Kara's sixth birthday

Happy birthday, Kara!



and friends ...



and brothers ...



The Lord's blessing is so exceedingly abundant.

And the next day ...

It's a wonderful life ...



Laughing ...



at each other ...



and just relaxing ...



God is good.

The Day After Christmas

They opened more gifts ... Yay!



Lauren ...



Kara ...



In the play room ...



In mommy's arms ...

You Are My Hiding Place ... Chôn Nương Thân

How can you be both strong and gentle at the same time? This song is both ... I would call it meekness. I've been told that meekness does NOT mean weakness, but in fact the opposite ... so much strength, that there is enough strength left over to keep it all under control.



A link to some lyrics and chords I'm using.
Direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.
Direct link to the mp3 via podomatic.

He is meek.

Dare To Be A Daniel

My daughter loves this song.



Link to some lyrics and chords I'm using.

Direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.
Direct link to the mp3.

As the Deer ... Khát Khao Dòng Nước

People just love this song ... it is requested often. Too bad I cannot sing it well. Anyway, the ideas in this song are only a few thousand years old, and are stronger now than they ever were.



Link to some lyrics I'm using.
Direct link to the mp3.
Here is a newer version of this song.

You Made Me Love You

One of the great oldies ... This one is fun to sing.



Link to some lyrics and chords I'm using.
Direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.
Direct link to the mp3 via podomatic.

Yellow Bird

What's up with this song? Well one thing is for sure ... The melody for this song is popular and has been used in other songs such as Chỉ Là Giấc Mơ Qua.


Link to some lyrics and chords I used.
Direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.
Direct link to the mp3 via podomatic

UPDATE: I recently added the chords that I used to record this song on the wiki. I thought I had sung it near the key of C ... well it was in the key of A so I fixed it.

Chỉ Là Giấc Mơ Qua

Another sad but lovely Vietnamese love song, imagine that. The melody for this song is popular and has been used in other songs such as Yellow Bird.



Link to the lyrics and chords I'm using:
Direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.
Direct link to the mp3 via podomatic.

Indeed.

Amazing Grace

Mandatory gospel song.



Link to the lyrics and chords I'm using:
Direct link to the mp3.
UPDATED: Also the lyircs in Vietnamese

Praise GOD!

Lord, I Lift Your Name On High

Just a great gospel song ...



Here are some chords and lyrics I used here ...

And here is a direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.
And here is a direct link to the mp3 via podomatic.

Praise the Lord.

Tôn Cao Danh Chúa

Blogger không cho chữ việt (lúc mới đánh vô).
Coi chừng ... Tôi sắp hát bằng Tiếng Anh song rồi bằng Tiếng Việt



Lời bài đây ...
Nhạc mp3 đây.

Praise the Lord.

Lòng Em Vui (I'm Just Jolly)

Here is a fun gospel song for kids ...



Here are the lyrics and chords I used in vietnamese.
And a link directly to the mp3.

Hava Nagila

My Hebrew is, uh ... terrible? But if anyone cares enough to correct it, I will re-record it after they "fix" my pronunciation. Think of this blog entry as a sort of singing wiki.



Everything else is a wiki these days ... why not a song?
As usual, here is a direct link to the mp3.
http://vsingleton.podomatic.com/enclosure/2006-12-18T19_51_23-08_00.mp3

Here are the lyrics and chords I've been using over here.

Still dreaming ...

Another great song about dreaming. Singing it made me feel good. When I first heard this song, I knew I'd never forget it. What a day for a daydream ...



As usual, here are the chords and lyrics I've been using.
Here is a direct link to the mp3.

It's just an easy song to remember.

I'll see you in my dreams ...

There is something about sad songs ... this is an oldie that my dad taught me. The melody is bright, but the words bring out the joy in the sadness. I cannot sing it without thinking of someone close to my wife and I ... and she cannot bear to hear this song.

If it happened to you the way it did in the song, you would not be able to hear it either. May the Lord bless her and keep her.



If you would like the lyrics and/or chords, just let me know.
UPDATED: Here are the lyrics I've been using ...

Direct link to the mp3 via podomatic.
Direct link to the mp3 via Odeo.


Until then,
I'll see you in my dreams ...

Tickets on the Jesus Train

It's so great to finally have recordings of even some of my dad's singing. The Jesus Train is the one he wants us to publish next here.



What a treat.

As usual, here are the links to the original post on the Jesus Train with the lyrics and chords:
http://vsingleton.blogspot.com/2006/01/jesus-train.html
http://lightcloud.verns.net/mediawiki/index.php/The_Jesus_Train

UPDATED: more on apt-spy

Well, If I had just read the file it would have told me that "the following list can always be found at" debian.org ... So the mirrors.txt that comes with the latest version of apt-spy is the one you want to use, but you want to use the older version of apt-spy as follows:

# cp -p /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt .
# apt-get --purge remove apt-spy
# wget -c http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apt-spy/apt-spy_3.1-13_i386.deb
# dpkg -i apt-spy_3.1-13_i386.deb
# cp -p ./mirrors.txt /var/lib/apt-spy/.
# echo "apt-spy hold" | dpkg --set-selections

And the newest list of mirrors only generated 59 errors, which
is far fewer than the one from 3.1-13 will give you. So again, you'll still probably want to use the -f ls-lR.gz something like this:

# apt-spy -d unstable -f ls-lR.gz -o ./output.sources.txt -w outputFile.txt -n 20

Following up on my previous notes about errors with apt-spy ...

Here is a recent version of mirrors.txt with all of the erroring sites meticulously removed as of today.

And here is a sources.list that apt-spy has generated for me.

If you are like me you feel better when you have a list of mirrors that does not waste time generating a bunch of errors and time outs, even if it's only good for a day or so before the errors start to creep back in.

a simple jsp SOAP proxy

Some time ago, I wrote a SOAP proxy in jsp using axis.
Please don't ask why we needed it. But maybe it would be useful to you. If the code below is exciting for you, maybe I'll send you a version that includes the dynamic fetching of the wsdl, and the handling of soap faults.

Incidentally, since this jsp might ignore the http headers from a SOAP fault, this type of proxy can help when you are encountering errors like this, or maybe even these:

So you could either, buy flash remoting, or use the following jsp proxy. Or you might be like us, we have already purchased Flex and flash remoting, and still insist on doing things the hard way :-)

<%@ page import = "
 java.util.*,
 java.io.*,
 java.net.*,
 org.apache.axis.*,
 org.apache.axis.message.*,
 org.apache.axis.message.SOAPFault,
 org.apache.axis.server.*,
 org.apache.axis.soap.SOAPConstants,
 org.w3c.dom.Document,
 org.xml.sax.InputSource,
 java.io.StringReader,
 org.apache.axis.utils.*,
 org.apache.axis.client.*,
 org.apache.axis.encoding.*
" %><%
   
response.setContentType("text/xml;charset=UTF-8");

String wsdl = (String) request.getParameter("wsdl");
if (wsdl != null) {

   %>Your wsdl xml goes here<%

} else {

   String endPoint = "http://localhost:8080/axis/services/Version";
   int timeout = 60000;

   String method = (String) request.getMethod();

   if (method.equalsIgnoreCase("POST")) {

      String soapAction = (String) request.getHeader("soapaction");
      int contentLength = request.getContentLength();

      byte ba[] = new byte[contentLength];
      request.getInputStream().read(ba);
      ByteArrayInputStream inputStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(ba);
      StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
      sb.append(new String(ba));

      System.out.println("==== soapRequest ====");
      System.out.println(sb.toString());

      SOAPEnvelope soapRequest = new SOAPEnvelope();
      SOAPEnvelope soapResponse = new SOAPEnvelope();

      try {
         soapRequest = new SOAPEnvelope(inputStream); 
         Service service = new Service();
         Call call = (Call) service.createCall();
         call.setMaintainSession(false);
         call.setTargetEndpointAddress(new URL(endPoint));
         call.setTimeout(new Integer(timeout));
         if (soapAction == null) {
            call.setUseSOAPAction(false);
         } else {
            if (soapAction.equals("")) {
               call.setUseSOAPAction(false);
            } else {
               call.setUseSOAPAction(true);
               call.setSOAPActionURI(soapAction);
            }
         } 
         soapResponse = (SOAPEnvelope) call.invoke(soapRequest);
      } catch (Exception e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      } finally {
         inputStream.close();
      }

      System.out.println("==== soapResponse ====");
      System.out.println(soapResponse.toString());
      %><%=soapResponse.toString()%><%
   }

   if (method.equalsIgnoreCase("GET")) {
      %>method="GET" is not implimented here<%
   }
}
%>

You can test this jsp pretty easily with something like http://www.soapui.org/ We also have a version of soapui written in flash, so you can put that swf in those hard to get to places on your network for trouble shooting, or when soapui will not authenticate easily in the "https only" areas of your network.

Have fun.

apt-spy ... Segmentation fault ... sigh

Well, one of my favorite programs that I had been using on most of my debian boxen has been broken for some time now. The program is apt-spy. With the latest version 3.1-14.1 you might get something like this:

# apt-spy -d unstable -o ./output.sources.txt -w outputFile.txt -n 20
Couldn't find country LU . Skipping.

SERVER: ftp.at.debian.org
Benchmarking FTP...
      Downloaded 4770019 bytes in 12.55 seconds
      Download speed: 371.05 kB/sec
Benchmarking HTTP...
      Downloaded 4770019 bytes in 11.22 seconds
      Download speed: 415.06 kB/sec
Segmentation fault

Well, since I am an idiot, this is how I started dealing with this issue as root:

# cp -p /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt .
# apt-get --purge remove apt-spy
# wget -c http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apt-spy/apt-spy_3.1-13_i386.deb
# dpkg -i apt-spy_3.1-13_i386.deb
# cp -p ./mirrors.txt /var/lib/apt-spy/.
# echo "apt-spy hold" | dpkg --set-selections

Now I do not get the Segmentation fault. But another long standing issue with apt-spy, as one poster has mentioned, is that

apt-spy ... will report 6 out of 7 servers as non-functioning, while in reality all except 1 are functioning

Well after investigating this issue a bit, it looks like the default file that apt-spy uses to test each repository is "/debian/ls-lR", while the repositories usually have no such file. More of the repositories appear to have a file called "/debian/ls-lR.gz" instead, imagine that.

So now my command line is something like this:
apt-spy -d unstable -f ls-lR.gz -o ./output.sources.txt -w outputFile.txt -n 20
And most of the servers get a hit off of this file.

You may also want to read my next post on this subject. Hope this helps someone.

Mùa Thu Cho Em

Here is another love song I've been singing over the past few days ... Not so melancholy this time. As a matter of fact, it's the most cheerful Vietnamese love song I've ever found.

Glad I got to redo this one a little better. Again, recorded with a $35 Gremlin ukulele, model U18, made in China. Wish I could find another one.



Since blogger did not render much more than plain latin charactersat the time of this original posting, here is a link to the lyrics and chords I'm using here ... http://lightcloud.verns.net/mediawiki/index.php/Mua_Thu_Cho_Em
And here is a direct link to the mp3.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. Enjoy.

Xa em kỷ niệm

A sad, vietnamese love song and a little soprano ukulele -- Xa em kỷ niệm.



UPDATE: Here are the lyrics and chords I am using for this song:
http://lightcloud.verns.net/mediawiki/index.php/Xa_Em_Ky_Niem

Here is a direct link to the free mp3 via podomatic.

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. -- Ecc 7:3

That's how I feel all the time ...

There is a joke that goes ... "You know how you feel when you're relaxing, leaning back in your chair, and then you lean back just a little bit too far?"

Well, people always ask me why I remind everyone that I am not very smart. The answer is simple. Tell me how you feel after watching this video about Daniel Tammet and Kim Peek:



because, that's how I feel all the time. If you did not catch my earlier post on this subject, watch it tomorrow so that you can begin to feel like me everyday. Maybe then we will have more in common to discuss.

God's Movie

From our friend in Africa:

Did you ever wonder what it would be like if God made a movie? What story would he like to tell? What would be the theme, the plot and what would the music be like?

I attended a premier of one of his movies myself, on our trip. Its subject was the glory of God. The main players were colors, of course. They do this subject best. He himself is the casting director, and He really does know what he is doing.

The story unfolded as we moved through unfamiliar terrain. Purple hillside called us and we gasped at her magnificence. Yellow wildflowers ... vied for our attention with such intensity and passion. Massive in number were the yellow wildflower extras: A cast of billions, each one smiling at us. The greens deserve an Oscar. The grains alone are so multi-hued that it would take too long to describe them.

My favorites are the tiny triplets, teff. They are found mostly only in Ethiopia and there are 3 colors on the end of the grass like stalks. There is dark brown, red brown and my personal delight, iridescent celery green. The wind makes such a wonderful display swirling over the different teff's. Her dance is never ending and moved on with each new vista.

Then the venerable old acacia trees with their dark, almost black trunks and deep green flat topped foliage, look so distinguished in their costumes of long fingered resurrection ferns. Some of them even had yellow flowers blooming. Then there are what I call the snow trees. For this showing, they don glorious tiny white blossoms atop each branch like a light snow has just fallen. Bamboo ... with its lighter greens spring up in the most unlooked for places, careless fingers lifted to heaven begging to be noticed. Like selfish movie stars they wave in the breeze. Clouds float and gather and then dissipate again adding stark contrast and setting the mood of the moment. Sometimes in grey they look threatening, sometimes they create a sense of delight and fantasy in white.

A finale came upon us quite unexpectedly. Thistles ... of all things, with purple flowers the size of a baby's head. They added to the display a faint (wish-I-could-do-more-but-I'm-just-a-thistle) fragrance. They obviously stole the show despite their false modesty.

The movie is playing at outdoor theaters near you. You will have different actors, but you will be no less awed. If you can't get out, ask to see it in some other medium. Or perhaps you could go and play it out for someone else (a la David in the Psalms). Let the worship overwhelm you and then let it spread to someone else, till 'the whole earth is full of his glory.'

Surprise

We ...

are ...

all ...

smiles ...

today.

May the Lord bless you likewise.

Genetics

Father and Son ...


Mother and Son ...


You decide.

April's birthday ...

.
The girls had a blast today at their friend April's birthday party on Lake Bryan over here.


They got to go "tubing" for the first time. I heard one of the girls say ... "This was the most awesome day of my life". It seems like everyday is that way ... yesterday, swimming at Grandma B's it was the same excitement.



Lots of screamin' ... 10 little girls, 3 at a time on the huge inner tube ... at least one girl lost her voice ... again, Lots of screamin'.

Praise the Lord.

Preventing empty nodes in Flash SOAP requests

Today our FLASH guru, Jason Reeves, resolved an issue we've been having with FLASH connecting to our web services. If you have been having issues connecting to Web Services using FLASH because it puts empty nodes in the SOAP requests, you may want to try this ...

Edit this file:

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\(your flash version)\(your language)\First Run\Classes\mx\services\PendingCall.as

Mx.services.PendingCall

Line 485 (or so) change this code:

var partNode = this.encodeParam(partName, partType.schemaType, elementNode, qname);
if (partObj != undefined)
this.encodeParamValue(partObj, partType.schemaType, partNode, document);

To this code:

if (partObj != undefined) {
var partNode = this.encodeParam(partName, partType.schemaType, elementNode, qname);
this.encodeParamValue(partObj, partType.schemaType, partNode, document);
}

Now when you use a webServiceConnector (or SOAP or WebService classes), flash will not add empty nodes to the request
SOAP envelope (which causes some web services to fail)!!!!!

ENJOY!

Ok, birds are amazing ...

With too many wonderful videos of our aviary companions, it's time for a blog entry on them. If you have not seen this one, don't miss this ... The Lyrebird:


The manequin ... moonwalking!


Birds of Paradise ...


Amazing video of a crow making a tool to get food ...


"It is He who has made us, and not ourselves." -- Psalm 100

Hava Nagila

You shall go out with joy, and be let forth with peace ... UPDATED: If you are looking for the free mp3 of the song "You Shall Go Out With Joy", go here:
http://vsingleton.blogspot.com/2007/01/you-shall-go-out-with-joy.html

UPDATED: If you are looking for the mp3 of the song, "Hava Nagila", for free download, go here:
http://vsingleton.blogspot.com/2006/12/hava-nagila.html


Long hair ...


Folding his hands ...


Hannah is Cuteness ...


He is long and tall ...


Grandma is teaching us how to knit ... calm and lovely.


Smiles ...


Hava Nagila ... Hava Na-ra-na-na ...


Playing with David ...


Holding his toes in his crib ...


Looks like twins ... we are in trouble ...


Singing praises to the Lord.

After that, he needed help ...

.
What if you had checked them in at the ticket counter on 9/11?

Lan astaslem: Arabic for "I will not submit/surrender"

Chess is so dangerous.

.
Too many reasons to refuse Islam ... And it never dawned on me. Where are all the Imam chess masters? Here is the scoop on chess and Islam. It might also explain why they do not do so well on the battlefield.

I wonder if they have any issue with 3D chess, Go, or Cờ Tướng.

Autistic fellow is called the "living camera"

.
They found out he remembered things well, so they flew him over a city he had never seen before, and he did this:



Reminds me of this other fellow. And we actually have something in common ... Daniel's favorite author is G. K. Chesterton.

The Lord's creation is amazing.

Why am I so easily amused?

Examples of a hash

     15 => 1+5=6 \x
   x 11 => 1+1=2 ==> 2x6=12 => 1+2=3
   ----
    165 => 1+6+5=12 => 1+2=3

     44 => 4+4=8           \x
   x 66 => 6+6=12 => 1+2=3 ==> 3x8=24 => 2+4=6
   ----
   2904 => 2+9+0+4=15 => 1+5=6

     42 => 4+2=6 \+
   + 23 => 2+3=5 ==> 5+6=11 => 1+1=2
   ----
     65 => 6+5=11 => 1+1=2

     57 => 5+7=12 => 1+2=3 \+
   + 94 => 9+4=13 => 1+3=4 ==> 4+3=7
   ----
    151 => 1+5+1=7

    4.5 => 4+5=9    \x
 x 12.7 => 1+2+7=10 ==> 10x9=90 ==> 9+0=9
 ------
  57.15 => 5+7+1+5=18 => 1+8=9

     92 => 9+2=11 => 1+1=2 \-
  - 115 => 1+1+5=7         ==> 7-2=5
  -----
     23 => 2+3=5

     92 => 9+2=11 => 1+1=2 \/
  / 115 => 1+1+5=7         ==> 7/2=3.5 => 3+5=8
  -----
    0.8 => 0+8=8

A Must Read.

.
I just finished reading The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee. He has been influential on many Christians.

For those of us who pray for humility without being humbled, he says, "A law cannot be altered by prayer."

If you like to debate, he says, "We will realize that fellowship is a matter conducted in the spirit; it is not a fellowship of opinions."

And he has a section called "HOW TO KNOW MEN", so you can imagine that this is fairly important ... He says:

"No doctor can prescribe only one kind of medicine to all of his patients. Unfortunately, some servants of God have only one prescription. They do not understand others' illnesses, yet they try to heal them."

He takes the personal relationship with the Lord, which Christians so enjoy teaching, and forces you to see that the Lord requires a concerned fellowship with one another that many teachers ignore.

Many of the best authors like Watchman Nee have passed away.

Our Father

.
This man has pulled, toted, and biked with his disabled son through more than 80 marathons. What has your Father done for you?



Praise the Lord.

CookiePie (Updated)

.
Power users are constantly scouring the web for new tools ... I may have found one that I've been looking for today ...

Sebastian Wain or Mauro Asprea appear to have created an extension for firefox that allows you to maintain different cookies in different tabs. The extension is called CookiePie. Too bad it looks like it conflicts with my other new favorite extension "Tab Mix Plus". I'll probably use CookiePie (AKA ChocoTorta) at work and use Tab Mix Plus at home for now.

The basic idea is that you can have to tabs in firefox open at the same time which are each logged into two different yahoo mail accounts for example. This is particularly useful in web development. The extension is a bit rouge right now, and does not look like it has come into the fold with the rest of the extensions on addons.mozilla.org.

If anyone knows if it will break anything else, let me know. Otherwise looks like a great extension.

----- UPDATE :-) ------------

Well after giving it a good whirl, it appears to have some bugs ...
I am using Firefox 1.5.0.6 right now, and CookiePie disables the little tab closing X button in the upper right that I am used to, and it opens my homepage in a tab by default. So I had to re-learn how to close a tab by using the tab context menu (right click on the tab). Also it did not allow me to log into two different versions of the same web site with different logins :-(

So it looks like it is still very much in an alpha or beta stage, and it is not truly separating sessions between two tabs. I will definitely be watching this extension in the future. This is the kind of functionality that would make my work easier.

If anyone knows of an extension that already does this, please let me know.

Miscellaneous fun ...

Family photos

.
Lauren says our family is like a club, and here are the members of the club:


The kids ...


The girls ...


A boy ...


And a cute smile ...


"When it's thanksgiving he will crawl, and when it's Christmas he will walk ... That's what I think." -- Lauren