Alone in the wilderness

I blog alone, in the vast wilderness of the blogosphere. A tiny speck of thought that dots a landscape teeming with more. I wonder if somebody unknown has stumbled across this blog and read a few of my posts. I wonder if they found it amusing, interesting or downright stupid. I login sometimes hoping that someone has left a comment, something that would affirm that my post tugged at a chord, induced a response, hopefully kind and validate the effort, however small, I put into crafting a single post. I wonder...alone in this vast wilderness...of man and his many thoughts. Are my thoughts really worth the effort?

John Kerry and Vietnam

If the group that calls themselves the Swift boat veterans for truth had a motive other than correcting the truth as they would like us all to believe, then I think they certainly made their point. They ran their ad in 3 states and for the past week and a half, the constant 24 hour media coverage of the ads has ensured that those ads have been seen by the rest of the country. If that is not brilliant advertising, I don't know what is.

The question that puzzles almost every objective spectator of this tussle between two veteran groups - one allied with Kerry and one against him - is how can two honorable set of men who were at the same place 35 years ago have such contrasting and different recollections of the same incident today? Is it just the fog of war? In the thick of the battle, with bullets flying around and the spectre of death a constant and distinct possibility, can the memories of men 35 years removed be trusted or even be reliable? Do we tend to believe what we want to believe and does that shape our memories? In my opinion, these men really believe in all honesty their versions of the events that unfolded in Vietnam. It is hard however, in a stressful situation as the one that existed in Vietnam to build a reliable, objective and unbiased memory that relies solely on the facts. Human beings by design view things through the color of their own lenses. Two individuals at the same scene can have entirely different accounts of the same incident. It has happened before and is happening now.

We can get too caught up in this debate about Kerry and whether his tour of duty in Vietnam was really heroic. The fact of the matter is that he volunteered to go there when his opponent and many others found ways to avoid the draft. That in itself is heroic. To put yourself in the line of fire, be it for 4 months or many years is a courageous thing to do. And Kerry deserves plaudits. I wish however, he'd tone down his constant drumbeat about his military service in Vietnam. Part of the problem is that he made this a central issue of his campaign and it has come back to haunt him. For my part, nothing that the Swift boat veterans say will diminish Kerry's service to his country in Vietnam. After all, their argument is a mere quibble about exactly what Kerry did in Vietnam. They don't challenge his presence in Vietnam, which would have been a very serious charge.

I hope the campaigns start debating the real issues that confront this country soon. It is astonishing that two months removed from the election, all that is being debated is whether Kerry pulled his comrade Russman from the water in the face of enemy fire or in the absence of it. Who cares? I don't have time for it and neither should any sane person in America.

Olympics

I haven't really kept up with the olympics this year. I know that it is going on and I know who the star performers have been, but I haven't sat at the TV each night and watched it avidly. The newspapers tell me that viewership has been up this year compared to Sydney in 2000. For me the track and field events have always been the star attraction. I watched some of the 100m heats on Sunday at V's place on his big screen HDTV. I really was pulling for the guy from Portugal who eased to victory in both of his heats. Ultimately, another US runner won. I was looking for Maurice Green's name at the top of the list. Before the games, he bragged about how fast he was and how he would ease to victory. But apparently on Sunday, that was all talk and no walk. He earned a bronze instead.

I had high hopes for the Indian hockey team, but they flattered to deceive. I think they managed just the one win against South Africa. So they'll return home to brickbats and I am sure the Indian hockey board will fire all the coaches as they seem to do now after every failed tournament.

I believe an Indian shooter won a silver. And now he is a hero in India. And he should be. But it is pathetic that a nation of almost 950 million people can only produce one medal winner. China on the other hand while it rivals India in population size has far outshone us with several medals. They were running second in the medals standings a few days ago.

Web Services

Back to the stuff I am working on. IBM is a very good resource for someone new to the subject. Go to IBM's website and then their Developers section and click on web services in the left hand pane. There you can choose several paths that suit your pace to learn more about this technology.

I used to wonder what the hype was about Web Services and how different it was from CORBA. Apparently there is not much to differentiate Web Services from CORBA because both were intended to be platform-independent, language-agnostic, interface dependent solutions. The catch with CORBA is that it does not rely on internet protocols for communication, which makes tunnelling a CORBA call through a firewall a pain in the neck. Web Services is designed for the internet and makes communication through protocols like HTTP a breeze.

Blogging about blogging

Blogging really has taken off. CNN.com has an article today on blogs devoted to entire cities. Check it out. You have music blogs and photo blogs. People are just about ready to blog on anything and everything. Sex blogs are a dime a dozen.

I found this this blog devoted entirely to business. Quite an interesting read.

Whistling Straits

The season's last major was less exciting than the 3 previous majors. The course made more headlines than the players. Rarely does a major championship yield a winner who is over par and this course did. It was a spectacular course. I watched it at V's place on HDTV and it was simply amazing. All the three previous majors had some drama and emotion that made you pull for one contender or the other. Last night as the championship drew to a close, I thought that drama and suspense was missing. It was Justin Leonard's major to win and it was cruel the way he lost to Vijay in the playoff. Justin had so many opportunities to wrap it up in regulation and he missed out.

Vijay has 20 wins on tour and that gives him automatic exemption for the rest of his life (got that tidbit on the Golf Channel...which is why Tiger and Phil Mickelson are exempt for the rest of their careers - Tiger has 40 wins and Phil 23). He is 41 now, in great shape and possibly will contend for another 5 or 6 years. So he has a couple of more majors in him, I'd reckon.

Afghani House

We took my sis and BIL out to dinner on Sat. It was BIL's birthday. He selected Afghani House that is on the corner of El Camino Real and Lawrence Expwy. The food was very similar to the fare served at Chelokababi, though the dishes were extremely pricey. A single dish set you back $15-$18/-. Persian food typically is less hot than the typical desi stuff. But they compensate by adding lots of flavorful spices that gives the dish an enchanting aroma. We ordered a Combination Kabob plate - lamb and chiken - that W and I split. I thought the lamb was undercooked. The chicken though was exquisite. The ambience was great and made for a very comfortable dinner experience. The owner who sat us at the table was a very amiable man, with a distinct Persian accent. His employees though were less than stellar in their service. They had to ask us twice whether we wanted water, and when some of us asked for water with ice and others without, it confused the heck out of them. Eventually we were all served ice without water. I would have appreciated it if they had asked us how we'd like the lamb to be cooked, when they took our order, but they never did. And when we were served, they brought the wrong dish out, and had to go back to get the right order.

I must say that I prefer Chelokababi instead. They had more selection, were far less pricier than this place and their food tasted much better.

The Ring

Haven't posted in a while. More so because I had a major bout of laziness, than anything else.

A friend suggested that we mark Friday the 13th by watching some scary movie. My friend chose The Ring. We watched the remake that was released in 2002. It was extremely well directed - the suspense and the sense of anticipation all carefully calibrated added up to a fairly scary movie. W screamed on a couple of occasions and H's wife M stopped watching midway through the movie, because she just couldn't handle it.

Outlaws

We had relatives stay with us this week. My friend refers to them as outlaws. 5 of them to be precise. In our little 2 bedroom apartment, space was at a premium. We were literally bumping into each other and the toilet was overworked. Among the 5 were two elderly folks, and they used the toilet with regular frequency throughout the night rendering any thoughts of a good nights sleep a complete fantasy. The only good thing was that we did not have to drive them around to show them the city. That would have been painful. Anyway, they are gone, laundry beckons and so does the weekend.

Lion King

We went to the Orpheum on Sun to watch Lion King. We had bought these tickets back in Feb. Enjoyed the show. I had watched the movie for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It is always fascinating to watch how the movie is adapted to stage. The play was choreographed with great creativity. To bring the movie to life on stage is no small deal, and I think they pulled it off. It was well worth the $65 we spent on the ticket each.

Angel Island

We went to Angel Island on Sat with friends. The weather in the morning was overcast and cloudy. As we got to AI, fog blanketed SF on the left, and we all thought we had really picked a bad day. But around 1p in the afternoon, the skies cleared and the sun shone through. SF was still hidden by a thin veil of fog, but AI itself was nice and pretty. We hiked up North Ridge Trail and then went all the way up to Mt Livermore and treated ourselves to good views of the city and the bay. W, V and R stayed back and hiked an easier trail. We got back to the dock and then ate the food that we had packed and taken with us. I liked the trip. Got some exercise, lots of fresh air and some scenic vistas that make you long for more.