It has been a really long week. I can attribute a lot of it to the really tough work week I had, ahead of a trip to CA that I start tomorrow (forcing me to miss the Giants game, which may be a blessing in disguise). Work was crazy, as I had to finish 3 documents in one week. For a perfectionist like me, that is tough.

But I think what really got me was just how negative a week this has been. Coming off my high of last week (when I had a great experience presenting at a security forum in New York), this weeks negative energy hit me even harder. The big thing this week was the whole Blackwater scandal. Blackwater. Even the name sounds like something Dr. Evil would come up with. In the continuing story of the disaster in Iraq, the Blackwater story proved to be a stark reminder of just how corrupt and evil the business of war is, especially for this administration. And this week proved to be a vortex of stories around Blackwater.

As if the case of killing innocent civilians is not enough, the Blackwater scandal also revealed that Blackwater is not subject to either Iraqi law or American Military law. In other words, it can do whatever it wants, with no checks or balances, and no system for policing them. The military has been privatized, and free market economy states that a privatized army can do whatever it wants so long as people (our government) are willing to pay them for their services. It is just sickening.

On the heels of this, I watched the pilot of the new Fox series K-ville. The plot involved a police investigation into what can only be classified as acts of terrorism (violent interruption of two fundraisers, including a murder), where it turned out that the acts were committed by security guards from Blackwater, that have been hired by the government to “police” the state, on the orders of a vindictive heiress with money to spare. Well, turns out that the story was not so far fetched. Our government did hire Blackwater to provide security to FEMA and other government agencies in New Orleans, because they couldn’t find enough people in the National Guard to do it (cos they are all in Iraq). Again, a paramilitary force, on American soil, that is not subject to military laws and standards.

And then on The Colbert Report, author Naomi Wolf came to talk about her latest book in which she talks about the blueprint that every fascist dictatorship has followed to gain power, and how each incremental step is currently taking place in this country. One of the steps in the blueprint is the establishment of a paramilitary organization that is controlled by the fascist power, but is not answerable to the government or the people – Blackwater again. I disagree with her conclusion that this is leading to fascism here, because I believe the media (for all its flaws) still gives enough information to the people to act as a sort of check on all this, but maybe I am being incredibly naive.

In any case, all of this got me really, really angry about the state of affairs. And depressed about it too, because aside from signing a bunch of petitions, I don’t really know what I can do about it. And maybe that is why things will continue to be this bad, because all I feel I can really do is just get up and continue with my life as normal.

As I detailed in a previous post, I have been getting really bugged with not getting the Technorati tag cloud to work for me. So today I finally decided that I’d had enough. I wanted to use something better, that I had some more control over, to render me a tag cloud. And since I had to make a switch anyway, I decided to go with the best out there and put in the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin for my Wordpress blog.

I have to say, I was impressed with the work that Christine Davis has done. The plugin is well designed with some great features. Installation was a breeze. I simply downloaded the zip file and installed its contents into my wordpress wp-content/plugin folder. After activating the plugin, a new menu item called “Tags” showed up under the “Options” menu in the Wordpress admin console. From there, I could configure how I wanted the plugin to behave. There are a number of configuration options available, giving you full control over how you want your tags to behave.

The only problem was that none of my previous tags were being recognized. Previously, I was using the SimpleTags plugin to add tagging capabilities to my blog (I had just deactivated it prior to installing UTW). But that simply looks for tagged content in the body of the post itself and renders the tag links appropriately. UTW is a little more complex in that it creates a separate table that holds the tags for the various posts, and of course this table had nothing in it at this point. This is where one of the most impressive features of UTW came in, and really illustrates how much work has been put into the design of this plugin. Under “Options->Tags” is a link for “Manage Tags”. On this page is a button called “Import Embedded Tags”. Clicking on this button ran a script that examined all my previous posts and extracted all the tags into the tags table. It worked like a charm, and all my tags were picked up.

Having gotten my tags table populated, I was now able to put in my new tag cloud, by simply adding the following code to my sidebar

<?php UTW_ShowWeightedTagSetAlphabetical(”coloredsizedtagcloud”,”",”15″) ?>
where 15 can be replaced by the number of tags to show

The tag cloud worked right out of the box. It looks a little different from the old one, but works soooo much better. It is a beautiful thing when software, any software, no matter how big and complex or how simple and seemingly trivial JUST WORKS. As a software architect I can really appreciate that, and kudos to Christine for the best Wordpress plugin I have ever come across.

I am so much happier now.

OK, so I don’t really hate him. But his 6 TD performance against the Browns yesterday single-handedly ruined my fantasy football day. And against my cousin Sid, no less. His team got 59 points for Palmer’s day. which is almost 40% of his total point yardage. Meanwhile Bulger had a decent day yardage-wise, but got only 1 measly TD and got sacked a whopping 6 times, which brought the points I earned down to a mere 16. A 43 point difference at one position is hard to overcome. Looks like Orlando Pace’s season-ending injury is going to be more relevant than I thought.
After two weeks, I am a grand 0-2. Just brilliant. Last year’s fantasy stud MJD is this years bust so far, and I can’t overcome my weak QB woes. Worse, Driver had a good day against my Giants and still didn’t help me win, while it looks like Andre Johnson got hurt. This fantasy year is going south in a hurry for me. Aargh!!!

I am starting to get really annoyed with Technorati. I rely on them to properly index my posts and give me the tag cloud feature you can see on the right (under “What I’m Blogging About”). However, my tag cloud hasn’t updated in almost 2 months now. It is still showing little used tags from more than 2 months ago, and is completely ignoring any tags from my new posts. Kind of ruins the point of the tag cloud, doesn’t it?

I have contacted Technorati support a couple of times, but have gotten no answers from them (pretty unresponsive bunch). I thought it may be the feedburner plugin I installed that redirects all RSS feeds. I have now removed that, and will wait to see if that makes a difference.

But this experience has brought to my attention the fact that there is still a long way to go before Technorati can make their offering legitimately useful to the blogging community. Indexing the posts and providing a social network of favorites and tracking responses is all well and good. But the basic thing bloggers want is control of their content. And I view my tag cloud as being my content. So I need features that allow me to clear out my tag cloud if I am re-tagging my posts, that allow me to delete tags from the tag cloud that I no longer care about, and that allow me to reinitiate the extraction and indexing of tags from my last N posts so as to refresh my tag cloud. Without these usability features you end up where I am, a blogger about to take my tag cloud of my site because it is no longer relevant.

[tags]Technorati, Technorati Support,Technorati Support Issues,Tag Clouds[/tags]

I had to speak at a conference today, so I was a lot more focused on work than I usually am on this day. Yet one cannot escape the significance of the day. On the first anniversary to have fallen on the same day (Tuesday) as the original event, all signs were that our national tragedy has started down the long path of corruption in the national conscience. A day of mourning no longer, 9/11 has been co-opted by politicians and vested interests. Every year the days leading up to the anniversary seem to become more and more contentious. Everyone seems to have this mistaken belief that they somehow have more of a claim to this day than anyone else. It may be more personal for some than others (and certainly is most for the family members of those who died), yet the day and its significance belongs to us all, and should not be corrupted this way.

It’s sad, but on this 9/11, I can’t help but feel angrier than I did on this day 6 years ago. That day I was angry at unnamed others who attacked us. Today, I am angry at us. At our President and our government that has taken us so far away from the path we as a nation should have (and I believe wanted to) taken after that day. At the candidates that try to convert 9/11 into political currency. At the different groups that constantly lay claim to knowing what should be done on this day. At the people who have made the World Trade Center site into a tourist attraction. And at the national mentality we have that will insure that 50 years from now, 9/11 will simply be another day in the year when car dealerships will offer special low prices, and the mall will be open for longer sales.

[tags]9/11, rants[/tags]

After Sunday night’s thrashing at the hands of the Cowboys, it is hard to think that the [tag]New York Giants[/tag] are going to have a decent season. Not only did the defense show that they will get shredded by the rest of the NFL, we also saw our most valuable players and leaders on the team get injured – Osi, Jacobs and Eli all went down and couldn’t finish the game (Osi barely started).

Maybe I should follow college football more closely this year to get an idea of who we should get with that high draft pick we will most probably have next year.

[tags]Sports, NFL, Football[/tags]

Shivir wanted to check out a nice [tag]jazz place[/tag] while in New York. Unfortunately my automatic choice, the [tag]Village Vanguard[/tag], was unexpectedly shut down due to some “emergency renovation” needs. So I had to improvise, and we ended up at [tag]The Bar Next Door[/tag] at [tag]La Lanterna di Vittorio[/tag] in the village.

It’s the perfect place if you want a nice, casual, complete New York evening. Situated in the basement of the La Lanterna di Vittorio Caffe on MacDougal street, it is a nice atmospheric place to enjoy some wine, some pizza, good dessert and excellent jazz. The cover charge is a nominal $8 for the whole evening, and in return you get some excellent jazz music in an intimate setting where you are seated just feet away from the musicians. Being Wednesday night, we got the excellent [tag]Jonathan Kreisberg trio[/tag], who played some great standards.
With brick walls, low ceilings, old wood furniture and low candlelight, it is a great place to just chill with friends or that special someone. Be warned though; because of the intimate setting you aren’t supposed to talk during sets, so don’t go here if you want to spend the evening chatting.

[tags]New York Jazz[/tags]

For the last official day of summer, I treated my cuz Shivir to two of the most New York summer experiences one can have – a baseball game in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium, and Central Park.

The Yankee game did not go as planned, since my team lost to the scuffling Mariners. But it was still a good first baseball game for him, since the stadium was full and the day was gorgeous. Central Park was the real treat though, and completely made up for any disappointment in the result of the game. It was like the whole city turned out to enjoy what they felt was the last day to really enjoy a day in the sun. The Central Park Roller Dancers were having a real party, and Sheep’s Meadow was full of sunbathers and people out having a good time.

I think my cuz had a good time.

Saturday was a gorgeous day, so we embarked on a day trip up the Hudson Valley, trying to show Shivir the prettier side of New York. Of course, areas like the Finger Lakes region are the best of nature in New York. But the Hudson Valley is much closer, and quite lovely.

We started by driving up and taking the Palisades Parkway, which is a lovely tree-lined freeway along the Hudson. Along the Parkway are a lot of scenic lookout points from which one gets a good view of the Hudson and of upper New York City. We drove as far up as the Tappan Zee bridge, which we took across the Hudson to the other side. There we proceeded up along picturesque Route 9 through Tarrytown. This part of the drive is quite nice as it takes you through one of the prettier towns of the Hudson Valley, lined with quaint little houses and antique shops.

Just after crossing over into the town of Sleepy Hollow, we arrived at Phillipsburg Manor. It is a nice little historic site that shows what a manor farm used to be like, and the conditions under which the slaves had to live and work. It was a nice way to spend the 45 minutes or so we had to wait for the real reason we came here – a tour of Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate and one of the most beautiful mansions along the Hudson.

The design of the house is one of the most elegant we have seen, yet is never ostentatious. The exterior is beautifully detailed, with some interesting symbology. It was the dream of John D. Rockefeller’s son to make sure his fathers house was worthy of his status as the world’s richest man. And the house certainly lived up to those expectations, having the most modern amenities for its time, and richly decorated with artwork and furnishings.

It’s most impressive feature, though, lies outside the mansion – the vast estate grounds. Kykuit stands on top of a hill from which one gets a lovely view of the Hudson. And with impeccable taste, the Rockefeller’s turned their green acres into a museum for modern sculpture integrated into the surrounding landscape. While not on the scale of Storm King Art Center that we recently visited (and I blogged about here), it is no less impressive, featuring some really nice pieces.

The entire tour took us about 2-1/2 hours which, combined with our late start to the day, meant that by the time we came out we didn’t have enough time left to visit anything else in the area. Which was a shame, since there are a number of lovely mansions dotting the valley along route 9, like Sunnyside and Mills Mansion. Oh well, leaves us something to do for our next day trip.

Like any good host in [tag]New York City[/tag], we took my cousin Shivir for the mandatory [tag]Times Square[/tag] tour on his first night in town. We had a lot of fun, including a visit to the [tag]Stardust Diner[/tag]. If you are ever in Times Square looking for a funky New York experience, this might be worth checking out. While the diner is nothing special, it takes full advantage of being on the [tag]Great White Way[/tag]. The waiters and waitresses are struggling theater actors and actresses that put on great performances while serving you. They are amazingly good singers and can really put on a show.

Another really cool thing we saw while in Times Square was this ad by HP featuring Serena Williams that played across 10 different screens across two different buildings. You have to see it to believe it.