Category: Archive

Yesterday morning my leg muscles were still aching and I decided to ski only a half day. After lunch I went to a local Aqua Sportif Center with good saunas, steam rooms (French call them hammam), Jacuzzis, and a large swimming pool. This was a smart decision ndash; today my legs were fine.

Our resort is located in the area known as Three Valleys and today our instructor took us to Chourchevel, a favorite place for rich Russian people. The rumors has it that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich wanted to purchase this town and offered every local owner of real estate 30% above the market value. But proud French didn “t accept this offer, and I “m really glad they didn “t.

On the way to Courchevel, one of the gondolas was wired with music speakers. It was playing a Rap song with simple and easy to remember lyrics:

I don “t have a problem when you “re fucking me

But I have a problem when you “re not fucking me

Twenty-something French skiers were enjoying and singing along to this music masterpiece. American culture rules! As President Obama correctly noted during his inauguration speech, “America is ready to lead again rdquo;.

Skiing was great ndash; a sunny day and about 3 feet of fresh natural snow. Early in the morning one can hear the dynamite blowing up the avalanches before people will start skiing.

Now it “s time for a little bit of history. Two days ago all of a sudden we found ourselves on a slope with fog, mist and very poor visibility. In such conditions, it “s much more difficult to ski as you don “t know your own whereabouts. The instructor was local, and kept saying, “Don “t worry, we are moving in the right direction, just follow the trail of the person in front of you rdquo;. After about an hour of such skiing some women in our group started to get a little nervous, and I announced that we were planning the game called Ivan Susanin.

Since not everyone knew who this person was, I explained that he was a Russian hero who told the Polish enemies that he “d lead them to the monastery, but actually took them far into a snowy forest with no way out. He died there along with lots of enemies. For some reason my announcement didn “t raise the spirit of our group. Luckily, were out of there in a reasonable time.

At the end of the day, Aziza said, “I was always wondering how Aleksander Suvorov was able to lead his entire army over Alps two hundred years ago. And we are talking about soldiers, horses, all cannons and all ammunition! Just think about it ndash; no chairlifts, no gondolas, not even those stupid telescopic lifts that one day will make scramble eggs out of my balls. If you don “t know who “s Suvorov, just google it up. It ain “t the history text book, it “s just my personal blog.

Disclaimer. Both pictures were taken from Wikipedia.

After lunch, I made a wrong move and pulled the muscles on my lower back, which sucks.

It “s time for dinner. Orevuar!

twitter.com/yfain

Second day of skiing is usually the most difficult of all trip. After year of sitting in front of the computer it “s not too easy to become a champion. My calves were aching, but I was determined to go skiing no matter what.

In the morning, I saw the woman who lost her husband yesterday. Sure enough, he was sitting right next to her. Told “ya!

The man who was peeing on he snow turned out to be a nice guy. I had some issues with the binding on one ski, and he helped me to fix it. His name was Dither. Our instructor is having hard time remembering all these weird to French ear names, but every time she “d look at him, he “d start reporting, “My name is Dither! rdquo;

The group was waiting for Irene she was a little behind skiing from the slop. Finally she arrived, but accidentally hit another man from our group. Everybody started screaming, “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss! rdquo; But she said, “I “m a shy girl and kiss only my husband. rdquo; Two hours later, the group was waiting for me, and this time I hit another lady and we both fell on the snow. Logically, the groups should have been shouting “Fck, Fck, Fck! rdquo; Well, it didn “t happen.

After lunch, the weather worsened, and we spent two hours skiing in the mist and fog. We were tired and happy to be back in the hotel. The show called Inauguration has just began. Isn “t all we need is to see celebrities and the red carpet. Have you noticed that Bush and Obama were arriving in the stretched Cadillac? No Mercedes. As we all know, American manufacturers make the best cars for the President of the United States! Inauguration is over. I didn “t vote for Obama, but I wish him all the best!

Yesterday, Obama paid the tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream. Because of that, we have the third Monday of January off and need to use only four of our vacation days to have this wonderful week of skiing in Alps. Thank you Dr. Martin Luther King!

If you are reading this blog, most likely you “d like to see some photos from my skiing vacation. Here you go: Beef Carpaccio, French bread, Osobuko, and a cheese tray at our all-you-can-eat buffet.

twitter.com/yfain

Today was the first day of skiing. Usually, the first morning is a little slow ndash; instructors are trying to make sure that if you enrolled yourself into a group, say 2A, your skill level is good enough and you won “t slow down the rest of the skiers in your group.

The instructor starts asking everyone to introduce themselves and I made an interesting observation ndash; most of the people are naming the country they “re from 
 “I “m from Italy rdquo;, “I “m from Brasil rdquo;, etc. But us, Americans name either the city or the state we “re from, “I “m from New York rdquo;, “I “m from Pennsylvania rdquo; as if the rest of the world is expected to know that Pennsylvania is in the USA. I was not better than others and proudly announced, “I “m from New Joisy rdquo;.

Today I decided to take an iPhone with me. Why not skiing while listening to the music? Right before the vacation I “ve loaded my iPhone with a bunch of music and podcasts hellip; I got off the lift chair, turned on Jesus Christ Superstar, and started going down the slope anticipating fun and new experience. To my surprise, the tracks from the album didn “t play smooth and the sound was jerky as if it was an old LP played with a worn out needle. Man, I couldn “t believe Steve Jobs decided to make the listening experience that natural so when a person is jumping the music would do it too hellip; I wonder if the tracks were damaged by iTones? Besides, the water was condensing on the iPhone “s glass hellip;I guess, it “s a bad idea to take the iPone on the slope.

The slopes in the USA are marked as green (the easiest), blue and black. Here in France, they are green (easy), blue (the same difficulty as blue in the USA), red (more difficult), and black. Today we were skiing blue and red slopes.

Some of the slopes were pretty high ndash; about 3000 meters (9000 feet), and our hotel is 1800 meters above the see level. Victor said that in such high altitude we should drink more water and avoid alcohol. I “m so glad that beer and wine in France are not considered alcohol ndash; people just drink it.

There were four Germans in our group and we made a short stop on the slope. Apparently, one of the Germans wanted to pee after lunch (unlimited beer was available in the restaurant). Without thinking twice, he made several steps away from the group and took a leak right on the shiny white powder. Isn “t it a sign of real democracy where people are so free that they are not shy and easily do #1 in front of other people? So far I “ve seen people openly peeing by a highway in Israel, people peeing on the streets in India, now I had a chance to learn that Germans don “t have breaks either. So far I can state that there are three real democracies in the world: India, Israel and Germany.

If people in your country enjoy peeing on the streets, please drop me a line.

At 4:30PM we “ve returned back to the hotel. In the ski room I ran into a sad looking woman. I asked, “Can I help you? rdquo; She explained that they were taking a private lesson with her husband, and instructor told them to go to a bus stop in one of the small ski towns. The instructor and herself met at the bus stop, but her husband never showed up. This woman kept saying, rdquo;I lost my husband, I lost my husband! rdquo; I told her to relax as her husband would definitely find the way to get to the hotel. She “s so na iuml;ve hellip;It “s not so easy to lose ones spouse. Literally impossible.

twitter.com/yfain

Our group was staying in several hotels. Some tourists booked the hotel that was a little bit cheaper than ours. But our hotel provided free breakfast, which in Geneva can easily cost $15 per person.

Here “s how you should arrive to the breakfast area of the hotel that serves breakfast for free. Put on a shirt with max number of pockets. Your wife should bring purse with her. Kids can go as they are because they still have some moral principles. After you “re done eating, put some salami in the left breast pocket of your shirt. Eggs and cheese fit nicely in the right one. Jeans are for apples, bananas and mandarins. If you didn “t forget to bring zipped plastic bag, you can secure a pint of juice if available. I don “t recommend you pouring hot coffee in the plastic bag as it may burn your private parts through your Jeans pocket. This little advice can keep you running till dinner.

The bottom line, when you book the hotel, don “t just go by the room price. See if the breakfast, Internet, and car parking (if you “re driving) are free. Add all these numbers for each hotel you “re considering, and you “ll be able to make an educated decision.

A large bus with a trailer for luggage arrived on time, but when you expect to board more than 60 people arriving by all kinds of transportation from different origins, delays are inevitable, and we had to wait a little for a couple arriving from Lyon by train. Here my rules of boarding the bus for people who travel alone.

When Dora asked everyone on the bus to check if his/her travel partner was seating nearby, it reminded me a joke.

After a pee stop, a tour guide asks the passengers to check if no ones is missing. Everything was fine and the bus took off. Three hours later a police car passes and stops the bus. A policeman and a well dressed lady enter the bus. She stops by the row 14 and says, “Simon, not with your luck! rdquo;

Here “s another simple bus rule. Say, you are boarding a half empty bus knowing that the bus will be full. You can pick any seat you like.

Alex, what seat would you take? Big mistake. Don “t take an empty two seater.

Since the bus will be full anyway, the chances are high that when someone will take a seat next to you, this someone will be a bulky person and you want enjoy your ride. What should you do?

Look at the two-seaters that already have one passenger, pick a petite girl and sit down next to her. Pay special attention to Chinese or Japanese girls as they are super slim.

Finally, one more advice that was shared with me by a savvy air traveler. If you don “t want to sit next by a mom with a screaming toddler, always have a porno magazine in your carry on bag. Take your seat on the plane and start browsing the magazine. If a mom with a toddler has a seat next to you, she “ll make sure that the flight attendant will move her to a different seat.

After two hours ride on the bus, we “ve arrived to the winter ski village in France. It “s 30 degrees and weather.com promises snow almost every day next week. Checked into the resort was smooth. Internet costs one euro per hour. The food was great as expected. Tomorrow is the first day of skiing.

Every year our friend and travel agent and a prominent green-slope skier Dora takes a group of people for a skiing in French Alps. Usually we select one of the winter European Club Med resorts to enjoy good food, wine, view, and, of course skiing. This time our group includes more than 60 people, which made Dora the #1 among all travel agents who sell Club Med.

Our group includes people from 5 to 75 years old. Several people came here because they like skiing. Some people are not even planning to get on the slopes, and will spend the day time shopping and walking around spending evening consuming free food and drinks at the resort.

This is my sixth such trip, I “m not a ski champion, and will never become one. I “m taking it easy ndash; enjoying fresh air, bright snow, and relaxed positive people. Love good food. This is one of my main reasons for coming skiing to France vs. going to home resorts in Colorado and Utah. The skiing is good there too, but I can “t spend a week eating burned hamburgers and drinking muddy brown liquid that is being sold as coffee.

Swiss Air provided great service on the flight between New York and Geneva. What are the characteristics of a good flight experience?

1. Good crew ndash; young flight attendants and good pilots that can perform a smooth landing in general and water landing on Hudson river, if need be. Girls were young, and luckily, we did not have a chance to try the water landing.

2. The food. It was unusually good too. Even though I brought some salmon sandwiches from home, I also enjoyed pasta with broccoli offered on board. Food, wine and beer were free too.

3. Entertainment. There was a good selection of movies during the flight. I was surprised to find Arabic Songs among music channel selection though. In addition to movies and music, I had my laptop with me. I made this photo on the plane ndash; isn “t it amazing that all three passengers (myself included) were carrying MacBook laptops? Steve Jobs really made a difference! I wish him to get well soon. BTW, the picture was taken by iPhone, which is yet another Apple ‘s product.

We “ve spent the day walking and window shopping in Geneva ndash; prices are way too high here comparing to what we have in the USA. All of a sudden, we ran into a protest march of at least a thousand Arab people shouting that Israel is terrorist and assassin that kills Palestinian infants. They were carrying imitations of babies in white sheets covered with blood. No one blamed Hamas as the main reason of the deaths of innocent Palestinian kids ndash; they set the rockets in the schoolyards and hospitals and are happy when Israelis bomb these sites causing casualties among kids. Hamas was always hiding behind women and children.

They were screaming, “Stop Israel rdquo;, as if they didn “t know that this would happen immediately after Hamas will stop bombing Israeli cities. Brainwashed people…Man, I came here for a vacation, but you can “t get away from politics these days!

Fondue in the evening put us in a good mood for a couple of hours, but then I had to fight with the hotel clerk ndash; I paid for Wi-Fi connection from the room, used it, then my son used it from his computer, and then again, I wanted to go online again from mine ndash; it gave me a message stating that we can have only one connection at a time. Shutting down my son “s machine didn “t help, the clerk could not offer anything better than asking me to purchase another connection and resolve this situation with the owner of the hotel tomorrow morning, which I did. Let “s see if the owner will understand that this is a glitch with their software that wouldn “t allow cleanly close the connection and logout from their network.

The buses that will take us to the resort are coming tomorrow morning. Good night, Geneva!

twitter.com/yfain

The rough cuts version of the first chapter of the book written by Farata principals is available on Safari books online. The working title of the book is Enterprise Development with Flex, and the printed copy of the book should be available in May-June of 2009.

Here ‘s a brief description of the book we ‘ve got from O ‘Reilly:

This groundbreaking book shows Flex developers exactly what “s required to build production-quality Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for the enterprise. Part of the popular Adobe Developer Library co-published by O “Reilly and Adobe, Enterprise Development with Flex goes well beyond Flex tutorials and product documentation to suggest best practices, compare frameworks and tools, and offer efficient techniques for developing enterprise RIAs. The authors provide lots of practical examples and rely on their own considerable experience with enterprise Flex applications to help you overcome challenges during your project “s lifecycle.

With this unique advanced-level Flex book, you will:

bull; Choose among several frameworks to build Flex applications, including Cairngorm, PureMVC, Mate, and Clear Toolkit

bull; Learn specifics of applying selected design patterns for creating user interfaces with Flex

bull; Learn how to extend Flex framework and build your own component library

bull; Simplify data entry and browsing applicationsMinimize the need of manual programming with Business Style Sheets (BSS)

bull; Discover how to use some internals of Adobe “s LiveCycle Data Services (LCDS)

bull; Integrate functions from Adobe “s LiveCycle ES SOA platform with your existing Flex-based applications

bull; Construct Flex libraries that you can reuse across portals and other applications

bull; Develop a sample AIR application that supports sales force and can work in occasionally connected mode automatically synchronizing local and remote databases

bull; Learn how to modularize large applications

bull; Get familiar with solutions that allow leveraging AMF protocol and synchronizing Flex client data modifications with the with BlazeDS-based servers

bull; Determine the actual performance of your application, and get suggestions for writing efficient code in MXML and ActionScript

bull; Enhance Flex components to support PDF generation on the client

Enterprise Development with Flex also offers solutions for reporting, suggestions for equipping your Flex team with proper tools and methodologiessetting up a version control repository, guidelines for determining the skill sets required for the project, and much more. Although this book is in progress, you can still get going with these advanced solutions through our Rough Cuts edition, which lets you read the manuscript as it evolves, either online or via PDF.

Writing this blog after the second day of training at NASA Johnson Space Center . If this sounds like I “m getting ready to board the next shuttle ndash; my apologies. I was teaching a class on programming with Adobe Flex. Still, it was a very interesting business trip for me.

What would you do if you were to visit NASA for the first time? I decided to arrive one day earlier and spend a day visiting the Space Center as a tourist. This was a smart decision. To say that I was impressed by what I “ve seen would be a huge understatement. I “m speechless! Seriously.

I “m not going to repeat stuff that you can read in brochures, but let me tell you ndash; if you are thinking where to take your kid during the Spring break ndash; come here for a day.

From the very beginning the tour guide announced ndash; “This is not an amusement park ndash; this is the real thing rdquo;. And it was. Mission control room hellip;astronauts training facilities hellip;The second rocket Saturn V that stayed on Earth while another one took Neil Armstrong to the Moon back in 1969 hellip;a huge-screen movie about the international space station hellip;

I “m not an easy person to impress. I visited Taj Mahal ndash; OK, it “s nice. I “ve been to Brazil and have seen Christ the Redeemer ndash; yeah it “s cool. But after learning about the international space station and all these missions sending people there, I “m wondering why the heck it “s not one of the seven world wonders? There is nothing even close to a complexity of this thingy.

Speaking of Armstrong hellip; I “m not sure if everyone knows what were the first words of Neil Armstrong when he made his first step on the Moon. Some pathetic sources state that he said “That ‘s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. ” But I “ve heard (from several sources) that he actually said “Good luck Mr. Gorsky! rdquo;, and here “s why .

The next shuttle (STS-119) will be launched on Feb 12, which is the most important event here. I “m taking my hat off to NASA scientists and to all people who ‘ve BEEN THERE and to those who made it possible.

Here I am at the training center.

I ‘ll be delivering an advanced preso on use of some design patterns in Flex at the meetings of New Jersey Flex User Group (Jan 28), New York Flex UG (Feb 19), and Chicago Flex UG on March 18. Please stop by if you ‘re in the area.

Here ‘s a short description of the talk:

Design patterns suggest approach to common problems that arise during software development regardless of what programming language. But implementation of these patterns is specific to the language. The main goal of this presentation is to highlight selected patterns as they may be implemented taking advantages of Flex framework. You ‘ll see a not so obvious implementation of a Singleton, how a Proxy can dramatically change the behavior of an object, why a Mediator is a must-have in each Flex application. Do you know how to write Data Transfer Objects that are so important in Flex remoting? If time permits, we ‘ll review the Class Factory pattern too.

This talk is based on some materials from the upcoming O ‘Reilly book “Enterprise Development with Flex “.

Will be glad to see you at one of these meetings,

Yakov Fain

twitter.com/yfain

A twitter with a nickname gnat posted an interesting statement, which I didn ‘t understand. I don ‘t recall when was the last time I could not understand English. Here ‘s what he posted:

Normally MacWorld is like fish spawning: single synchronised gush of geek spoo into the Internet. This year more of a sad wank.

I didn ‘t get it and ask a couple of native speakers to explain what this means. I got two different interpretations:

1. the sentence is saying that usually mac world is a flood of people blogging on the internet about the events taking place at mac world but this year it was rather sad because of how little people blogged baout it.

2. clearly this guy isn ‘t american…he seems british or australian…cause spawning is breeding…..but no one in this country uses that word. and a wanker is a “jerk-off ” and wank is to masturbate…which is also English….so if i had to take a guess, “normally MacWorld is like fish screwing…synchronised ejaculation into the internet….this year is more of a sad jerking off session.

How would you translate this phrase into American English?

twitter.com/yfain

A blogger and a software developer from United Kingdom posted the following:

“Having just received some photos from a source I will not name, it is truly horrific to actually see what is going on there, I mean this is the sort of stuff that European amp; American TV Censors and is not allowed to show you.

To see children being killed and people being decapitated in this manner is truly horrific, why on earth is the US government handing over somewhere in the region of 3 Billion US dollars a year to Israel is beyond me.

I could go on and on but these images I have speak a thousand words but I am not sure if I should post them on my Blog or not, I “d appreciate some opinions before I make a decision. ”

Here ‘s my answer to his post:

You can certainly post any photos. But before you do this, I “d love you to comment this scenario.

Every day you put your kids to bed or send them to school hellip; and your town gets 50-100 bombs from a neighbor country. No, they don “t attack solders of your country, they don “t ask for anything specific, they just want your country cease to exist. Again, don “t think of some remote land with unknown people, think about the town YOU live in and about YOUR kids. What would you do in this case?

From day one, Israel states that it ‘ll stop the offensive as soon as Hamas will stop firing rockets at Israeli cities. Hamas does not give a fuck about these requests. They don ‘t give a fuck about their own people. Blinded by religious hatred and encouraged by Iran, they want to remove the state of Israel from the world map. As simple as that.

It ‘s a real tragedy that peaceful citizen of Gaza die, but there is one reason for this – Hamas. Here ‘s a good example of how they encourage further rocket attacks on Israel. They don ‘t give a shit about their own killed children – they need them for PR. Watch these Youtube videos by Israeli army: http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk

A couple of years ago I published a blog supporting Israel during their war with Hezbollah, it ‘s time to speak up again.

Update. Wall Street Journal published this photo in an article about how Israeli spectators gather on a hill and watch bombing of Gaza. This is really disgusting seeing how Orthodox Jews enjoy “the show ” knowing that they won ‘t serve in the army and risk their lives.

Unfortunately, it seems that Israel is losing this war too – every day at least a couple of dozen of rockets are being fired from Gaza regardless of all the damage cased by their air and ground forces. Most likely, after another couple of weeks of these military actions, Israel will be forced by the international pressure to stop, and Hamas will declare their victory over Zion aggressors. And the rockets will keep falling on Ashqelon, Beer Sheva, Sderot, and Ashdod…

Yakov Fain, US citizen

My Twitter: http://twitter.com/yfain