Now for something extraordinary. My grandfather Heinrich Otto Ludwig Borriss would turn 100 years on September 10, 2009.

Thanks to him I got to play with pocket calculators and later even with a Commodore 64. We discussed the 8 queens problem and travelled in 1982 to Moscow and St. Petersburg -- by train. He impressed me quite a bit and I much admire him.

There will be an colloquium at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald on Sep 10 and Sep 11. More pictures of Heinrich Borriss here.

From professional support of a commercial product of a well-respected software vendor:

"I discussed this with our Development Group. They have indicated that they have not seen a problem such as this before, as most clients bounce the web server daily or weekly."

I will not disclose the identity to protect the guilty, but could not help sharing the information that in 2009 there is a need to restart web servers (this relates to some web app on tomcat really) on a daily basis. Go figure.

Sitting by the fireplace, watching Superbowl XLIII I cannot help noticing that this really a super sunday, sportswise. It started with a tremendous final match of the Australian Open (Nadal beating Federer in 5 sets, after he survived Fernando Verdasco in the longest game in Australian Open history so far). As often these days, we got up early thanks to Benni and watched the fourth and fifth set. This was then followed by watching the live transmissions of major chess events: Wijk an Zee (where unfortunately Lenier Dominguez did not continue his run to win the event) and the german chess Bundesliga (where after a long drought SF Berlin scored another win). In between the atlantan weather was nice enough to allow taking up some tennis activities again. Benjamin and Hannah had their workout too:
.

Back to the superbowl (Steelers leading 20:7)

There are a couple of things which are very true (and have been said before):

1. Yellowstone is beautiful. Grand Teton is even more picturesque. Yellowstone is very diverse: It has wildlife, beautiful woods and fresh water, but also vulcanism which appear like gates to hell, canyons (yes, multiple) and waterfalls.
2. You should not plan to spend only a day there (which is possible in many other parks, but not here).
3. The area appears sometimes crowded, but when leave the parking lot areas, you will find yourself quickly alone.



This is what we did and liked
* Some horseback and pony riding (Hannah and Elli)
* Watch in awe into the deep, colored pools of hot water
* Do some hiking (usually around 5 miles a piece since Hannah and Benni had to be carried) in the morning
* Seeing wildlife: Bisons were everywhere, especially between Canyon and Lake. Moose and Elk were visible along the road (although I cannot tell them apart at longer distances). Yeah, we ran into bears during hikes. This was somewhat scary. It is different to see a bear from the car along the road or bumping into a bear family in the woods... Also, deer are not necessarily put off by Benjamin crying, instead there were seemingly curious at that.



This is what I regret to not having done
There are some things which are hard to do with the kids, like:
* Go for longer hikes. Such as a 20 mile loop through death canyon and granite canyon. Map I read that an iceaxe may be required even in July to cross the pass.
* The Yellowstone NP has a very remote area called Thorofare in its southeastern corner. The trail is sometimes more 30 Miles away from the nearest street.
* Go for more swims in the fantastic mountain lakes
* Get up very early and watch wildlife
* Being able to make a selection from 500 fotos. All of them are here All pictures online (These are the size-reduced versions).

Something about the trip in general: We had direct flights at regular hours from ATL to Jackson Hole.

The route looked as follows:


View Larger Map

or as a link:

Our route

In general, it was quite difficult to find hotels etc. It is also pricey ( I think I said that) but summer in that area is short; some roads will close again in October or even September. So we had to move around a bit, during the whole duration we stayed at five different locations. The trip as planned was good, couple of remarks and potential improvements:
1) Staying in the parks (Yellowstone) is much preferred over staying in Jackson, Gardiner and the like (we have not been to West Yellowstone)
2) We all liked Cody. "The Cody" was a very nice hotel, Buffalo Bill History Center, and Rodeo provided enough things to do.
3) Flagg Ranch ("ideally situated between Grand Teton and Yellowstone") was good (both Cabins and the friendly work-and-travel staff). But for families some of the places in Grand Teton (Jackson Lake Lodge or Colter Bay) looked even better due to its locations and amenities.

Some more highlights and pictures to follow, I think.

Some new developments kept me quite busy. Back in Germany many things needed to be taken care of. There was one thing, which -- although very nice -- I would be reluctant to do again in the near future: Yes - we did it and got married on December 20, 2007. The chosen date was not only a good choice for, ahem, tax reasons. It was in fact a gorgeous day with a gorgeous bride:


I would like to thank thank all our guests for making this a really nice experience. We did not allow too much time for preparations, but given that it was a highly pleasing experience. (We went to several holiday parties in the recent past and I was always put off a bit by the planning effort required). But everything was easy, total preparation time: Four weeks. The Standesamt Goetheallee is a beautiful villa located in the one of the best living areas of Dresden. We chose to have four pieces of music played by two young artists who did a very good job: First, we had the theme from the original cinderella movie "Tri orísky pro Popelku", continuing czech with Smetana's Vltava (Moldau), satisfying our memories with Cats ("Memory") and closing off with gospel "Oh happy day".



A highlight and definitive recommendation was our friendly horse drawn carriage. It was a pleasure to have them here and to ride with them. Does have more style than using limo, doesn't it?



We had most of our guests for lunch at a greek restaurant which was a disappointment. You can tell if you are asked for 10 Euro cash advance (which was never seen again). We made up for that two days later at a greek restaurant in Hohen-Neuendorf (north of Berlin) where we got lots of delicious food, attentive service, and more. But if you are looking for something here in this area (Dresden-Striesen), try The Kolibri.

I found this IONA paper [pdf] by Steve Vinoski helpful.

It clearly abstracts from any religional wars, does not give recommendations as Use SOA when you're solving a complex problem, use REST for simple stuff. Instead the distinction by comparing the architectural constraints made a lot of sense to me.

Since I go for a quick run in Dresden's Grosser Garten I always wanted to find out the length of my running track. This is actually a good application for Google Maps, so I measured my track here. (There are others). It came out to be 4,6 kilometers. It usually takes me about 23 to 25 minutes (11-12 kilometers per hour), so there unsurprisingly is room for improvement.

I am back with some food recommendations. Following an article in a local paper (which conducts auctions, gives out savings cards but saves on proof reading staff, but I digress) Elli and I visited Devils Kitchen which opened August 5 2006. We had high expectations and were not disappointed. I heartily recommend the Tortillas with crispy chicken to go along with some fresh juice. Prices are more than fair, the interior has style (note the traffic lights guarding the bathroom) and the food is terrific. The only thing which did not fit was the classification as being a fast (as in being quick) food restaurant. Gives me the chance to cite Frederic Brooks again: Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you.

Two years ago I was surprised to see how unproblematic an old DOS project of mine (A queuing system modeler/analysis and simulation tool from 1993/1994) still runs.

Even better, people on Slashdot discuss how the father of all speadsheets , Visicalc, still works. Key features:

27 kByte total size.
Small footprint
Easy to install and uninstall

I spent the last weekend in Lisbon, to see the Open Group Certification Authority for an ITAC certificate.

Notable events were the ubiquitious fish dining (title above means fried cod fish) and meeting the team of FC Porto in the hotel elevator.