July 2005 - Posts

Training with Stephen K. Hayes
31 July 05 09:15 PM | russnem | with no comments

Roseanne and I had the great pleasure of training with Stephen K. Hayes today. Mr. Hayes is the Grand Master of our art and is a tenth degree black belt. He is just a wonderful man with so much to share and it was a great pleasure to learn from his expertise.

.NET Rocks!
18 July 05 11:34 AM | russnem | 1 comment(s)

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell for a great interview on .NET Rocks!. It's nice to talk geek every once in a while.

A Great Dining Experience
16 July 05 11:32 PM | russnem | with no comments

This evening my wife and I (along with a family friend) had the great pleasure of dining at a restaurant called "Vineyard Terrace Restaurant & Wine Bar". In just a single night this restaurant became one of our top three favorite places to dine, and not just in the Los Angeles area. The service was very warm and friendly since the minute we walked in and we felt like we were catered to as if we had pulled up in a Bentley and had greased the hostess a hundie (we didn't - the Bentley is in the shop, actually).

The first thing to land on the table was the wine list. I don't remember how many bottles were on it, and by no means was it a huge list, but it was impressive. Even more impressive was the staff's knowledge of the wines, particularly when it came to what wine would taste best with what entree. The wines' flavor, body, and taste was generously explained with patience and enthusiasm which put us all at such ease. This was definitely NOT a place where we felt rushed in to any decisions or to pick something in particular.

The next thing to arrive were some delicious roles, warmed to perfection. Some restaurants will deliver them cold, and even though the taste might be palatable, there's just something to be said about warm roles being put in front of you. The butter that accompanied the roles was softened, not right out of the refrigerator, which frequently results in the destruction of said roles as people attempt to apply the butter.

The menu consisted of two pages - not huge by some standards, but the dishes that were ON the menu sounded delicious and very creative. I started with the "Salad of Heirloom Tomatoes with Basil and Cabernet Sauvignon Vinaigrette" and even though it was made up almost entirely of different-colored heirloom tomatoes it was the best salad I've ever had. The dressing was BETTER than the name makes it sound. Roseanne had the "Vineyard Terrace Garden Salad – Fresh Seasonal Vegetables in Herbal Vinaigrette with Marinated Olives" and devoured it in no time.

At this point the three of us were already raving to each other about the restaurant. We found that each of us was secretly hoping that the entree wouldn't ruin the whole experience. We were extremely relieved that it only added to it.

For the main course, I decided on the "Garlic Sautéed Prawns on a bed of Creamy Polenta with Summer Vegetables" and it was superb. The shrimp was cooked to perfection, the polenta was great, and the vegetables complimented the shrimp perfectly. It was actually a pleasure to eat. Roseanne decided on the "Lobster Ravioli in Lemon Dill Sauce with Asparagus" and loved it. She generously gave me one of her ravioli and it was the best lobster ravioli I've ever had.

Adding to this dining experience was the wine, and each of us got a glass of either what was recommended or what we know to be good. In fact, once the waitress heard what salad, entree, and wine our friend was thinking about, she suggested that she tell the chef to swap out the dressing that came with his salad for another that would compliment his choice of wine.

I've only been to one or two other restaurants that have been this great. When I say "great", I mean in every measurable sense. One that deserves mention is Lucy's Table in Portland, Oregon. Another favorite of mine over the past four years or so has been Ruth's Chris Steak House. They have really great food at Ruth's Chris, but I'll tell you right here and now that even though Ruth's Chris is the most expensive place of the three, the service falls short of the other two.

With regard to the price issue, Vineyard Terrace is amazingly reasonable for the food they offer. Even if you don't augment your dining experience with wine, it's still MUCH more than worth it to make the trip. Chef Steven Thompson truly makes this experience memorable and we are so happy that we found this great place.

Vineyard Terrace
11266 Ventura Blvd
Studio City, CA 91604
www.vineyardterracerestaurant.com

Fantastic Four - Ugh
10 July 05 09:37 PM | russnem | 13 comment(s)

A long chain of great Marvel movies comes to a screeching halt with the release of Fantastic Four. It’s disappointing to a guy like me who has always loved super heroes. On at least four occasions my wife and I looked at each other in utter disbelief that arose from two main sources.

First, the writing was absolutely terrible. Michael France and Mark Frost simply were not able to bring the story to life with any type of quality whatsoever. The dialog was completely cheesy (and noticeably so) and there were several scenes that were utterly an embarrassment to watch. There were also inconsistencies in the storyline that just made the whole movie-going experience unfortunate. For example, the lead good guy (I don’t even remember his character’s name, but he’s the one that could stretch) was completely bankrupt for the first half of the movie and then all of a sudden, half way through, he’s somehow able to build this huge device that’s comprised of technical gadgetry that probably cost more than a studio apartment on Union Square. In addition, the guy that could set his body on fire strolls out of a several-day quarantine after getting his powers directly into a red Porsche with the license plate “TORCH’D”. This actor was actually one of (if not THE) high points of the movie, but it seems that no effort whatsoever was made to do the story justice and make a genuine movie.

The director, Tim Story, left … well … basically, EVERYTHING to be desired. The performances from the cast were completely uninspired (with the possible exception of the one who played the bad guy – Victor? Vincent? – the guy who was metal).

I think the one draw to the film from the cast standpoint was probably Jessica Alba, who I’m sure was placed there to draw in the male 18 to 35 demographic. Of course she’s hot and so fourth, but after this movie it appears that the depth of her talent goes no further than Katie Holmes in Batman Begins.

The bottom line with Fantastic Four is that it simply had the wrong writers, wrong director, and wrong cast. If not for those three simple things I think the movie COULD have been something special. After seeing Spinder-Man 2 and Batman Begins, this movie seems like a spoof on superhero flicks.

JavaScript Hell
07 July 05 03:08 PM | russnem | 10 comment(s)

I am trying to implement something in a web application whereby specific content (which includes images and text) exists inside a "box" that's about 2/3's of the width of the browser and about 90 pixels high. This box should stay at the bottom of the browser no matter what.

If the page has one word on it (and therefore doesn't need to scroll) the box should be at the bottom of the browser.

If the page has 1000 paragraphs of text on it, the box should stay "docked" at the bottom of the browser window as the user scrolls down and reads (the box should appear on TOP of the page's content).

I have tried determining the size of the browser and getting a simple label to move as I scroll using the onscroll event in the body tag but the label doesn't go anywhere (even though my javascript method IS getting called).

Can anyone help me or perhaps point me in the direction of a working implementation of this?

Thanks!

Unlocked! My Audiovox 5600 SMT
06 July 05 10:54 PM | russnem | 5 comment(s)

So today I had my Audiovox 5600 SMT Smartphone unlocked, and I thought I'd have a lot more control over it. The truth is, I still cannot remove the stupid mMode icon from the Start menu and I don't appear to have any more control over the phone than I did (such as the ability to view "hidden" stuff or access the registry of the phone.

I'm sure this is merely because I am not familiar with what the true results of unlocking a phone should be, but can anyone out there offer any advice on the things that I CAN do with my phone now that it is unlocked versus what I was capable of doing before?

Developing High-Performance ASP.NET Web Applications
01 July 05 06:11 PM | russnem | 1 comment(s)

Today I gave a full-day workshop on how to approach the design and development of high-performance, highly-scalable web applications with ASP.NET. This is a workshop that I wrote with Doug Seven late last year. Several attendees expressed interest in obtaining the latest version of the slide deck for this talk, so I have posted them on my web site.

http://www.nemhauser.com/cs/forums/16/ShowForum.aspx