Spank My Wookie

Is Ajax the holy grail of web development? Nope. It is certainly cool to incorporate all these buzz words onto a site. But with some of the browsers out there still not incorporating some features, it is harder to get off the ground.

For example, my app calls an external service, which returns XHTML snippet. It needs to be formatted for display. What are my options? SAX parse it? XSLT it from the browser side? OR simply output it and let the stylesheets handle it?

Shortcomings:
Back Button problems
XSLT is not available on all browsers
DOM is still not that efficient on Safari.
HTTP request can only be made to the same server the page is served on.

Posted by Baldwin at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

frumpy, dark, cold
closeout sets, cleanup sets
outgoing tide, rouge waves
nice vibe, caught some of the catchables
got pounded by the poundables
more drizzle...
more stiff offshores
called it quits after about two hours...

Posted by Baldwin at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A lot of friendly people
Clean blue water, but more people
then more, a lot of traffic
caught a fun right, thought it would be like this the whole session
then after a little wait, got another left. Took one step and did not fall
then i just started to vegetate. No more real rides. Just kooked out,
was on position, but let others take waves.
need to to up the wave count.

Posted by Baldwin at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

utility like session
some left handers
mostly closeouts
saw a surf buddy out there
paddled like a mad man
got tossed on a few of the smaller ones
that's about it

Posted by Baldwin at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I cruised the pacific yesterday looking to score a few rides. But starting in Pacifica, things looked like crap, so I decided to head to Santa Cruz. I pulled into the pier and immediately took notice of the nice right hand waves that were breaking against the rocks. Suited up and jumped in. The first wave that came popped up, I swung around and took off on it. I was expecting a short ride and will hop off and go back for more. However, the ride lasted longer than any other ride I've had. I knew how the rest of the day will turn out.

I swung for a few more and started to see the beginning of some serious cutbacks as I was travelling away from the curl. I also got a step in and held it for a few seconds before falling off. Also, I saw a guy face plant and came up bleeding. The outside sets were a lot bigger than what I've seen, but I took off on one, only to fall off because I lost my balance.

Such a stoked day!

Posted by Baldwin at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sunday, I headed out for a morning session before I got my day started. Well, I ended up taking more than half a day and surfing till I got miserably cold. It was really fun though. I was expecting a crowd, but the peak I sat at was only scattered by a few bobbing surfers. The waves were consistenyl waist high. Though there were a few sneakers that came through. Not all the sneakers closeed out, so I had a chance to pull into one shoulder high peak that I cranked a nice turn on and stayed mostly on top of the wave. There was another wave where I took off to the left and cut back so I was completely trimming towards the right! That was a really fun wave. I am beginning to make a few clean exits after a ride.

Today I sat at the same peak, which was smaller than yesterday. When I got there, it was closing out, but as the tide filled in, there were more rideable sets. The forecasts were showing short period swells around 3-5. I got mostly 3 foot peelers. I shared the peak with a few other people and learned that one guy was a repairs dings. I told him my story of how it took almost 2 months to get the board back to me. I will look him up the next time I need any work done.

I took out the Miller today; and what a different feeling it is. It's heavier to carry; I can barely get my arms around it. I needed to paddle further back on the board. The turning is definately harder. There were a few waves where I dug the rail and just biffed the ride. There were some where I rode it out of the shoulder. And yet, there were some where I just pearled. Paddling back out after a wave took a little more effort. I don't know if it is because of the weight, but the paddle is a little harder than my regular board.

Looks like there won't be much, in terms of waves, for the rest of the week. I got my stoke filled weekend and hopefully it will clear up soon.

Posted by Baldwin at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After another round of heavy poundage from the northwest swells, there was a break in the pattern, offering me a chance to get out there.

It wasn't exactly that small of surf; 3-5 range with closeouts. But it was clean.

Both days, I only caught two rides each, but they were fun right handers. I managed some up and downs on them and some decent kick outs as well.

I find that there are some things I still need to work on in the near future. Increase the wave count, paddle around to the best peaks and not look at my feet.

I am in brain dead mode right now. Can't find anything creative to write. But there you have it.

Posted by Baldwin at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After our coastline being pounded by massive swells these past two weeks, mother nature is starting to wind it down a little bit before cranking back into full gear. I haven't been out in the water since before Christmas. So this past weekend, I got a pair of sessions, which is nothing really to boost, but did make me feel good to be back in. Granted, the water quality, after all this storm run-off, was brown and a little more murky. I didn't smell any offensive aroma so I decided to jump in.

Yesterday was adventure day. Well, that just means a little driving around looking for waves. I ended up at a fairly mellow spot up north. I really like going to there and have gotten some fun rides there in the past. Yet, when I decide to make my celebratory paddle out for the year, the wind decides to jump up and down on the waves. There were swooshy wind junk that made identifying waves harder for me. I ended with only two rides, but the first one was one of the longest rides of my short surfing stint. I pulled into a mellow left hander and just rode for about 20 seconds. The wave was kinda slow, and when I popped up, I was still at the top of the peak. My board was teetering on the white and took a little time before deciding to drop in and play. I even hooted for myself half way through, and can't believe I was still going.

Today was major suckage for me. Some more windchop and closeout and the typical weekend crowd. Even though, it was nice to be out and surfing in the sun. I scratched for some small lefts that rolled through. The waves today looked like summertime wind chop. It would jack up fast so you really had to be back on the board, otherwise you will superman into the whitewater and get sucked into the spin cycle. Well, there wasn't much of a spin today, but still...Also, my dumb ass decides to exit the water near the rocks. It was a mine field! I thought I had enough footing to just climb out, but no. I was cursing each step because my bootie-less feet would hit a rock and just shoot pain into the heel. Sucks ass!

Hopefully I can be back for more tomorrwo morning. It is a work day, so the crowd will be light and I hope the closeouts are not there.

Posted by Baldwin at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am having fun tweaking CSS right now. I've been so out of the design game that this turns out to be so interesting. When I started writing web pages, everything was static, and all markup was done straight in the HTML. So fun! Expect more updates on the site.

Now, can someone tell me why you will still be using a servlet to create dynamic webpages. But on top of that, the servlet is embedding HTML code directly using the PrintWriter. And then on top of that, one of the print statements simply writes a META tag to redirect. There are a lot of simple ways to do this without so many clunky steps.

First off, get rid of any PrintWriter code. That is so 1998. Next, simply do a response.sendRedirect, or just use the RequestDispatcher and forward the page. Things like this really bog down sites when there is a lot of traffic. Plus, any update effort is just massively a big migrane.

Posted by Baldwin at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Notice how none of the colors match on the site right now? I am giving it a little revamp with the down time I have. So the mismatch will be here to stay until I figure out what to dress it up with. A few tech words: CSS has come a long way since I first messed with it. Right now, HTML and layout code can be separated out into completely different files. This makes a big difference when updating. Also, I am trying to mark the site up without using tables at all. Before, that was the only way I thought was possible to get fancy layout concepts. This made the code so messy and hard to read.

So what else am I planning on doing with this?
1. Finish with the CSS. I've never fully markup my sites. They are usually half assed
2. Make sure CSS is W3C compliant. Also experiment with XHTML compliance.
3. Fiddle with implementing XFN to further play with social networking concepts.
4. Then Profit!

Posted by Baldwin at 01:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Between Christmas and New Years is a time of farting around. With two holidays so close together, a common practice is to take that week off work, travel, catch up with old friends, or just sleep in till noon. Then before you know it, the year is over, and you are gulping champagne with strangers and hugging the closest body next to you; this usually happens in some club where you paid too much for the privelege to jump up and down, act crazy and blow into gazoozes.

Then the next day, you realize; damn it, the year just started again. No more real partying, no more holiday season, no more slowness at work. Everything will return to normal and you slowly jump back into your day to day routine.

There are mental challenges you set up for your self, aka, New Years Resolution. What's yours? Save money? Loose weight? Pick up a new hobby? Immerse yourself in new cultures? Whatever it may be, I really think it is just a way to motivate yourself for the next 365 days. Who knows what will be in stored.

Posted by Baldwin at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)