution to the "Three Peaks Challenge"? (See below).
BBC NEWS | UK | Tough new powers on child support:
Well, here's the big news of the day for me. I understand that all the staff currently working for the Child Support Agency will transfer over to the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission on it's inception in 2008-2009. However, CMEC will be a "Non Departmental Government Body" (Quango to you and me). This means that all the staff will cease to be civil servants on transfer - of which the main concern is the access to easy transfers to other departments, and whether the pension will still be supported.

CMEC itself sounds to me like the way it should have been done first time around, so I'm quite positive about it. I'm not convinced I agree with the additional enforcement powers - but a revitalised commitment to delivering maintenance rather than to protecting the benefit system is something I could definitely support.

It does mean another whole change agenda for the Child Support Agency - but hey, change can be a good thing. Change can bring opportunities.


So on the whole, I feel quite positive about the whole thing.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Amazon.co.uk: Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia of Michael Psellus (Classics): Books: Michael Psellus,E.R.A. Sewter:
Currently reading this. I've been meaning to read it for a while, as a classic Byzantine text. For something written in the 11th century, it's surprisingly engaging, although I don't think Psellus comes across as a particularly likeable chap. He's also a bit of a gossipy old woman, although his pen pictures of individuals at court can be very well drawn.
RFC1925:
This RFS is titled "Fundamental Truths of Networking". Really tickled me. I particularly like number 3 - which I first saw attached to someone's email sig on a technical FreeBSD mailing list.
Blair: we must renew Trident | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics:

Why do we need to renew Trident? In the modern world, what threat does Blair think will be mitigated by possessing such a weapon? I grew up in a family deeply opposed to nuclear weapons in the first place - and even by that standard buying a replacement seems to be an expensive folly utterly out of place with Britain's current role in the world.
Frozen Bubble, what a game! Must be about as addictive as it gets. Loaded this onto Jessica's PC over the weekend (it's the one in her bedroom running Edubuntu 6.06, but that's another story), and spent a chunk of Sunday playing it.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

OK, seen as I'm in the civil service, here's a tale. You'll have to work out the origin for yourself, but if you're a public servant you may recognise it.

Customs, Revenue, Treasury, DEFRA, CSA, and Jobcentre Plus all decide to compete in the Three Peaks Challenge, with the following results:

  • Customs got to the top first., having followed the first routes they spotted. This might have been a risky strategy, and a few people got killed along the way up.
  • Revenue never got as far as climbing the mountains. At the end of the allotted time they were still at the bottom appraising the various possible routes.
  • Treasury went potholing instead, but claimed they had actually won. They said that ministers had changed it to a potholing competition as the last minute but they had been unable to tell anyone because of "budget security".
  • DEFRA implemented the EU Directive on mountains, thus reclassifying the geological features in question as deep river valleys.
  • CSA failed to reach the base of the mountains. The team left home in a minibus which broke down on the way. The mechanic brought in to fix it declared it beyond repair and sent the team home before inviting a team of professional mountaineers to carry him to the top - but he failed to make it as the professionals went off to rescue those involved in the Customs' debacle. Meanwhile, sat at home, the CSA team blame the mechanic, the minibus, the manufacturer of the minibus, the British road system, and all the pedestrians they met along the way for their failure.
  • Jobcentre Plus fielded a team genuinely committed to winning. The group leader decided they would get to the top more quickly with a smaller group and sent a third of them home. This meant there wouldn't be enough people to carry all the climbing gear, but the leader reassured the team that all would be well. Unfortunately, halfway up, they ran out of rope. The leader fell off the cliff face and dragged the rest of the team to their deaths on the rocks below (where their bodies were recovered by the same professionals who took over the CSA's expedition).
Post a comment and let me know what you think - or if you can add a tale for another part of the public services?

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

163126main_image_feature_701_ys_full.jpg (JPEG Image, 750x763 pixels) - Scaled (67%):

Wow.

Nasa's image of the day. Apparently it's the "Reflection Nebula" taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. See:
NASA - Home:

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Another day, another pile of poo poured over me in work. I've mentioned befoe about being moved back into a team leader job that I last did 2 years ago. Well, I had been started to get quite enthused about operational management again. My former boss is a big believer in EFQM, and he's been coaching me on using this framework. It all really makes sense - just the kind of framework I need to have a real go at managing front line staff.


Anyway, my new boss called me yesterday to tell me (not ask, tell) she was moving me to a different, non customer facing, team. It's the team where she puts people she neither likes nor trusts, to get them out of the way.


Well, that put me in my place. And it's probably the end of my plans to make a success of team leading. I really am being dumped on a sink team. Time to get the job search back on track.


Meanwhile, the team leader training course plods on. It mostly involved training me on things I trained the trainer on 10 years ago. It's a desperate struggle to keep myself active and not just slump into a vague sleepy depression. At the moment, I'm doing some EFQM based analysis work for my former boss. I hope my new boss doesn't find out, or there'll be hell to pay.


Well, I'm writing this whilst sitting in class. Time to get back to it and start listening again.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Amazon.co.uk: Enzymes for Autism and Other Neurological Conditions: A Practical Guide: Books: Karen DeFelice:
This is the key book about treating autism with enzymes that I referred to in  my post earlier this evening.

We went to see Alex's paediatrician recently. He's suggested that we consider a new drug therapy for Alex called 'atomoxetrine', brand named as Strattera.


As you may know, we tried Alex on a version of ritalin some time ago (called Equasym). We weren't particularly happy with the effect this had on him. It seemed to change his personality - it was like he wasn't Alex any more, coming across as very doped up.


It was that experience that lead us into investigating alternative therapies - which eventually lead us to looking at gluten intolerance and dietary interventions for autism. To cut a long story short we had Alex's urine tested through a programme run by Sunderland University. This identified that Alex as likely to be gluten intolerant. We tried Alex on a gluten free diet (this is some years ago now) and it was a complete disaster. Typically for a gluten intolerant, Alex craves gluten rich foods (and orange juice). Life without gluten for him was intolerable. We had to find something different.


The key book for us was Enzymes for Autism by Karen DeFelice. (I'll post a link to this on Amazon later when I'm back at my home desktop). This made us realise (and it was Deb who did all the research on this) that we didn't have to go gluten free to tackle the problem. So for the last few months, Alex has been on a cocktail of digestive enzymes before every meal.


They've worked really well, but now Year 3 and the change to junior school is starting to loom. His concentration and ability to focus is still poor and basically we're worried. So we're considering a drug therapy again. The enzymes have certainly had an impact, but I don't know whether it's enough to get him through the next 12 months.


There have been some reports on the BBC site (again, I'll add some links later) linking strattera to all sorts of worrying side effects. But then so did ritalin.


Time to go for now. I'll update with what we decide and how we get on later.

Monday, November 13, 2006

BBC - Liverpool - Capital of Culture - Liverpool from the air:
Saw this article on the 10 o'clock news this evening. Still seems like a strange way to celebrate winning European Capital of Culture for 2008 - ie. by tearing down the city's heritage and building a 42 acre concrete and glass monstrosity on it full of new shops and hotels (which looks like any city anywhere in the world). Ho hum. Oh, and it's made getting in and out of Liverpool around all the building work absolute hell too.
The Merchants of Bollywood:
Went to see this show at the Opera House in Manchester last weekend to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Deb's parents looked after the children and we stayed overnight to make an occasion of it. The show was absolutely fantastic.

Topped off by finding a Wagamama:
wagamama | positive eating + positive living:
Japanese noodle bar. Went to one in London at half term, and we were over the moon to find one on our little holiday. Just need one to open in Liverpool now.

Wonderful weekend. Made us feel young again.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | It's hard to explain, Tom, why we did so little to stop global warming:
Everyone over the age of 30 should read this. Especially if you have children. Read it on the way home from work this afternoon (on the bus). I particularly like the comment on being haunted by our inability to make use of our own understanding and technology to solve the problem.

Could there really be a "truth and reconciliation" commission in the future to condemn our generation for failing our children?

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Haven't blogged for a while. Not sure why - although I've been busy in work. Not, I hasten to add, with work itself but rather searching for new jobs. I've now left the project I was working on (and enjoying tremendously). I'm on the 'team leader' training course for the new job I've been forced into. I'm not looking forward to this at all, so I'm searching for a new job - mostly internal and on promotion as I'm trying to make use of my experiences of the last 6 months. My former boss has been incredibly supportive over this, really helping me sort the application forms out.


On the same subject, I went for a job interview and assessment day for the Home Office on Tuesday. It was an all-dayer and quite hard work. Seemed to go OK though. I should hear around the end of November apparently. Fingers crossed!


We all went to London for a couple of nights during half term. We stayed at the Travel Inn in County Hall. I'd recommend this to anyone. It wasn't too expensive (for central London - �92 a night) and was very convenient, at the south end of Westminster Bridge just underneath the London Eye.


We took a 'flight' on the London Eye which was really a highlight (boom, boom!) - even though Alex just liked looking at the trains crossing Hungerford (thanks Steve!) Bridge into Waterloo. He thought they looked like a train set. Jessica enjoyed seeing Buckingham Palace across the city and all the other sites.


Followed this up with a bus tour. This meant we really did get to see everything, and was the perfect way to get 2 children around London and see the sights (although, being us, everyone did get a bit stressed at Tower Bridge).


Jessica enjoyed the Natural History Museum, and the British Museum (although stopping there meant we almost missed the train home on the Wednesday). I suspect the real highlight for Alex was the journey to and from London on the big red Virgin Pendolino on the West Coast Main Line.


So you can see, we basically managed to see just about everything in 3 days. This really came home to me after Auntie Katie bought J and A a t-shirt with "London" and some of the sights on the front - and I realised that we'd actually seen them all!


Well, that was half term, more updates to follow. Feel free to add a comment if you want to.

Friday, October 06, 2006

NASA - Mars:
Wow. A picture of the martian surface taken from space which shows the Mars rover put there by humans. I think that's pretty amazing. For once, Deb agrees with me. Then again, I've always been a bit of a fan of the NASA image of the day. They have some truly staggering images here. Take a look at the site for the Hubble Space telescope too. Well worth a look. For an atheist, it almost makes me want to take the line from Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" - who can look at this and not see god? (Still doesn't work though - I'm still an atheist!)
NASA - Multimedia -- Highlights:

HubbleSite - Gallery:

Friday, September 29, 2006

Bluegrass music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
OK, so after buying the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, I'm getting into bluegrass music. My boss has now allowed me to borrow a bluegrass CD (he's heavily into music from the US south, up to and including Elvis). You'd think it was US folk, but according to wikipedia it isn't. Next stop, an Alison Krauss CD!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Forget polls, our decadence may be Brown's downfall:
Read this article in today's Guardian (the paper version, which I don't often buy, but did today to read on the bus). Struck me as a very insightful view of the current political map in the UK at the moment. It outlines very clearly the challenge facing Brown - from Tories, voters, and Blairite ultras - if he is to make a success of his pitch at Labour leader. It strikes me that the comparisons with Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins are valid - and worrying for Brown. More interesting though is Larry Elliot's comparison of David Camerson not with Blair, but with Neil Kinnock. Very thought provoking. It's a shame the Guardian hid this article away on the Business pages.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Amazon.co.uk: o brother where art thou:
Went to Liverpool on Saturday and bought this cheap in HMV. Deb and I have always liked this film, and my boss has slowly been getting me into country music - especially old-time country music. The soundtrack to this is excellent (it also includes "You Are My Sunshine", always a special song for me). I particularly like "I'll Fly Away" and "Man of Constant Sorrow".

For those of you who don't know, the film is based loosely on the Odyssey, but is set in the US deep south. It's made by the Coen brothers. I watch it and can't help thinking that I'm missing half the clever bits. I get the Sirens, and the Lotus Eaters, and the Suitors. I'm probably missing loads more.

Musically, there's a take on Robert Johnson - delta blues at the crossroads, and quite a bit of old time country. An acquired taste I suppose. Still, I do quite like it.
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast:
I've been playing this game on Jessica's Nintendo GameCube. A must for Star Wars fans. The lightsabre stuff is just excellent - although I don't think I'd have got anywhere without the walkthroughs on the internet. Jessica is enjoying the 2 player games which is fun.

OK, I'm getting ready to go to bed now, so I'll blog more from my Palm during the week. Leave me a comment if you visit!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Well the prophecy about coming back to Birkenhead didn't come off. I'll be in Accrington Wednesday to Friday this week. I'm taking Tueday off because I'm not feeling too good (bit of a cold I think) and I can't take any other day this week off. I've plenty of time owed, so I figured I'd take my chances where they presented themselves.


Bit of a grotty weekend. Jessica's been in a foul grump for a few days now. We don't really know what the problem is but we keep getting our heads bitten off or she'll refuse to do what she's asked. She doesn't sleep very well (she's often still awake when we go to bed) so it might be that she's just dog-tired. Or it might be that she's got the beginnings of a cold like me. I hope she gets over it soon because she's driving Deb and me bonkers.


Alex is his usual self. He gave Deb trouble getting out of the house this morning for school, which is never a good thing. When that happens, he usually has a bad day - which would be a shame, because he's had a good first 2 weeks of term so far. I'll have to check how he got on when I get home.


I think the strain of my longer hours (because of the travelling time to Accrington) is starting to show with Deb. She gets all the rotten jobs with the children, all the chores. For that reason alone I need to get myself out of Accrington sooner rather than later.


I'm writing this on my Palm in work at the moment - time to go home soon and find out how big a row Jessica has had before I got home. Will update again later.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

It was "sibling" group for Jessica yesterday. This is a group she got involved in through Social Services. It's designed for the siblings of children with special needs. I suppose it's intended to give them an outlet for their feelings outside the family environment.


Jessica seems to quite enjoy it. That said, she does let out some feelings which show she can quite churned up. She brought home a drawing showing how unhappy she feels about herself sometimes in her relationship with Alex. I suppose a lot of this is just normal brother-sister stuff (any of my sisters care to back me up on that one?). It does make us feel a little uncomfortable though.


That's it for the moment. I'm busy in Accrington, but probably back in Birkenhead from Thursday. I've got a load of job applications to look at for when this job finishes in 5 weeks, and I've got to get them sorted sharpish before they shunt me back onto an operational team.

Monday, September 11, 2006

First week of school over and done with. Alex is now in Year 2 - his final year at Infants. Jessica has moved to Year 4 - her second year at Juniors.


All seemed to go well. Both children seemingly a bit relieved to have something to do. Alex in particular seems glad to have all his routines back. Unfortunately, like last year, this almost certainly won't last very long. At least it's going well for the time being.


We're still pretty worried that he's behind his peers. Jessica was much further along with her reading, writing, and possibly maths too at his age. I suppose you'd just say that's a 'boy' thing. Maybe it is. But it doesn't stop us worrying about what will happen at the end of the year when he has to move schools.


As for Jessica, Year 4 has immediately brought harder homework. She was given homework on Day 1 would you believe it, that had to be completed by Friday on the first week! Still, she gets to go swimming once a week this year, and she seems settled at school. (Shame she's like a 13 year old with a sore head at home!) We've started her on Judo, which she seems to enjoy. Currently working towards her Yellow belt.


Well, that's the latest update on life in the Harrison household. More to follow later...

Monday, September 04, 2006

Accrington again today, and it's all going horribly wrong. Half the computers which should have been installed on Friday to be up and running today aren't functioning! Desperately trying to get this sorted out with the appropriate engineers at the moment, but I'm going to get ripped to shreds on a teleconference this afternoon about it.


Oh well, we're doing what we can.


A colleague of mine has pointed out a place down in Hampshire called Hollycombe. Looks just like Alex's sort of thing - the only problem being it's so far away. That said, my colleague has a contact there who says he'd be able to show Alex how to drive one of the miniature steam engines! I wonder if we could get down there for a weekend at some point?

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Time for another entry to the blog. This time, I'm tinkering with my latest gadget. It's a folding keyboard for using with my Palm. It doesn't half make entering a lot of text easier. Graffiti handwriting recognition is OK for a little while, but is tiring and time consuming if you're trying to write much. Picked one up on Ebay for �20. I'm calling it a birthday present.


Apart from that, we're winding up for the return to school for Alex and Jessica. For Alex this means counting the days down on his calendar so that he's prepared. For Jessica it's just dragging ourselves through the last few days.


I'll post again to let you know how Alex gets on in Year 2.


I'm travelling to Accrington every day in work at the moment. We've been doing a moderately large IT and Telephony installation and have had all lsorts of problems. Hoping for it all to be completed over this weekend so that I can go in on Monday and find all is well. It's about an hour and a half's journey each way, so I'm spending 3 hours a day in the car. The M6 is now my friend!


I've opened the blog up now so that anyone can leave a comment, so let me know what you think. I'll post again soon.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Holiday time!


I've been on leave for a couple of weeks - spending some time with the kids now they're off school. Deb is off for the whole summer - yikes! I was glad to come back to work for a rest.


We were in Menorca for 1 week. We went to the same hotel as last year in Ciutadella. It's an all inclusive and reasonably nice. The old town is wonderful - tiny narrow streets and little squares. Although it was very hot (90F +) we still managed some time to sight see - mostly in the evening when the heat had gone out of the day.


As usual Jessica went hell for leather playing in the pool and had worn herself out after 4 days. She ended up quite grumpy by the end. Alex also got tired, and finished wanting to spend a lot of time in the room.


Still we had a good time and were lucky to miss the airport chaos last week.

Back at work now and likely to be spending quite a bit of time in Accrington. Lucky me.

Monday, August 14, 2006

GVIM and fonts

Tip #914 - Looking for the perfect programming font ? : vim online:
I've been struggling to get my preferred text editor GVIM set up according to my taste for ages. I'd given up basically until I found this note at the VIM homepage. I downloaded the ProggyClean font and installed it as instructed. I then recompiled VIM to use GTK2 (can't believe I was still using GTK1!) and now everything looks cleaner and is much more usable than it was. Woohoo! I'm using it to now to work on my draft for a website. This is planned to be for parents of autistic children on Wirral to share thoughts, interventions, things that have worked for them. It's still a long way from being finished. I'm currently struggling with the mechanism for adding links to content. I'll have to post more detail when I've got time.

See you soon!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Byzantine Studies Page

Byzantium: The Byzantine Studies Page:
Quick note to add this page to my blog. If you're interested in Byzantium, then this is as good a place as I've found on the web. I haven't done nearly as much research through this page as I would have liked. This is the best portal that I've come across - although I'd happily hear of a better if you know one. If nothing else, this site can point you to a translation of the full text of Michael Psellus' Chronographia. I haven't read all of it, but for the period of Byzantine that I'm interested in this is probably one of the best sources there is.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Time for another update. I've been extremely busy in work with my new job, so I'm going to blame that for not writing earlier. I've moved into a project job - at least for the time being. This week I provided assurance on a spend of �2.5 million (!).

In terms of FreeBSD, my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1300) is now basically fully up and running. It's on 6.1-STABLE as of 23/6/2006. All the hardware works apart from the sound and modem - neither important for me. I'll blog some howtos on what I did later.

I've also set my Palm Tungsten E to connect to the web. This note is being written with Plogit and I'll upload it later.

My family is OK. Alex is doing well at school, we're preparing for Year 2. Jessica is OK but grumpy. We're using a Handle massage technique to relax her. Early days but it seems to be effective at helping her relax at night. We initially used it on Alex, but stopped some time ago as he seemed to be through that phase. Jessica has real problems going to sleep at night. She can't seem to relax. This massage technique is helping, but she's not there yet - often not going to sleep until 22:00. See you later.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

I'm in Blackpool today - not for fun I hasten to add. I started a new job recently & I'm now working with some colleagues in Blackpool. Lots of fun travelling up the M55!

Friday, April 07, 2006

My new laptop arrived recently. It's a new Dell Inspiron 1300, the cheapest I could find. It'll replace the IBM 600e I bought from ebay a year ago which no longer boots - and is now listed on ebay again to see if I can make some money back!

I've successfully loaded FreeBSD on it - and upgraded to 6.1-PRERELEASE over the weekend. The onboard Broadcom 440 is detected as bfe0, but I'm using an Asus WL-167G usb wireless adaptor. Took some research to find one that works with FreeBSD - this is seen as ural0 and worked first time. I now need to get WEP and X working. See you later.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

This is the Harrison family blog. I've set this up as a temporary replacement for our old website. What will you find here? Updates on my family - my wife Deb and children Jessica and Alex; information on my adventures in FreeBSD; maybe some thoughts on autism; or even some ramblings on Byzantine history which is another of my interests; or heaven forbid work. Most of this will probably be written on my Palm Tungsten E with Plogit. I may add an entry later to explain how I made this work. See you soon.