June 2000 - June 2000

June 11, 2000 -- Back from Florida. The last few days before I left were a bit hectic and I didn't get to do my usual weekly update. I had planned to do a little work once I got to Florida, but discovered that my hotel had taken measures to prevent guests from hogging the phone lines. Every local call over half an hour was charged $0.10 per minute. Needless to say, I only got online long enough to check my e-mail from work.

The trip was fantastic and I learned a great deal. The most interesting seminars I attended had to do with XML (eXtended Markup Language) and XSL (eXtended Stylesheet Language), the markup and stylesheet languages most likely to replace HTML and CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) as the format for the web. I've been playing around with them a bit myself and am in the process of creating a few sample pages to include here. When I do, you will have to have the latest browsers in order to view them. Although Internet Explorer is the only browser to implement an XML parser, Netscape can use a helper program to parse XML as well. Anybody have an idea what that helper program is? You guessed it. Netscape Navigator uses Internet Explorer 5.x as its helper.

Microsoft Tech Ed 2000 was wonderful and, while I was in Orlando, I had a chance to go to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. I had a wonderful time, but I got absolutely soaked between the Jurassic Park River Adventure and Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges. (By the way, I'm not sure how long the links to those rides will stay good, but I'll leave them there as long as I can so you can see what I did.) I visited all of the areas of the Islands of Adventure from the Port of Entry to the Seuss Landing. I bought Matthew his own Grinch and a copy of one of my favorite Seuss stories, "Green Eggs and Ham."

Despite the fact that I really missed Warren and Matthew while I was away I had a really good time and am looking forward to going to an XML conference in New York City at the end of the month. Actually, I'm looking forward to it even more because it means I'll be able to visit my family for the first time in a long while. I got to see my mother and father at Christmas but I haven't seen anyone else for almost a year.

I took a couple of pictures, which I probably won't get to post until next week because I'm getting a bit tired. Even after being back for a couple of days, my internal calendar is still a bit whacked out from the time changes I've been through.

June 1, 2000 -- The big news is that I'm going away next week. Microsoft is sending me to Tech Ed 2000 in Orlando, Florida. I'm really looking forward to it. The only thing that would make it perfect is if Matthew and Warren could go with me. I'll be gone from the 4th to the 9th, but I should be available on e-mail anyway. The answers just might come a little bit more slowly than usual.

Warren and I are going to take Matthew to see "Blues Clues Live!" at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. Matt doesn't quite seem to get the idea about it yet, but I know he'll have a great time once he gets there. Blues Clues is his favorite television show. He watches every day and has most of the tapes. He knows all of the characters and can sing most of the songs as well. I'll let you know what how it was.

Later the same day -- Wow! Matthew had so much fun, he didn't want to go home. If Blues Clues Live comes to a place near you and you have little kids, take them. It's well worth the price of admission. Frankly, I had a pretty good time myself. I admit that part of the fun was in watching Matthew enjoy himself, but the show wasn't bad either. If you can afford it, and they're available, get seats as far up front as you can. We were lucky enough to be only five rows back from the stage and it was really cool when they made it snow (soap bubbles) and it fell on the first few rows of the audience too.

All of the kids in the audience got their own handy, dandy notebook and crayon to play along. The only real drawback to the whole thing is that Matthew is so excited that he's still awake and it's after midnight. I can hear him in his room singing Blues Clues songs to himself. I go in and tell him to get to sleep, but I just don't have the heart.

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