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Kentucky Ruby Users Group November 2006 Meeting   04 Nov 06
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We had an excellent turn out at this month’s meeting. I can feel the momentum!

I did a lightning talk on continuations . My aim was to titlate rather than illuminate. I believe I was successful. Oh…and just to be clear the example code is from Jim Weirich .

If you are in the area be sure join us next month. The Kentucky Ruby Users Group meets on the first Thursday of each month, but we haven’t settled into a permanent meeting location yet.


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In April   29 Mar 06
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In April I’m going to:

  • Parasail
  • Finish my Web 2.0 application
  • Hide eggs
  • Eat one quail each day
  • Clean the basement
  • Go to a party

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Calling All Ruby Nubies   28 Mar 06
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Good friends and fellow Rubists Darren Day and Chuck Fouts are presenting You’ll Be Seeing…Ruby: An Introduction to the Ruby Programming Language .

  • Fri. March 31, 2006
  • 8:30 a.m. – Registration and continental breakfast
  • 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. – Seminar Presentation
  • U of L Shelby Campus Information Technology Resource Center (iTRC)
  • 9001 Shelbyville Road, Louisville, KY 40222

I attended a preview of the seminar this past Sunday and I highly recommend it. Two long time Ruby skeptics in the audience (of four total) were so moved they are looking at using Ruby for their next projects. So if you are in the Louisville area, curious about Ruby, and like free breakfast, I don’t see how you could pass this up.


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A Story of Chief Justice Marshall   05 Feb 06
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by John Esten Cooke
From the 1901 edition of the The New McGuffey Fifth Reader


Among the great men of Virginia, John Marshall will always be remembered with honor and esteem. He was the son of a poor man, and his early life was spent in poverty; but he was not afraid of labor, and everybody saw that he was a person of more than common ability. Little by little he rose to distinction, and there was scarcely any public office in the gift of the people that he might not have had for the asking. He served in the legislature of Virginia; he was sent as envoy to France; he was made Secretary of State; and finally he became Chief Justice of the United States. The greatest judges looked up to him and listened to what he said, as if that decided everything. When he died at the age of eighty, he was one of the greatest and most famous men in America.

My father knew him well and loved him, and told me many things about him. He was very tall and thin, and dressed very plainly. He wore a suit of plain black cloth and common yarn stocking, which fitted tightly to his legs and showed how thin they were. He was a very great walker, and would often walk out to his farm which was several miles from Richmond. But sometimes he went on horseback, and once he was met riding out with a bag of clover seed on the saddle before him.

His manners were plain and simple, and he liked to talk about everyday matters with plain country people, and laugh and jest with them. He never seemed to remember that he was a great man at all, and he often played quoits and other games with his coat off, as full of fun as a boy, and ready to laugh with everybody. In a word, he was so great a man that he never thought of appearing greater than other people, but was always the same unpretending John Marshall.

It was a fashion amoung the gentlemen of Richmond to walk to market early in the morning and buy fresh meats and vegetables for their family dinners. This was a good old fashion, and some famous gentlemen continued to do so to the end of their lives. It was the habit of Judge Marshal, and very often he took no servant with him. He would buy what he wanted and return home, carrying his purchases on his arm; and on one of these occasions a little incident occurred which is well worth telling and remembering.

Judge Marshall had made his purchases at the market and was just starting for home when he heard some one using very rough and unbecoming language. He turned round and saw what was the cause of the hubbub. A finely dressed you man, who seemed to be a stranger, had just bought a turkey in the market, and finding that it would not be carried home for him beccame very angry.

Judge Marshall listened a moment to his ungentlemanly talk and then stepping up to him asked, very kindly, “Where do you live, sir?”

The young man looked at the plainly dressed old countryman, as he supposed him to be, cand then named the street and number where he lived.

“I happen to be going that way,” said Judge Marshall, with a smile, “and I will take it for you.”

The young man handed him the turkey and left the market, followed by Judge Marshall. When they reached the young man’s home, Marshall politely handed him the turkey and turned to go.

“What shall I pay you?” asked the young man.

“Oh, nothing,” answered Marshall; “you are welcome. It was on my way, and no trouble at all.” He bowed and walked away, while the young man looked after him, beginning now to see that he had made a mistake.

“Who is that polite old gentleman who carried my turkey for me?” he asked of a friend who was passing.

“That is John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States,” was the answer.

The young man was astounded and ashamed. “But why did he offer to carry my turkey?” he exclaimed.

“To give you a reprimand and teach you to attend to your own business and behave like a gentleman.”

This little anecdote will show you the character of John Marshall; and I cannot believe that it was his wish merely to reprimand the foolish young man. He was too sweet-tempered and kind to take pleasure in reprimanding any one; and I have no doubt that he carried the turkey simply from the wish to be obliging.


I enjoyed this little story on its own terms, but it is also begging to be deconstructed along several different axes. This story is long out of print and its author long turned to dust. Almost all of the orignal owners of the book this story appeared in are dead. A google search for the title only returns a single match.
I saved this story and of course Project Gutenberg has rescued over 17,000 books from the trash heap of history. But…

This is where I ran out of steam so here are some alternate endings for this blog entry. Feel free to choose one of these or make up your own:

  • <slather> “I flip a coin.”
  • <Xach> “and that’s why the tables have to be structured in a rails-friendly way”
  • <chime> “And that’s how I spent my summer vacation. The End.”
  • <dbday> “And that’s the story of how you were born!”

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RubyConf 2005   27 Oct 05
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By now you’ve read the trip reports , viewed the slides , and listened to the presentations . If you haven’t then shame on you, because there is lots of good stuff there. So I’ll just talk about what RubyConf did for me and how you should change your life to take advantage of my new found knowledge.

First of all I got to do fan boy things like thank Matz for Ruby.

Note that Martin Fowler snuck into the picture, but I had to smudge him out since my understanding is that you have to buy a book from him before you can take his picture.

I also got to have lots of great conversations with my fellow rubyists. Some of it was finally getting to put faces with irc nicks and blog entries. But the chance encounters at the lunch table and at the laptop filled tables during the panels were also edifying. I’m not a gregarious person by nature, so I am very glad I pushed myself to talk to people while at the conference. Talking things over with smart people that have similar goals is one of the best ways to generate interesting ideas. Now I just need to follow through on some of them.

Probably the best part though was just spending three days concentrating on something like Ruby with lots of other people that were also enthusiastic about it. You could smell the Ruby in the air. Many of us spend our days working to pay the mortgage, changing diapers, and cooking dinner. Even though those things are important it is good for the spirit to put all of that on hold for a few days and just geek out. That I am posting a blog entry should be proof enough that RubyConf was very energizing.

My plan is to go to at least two conferences a year. I went to No Fluff Just Stuff and RubyConf this year. And I am very happy with the results. Next year I plan to be at RubyConf again. I would also like to go to a large conference like OSCON or maybe an open space conference .

So what are you doing to make yourself a better programmer and advance your career? One of the things should be regularly attending conferences.


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