Mon 03 Mar 2003

  • GTK+: Spent a couple days this week getting the GtkTreeView to work in a RTL locale. It was the last major widget in need of support added – though it showed some RTL bugs in other widgets. As an added bonus, I also got column expanding working, which should make Seth very happy. I’m pretty excited at how well it worked, though we need to do a bit more work to be fully RTL compliant. It would be a good target for 2.4.

  • Mime: I’m now tasked with fixing the mime-system in GNOME. fun.

  • Life: Had a very pleasant day with Rosanna. We went on a walk with the dog down the Bolin Creek trail. It was a wonderful 60 degrees outside, and though it kept threatening to rain, it never quite did. It was a good change from ice storms. We also saw some bird houses painted Carolina blue. Zana correctly guessed they were Eastern Bluebird houses. Two points to her. We ended up walking to Cafe Driade along the way. They have simply the best Cappucino in the Chapel Hill area.

Fri 14 Feb 2003

  • Life: I’m going to ask for a transfer to the Red Hat office in Massachussetts. There are a lot of little reasons for asking for this change. None of them are quite big enough to push the move by itself, but as a whole, they add up to being quite compelling. I’m going to miss a lot about living down here (mostly people), but I’m not going to miss the Commute. Simply put, I was spending eight to ten hours a week in my car. My waking hours are too precious for that. Once I’d decided to move, asking for the transfer became a lot easier.

Fri 07 Feb 2003

  • Culture: As a change of pace, last Sunday I went to the Opera with Zana and Owen. The NCOC was playing Saint-Saën’s “Samson et Delila.” It was a lot of fun to dust off the suit and go out for a change — certainly more compelling than the Superbowl last weekend.

    After the Opera, we went to Barnes and Noble in Cary for a bit. While there, I found a copy of The Art of the Fugue played by the Julliard String Quartet. This piece features prominently in “An Equal Music”, my current book. I think this recording inspired the author a lot. In the book they have to have a special viola made to play a fourth below the normal range, echoing a comment made in the liner notes. They both go into the (admittedly much discussed) numerology of the Art of the Fugue. Either way, I’ve been listening to the music on my way to work every day. They’re just about the perfect length — I finish the first disc just as I get to the office and I finish the second disc close to Carrboro. It almost make my current commute pleasant.

  • Pirates: Speaking of the Superbowl, Zana and I through a Superbowl party last Sunday. As the game featured the Raiders versus the Buccanneers, I decided to hold a pirate themed party. Lots of fun was had by all but the Raider fans. I put a copy of my invitation up at: http://jrb.webwynk.net/files/pirate.html

  • Cars: Bad month for cars. Havoc, Garrett, and my brother all lost the use of their car after they were hit. Be careful driving.

  • Anders and Richard: They have a cool, secret project. I can’t wait until they check it in to public CVS.

Sun 02 Feb 2003

  • Entertainment: Not a very productive day, but a very fun one. I went out to see Chicago with the Foxes today. We strangely ended up carpooling in one car to downtown Chapel Hill for dinner and coffee. Then, we headed away from town to pick up the car, which Zana and I took right back into town.

    Chicago was fun. Catherine Zeta-Jones was much better than expected, as she is much more talented singer and dancer than I had known. The rest of the cast were better actors than singers. Still, the music and script carried them along well. The one disappointment to me was Queen Latifah as Mama Morton. If there was one role that called for a big, brassy delivery, that was it. However, she didn’t sing nearly as aggressively as I would have hoped for.

    Nonetheless, I can’t help but compare this to musicals of the past. The film was slicker, the quality of the editing and sound was much better. The acting was as good or better than any of the musicals I’ve been watching recently (especially the super-smarmy Richard Gere). But gosh darn it, the singing and dancing just wasn’t as good. Fred Astaire, where have you gone!?!??

  • basketball: Sometimes, it’s nice to just sit back, relax, and watch the Lakers win.

Fri 31 Jan 2003

  • themes (interlude): Before I talk about how the theme capplet went wrong, let me mention that I’d been wanting someone to make a themes:/// vfs layer. I’d done a lot of the work needed. Someone needed to just take the work done by James and that in capplets/common/gnome-theme-info.[ch]. I tried to recruit some people to do it, with limited success. I had a few nibbles, but no bites. Then, some guy writes ‘themus’, checks it in to GNOME CVS. It has a lot of work to go, but is a good start. More importantly, the guy who did the work is energetic and enthusiastic.

    And, most importantly, we now have modules named ‘fontilus’ and ‘themus’ — the two founders of GROME.