Book Review: Programming Windows Workflow Foundation

Programming Windows Workflow Foundation: Practical WF Techniques and Examples using XAML and C# - A-

Loved the fact that the book concentrated on examples and gave a well rounded look at what's involved with Workflow Foundation. Great job breaking down the Tracking Services, Persistence Services and how you could tie them together using the SharedConnectionWorkflowCommitWorkBatchService. The only weaknesses were that the examples were hard to follow plus with the typos it was even more difficult; I had to download the source code to follow along, and would've been nice if the book built upon the previous examples. It did … sort of but might've been nice to build an actual mini-application. Everything was basically a console app. Definitely recommend if you're going to be working with Workflows.

Rockstar Supernova Returns - so what?

Over the summer I got hooked by Heidi into watching Rockstar Supernova.  Storm Large who is from Portland was why.  So we found out via a friend that Storm was coming to play in town at her old hang out Dante's, a local bar and venue that hosts quite a few bands.  I guess back in the day, Storm used to play here every Wednesday night, even in her PJ's when she felt like it according to Heidi.

So Storm was coming to play under a secret band name called, Strokejob - tickets $15.  Reason she was in town was because Supernova was playing at the Coliseum.  So let's skip Supernova and check her out.

We started off with some dinner at this Greek restaurant called Alexis.  I'm amazed at the differences between Greek and Italian food seeing as they are so close to one another.  The food was great.  Plus they had a belly dancer.  What more could you ask for.  Some old memories of belly dancers tell me I think I was here 9 years ago when Ray and I visited Jen but I'm not quite sure...

Dinner at Alexis (Greek)

Back across the street at Dante's the show was sold out.  Glad we got tickets.  Storm put on a pretty good show.  Not really rock n' roll but she has a great voice.  Nice tattoo's too.  Unfortunately most of her songs are covers or variations of covers where she sings the lyrics to one song over the music of another.  It was cool seeing Magni, Toby and Dilana from the T.V. show there is well.  Heidi got a picture with Toby and the venue was soo small.  Only like 100 people or so could fit in their so it was pretty cool.

Inside of Dante's (everything's in red)

The star of the show though for me was the 2nd band that opened up called Kleveland.  So good I picked up their CD.  Real rock n' roll.  3 people.  Chick on vocals and lead guitar, and 2 guys on bass and drums.  She rocked.  A mix of Joan Jett and the singer from the Pretender's.  Cool.  I know you would've appreciated it Ray...

Later.

Bad Weather Good Weather

I've been feeling a lucky that our weather has been so good.  Back home and even further east the weather has been crappy.  From the news I can see below 0 degree F weather.  Then you see how upstate New York is getting pounded with 10 feet of snow...

Well hopefully for you guys you can pull out of this funk.  It was 60 degrees here yesterday... yea yea, it says rain - sure.  We had a few clouds roll by and drop some rain.  In between the sunshine...

Later

Engagement

Sorry it's been awhile since I posted.  Just got back from Arizona.  Part business, part pleasure.  Heidi and I were planning a nice weekend at the Oregon coast to celebrate our having lived together for 1 year since I moved out from Milwaukee, WI.  At the same time at work I got elected to go to some Visual Studio Team System Deep Dive training in Phoenix, AZ.  So we thought... why not make it a long weekend in Arizona?

View off the back porch in Prescott

Unbeknownst to Heidi, I secretly have been planning to ask her to marry me and decided that would be a great weekend to do it.  1 year since making the big move and living together for a year.

Soaking up some sun...

So on Friday after we arrived, we drove up to Prescott where I was able to find a nice house to rent for the weekend.  It was on a golf course but this is their off season (I'm not a golfer).  I wanted a place with a fireplace, a nice hot tub, and an HDTV.  Because of the time of year, everything in Phoenix was like $350+ per night and that was for just a simple hotel room.  So for $200 a night we got this whole executive house with a great master bedroom and bath, a gas fireplace, HDTV, full kitchen with marble counter top and great views.

We picked up some groceries in town and I cooked up a steak and lobster with mashed taters, caramelized onions, mushrooms, and spinach (which we would later forget and leave sitting on the counter - my Mom would be tsk tsk'ing us for not having vegetables).

And right before dinner I got down on one knee and asked...  she said yes!

Being a hambone after cooking a romantic dinner.

The big smile right after I asked her!  See the ring?

I'm not into shopping for jewelry.  Even buying the stuff I can count on one hand.  There's this cool jewelry shop in downtown Portland called Maloy's that only sells vintage jewelry and diamonds.  So the diamond Heidi has is from like 1920, custom cut by a tradesman (not laser cut in some mfg plant), and because its vintage its environmentally friendly.

Enjoying a relaxing bath without having your knees stick out.

Later.