Month: August 2007

Say goodbye to summer again. Today marks the last day. Already, the temperature is decreasing slightly and the late afternoons seem to be getting darker. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Now is the time to brace oneself for another set of colder seasons until spring decides to raise her beautiful face and greet the world again.

We're back from Rhodos, and we had a really great time.

Gish family touring the island (1024x768).

In only two days from now, I will be sitting in the airplane with my family on my way to the Greek island of Rhodes.

Up to now I haven't given much thought to what I want to bring with me and my suitcase lies casually open on my bedroom floor half empty.

In the past I would have had an endless checklist ready two weeks in advance for fear I might have forgotten some vital article: like a tube of toothpaste or a comb or even an extra pen in case the one I was using went empty at a critical moment. Can you imagine?

Slowly but surely my life has become a more relaxed world where trivial unplanned moments make existence more interesting rather than stressful.

When I was younger, I falsely claimed that at such an early age I had already achieved some kind of higher awareness and simply flowed with the stream.

Now I am happy to announce that in my life this is actually (almost) the case. In two days it's off to the fun and relaxing world called summer vacation and I am really looking forward to it.

I will try and remember to send you a postcard...

In a couple of hours Maarten should be coming back from his fun vacation in Croatia with his best friend Bas.

I cannot wait to see him again as he has been away now for nearly ten days. Seems like only yesterday when he left but at the same time it seems like forever since I have seen him last.

When he arrives I will give him a big hug and listen to him as he explains all of the fun things he did there.

Can't wait.

The skinny guy wearing a dilapidated baseball cap shuffled up to me and asked shyly if I could spare him some change. Hesitant but desperate at the same time...

"Can you spare some change?"

"What for?!"

"I just got out of prison and they put me out on the street without a cent..."

"So how'd you end up in prison of all places?!"

"Well they picked me up off of the street where I was sleeping in some alley. I had nowhere to stay, sorry."

So without thinking much except that I was in a generous mood for some reason, I reached into my wallet and gave him a 2 euro coin.

"Is that enough?"

"Yes, yes, thanks alot..."

Right at the moment I was hoping we had reached some kind of repore, the poor homeless guy had disappeared around the corner. Say good-bye and be gone.

Never to be seen again. Oh well, there goes my two euros.

There's that blind guy again, tapping his way to who knows where. With his white cane for a weapon in hand and an amazingly sensitive ear he veers his way all over the place. Avoiding one obstacle followed by the next. We all percieve obstacles in our own way, whether or not we are blind or lacking in some other regard, depending on the number of senses which are still intact, those we retain despite the anomalies of life. Or those we were born with. Or better yet, what we (falsely) perceive to be in working order. We are all a little blind one way or the other. Stabbing in the dark, tapping our ways to who knows where.

Today I learned that there is more than one way to implement Ajax, namely:

• using a hidden frame
• using a hidden iFrame
• calling ActiveXObject() for IE6 or earlier
• calling XMLHttpRequest() for all other browsers
• using a third party library like zXML or DWR
• creating dynamic images by using new Image() on the fly
• dynamic script loading by using document.createElement("script")

The book I am reading is called Professional Ajax.