Zachary Cohen's Blog

Getting Better

2006-01-29T19:12:00.000-08:00

Just want to post a note that I am doing better with my ankle. It is starting to move again. i did a *little* bit of cheerleading this weekend. Through a few girls around; did a cartwheel or two. That is a good thing since I'm competting on the leg next weekend :-D, but I will only be doing the simple stuff: Standing tucks, throwing a basket with Big Russ so i have to do no work and holding Idris up in an elevator. Generally speaking I will have an easy tiem relaxing and get another couple of weeks to recoop before the next big show.

I just want to point out that it is pure turture to hang out at the gym and not be able to tumble. AHHH!

Tribute to John Spencer

2006-01-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

I would like to take a moment to say a word about John Spencer, the famous actor. I first really started becoming a fan of John Spencer when I started getting addicted to West Wing (to which I am still addicted). He is a brilliant actor and his character is wonderful, and according to Wikipedia John was the first actor cast in for the show. According to all the reports I have read, Spencer was a gentleman and a good caring person, just like the person he played on TV. Though I have never met Spencer, and might seem stupid to say so, he has in some way impacted my life, and I would just like to honor him here.

There goes another body part

2006-01-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

Once again I have managed to injur myself. I just want to say that I love cheerleading and gymnastics, just not what it does to my body, but it is definitely worth it.

So here is the setting. I'm in Rhode Island on vacation to visit a few friends. I've been lazy for a day already and now I'm at the gym for the second night in a row tumbling with a bunch of friends. We start out with some even bars, at which I suck (hey, I just started gymnastics... I'm only good at floor). Then we move on to some floor before we are booted by the high school team practicing. Then to tumble track, high bar and then back to floor. Well, next we are playing into the pit.

I put a block up and start doing layouts off the block into the pit. Then I say okay, time to work on the full. So I start spinning. The first one was horrible. The second one feels great, I get the flip then the rotation, all good, then I land, and CRACK, there goes something wrong with my ankle. I have no control over it... and don't know what to do. I go to pick my leg up and POP I feel it move back into place. I can barely move it, but I can move it a little in all directions. It quickly swells up to the size of a softball, even though I have it elevated.

Luckily, Dr. Dave was there and taped my ankle perfectly. I can't thank him enough. I spent the rest of the evening on the coach icing and elevating the poor thing. I got up this morning and made it to the hospital to have it X-rayed. Good news! its not broke, just sprained. No tumbling for at least 2 weeks, possibly 4. So sad!

New Year's Resolution

2006-01-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

Its that time of the year again where we usher in a new year and pick the ONE thing we want to change out ourselves. Well, it doesn't have to be one, but it is normally one thing. The reason is that humnas think that it can should be easier to change one little thing as it will take less time.

My resolution is simply, "I will DO more."

I recently re-watched the movie "Batman Begins" and was struck by a single line in the movie. "Its not who I am underneith, but what I do that defines me." That really struck me hard, as I have always lived with the notion that it is enough to be a good person. This line means that being a good person is simply not enough. You have to do good things. I cannot succed at life if I am mearly a good/smart/intellegent/athetic person, I have to do things with my gift. I am not who I think I am, I am what I do with myself.

I have been a many with many gifts, but I've never used them to the fullest. I am going to change that, but I'm not sure it will be easy. I'm going to do mroe this year than I have ever done, and that is the plan.

Best of luck to everyone on their new years resolutions.

Global Happiness

2005-12-30T05:03:00.000-08:00

Is Global Happiness really possible? Is it fair to pray for? This was the question that was entering my head as I went to bed last night. Now, this is not a post about me wishing for global happiness. I have long put my beauty queen days behind me. The question is simply, is it possible for everyone everywhere to be happy?

Sadly, I believe my conclusion is no. I think it has to do with 'happiness'. It is a word that is defined by every individual on their own. Or, better put, happiness is a personal thing, and each person finds happiness in their own way. I fear that too many people define happiness in terms of others instead of in terms of what they themselves really need.

One could say that then global happiness could be achieved by all, if everyone's definition of happiness were defined in terms of self vs. Relative to society. I have two problems with this. First, this would mean that before we could have global happiness we would have to have global enlightenment (which is something that I fear is far more difficult than making people happy). Second, we would have to share an elightenment, as in the enlightenment would force people to all think similarly. This restricts peoples freedoms, and thus I believe it is wrong.

Sorry to bring up a sad topic, but yeah, I just wanted to say my piece and I hope people can convince me otherwise.

MySQL Ruby Binding

2005-12-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

Looking to install mysql gem for ruby, check out this tutorial by tony arnold. Makes life really easy!

Palm and Apple

2005-12-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

I was up till 1 am yesterday trying to get my fathers Treo to sync correctly with his powerbook. No such luck. I want to take this oppertunity to complain about a few pieces of software. How hard is it to build a piece of software that passes events to and from a mini-computer? Apperently no one can get it right.

First thing we try is a hard reset and posting the information back onto the treo. This has worked in the past, but did not last night. Things were still broken.

The next step was to try "The Missing Sync" from Mark/Space. It turns out that we had version 4 and they just released version 5 of their Palm OS Sync, so we went to upgrade. Unfortunatly, my dad had not used the correct email address the first time he purchased the software (version 4), so we were unable to get the bonus upgrade. So we spent full price on Version 5. This is where the real fun begins. This piece of software is HORRIBLE and buggy and should never have been released. It uses deamons and processes to wait for a Sync and only manages to break anything. It turns out that logging out and logging back in isn't enough to restart them. This software turned my beautiful Mac OS X system into a Windows machine that I had to restart every time it froze. If I had wanted windows, I would have bought windows, and this really pissed me off.

On the specifics of how The Missing Sync sucks I have this to say: when I clicked ont he settings button on top of the Mark/Space Events conduit, it just froze, and would require an entire restart of the computer before anything would work. Not to mention freezing in the middle of syncing with the device.

By the way, just to make sure it was the software and not the device, I brought down my palm T5, and it broke with that too.

So at this point I have no faith in Mark/Space, but I'm still trying to get it to work. The next step was to look at the iSync settings. This is where I get upset with Apple. iSync was supposed to be this great application that solved all the synching problems in the world. Well, in my years of using it, it has created more problems then it has solved. Last night I found another problem.

Now, for all who know me, I'm the biggest Mac fan out there. I love apple, but they are really biting the big one on this product. I'm looking at my father's calendars in the device menu and it won't let me sync Published calendars with the palm. No explination why, just wont. When I unpublish them, it still doesn't work.

This is where I was at. Missing Sync was breaking, and iSync wasn't synching the right calendars, and at about 1:00 am, after spending almost three hours on the problem I called it a night.

I've been beaten for now... but I will figure this out and win, and when I do, I'll post the solution so people don't have to go through this.

No UCA Nationals For Me in 2006

2005-12-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

Unfortunatly the rumors are true, I will not be heading down to UCA nationals in January to watch Villanova Compete. I have another engagement. My open team at CT spirit is competing in the Cheerleaders of America Competition in Rhode Island. I would love to skip the competition, but I'm not one to let my team down no matter what. I am going to ask them to avoid doing the same next year, as I really do enjoy college nationals.

VU cheerleaders, I will be coming down to watch the routine at least once over the xmas break. I can't wait to see how you all look. I was very impressed during the fall when I was able to make it down to see the team.

Rhode Island should be fun. I'm going to see if I can talk some people in coming early and staying in Newport and going out for a couple of nights. I always love newport.

Ralph Conversation

2005-12-15T13:33:00.000-08:00

zach: go write comments
go now!
ralph: where?
zach: maczack.blogspot.com
ralph: my website doesn't support them yet
I have work to do.
I will at some point
zach: no, no you don't
you just think you do
mind over matter
move stuff with your head
ralph: there is no spoon
zach: (I just had coffee)

Bad Holiday Spirit

2005-12-15T11:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, for those who don't know me, I'm a cheerleader and have been
involved with the sport for 9 years now. So you might well guess that I
know a thing or two about having spirit and cheer but I do not. As the
days bring us closer to xmas and the like I come to realize just how
little cheer I have.

The biggest example of this is the holiday card. I am not making one.
Why? Because I have no holiday spirit. I am a photographer and have
plenty of photos to use for said card, but I simply have not done it.

Merlin by Project Wizard

2005-12-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

Merlin
Originally uploaded by zacharyc.

Merlin is project Management software. I have recently purchased a license and am using it to manage a project at work. It integrates with a bunch of common mac apps like Addressbook and iCal, and imports from OmniOutliner (haven't figured that one out yet). It seems like a well rounded program, and the gantt charts it produces are awesome. Another note, it exports a project to an HTML page with statistics and contact information. I would recommend this software. It is a steal for 145 euros vs MS Project for 600 dollars.

Greenwich Tumble and Cheer Retirement

2005-12-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

Poms and Balloons
Originally uploaded by zacharyc.

I announced today that I will be retiring from Greenwich Tumble and Cheer come January. This is very sad as I really enjoy the program. Unfortunatly, due to my commitments and ambitions I will no longer be able to fulfil my coaching responsabilites to the Gym. I'm especially sad to be leaving the Greenwich Junior Team which recently competed in their first competition in Rhode Island. I wish the team the best in that they do.

First mobile post

2005-12-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

This is my first mobile post

My First Post

2005-12-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

Everyone has a first post, and I am no different. This is my first post to my blogger blog. Okay, so I have used tons of blogging software over the past few years. The question is, is it degrading for a techie to use a standard blog solution? For me the answer is no, because they can do it better than I. My job is system admin and software engineering. One of these days I will take the time to really work on a real blog page for me, but for now, this is easier and allows me to do other things that I need to do.

Reasons I have switched from my most recent attempt at Typo: 1) Bad Gateway problem at TextDrive. I get this error bad gateway from my lighttpd installation every few days, and I have to go in and restart it. The admins at TxD couldn't find anything wrong. Its not really their fault, I should know more, but I don't and I don't really want to waste the time to learn right now. There are a bunch of other things I'd prefer to work on at the moment. 2) Many people I know and respect have their blog with Blogger, so that puts me in the cool group. 3) Flickr support. Okay, I know Typo has Flickr support, but my typo bites right now and there doesn't appear to be any real hope for it. 4) My original theme is designed by one of my mentors (thoug we've never met) Jeffery Zeldman. Just want to say Zeldman... thanks for all the guidance.

Those are the reasons. Any questions, ask away.