Back Home in Tears

I knew it would come to this: I'd go away for a couple of weeks, try to cope as best as can be expected (maybe better) and, despite my predictions to the contrary, come home to this empty house - this shell devoid of Connie's warmth. At least my son was here to greet me warmly; for that I'm truly grateful. But then I got the mail.

The mail.

A pile a foot or more deep. Letters. Sympathy cards. Catholic Mass cards. There are letters from those benefiting from the largess of our friends. Overwhelming love and caring seeps through as I slash through each envelope, tearing and clawing at the rough paper to unveil the uniqueness conveyed by each correspondent. The tears come easily. The missing is amplified. The pain of loss is almost too much for the heart. They call it grief. I prefer despair.

And yet, somehow, the mail confirms. It fills the emptiness of house and converts it to a home again. It's filled with blessings, with happy people remembering this beautiful soul that I was all too fortunate to love for so long. For too short a time.

My distress is dampened a bit. Perhaps it's from the tears trailing down my cheeks, cooling, soothing, as if they were some indeterminate potion. It reminds me of how many lives were touched and transformed by knowing her. By working with her. By loving her.

I vow to add another post, another update to a tale worth telling. I hope to find a fresh phrase that expresses thanks in my own way. Fighting off cliches, I beg forgiveness for delaying my response. I promise to subdue despair. I pledge to read the mail.

Boy and Car

Left: Gerry N2GJ in front of his old 1978 Toyota (which was brand new when this photo was taken!)

Right: Gerry N2GJ sitting at his ham shack in Kingston, NJ in 1978. This photo became the picture on his QSL card (he bought 1,000 of them and still has a few left!) Note the Kenwood TS-520, D-104 microphone, RCA Tac-Tec handi-talkie, The SBE-144 2-meter transceiver and the CDE Rotor box (that drove my Ham-M rotor that turned my TA-36/40 beam). OH, and the "Not a CB'er" bumper sticker....

My Favorite Airplane of All Time

Here is a photo of a model built by Ron Peterka of Ramona, CA. I saw a picture of this plane (a Ryan STA) in a magazine and wrote to him to say how much I liked it. He sent me an original photo of it (along with a gorgeous photo of a model Gee Bee racer he also built). This is a 1/6th scale model. I hope you like it as much as I do!

I believe Steve Pitcairn (of the autogiro family fame) actually owns an original STA -- at least I remember seeing a photo of him flying one on the cover of an airplane magazine a bunch of years ago.

Memo from Lewis F. Kornfeld, Jr.

I once wrote a letter to the head of Radio Shack. At that time, this was Lewis F. Kornfeld, Jr. He wrote this hand-written note back to me that said:

To: Jeri
Date 3/12/1980

Thanks for your interesting clipping!!

The Ham business just seems beyond our current intentions due to an insufficient population. Many of us hope that situation will change.

With 7600 world outlets, we really must stay with big movers and turnover. Imagine 7600 Collins floor samples?

Appreciatively,

Lew Kornfeld

My friend Al AA2H

This is a photo of my friend, Al AA2H, taken during ARRL Field Day back in 1978! He's really a great guy!

73,

GJ

Reflections on Robert B. Parker's Death

Robert B. Parker died today: http://bit.ly/7Ji65A One of our favorite authors! RIP

Parker's most famous for his "Spenser for Hire" books. Other memorable mysteries featured Jesse Stone (played by Tom Selleck in made-for-TV films), and Sunny Randall. The female characters in his books were never shrinking violets.

I once saw them filming an episode of "Spenser" in Boston. I remember it took over an hour for a scene that was on TV about 15 seconds!

I used to write a column in the Princeton Packet papers and one day I was in the local ShopRite grocery store. A woman came up to me and said "I really enjoy your writing, would you mind giving me your autograph?" I replied "Sure, but I don't have anything to write with, let me borrow something from one of the cashiers."

I had no sooner gotten a pen and a slip of paper when I saw Avery Brooks (who played Hawk in the Spenser series) standing next to me in line. Catching my breath, I said something like "Wow, Professor Brooks, I can't tell you how much I enjoy your acting. Would you mind if I asked you for your autograph!?"

Meanwhile, I have no idea where that woman slipped off to, but she never did get mine!

I've posted a photo of part of our RBP collection. I will admit we never got into the non-mystery fiction, particularly the Western themed novels he wrote. However, we saw the movie "Appaloosa" and enjoyed that very much. I believe there may have been as many as three books that featured the characters Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, the guns-for-hire of those stories.

I'm not 110% sure, but I think he always dedicated every book to the love of his life, his wife Joan. If I wrote as he did, I would do the same...to my wife, of course, not his.

Practical, easy-to-digest hands-on tutorial is a winner! Posted on Amazon July 25, 2012

This review is for:

Getting Started with Oracle Data Integrator 11g: A Hands-on Tutorial (Paperback)

Oracle Data Integrator is Oracle Corporation's premier software product for integrating data across an organization's lines of business. It addresses the need to move data among transaction processing systems, data warehousing implementations, business intelligence tools, master data management, so-called "big data," and the like. It is fully integrated with the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Data Quality.

As an instructor and consultant for the better part of my 40+ year professional career, I have always sought to share with my students value-added collateral that reinforces the lessons I teach them in the classroom (either through traditional or live virtual class settings). I've shared white papers, links to documentation both inside and outside of vendors' mind space and the results of personal research via email threads and blogs. I eagerly anticipate that someone will create a well-written primer that's driven by the needs of a critical mass of product users.

Such is the case with the new book, Getting Started with Oracle Data Integrator 11g: A Hands-on Tutorial. The authors of this practical, easy to digest, 384 page paperback (available also as an e-book) are directly involved with the development and support of the product known by its users simply as "ODI." They ostensibly avoided creating just another rehash of vendor documentation, opting instead to "accelerate your learning of ODI 11g" through hands-on lessons.

As they mention in the first few pages, they hope to "highlight the key capabilities of the product in relation to data integration tasks (loading, enrichment, quality, and transformation" by exposing the key productivity features inherent in a code generator that automates the implementation of much of the required logistics traditionally hand-coded in conventional ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) processes.

They illustrate sample use cases that transcend the mundane, offering examples that exploit a varied set of relational database tables, text files and XML (Extensible Markup Language) data. In keeping with their tutorial focus, they maintain an educational perspective, demonstrating how the features and functions of the tool are used in real-world situations. Their "number one goal is to get you familiar, comfortable, and successful" using the product. In my professional opinion, I believe that the entire book is faithful to their objectives.

With chapters that cover every critical topic from a brief but effective review of ODI terminology, architecture and concepts, through product installation, application development and administration, the authors provide a comprehensive look at the tool without bogging the reader down in minutia. They cover the use of database technologies like MySQL, Oracle database and Microsoft SQL Server. Best of all, the entire book has an enthusiastic tone. As they say, "If it is not obvious by the time you finish reading this book, we ODI 11gR1" (the emphasis on "really like" is theirs).

I, too, am a zealous devotee of ODI. I have worked with the product ever since Oracle Corporation acquired the French company known as Sunopsis a half-decade ago. Several of the authors were among those who developed and marketed what has evolved into Oracle Data Integrator 11g. I've taught well over 1,000 people how to be successful with ODI in those intervening years. I welcome this new book as an essential title in the library of every student I teach going forward. I will heartily recommend it to everyone "interested in, or responsible for, the content, freshness, movement, access to, or integration with data."

One final comment: I pride myself on being well-versed in ODI. I kept track of all the techniques and observations about this software that I may not have fully exploited, despite my experience. When I was finished reading the book, I had compiled a list of about a dozen features that were interpreted in significantly better ways than I've traditionally explained them! My hat's off to the team who wrote this excellent book!

(This book is available via http://www.amazon.com or directly from the publisher, Packt Publishing at the following URL):

http://www.packtpub.com/oracle-data-integrator-11g-getting-started/book

Paperback Edition: Getting Started with Oracle Data Integrator 11g: A Hands-on Tutorial

Kindle Edition: Getting Started with Oracle Data Integrator 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial

Location: Kingston, NJ (USA)