I posted a short article on my main site that contains a complete example for basic use of Riak’s secondary indexes.

This presentation done by Alex Russell during 2011 Google I/O should be required for all JavaScript programmers:

This is day 3 of the Whole30, Version 4.0 challenge that Mikie and I started on Sunday. Going pretty well so far. So what is the Whole30 challenge? Here is an extract from the Whole Nine site. For full details go here.

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Eat real food – meat, fish, eggs, tons of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of good fats. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed. Don’t worry… these guidelines are outlined in extensive detail in our Shopping Guide.

More importantly, here’s what NOT to eat during the duration of your Whole30 program. Omitting all of these foods and beverages will help you regain your healthy metabolism, reduce systemic inflammation, and help you discover how these foods are truly impacting your health, fitness and quality of life.

1. Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Read your labels (and your Success Guide FAQ), because companies sneak sugar into products in ways you might not recognize.
2. Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, pre-packaged snacks or meals, protein bars, milk substitutes, etc.
3. Do not consume alcohol, in any form. (NEW! And it should go without saying, but no tobacco products of any sort, either.)
4. Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, millet, oats, corn, rice, sprouted grains and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa. Yes, we said corn… for the purposes of this program, corn is a grain! This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ, starch and so on. Again, read your labels.
5. Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds (black, kidney, lima, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts. No peanut butter, either. This also includes all forms of soy – soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame, tamari and all the ways we sneak soy into foods (like lecithin).
6. Do not eat dairy. This includes all cow, goat or sheep’s milk, cream, butter, cheese (hard or soft), kefir, yogurt (even Greek), and sour cream.
7. Do not eat white potatoes. It’s somewhat arbitrary, but they are carbohydrate-dense and nutrient poor, and also a nightshade (refer to your Success Guide FAQ for details).
8. Most importantly… do not try to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold. This means no “Paleo-fying” less-than-healthy recipes – no Paleo pancakes, Paleo pizza, Paleo fudge or Paleo”ice cream. Don’t mimic poor food choices during your Whole30 program! Those kinds of food miss the point of the program entirely.

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We had lots of questions and ended up purchasing the excellent Whole30 Success Guide. This is an ebook, so you get instant access (very nice). It is chocked-full of supplementary information including a comprehensive F.A.Q. that was very helpful.

So far, so good!

Today was the 2011 CreekFest Chark Artist festival at the Pearl Fincher Art Museum in Spring, Texas. This is a Flickr photoset of the pics that I took today:

Mikie was one of the featured artists and she got tons of positive feedback during the 8 hours that she spent working today. This was a really well-organized event and everyone associated with it was just delightful.

“[G]overnment can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom. And note … that the ‘can’ quickly becomes ‘will’ the moment the holders of government power are left to their own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power, the natural tendency of men who possess some power to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power — whether in the hands of one or many makes little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.” –U. S. Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

Remember,

Not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too.

It totaled 15% of your income before taxes.

If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that’s close to $220,500.

If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you’d have $892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you’re 95 if you retire at age 65) and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!

If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.

Entitlement my ass, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!!

Just because they borrowed the money, doesn’t make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!

Congressional benefits, aka. free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that’s welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements?

We’re “broke” and can’t help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.!

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile , and Turkey .

And now Pakistan ……home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a ‘fixed income’ receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$’s and tons of food to foreign countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when its time for us to collect, the government is running out of money.

Why did the government borrow from it in the first place, and shouldn’t it have to pay interest on the “loans” it took?

Imagine if the GOVERNMENT gave ‘US’ the same support they give to other countries.

Sad isn’t it?

The evening commute

I can’t tell you how many times during my daily commute that I encounter drivers like these two that feel it is perfect OK to cut in front of you so close that you have to brake hard to avoid hitting them. And this, mind you, is without any turn indicator.