Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Writing Weekend Part 1
Well, Erika and the kids are heading up north again this weekend, giving me a chance to catch up on my writings. Plan to finish off my set of articles for The Computer Paper, and knuckle down and get some real work done on the new Core CSS 2nd Edition book. I've got a lot of the code changes made already, as well as much of the browser testing on CSS1 and CSS2 code, but much needs to be re-written and revised, and I have to begin delving headlong into the current CSS3 recommendations.

Have also finally realized the extent of the modifications Microsoft's Internet Explorer makes to the CSS specification (including doing some preemptory CSS3 implementations), which I may make into a separate new chapter for the book. [If you are using IE, you may have noticed the change I made to the colouration of the scrollbar elements -- a truly cheesy effect, and I'm hard pressed to see any real advantages to be gained from it, but cute and otherwise harmless.] Am surprised at how poorly documented these IE extensions to CSS seem to be – I can't find a single Website anywhere that lays out simply and definitively all of them labels them as such. Even Microsoft's site lumps them together with DHTML extensions, which is a jumble of sometimes interchangeable JavaScript functions, CSS properties and HTML. Blech.

Vanessa to Start Kindergarten on Monday
On Wednesday, as I took Vanessa swimming during my lunch-hour, Erika visited the local school in order to check out their local kindergarten program. She liked it, and what's more, the director there strongly suggested that Vanessa start there as soon as possible. So we are taking their advice, and she will start Kindergarten next Monday. This is going to be a major switch for her -- we knew that she's ready for it, but the emphasis is more on learning than play, which is going to be a change. Have to start her off somewhere, and the sooner the better...

We are Networked!
Sean H. came by yesterday to help re-set up the home networking system, which I completely managed to bollocks up about a month ago, and have been unable to fix. Sean told me that I came close to fixing it, which was somewhat gratifying, but that I still had managed to not quite get it right. He explained several little networking tricks for me in order to stave off any future networking mishaps.

Erika was very happy to have her laptop networked again, and back on the Web/Email.

As a reward, Sean was fed large amounts of sausage and potato, which went down well. ;-)

Sean has mellowed out since his time at PanelX, which I can understand, since the stress of working for himself is much less than the stress he put himself through for the firm. Got some interesting news and tidbits of info about life as an independent contractor. It was good to see him again.

Book Review: Wide as The Waters
This was a book I remember reading a review of in the New York Times review of books, and it seemed interesting. As a lapsed English major, I remember hearing bits and pieces about the development of the English bible, and the parallel development of English as a language used by poets and playwrights. This book by Bobrick does an excellent job of tracking the development of the development of the English bible from Tyndale through to the King James edition.

It is not a dry tome of comparative bible texts, but instead ends up looking at the characters of the people who translated the bible, what they had to work with in terms of source materials; all set within the context of the politics and culture they came from, which is what really interested me. It manages to follow the intricacies of English political and religious thought from the time of Henry VIII on through to Charles II, and makes the point that the politics that eventually lead to the creation of the of the King James Bible was responsible in part for the British democratic resolutions achieved during the Glorious Revolution, and later, to the freethinking spirit behind the American Revolution. (Good points, though I would have like to have seen more development of the latter theme than appears in the book, as it almost seems like it’s tacked on as an afterthought).

Prior to reading this book, I had always found it hard to fathom why there had been so much interest in religious books, and the book reminded me of a stat I first heard in University: between 1460 - 1640 more than two-thirds of all books printed were of a religious nature. This makes a lot more sense to me now, given the nature of religious debate (and orthodoxy) which was passed along in book form. The bible was often the only book a family might own (if they could afford any books at all) – my own Great x 4-Grandfather is a good example of this).

I actually picked this book up some time ago, purchased via a gift certificate my Mother had given to me for my birthday, spent on an excursion to The World's Biggest Bookstore. I ended up buying this for myself as opposed to a copy of Chaucer, which looked too pedantic (though I’ll probably end up buying it sometime anyway. ;-)