faded picture of luke
a semi-random photo | click for the full photo gallery
click to browse photos
homepage navigation

Luke Melia

4/29/03, 2:56pm – Of Interest

Salon has an interesting article on the Dixie Chicks and their handling of their political controversy.

Paul Krugman’s NY Times column looks at how the war on Iraq was justified to the American people.

This morning, NPR had a bit about Mike Hawash. Hawash is the Intel employee who was detained without charge recently. NPR said that the feds suspect him of wanting to join the Taliban. Question the guy… charge him publicly if he did something illegal… but enough of the mysterious detentions. It’s unbecoming of American law enforcement.

I bought my first album off Apple’s new music service. Paul Simon’s Graceland. The service is pretty slick. I think I’ll continue to subscribe to Emusic, but I’m sure I’ll buy albums from Apple more than anywhere else. I like being able to buy my music without the plastic, the shipping or the trip to the store.

4/24/03, 11:26 pm – Take Our Siblings to Work Day

My two youngest sisters came to work with me today. Oxygen arranged a fun, educational program for most of the day for them. The two hours they spent with me, though, was evidence that computer programming is not much of a spectator’s sport.

I tried to keep things interesting by explaining how we were trying to figure out the right PL-SQL syntax to use a cursor in Oracle stored procedure so that Microsoft’s .NET data provider for Oracle would be able to deal with the result set using a DataReader… Umm, yeah. Or… maybe you’d like to play cards with this Advertising.com schwag I got when they were pitching us?

So the girls played cards while I got a little work done. Then we left work early, had dinner at Spice, and then went to see Thwak! on Broadway. As the linked review says, Thwak! is the theatrical equivalent of sweet breakfast cereal, but for that, it’s very well done.

It’s really great to spend time with Monica and Isabella and give them a taste of urban living.

As evidence that this is a blog and I’m aware of the rest of that world, here are my thoughts on the *SS discussions: (1) CSS is a huge boon to web development, design and writing, regardless of what Dave Winer says. (2) RSS is a great way to keep tabs on your favorite sites, and doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t click through to revel in the painstaking design of these sites, regardless of what Jeffrey Zeldman says.

Finally, I was horrified by the awful school shooting in Pennsylvania today. Perhaps I’m being naive, but it defies my imagination to understand the psychology behind this. Is it just a fact of life that some teenage boys, given access to guns, will use them at their schools?

4/24/03, 12:40am – Love in War and Peace

I’ve been away from this space for a couple of weeks. It’s gradually getting warmer here in New York. We’ve had a few days of outdoor volleyball in Central Park. A welcome prelude to the beach season, which kicks off the first weekend in May.

That’s not my only excuse for not writing, though. The next one is even better. I went to Houston to help Art get married! They had a beautiful ceremony, at which the officiant told the story of their relationship’s beginnings and of their engagement. The ceremony also incorporated some traditional Philipino wedding customs, which I liked a lot. The pictures are trickling in.

I got to spend some nice time with John, an important mentor and friend of mine. His new baby is really cute, and his wife Katyusha toasted Art and Ann with a Russian “gorka”, or “bitter” (the drink is very bitter, so the newlyweds must kiss to add sweetness).

Jeanhee and I took some time off from the wedding festivities to see Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria, which was on tour in Houston at the time. It was a stunning show.

And more… Passover seder (delicious)… my friend Dylan in the hospital (speedy recovery, Dyl!)… an end to the bombs and lessening of the bullets in Iraq (may it stay peaceful)… celebration of nine months together with Jeanhee (we cooked a helluva meal)… sister Daniele in the Wall Street Journal regarding her admission with big ol’ scholarship to NYU Tisch (awesome… and I won’t mention her crush online)… writing this on a new computer, a dual processor G4 (speedy and delightful)…

And there’s still more… but bed, and a beautiful woman with a crossword puzzle beckons…

4/6/03, 11:07 pm – Disappeared

Do people get “disappeared” in the United States the way they do in country’s with less enviable civil rights? Read what happened to Mike Hawash and you tell me.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but is it time to freak out yet? American citizens being held without any charge or public evidence? This is scary.

In slightly less frightening (but still scary) news, an old acquaintance from my Charlottesville days disappeared from his Baltimore apartment, which was arsoned the same night. It seems he’s landed in Memphis, but how and why is still a mystery. I hope you’re OK, Jimbo.

As for me, I’ve been living a relaxed, pleasant life (in starker contrast than usual to certain warring regions of the world). I’ve been devoting a lot of energy to volleyball and improving my sand game. It bothers me that this pursuit is rather devoid of greater meaning at a time when there’s so much trouble in our world. Discussing this with my mom, she told me that sports and similar pursuits help you test your own limits and get to know yourself better. The larger question is this: when you’re among the most fortunate on the planet, what responsibilities does that create for you? I feel a duty as a citizen in a democracy to vote and to make my voice heard. What duties do I have as a citizen of Earth?

I finished the book I’ve been reading, The Botany of Desire. Highly recommend it.

I recently saw a first film from a young Japanese director the other night. It’s called Wild Berries (warning: the link is to a NY Times review which is somewhat of a spoiler). The director was on hand to introduce the film and answer questions afterwards. She spoke, through a translator, of coming to the US to debut her film during wartime, and of coming from a Hiroshima family which was dramatically affected by the atomic bomb attack on that city. It was quite moving, and quite sad. In the Q and A after the film, she mentioned that the movie industry in Japan works differently than ours. There, the path to becoming a director is not necessarily film school, but rather assistant directing. It made me wonder whether we ought to appreciate apprenticeships more than we do.

Liz and Anthony are on the road!

Tomorrow, it’s off to the dentist again to get a permanent fake tooth put in where I had my root canal a few weeks ago. My first step to becoming Borg?

LukeMelia.com created 1999. ··· Luke Melia created 1976. ··· Live With Passion!
Luke Melia on software development freelance web development how to contact me Luke Melia, Software Developer letters and more from my travels photo gallery personal philosophy