Month: May 2016

An hour or so ago they sent out a code orange. This warning means that the weather will become very severe and we should all stay indoors where it is supposedly safe. At first I didn't believe them, what do they know? The weather outside seemed just fine to me. Well, an hour later and the deluge is here with lots and lots of lightning bolts striking nearby. Boom! That was sure close. Almost too worrisome seeing such a gush of water being spilled out from the darkened sky. The backyard and the streets are flooding over. Yipes! Mother nature can be unpredictable and needs to be respected and/or worshiped at all times. Either that or else.

This is the new logo that I designed myself. I used SVG and a little dab of creativity. The three colors are: midnight blue, dark cyan and firebrick. They blend in together quite nicely, don't you think? The interlocking shapes are shifted slightly downwards from left to right. This gives the viewer a subtle impression of movement, that each shape rises a little above and beyond the previous one.

Each geometrical piece of the puzzle integrates snugly with the next one. Together the three objects form a unified and pleasing whole. These shapes represent the software building blocks that I like to use when creating beautiful objects: knowledge, processes and people.

For more information and inspiration please have a look at the Gishtech logo page.

So here I am claiming to be a so-called "experienced" JavaScript developer, thinking that I pretty much know everything about this language, but in fact I don't. It's like driving a car for many years, and you start thinking that you're the best. The true fact of the matter is that your driving skills are becoming quite rusty and if you are not careful it will become very dangerous.

It never hurts to have a serious look at yourself in the mirror once in awhile, do it sometime and you'll feel much better about yourself.

Since I am never too old to learn new stuff, I like to discover the future while it is still happening. More and more I've been getting interesting in how the JavaScript language is evolving, namely the new and upcoming ES6 features. This is really cool stuff and shouldn't be missed.

So I went over to the Leanpub website and found myself a couple good sources, namely Exploring ES6 and Setting up ES6 by Axel Rauschmayer.

These books are fairly technical and difficult to understand, but beautifully written nonetheless. I figured that in order to maximize my learning experience I'd have to take one step back and refresh my knowledge of the JavaScript basics. Not just some easy introductory book but an intense and truly in-depth exploration of the technical details.

Since this Axel person is obviously very smart I figured what the heck three books by him must be the magical combination to success. So I bought his other book.

A tough but fulfilling read, highly recommended. Speaking JavaScript is also available for free online, but I'm still pretty old-fashioned and had to have another book for my immense computer library.

One of the most important credos for boosting a development team into the realm of excellence is to ensure that they can feel very proud of what they create as a coherent team. This power of creative energy mixed in with just the right amount of the fun factor is not to be under-estimated.

Looks like I won't be playing in the club championship this weekend. This event happens to be the yearly highlight of my golfing life, so you can imagine how very disappointed I will be by not being allowed to defend my title. I have won the championship two years in a row and unless some miracle occurs the chance of a magical three in a row will dissolve into thin air.

So what in the heck went wrong? I decided to run my car through the car wash after filling up my tank at the gas station. When I returned home from the car wash I was in a pretty good and energetic mood. Diligently I crawled through the interior of my car ensuring that every crook and cranny was polished and spotless. Well you can imagine that certain spots behind the seats or under the dashboard are hard to get reach. Even for a limber and athletic body like mine.

Then all of a sudden my back froze up and I was floored by an excruciating pain. Some main nerve in my lower back was chaffed and exposed, screaming bloody murder from within the depths of my right buttocks. There was no way I was ever going to be able to get out of the car alive.

Fortunately my son Maarten came to the rescue and pulled me out. Getting from the car to the front door of the house took about ten minutes in slow motion, and then after that at least as much time to make it to the couch in the sitting. My wife Thea who is a gentle and loving nurse helped me upstairs. I felt really embarrassed screaming and crying like I was some weakling. Although it was hurting pretty bad, I figured that within a day I'd be pretty much back to normal.

Two days later I'm still in this stupid bed medicated and feeling pretty bored. I could become all angry and frustrated, but I have realized at this stage of my life that acceptance, hope and staying positive is what it's all about.

That's why I decided to compose this boring and complaining blog entry, which is also kind of funny and entertaining, don't you think? Now I feel much better, thanks.

Express is a fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js. That's why I had to purchase yet another book to add to my huge collection of computer books.

I sawed through this book in a single day. While it may not be intended for super advanced developers, I found it a refreshing overview of express, node, npm and all those powerful tools and techniques any engineer worth his salt should know.

There's also a nice section covering testing with mocha and supertest, as well as chapters about mongodb, less, browserify and coffeescript.

Highly recommended by someone who is never too old to learn new stuff.

You never would have expected that this grueling contest of wills would go down to the final hole, but it did. It was one of those wonderful days out with the guys hacking around in nature and laughing out loud, making great shots and bad ones too, once in awhile a slight curse here and there.

On Friday afternoon at exactly 16:17 the battle of Michael and Kiffin (Merikans) versus Thomas and Dion (no team name) began. The weather was perfect, sunny and dry, the fairways extra hard meaning that our amazing drives would roll and roll forever making us feel like real joe blows.

As is inherent to our golf course these days, the greens were irregular and bouncy, meaning that you had about a fifty-fifty chance of making putts just outside the gimme range. Frustrating yes, but adding an extra sense of excitement and unpredictability fitting for the true spirit of golf where nothing is certain.

The first hole was a good start for the Merikans as they turned on the gas and won the first hole with a par (thanks to a nice chip by Michael).

On the second hole the Merikans messed up knocking both their balls into the trees on the left, playing give-away golf with a triple bogey, and it was back to all square. What a waste.

After that it was just another day on the links with a long streak of five ties nothing special just pars and bogies.

Starting on the eighth hole and thereafter for three disappointing holes, Thomas and Dion pulled together a string of great drives, super approaches, chips next to the hole, that kind of thing. Michael: what happened to us we're three down can you believe that?!

I turned to my fellow Merikan and reminded him that we had not won a single bleeping hole since the first one, we need to get our act together. Remember the Alamo!

It worked and we pushed forward winning the next three holes in a row, this time around it was Dion and Thomas playing give-away golf, and coming to the fourteenth tee box we were all square again. Wow, how'd that happen so quickly?!

Tied fourteen to remain all even. On the fifteenth both Thomas and Dion nailed their shots on the dancing floor for a likely par possible birdie. Michael made a great sand shot from the left bunker rolling the ball up close, but yours truly missed yet another short putt, one down with three to go.

Merikans won the sixteenth after another great chip by Michael to within a couple inches of the hole for a gimme. Lost the seventeenth and there we were one down with only one hole to go.

Thomas and Dion were hot but not quite hot enough. They drilled their drives in excellent position, but Kiffin punched his drive even further even to the bunker in the middle of the fairway.

Dion's approach looked really good (ended up over the green but we didn't know it at the time), so Michael was under alot of pressure. When I turned to him and said it was his moment to achieve the Warhol's fifteen minutes of fame, he duly addressed the ball and made it happen.

The Merikans had to win, and when we finally made it to the top of the hill and discovered our ball pin high five feet to the right and the opponents' ball over the green with a nasty downhill chip, we knew we had a chance. I was convinced that I'd finally make my first normal putt of the day and tally that birdie.

Thomas and Dion pulled off a respectable bogey (after the stupid ball kept rolling and rolling past the pin) and of course I missed the birdie putt curling it left and downhill from the hole. It was definitely what you'd call a semi-easy putt but a good knee-knocker just the same.

With confidence Michael rammed it into the back of the hole for the par. The grueling contest of wills was over, and we tied 1-1.

The summer season for senior golfers kicked off yesterday and I was in good spirits. Although I didn't play that great, shooting an 82 and being tied for twentieth place out of 93 players is a respectable round. Three easy putts under two meters should have been made combined with a mere three pars on the front nine made things a bit frustrating. I managed to shoot a double-bogie free round with the same ball which in itself is a nice accomplishment.

Ready to tee off on the first hole at Golfclub Anderstein

The long wait was worth it, finally my new company cards arrived and I really like them. Designed them myself. Now it's time to explore the mysterious jungle out there and seed the world with new ideas.

If you ever want to setup an automated test platform for an important project, I can certainly recommend Webdrverio very much.

This advanced open source testing utility for Node.js makes it possible to write super easy selenium tests with JavaScript for the a number of TDD test frameworks, for example the Mocha test framework.

The extensive API is quite powerful and lets you do just about anything.

So here is how it started: par, birdie and eagle. Already three under par after only three holes. Hard to believe, but it's true ...

I flubbed the next easy par four with a careless bogie, but after that I held on with a string of pars to make the turn at two under par. 4-4-2-5-3-4-5-3-4=34.

If I could just keep playing half-decently, nothing miraculous just an ordinary nine more holes, then I'd have a pretty good score.

There's this mental thing that rears its ugly head in my mind when I'm playing great golf and it always tries to ruin me. I'm thinking that there's only so many holes left and I need to hold on, getting more and more nervous.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity so let's get serious and make the best of it. Or so I thought. The second nine was a disaster and I went into mental meltdown mode. Two double-bogies and only three pars: 6-3-6-4-5-7-4-4-5=44. That's TEN strokes more than the first nine, you must be kidding.

Afterward when the good life was all done and gone, I sat at the table moping, shaking my head and wondering out loud how it is possible to play so well for the first nine holes and then blow it so badly during the second nine holes.

My playing partner Jim (who comes from Ireland) hit the nail right on the head when he said, "You know the more often I see this happening the more convinced I am that it is one hundred percent just a mental thing.

How is it possible that such disasters strike when you least expect it? And why if it's just a mental thing can't I control it better.

(No I did not break a single club, although I was tempted to a couple of times)