JamesBranam's Blog
Sunday Blowout
What a game. The Indianapolis Colts blew out the St. Louis Rams 42-6. We're already of of Daylight Savings Time over here, so I was able to watch the game starting at 6 p.m. Sweet!
Let's see if the Colts can keep the ball rolling.
Cheers!
-James
Posted at 01:02PM Oct 26, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
A New American
My 7-month-old son got his American citizenship a week ago. He was born in March, and we had to register his birth at the U.S. Embassy in Prague. It was a very smooth process. We were also able to apply for his Social Security card and his passport. I pick up the passport tomorrow morning. (You can see his passport photo at the top of this blog entry).
So, my son now has dual citizenship: Czech and American. He'll be able to choose which one he keeps when he is older.
I think that this is a good thing.
My days at Sun are winding down. I'll be making a big announcement in November.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 06:46PM Oct 20, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Colts 5-0
Hi all,
A person blog entry today. The Indianapolis Colts are 5-0 after the first five weeks of the season. Could be a Superbowl season.
I've been watching the games on NFL Gamepass. And when the Colts play early in the morning my time, I watch the game with my 7-month-old son the next morning. No interruptions. Cool.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 01:16PM Oct 13, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Rainy Days and Wednesdays
Hi all,
This is the last blog entry for September. September has not been a good month for blogging (for me anyway). A lot has been going, both at work and at home. I'll be writing more about the work part later. Here are some random comments:
- A few days ago I posted a video advocated health care for all. Then I received the comments. The comments I'm talking about are spam in the form of arguments against health care. At first I approved them. Then I discovered that several people had submitted the very same comment to other blogs. What losers. I'm fortunate to live in country where health care is available to all. The system works, and if someone says it doesn't, they are either lying to you or stupid to know.
- I've been finishing up my cloud training course with my colleagues. It's looking really good.
- NetBeans 6.8 Beta should be out very soon.
- My son is growing fast! He is getting his first tooth now.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 11:14AM Sep 30, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
The Real Victims of Health Care Reform
Hi all,
The U.S. is the only civilized country in the world without a health care system that does not at least attempt to cover all of its citizens. Barack Obama has been trying to change this. The Republican party has been doing its best to drum up opposition to these reforms, and thousands of people are showing up at protests, many of them with no idea of what they are protesting and that they are the ones who will benefit the most from the reforms. Add to this the health insurance companies doing everything they can to preserve the status quo, to protect their huge profits.
This video takes an interesting angle to all of this.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 03:31PM Sep 23, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
6 Months Today
Hi all,
Today we're celebrating my son's first six months of life.
It has gone by so fast. He has been eating baby food for about two weeks now and loves it.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 04:02PM Sep 10, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Vacation Time
Hi all,
Today I'm blogging from Eastern Bohemia. My Vacation starts on Monday, and I drove here to today to get a head start. Originally I had planned to do some hiking and biking with my wife, but due to a recent knee injury I won't be doing much of either. The knee should be fine in a couple of weeks. It's starting to feel a little better but can still be a little bothersome at times.
See you tomorrow.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 08:15PM Aug 29, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Friends from Oregon
1 blog entry until number 500
Hi all,
Some friends from Corvallis, Oregon arrived in town last night. I met them at about 10 pm and we headed for the Old Town via Charles Bridge. It was their first time in Prague, and they were stunned by its beauty.
They even brought me an Oregon State Beavers baseball cap with the new OS logo.
I'm meeting them again this evening before they embark on another fun-filled night in Prague. And I'll be heading back home to work some more on my Cloud Concepts training course.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 03:17PM Aug 13, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
My Blogging Assistant
3 blog entries until number 500
Hi all,
I have a new blogging assistant: my five-month-old son. He likes hanging out with me in front of the computer.
It makes blogging even more fun.
Have a nice Sunday.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 10:03AM Aug 09, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Getting Old
5 entries till my 500th blog entry.
Hi all,
These past few years, I've spent so much time in front of my computers it was bound to happen. I've been having problems reading small print. Not only on my monitor, but also in other places (books, magazines). So today I went out and bought me some reading glasses.
I've been told by a lot of people that this is completely normal, and it just proves that I'm getting older.
Yuck!
Oh well, I needed to do something, and I did. I see better, that's the main thing.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 11:15AM Aug 06, 2009 by branajam in Personal | Comments[3]
Countdown to 500
Hi all,
I've been employed at Sun Microsystems since November 1, 2005. I've been blogging since December of the same year. Geertjan (of Geertjan's Blog) got me started, and he also kept me going until it became automatic. A lot of my colleagues have started blogs, and very few of them blog actively. It's easy to start, but it's hard to maintain if your heart isn't in it. I've grown to love blogging so much that I started three other blogs. And all of the blog entries can be seen at James' BlogCentral.
The reason for today's entry is to mark an important blogging milestone: ten more blog entries to the magical number of 500 (before this one). I'll be marking each entry with the number of entries remaining to 500 (and a small explanation).
Thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog. You've managed to make my blog one of the 50 most read Sun blogs.
Cheers!
Posted at 06:57PM Aug 02, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Cool News
Hi all,
Some cool news for me this week. A couple days ago, my younger daughter informed me that she had been accepted at a writers camp. She was selected among many applicants. My daughter has been very active in writing and has even had things published. Wow.
Last night, my older daughter informed me that she is engaged to be married. She'll be marrying her long-time boyfriend next year. Boy, do I feel old now.
Just wanted to share the news.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 06:32PM Jul 30, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Facebook Politics
Hi all,
It's time once again to sound off. A friend of mine has been using his Facebook status reports to spread his political views, which sometimes border on the insane. He's a republican, obviously, and he has really been going off about Obama's attempt to create a health care system in which everyone is covered. My friend obviously has insurance (otherwise he'd be singing a different tune), and people who are adequately insured don't want to make coverage available to everyone. They prefer the status quo, in which insurance companies decide types of medication and length of hospital stays. He's against "universal health care" or "socialized medicine" or whatever you want to call it, citing incorrect portrayals of other countries' health care follies. This is all nonsense, of course. People (including me) who live in these countries know that the health care is fine, financially manageable, and truly universal. I've lived which such coverage for more than twenty years, and I am more than satisfied. Doctors decide how long a patient stays in a hospital. The result: fewer deaths and complications. Infants are covered automatically after birth, not after a a couple of days as in most cases in the U.S. Why a couple of days you ask? So that any defects may be discovered and coverage denied. (This happened to a friend of mine.) There are no health care related bankruptcies in Europe; no people's financial well-being destroyed by an illness or accident.
Chew on that, my friend.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 06:04PM Jul 29, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
And Another
Hi all,
This is the other book to be published on August 8. It's the red version of WC English. Here is information from the previous blog entry:
On August 8, another of my new books will be published. It's called WC English. The book will be published on paper resembling toilet paper. The illustrations for the books were done by Petr Urban, a famous Czech illustrator. Actually two books will be published with this title, a red one and a green one.
You can see the red one above.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 26, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
And Yet Another
Hi all,
On August 8, another of my new books will be published. It's called WC English. The book will be published on paper resembling toilet paper. The illustrations for the books were done by Petr Urban, a famous Czech illustrator. Actually two books will be published with this title, a red one and a green one. You can see the green one above.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 25, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Another New Book
Hi all,
I have another book coming out on August 7. It's called Angličtina 5 minut denně (English 5 minutes per day). It's basically in a calendar format, providing the student with one quick lesson a day. It could be in the form of grammar exercises, translation, or even a joke or puzzle.
I hope it sells well.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 24, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
My New Book
Hi all,
As you already know, I'm a writer. I write books for learning English and German, and so far I've manage to have more than twenty books published in seven countries. Although the royalties are that much, they do help pay the bills.
Angličtina nejen do auta (English not only for the car) came out a couple of weeks ago. IT' a bit different from other books I've written. The book itself is in the form of a booklet, accompanied by a CD with English vocabulary and phrases. The idea is that the student will look at the vocabulary in the morning, and then listen to the CD on the way to work or wherever.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 12:15PM Jul 23, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Rained Out
Hi all,
I've been spending the weekend at our country house in East Bohemia. On Friday, the temperature soared to 34 degrees Celsius, but today we've been stuck at around 15 degrees. That's quite a drop. Also, it has rained since about noon, with very violent thunderstorms moving thorough the area. We've been stuck in the house all day.
I hope that tomorrow is nicer.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 07:37PM Jul 18, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
The News
Hi all,
I'm not supposed to blog or talk about.
So read the official press release.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 03:24PM Jul 17, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Happy Jan Hus Day
Hi all,
Oh, the joy of living in the Czech Republic: another public holiday. Today is Jan Hus (John Huss) Day. He was burned at the stake for heresy on July 6, 1415. Today is celebrated as one of the most famous Czechs. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Jan Hus (alternative spellings John Hus, Jan Huss, John Huss) (c. 1372 Husinec, Bohemia – 6 July 1415 Konstanz) was a Czech Catholic priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague. He is famous for being burned at the stake for what the Roman Catholic Church viewed as his heretical views on ecclesiology. Hus was a key contributor to the Protestant movement whose teachings had a strong influence on the states of Europe, most immediately in the approval for the existence of a reformist Bohemian Church, and, more than a century later, on Martin Luther himself.
Impressive, eh?
This holiday follows another holiday on July 5: Saints Cyril and Methodius Day. What this means is that normally we would have two days off, but since yesterday was a Sunday.... Oh well. It could have been worse. The holidays could have fallen on Saturday and Sunday.
Cheers! And happy Jan Hus Day!
--James
Posted at 11:03AM Jul 06, 2009 by branajam in Personal | Comments[1]
Blogging from the Country
Hi all,
Today I'm sitting in my wife's family's country house in Eastern Bohemia. I just had internet installed and it's good to remain connected over the weekend. Now I'll be able to come here more often.
Some random ramblings in this first blog entry for FY10:
- Yesterday was Independence Day in the U.S. I have often wondered why so few people call the day "Independence Day." I usually hear them call it "Fourth of July." I almost never hear "Happy Independence Day, but I hear "Happy Fourth of July" all the time. Weird, eh? A former teacher colleague of mine had an interesting theory: Americans tend to go for more technical vocabulary than the British, That's why you'll find the following differences between American and British English:
- ACCELERATOR instead of GAS
- BABY CARRIAGE instead of PRAM
- ELEVATOR instead of LIFT
- I have never experienced so many thunderstorms in Europe as this year. It seems that every afternoon, they pop up from nowhere. It reminds me of Indiana. Midwestern thunderstorms are the fiercest I've encountered.
- NetBeans 6.7 is out. 6.8 is in the works. Now we get to play the waiting game to see what happen.
- Lots of celebrities have passed this year. The latest is Steve McNair, an American football star. He was murdered in his condo in Nashvile.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 11:34AM Jul 05, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Interesting Czech Holiday
Hi all,
Glancing at today's calendar page, I learned that today is "Victims of the Communist Regime Memorial Day." Wow. I'm glad that the Czech government set aside a day for these people, who were for the most part real heroes. They were imprisoned and even executed for their beliefs, or rather for their refusal to accept Communist domination in their country. Most of the charges were trumped up, and were used by the communist to get rid of possible threats (think intellectuals, educators, scientists, etc.).
Recently there was a documentary on such victims on Czech television. They'd found lost footage of the trials (which were a circus). I hope that a lot of young Czechs were able to watch the series and see what heroism really is (think Milada Horakova, who was executed).
A lot of young people in the country today were born after the revolution or are too young to remember it. More should be done to teach them what life under communism was like. Then they might appreciate the life they have a little more.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 08:46AM Jun 27, 2009 by branajam in Personal | Comments[1]
Back from Vacation
Hi all,
I'm finally back at work after a two-week vacation. Lots of email to go through. I took my mother to airport a couple of hours ago, and while I was waiting for her to check in, I thought about her trip from Cincinnati to Prague a couple of weeks ago. It's an interesting story.
She was supposed to leave Cincinnati airport on July 7, and change to her Prague-bound flight in Atlanta. However, she was told that the Cincinnati flight was already delayed 2 and half hours, and that she would miss her flight to Prague. She was offered a flight changing in Paris, but being the inexperienced and monoglot flier that she is, decided to forgo the French connection in favor of taking the Same Cincinnati-Atlanta-Prague flights the following day.
My mother got assistance through Atlanta, but she was deeply concerned about finding her way out of Prague airport. I called her in Atlanta to offer some encouragement, and by chance I was glancing at my Facebook page. An American friend of mine who lives in Prague had just typed a status message, something like: "I'm sitting at the gate, waiting for my flight back to Prague. I had to act fast. I was able to reach him via Facebook, and he offered to make sure my mother got through Prague airport OK.
And he did. He and his fiancee walked with her right up to where I was standing. Thanks, Travis!
If my mother had boarded her original flight, this would have never happened.
Cheers!
--James
P.S. It's good to be back.
Posted at 10:57AM Jun 18, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Eggs Are Flying
Hi all,
These are interesting days in the Czech Republic. A few weeks ago, the Czech Social Democrats were able to pull off a no-confidence vote in the lower house of the Czech Parliament. The result: an interim government was chosen, and the Czechs, who are in the middle of the EU rotating presidency, became the laughing stock of Europe (at least as politics is concerned).
However, nothing could have prepared us for what was to come. The opposition leader, Jiri Paroubek, an odd little fellow, not unlike a bridge troll, found himself the target of airborne eggs. At first it was a single egg in a city in the north of the country, now egg-throwers show up wherever he is.
I love it!
I could never stand the guy. He was an embarrassment to the country when he was in charge. People from both major parties are laughing at him now, and I think this will cost him the election in the autumn. I wish him all the best in his new career. You know the lemons - lemonade adage. Well, I suppose the same could apply to Jiri, who should be able to make an awful lot of omelets.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 12:42PM May 28, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
James on the Thames
Hi all,
I just got back from Amazon Web Services training. Most of it was good, but there were some parts that could have been done better (especially the part about creating your custom AMI).
London was great. I took a nice walk along the Thames on Tuesday evening after the course. I saw a lot of nice things and took lots of nice photographs. Now I'm trying to talk my wife into going to London on vacation.
I'll keep you posted. 
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 05:20PM May 21, 2009 by branajam in Personal | Comments[1]