An interesting meme that gets thrown around frequently is that men need to be in touch with their feminine side. This is a feminist trope that is both wrong and unhelpful. The inference is that men are unbalanced when they are being manly and that it would be better if they would behave more like women. If this was true, would not it be logical for the same people to also direct women to get in touch with their masculine side? Of course it would, but you never hear this voiced to women. The entire responsibility is placed upon the men to behave more like women.

The reason that women are not told to get in touch with their masculine side is that women know that they don't have a masculine side. It's very simple. women know they don't have one, so they know that it would be pointless to suggest such a thing to other women. And for the record, guys also know that women don't have a masculine side so we know better than to suggest it. Besides, we like women being feminine, so why would we want to change that?

You never hear guys (manly ones, anyway) telling each other that they need to get in touch with their feminine side. This is because we know that we possess no such thing. Men don't have a feminine side. And that's alright, because the ladies don't have a masculine side either. The good Lord made us men to be 100% masculine and that's how we operate best. We are entirely unlike women once you get past the basic similarities of having the same number of arms and legs. We act and think in masculine patterns.

A nice acoustic guitar version of AC/DC's Thunderstruck by Luca Stricagnoli.

One of my enduring technical heroes is Robert C. Martin. Mr. Martin is one of the lucky few in the technology world who are instantly recognizable by either their initials or their first names. Robert C. Martin is known as "Uncle Bob". I was fortunate to be able to meet Uncle Bob in the Chicago area at a one day free seminar given by ObjectMentor, back in 2001. At the end of the day, I asked if I could have my picture taken with him and he was very kind and generous and immediately said yes and even insisted that we be standing in front of their "Star Trek" wall.

Thank you Uncle Bob for your kindness to a young and star-struck fan. I continue to read your writings and still aspire to your level of software craftsmanship.

I was an early adopter of Palm mobile devices. Yet, like most technology, they had their day in the sun and then were cast into the shade of the next generation of mobile organizers and then smart phones came along and made pretty much everything else obsolete.

This morning, I noticed this charger lying around and actually stopped to take a look at it, thinking I could swipe it for an at work USB charger. It was a charger for my last Palm device. I'm pretty sure that I no longer have the device, so the charger is off to the circular file. If you look carefully at the picture, you'll notice the proprietary connector. I'm so glad that the days of proprietary chargers are on the way out. Apple are one of the few holdouts, but even they are moving towards USB-C for their laptop charging technology.

An all-time classic cover song. After listening to even just a few Van Halen albums, it's hard not to realize that Dave Lee Roth is a bit of a Jazzer and loves those old classic tunes.