I saw a YouTube video yesterday titled “Meet your Meat”.  I have to say it makes me want to remove meat from my diet.  Recently, thanks to my wife, we have been moving back into a veggie rich diet over the past few months.  I suggest you check it out.  It really makes you wonder about the ecology and ethics involved in our food system.  I wonder if everyone had to clean at least one animal in their life time if this type of stuff would go one.

Here you can see my grandma being interviewed.  I called in the tip last night when I found out that the Army Corps. of Engineers decided that they had to release so much water from Mark Twain Dam that it would create a man made flooding of homes and farm land.  The dam was built, in part, to keep floods from happening.  Maybe, they should have moved a little faster and sooner.

I looked this up to see what it has available.  What’s nice is that it consolidates some core essential software into one location.  Highly recommend it.

http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html?hl=en&gl=us&utm_source=en_US-et-more&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en_US

My wife and I had a great time at Bonnaroo.  I have to tell you it was nothing like what I expected.  There must have been over a hundred bands playing non stop for four days.  I say Charlie Tuna, from Jurassic 5, at 2am to 4am and he tore up the stage.  He rocked hip hop like no other.  Totally enjoyed it.

We stayed in VIP so the showers, restrooms and food service was awesome.  Parking was a breeze.  I drove straight to our camp site with NO wait.  If you go to Bonnaroo you must get VIP.  Its the only way to go.

The highlight of the festival for me was Pearl Jam.  I am a die hard fan.  We got into the pit through a special entrance on the side.  They let in a few hundred people from what I can tell.  Only those people go to go to the front of the stage.  We got to be on the fence just off center on stage right.  Ed walked over there several time.  We were so close that if Mike had been on that side I could have got a pick.  Since he is always stage left that did not happen.  Ed talked a little bit about the war and the fact that we have the right to change what we do not like.  He sung a song about a friend of his that was wounded in the war and lapsed into a coma recently.  It was the pretty emotional and was a wake up call for me.  As a veteran I am always reminded about the struggles soldiers, sailors, and their families deal with on a daily basis. 

Ed announced that Matt was going to be playing at the Something Else Tent on Sunday.  We went over there and listened to his trio sound off with a 45 minute jazz set.  We were hoping for a surprise guest but none came.  At the end of the set I tried to ask the guy taking down the drums to get me the set list.  Instead he gave me an autographed drum stick from Matt Cameron.  Pretty freakin' awesome.  That makes two members I have met, with three to go.  Four if you count Boomer.

By the way, if you ever get to try Silent Disco, DO IT!!!!  It was a kick but experience.  There is a tent were people are dancing and there is absolutely no music playing.  It looks like a bunch of people grooving to an imaginary song.  The reality is you get wireless head phones that are playing what the DJ is spinning.  It rocks.

We saw Charlie Tuna because Kayne West was suppose to play at 2:15 am at the What Tent.  He did not start playing until like 4am.  We went over there and checked it out.  It wasn't until I saw his act that I realized I hate the music and the performance.  If you like one man theatrical acts with music playing from a recording you may like it.  I prefer the band thing.  Come on, his act was that he was "stranded" by a computer in a far off world and he is trying to get home?  I am guessing he never found his way.  I give him props for trying, it just fell on my deaf ears.

I am going to put together a little video of the pictures and video that I recorded.  Its not much but you may like it.

If you need food, deals, and people trying to sell there ware you have to go to Shakedown Alley.  We bought some clothes and food down there.  The prices were reasonable and people were friendly.

To everyone we met, thanks for making it a great trip.  We wish you the best.

To that asshole who thought slapping a girl on the ass while driving by in a cart.  It was everything in my power not to launch my water bottle at you.  I hope you never come back and find some one to teach you some manners.  He was the only ass I saw the hole time.  It is amazing what a grown man will do when he has no manners or respect for others.

Lastly, we made our way to the Guest Camp.  Don't ask me how.  We got to hang out with new friends, got some free shirts, played Guitar Hero, free beer, and a private DJ.  This is my next destination.

Peace and Love

I have been fly fishing for a little while and I have to say that I have gone through a lot of paradigm shifts.  At first it was all about catching a fish, then how many can I catch, how many can I eat, how many can I catch and release, how many, how many....

I finally got over that on my last fishing trip.  Probably because I caught so many I could not keep track of them all.  The real magic did not have to do with the numbers at all.  Rather it was the experience of fishing my own tied flies and an original fly by a buddy of mine.  I never caught a trout on a dry before and it was unbelievable.  Yeah there were a lot of them pooling together and it was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel but who cares?  Not me.  A close friend and I got to go to our fishing hole and just have fun all day playing "where's the trout" and winning.

This article by Tom Chandler touches on some of my thoughts about the "fishing game".  I would have to say that he poses some good questions about why fishing is the way it is and lets you come up with the answers. http://www.troutunderground.com/bodycounters.htm

This past Friday Lorraine and I went to Blueberry Hill and watched a couple of cool bands in the Duck Room.  It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the bands.  I suggest you check them out if you are looking for some cool music.  I really liked the Go Van Gogh show, they just put on a really good show.  La Push have some really good songs but the show was not as good for me.  They took to long in between songs.  However, I think their music was a little more uplifting.

La Push

Go Van Gogh

Incurables.

Check this out.  Hulu is a website that has movies and tv shows, legitimately, that you can watch in great quality on the web.  I don't know who put this together but it is a really good site.

I just found this site http://dannydouglass.com/post/2008/02/New-BlogEngine-Extension-SlideShow-Photo-Gallery.aspx that has a great implementation of a SilverLight photo gallery with BE.N.  I am going to start using it for awhile until I can create an XML version for BE.N.  I highly recommend it.  It is easy to use and set up.  The only downside is that it is not each author only for a site.

There is a lot out there about business objects and lot that is not.  What is out there are endless combinations of code and ideologies.  When you are an business and you have to begin to rely on outside coders to enforce the integrity of your data, business rules, and workflow, you have to begin to wonder if it is worth it.  There is a likelihood that your developers have chosen a third party to help them do their business objects.  That puts you in a conundrum.  What happens if they leave?  What is the learning curve and how will you continue to support it if you pick an in-depth business object framework like CSLA.Net or nBusiness? 

Microsoft seems to be addressing this concern in a circular, almost arbitrary manner.  They give you new technologies like LINQ, ASP.Net MVC, Dynamic Data Web Site, Enterprise Library, etc.  But none of them answer the question or business need - a simple, manageable business object framework.  What is a developer to do?

A business object has to do the following (more could be added):

• Support fields,
• Allow for validation; a.k.a. business rules,
• Have a way to get data,
• Create collections of objects,
• Trap errors,
• Be aware of it's state; dirty, new, old.
• etc.

Why is there no simple way to make this happen?

I am an avid fan of CSLA.Net and highly recommend it.  I just discovered nBusiness on codeplex.com/nbusiness.

You can take a look at them and take the time to learn them.  There is a lot to be learned and will probably help you solve some of your existing coding problems and give you some new insights to coding.

I have been thinking about this for a long time and I have some initial thoughts about business objects. 

I think you should be able to create a class with properties and fields, simple enough.  You should be able to decorate your class and properties with attributes that tell a business object framework how to handle them.

An example would be

[Fetch("sp_GetById", "Id")]
[Delete("sp_DeleteById", "Id")]
public class MyObject
{
    private int _Id;

    [Validation(NotNullable)]
    [InitialValue(InFromDatabase)]
    [WriteRoles("Admin")]
    [ChangeRoles("Admin, Editor")]
    [ReadOnlyRoles("?")]
    public int Id
    {
        get { return _Id; }
        set { _Id = value; }
    }
}

Where is my hero for a business object framework?  I think this can be done with less than a dozen custom class files, a data provider framework, and the core .Net framework.

I heard this artists on a local radio station that I listen to.  It's 89.1 The Wood, from Lindenwood University.  It doesn't have commercials and isn't yet streaming.  Weird, I know.

• Daniel Powter - Free Loop
• Regina Spekter - (I don't remember the title, but she played at Lollapalooza '07)
• Jimmy Eat World - The Middle (Acoustic)
• Tegan & Sara - Back in Your Head
• Grace Potter - Ah, Mary
• Two Loons for Tea - Money
• Snow Patrol - Shut Your Eyes
• REM - #9 Dream
• Matchbox 20 - How Far We've Come
• Ret Hot Chili Peppers - We Believe
• Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
• The Kin - Blue on Blue
• David Gray - Tell me something
• Fionn Regan - Be Good or Be Gone