Two Against Nature

TWO AGAINST NATURE

Bad news breaking in 18A
Missy's kitty turn inside out she say
Spider queen demon and that whole crew
Across the lobby the wicker wing chair flew
All the nice people those goodly souls
Quaking in their respective hidey-holes
Everyone's wasted in this gruesome dream
Not a one of them left to hear you scream

CHORUS:
Two against nature don't you know
Who's gonna grok the shape of things to go
Two against nature make them groan
Who's gonna break the shape of things unknown

Madame Erzulie she come last night
Bang you silly but leave a nasty bite
There on your nightstand much worse than that
Panatela and old black derby hat

Call your doctor - call your shrink
Western science she strictly rinkydink
They all masissi but we hang tough
Apsatively gonna help you beat that stuff

CHORUS:
Two against nature tan and lean
Puttin' big heat on skanky things unseen
Two against nature slinging dread
These boys wanna bang the skulls of things undead

T-Bone Angie she champion liar
Sew the mouth shut with rusty chicken wire
Brother Lou Garue and the Jerry Garry
Sprinkling chicken water gonna hush all three
Beautiful housewife in deep distress
'Specially you deserve our very best
Two against nature they got that stuff
Good things happening when you see about us

CHORUS:
Two against nature love this gig
Pull up the weeds before they're too damn big
Two against nature stand alone
Who's gonna chase the shape of things unknown
Two against nature don't you know
Who's gonna drop the boom on things to go
Two against nature make them groan
Gonna go bang-zoom to the moon on things unknown

Scrape the wallboards the whole damn batch
Catch the maggoty eggs before they hatch
Pepper and ratbone make damn sure
Shake the rubbish out on the patio floor
Soak the timber with special spray
Nuke the itty bitty ones right where they lay
Whip the bastards while they still green
Take the firemop - sweep it kissing clean

Music Videos by Doug Pinkston

Original music written 20 years ago and recorded by various musicians at various studios 15 years ago. Some of them were done by professionals, others feature me and Buddy. I used Windows Live Music Maker to stitch together the images that were largely stolen from the internet.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=doug+pinkston+original+recording&aq=f

A Thanksgiving Bear - Or The Story of Jim Rose and The Grecian Urn

A Thanksgiving Bear
or
The Story of Jim Rose and the Grecian Urn

By
Doug Pinkston

Chapter 1

Jim Rose sat looking out the window of the jumbo jet, catching a few glimpses of the rolling hills of southern Ohio through the thick, cottony clouds, remembering----suddenly----an image from his childhood, as though the image had seeped into his mind like a single ray of sunlight slipping through a hole in the clouds. He remembered how his father, a farmer, would lead his family out to the western ridge which drew up just beyond their property and how they'd spend a few moments waiting for the sun to set in the distant hills, the sun blowing up big as a balloon, lemon-colored, then cadmium, then deep orange, the dusty sky stretching out with layers of vermilion and sienna until sometimes the light would strike some wandering cloud painting the horizon with violet, then bursting into gold and silver. When the sun finally sank into the hills, pulse after pulse, until only a mere wish of the day remained, Aaron Rose would stand on that hill and wrap his long arms around his family and they would all hold their breaths, trying to be the first one to see that final speck of light disappear. There is nothing quite like the setting sun over the rolling hills of southern Ohio. Jim Rose thought of the sunsets he witnessed daily from the island he now called home----Key West----and wondered how they might compare. No matter. Both could carry wild dreams and memories peacefully into the forgiving night.

It had been just over five years since they'd all been together. Five years since that long day together at his home on The Island. It was Thanksgiving today, and his Aunt Lilly and Uncle Horace had invited everybody for dinner at their home in Luckey, Ohio. Jim didn't know for sure why he'd decided to make the long trip up there this Thanksgiving. I guess his sister was the one who'd finally persuaded him. Patty had always been his guiding light, his lode star in the night, pointing the way towards beauty, love and adventure. Where on this earth would he rather be tonight, than drifting his way back home, back to Ohio, to have Thanksgiving with his family.

Lilly McIntosh pulled back the thin, lavender curtain which half-covered the window over her kitchen sink, peeking out toward the long stretch of two-lane which ran by her house, squinting towards the west, struggling to focus through the striations of the autumn sun and the tall bare trees. She was sure she could hear a car. The frosty breeze had crystallized the corners of her window panes. She squinted even harder, thinking she heard the deep rumbling of some distant vehicle still well up the road. But there was no one.

She let the curtain fall back and grabbed a dish towel to dry her hands, looking back at her husband, Horace, who stood over a pot of butter beans, humming deeply through his large nose, a tune she'd heard a thousand times (though for some reason, just now, it wouldn't come to her). Horace pulled up the lid with the towel in his thick, spotted hand, taking a deep whiff of the simmering beans. The steam swirled through his white, handlebar mustache and bushy eyebrows like smoke from a pipe. He took in the aroma, then turned and gave Lilly a wink. She strolled to his side and put her hand on his shoulder, looking down over the stove, sniffing at the full mix of flavors before speaking.

"Well. . . .how's it doing?"

Horace took another deep inhalation and almost sneezed.

"Coming along," he assured her. Then he turned and gave her a kiss on the check. "No sight of James?"

"No honey. No one. Running late I guess."

"Well, its turkey day, you know. Traffic's always a mess out there."

Lilly pursed her lips, sucking lightly at her false teeth, rubbing the back of her neck. It had been over five years since they'd all been together. Of course it wouldn't be the whole bunch of them. But just the same. Poor James! He always brought her something beautiful from Florida. He had such warm brown eyes. And her sister Doris always thought he the hands of a pianist: long, slender fingers, delicate and yet firm. He hand the kinds of hands you could hold and all at once fell loved. "There's something to that lad," Doris would tell her, waggling a finger and winking. Lilly wandered into the dining room and found herself looking up at an old photo of the family on top of the buffet cabinet. She remembered how Little Jim had once brought her a dandelion necklace when he was just child, chasing Patty though the fields and woods of her brother's farm. It took a special eye to turn weeds into jewelry. She heard Horace move into the den and turn on the TV. Oh, poor James! When her brother had fallen and died Little Jim and Patty had moved in with Horace and her. Lilly remembered----suddenly----as though struck by a vision, an image of Jim and Patty at their father's funeral. They had held each other's hands and looked heavenward, like they'd taken sight of an angel.

Lilly wandered back into the kitchen. She looked in the oven and checked the sweet potatoes. They smelled of cinnamon and brown sugar. Then she stepped to the windows and took another peek down the road. Again, she thought she heard the sound of an approaching car, though when she took another glance she could see only the small specks of ice which floated in the dim autumn light. She'd heard that it might snow before morning, but she hardly believed it. She crossed her fingers, hoping that both Jim and Patty had not met with any unexpected delays----though Patty was almost always late to gatherings (it was Patty's fault, more times than not, her constant hurrying to finish up one more project, make two more phone calls, pick up a week's worth of dry cleaning, get the twins in matching outfits). Lilly's sister, Doris, always believed that Patty was the smart one in the family, the one with a mind for numbers. Patty's husband Zachary was a lawyer. Just about the quietest man Lilly'd ever met. For a man who made a living talking on his feet he sure lacked any kind of style. But around Patty perhaps it was just as well. Lilly remembered (she was slowly making her way back into the dining room, looking again at some of the old photos on the buffet cabinet), how James used to follow Patricia around their father's farm, mimicking his sister's postured confidence. Aaron would have them out in the yard at sunrise, even during the summer when most kids would prefer to sleep in until noon, and slip off into an uncharted purposelessness though the remaining waking hours. Aaron had no patience for laziness, and felt most relaxed when immersed in some pressing chore. The two gals in the family missed most of those genes, though they could certainly be ornery when the occasion called for it. 'If Aaron had just been born a woman,' Lilly mused. "What a world we live in!", she whispered, to herself. She sucked at her false teeth, shook her head and blew at the dust on the photograph of her brother sitting on their swing with his wife Ariel, swinging back and forth ever so lightly, Aaron's foot pushing them off from the porch, for once his face lit up with the flush of twilight and guarded romance, cheeks full as a squirrel. And then Lilly looked closer and she could've sworn Aaron gave her a wink.

Jim Rose drove with his left hand draped lazily over the steering wheel of the Plymouth he'd rented in Tupelo. He always got tired when he sat behind the wheel of a car for any length of time, no matter how much sleep he'd had, and so he found himself yawning and rubbing at his face as a slow, romantic song came up on the radio, shading his reflections towards distant sunlit memories. As the song wound towards it conclusion a single tear welled up in Jim Rose's eye. Then the radio broke in on his thoughts, warning all travelers of snow from the west. Jim Rose was born and raised in Ohio. He was a child of the plains. He remembered how serious a holiday Thanksgiving had been when he was growing up. There were times when his father would take him out hunting pheasant or quail in the week prior to the holiday. Aaron Rose would tell stories to his young son about the founding fathers, his voice quiet and clear as a stream: "Ole' Franklin, now he was the artist in the bunch----a flaming leftist they'd call him today----crazy'er 'en a loon, caught up in every trick of science, though a good mile smarter than he looked." And then Aaron would brag about the time he shot a wild turkey himself, stomping through the wildlands of Pennsylvania, back when wild turkeys----"My, my momma, everything was wild!"----back when wild turkeys roamed the wilderness, and back when the great Brown Bear was the master of the shadowlands; all this time leading his son patiently up a tree line, stepping on the dry leaves with the footsteps of an Indian, eyes mere slits, picking out every change of color or motion in the field. "There," he'd whisper, holding up his chin in the direction of the wild bird that hid silently in the chopped up field, heart twittering almost audibly. Jim Rose would step out quietly from under his father's big arm and draw a sight on the wash of feathers half-hidden in the field, the butt of the shotgun on his right shoulder, his left hand holding the wooden grip, shaking slightly, his right hand clinched on the trigger, shaking even more, his left eye closed, his right eye focused down the barrel to the sight, trying to pick a moment when his hands were still and the target was square. Then Little Jim would fire off a shell and bust up the corn rows and out would fly half a dozen of the portly pheasants, fat and lazy after a long summer of freedom and safety, and while they squawked and flapped their wings furiously, flying off in four directions at once, Aaron Rose would pick out a single bird and draw his sights on it, leading the target across the overcast and sheltering sky. Jim could still see how the buckshot would spread out like a shadow toward the racing bird, and how the pheasant would fold up when hit and fall to the ground like the closing of a long book.

 

Thoughts on College Football Season - 2010

Posted on 12-1-2010, prior to the SEC championship game, in which Auburn destroyed SC.

Malzon is a genious, but its bigger than that. The first game I saw them play last year I saw nothing but guys running free in space. Its a combination of everything that works, but its really the execution which is at the heart of it. They don't fumble much, don't jump offsides, and Newton is incredibly accurate. Down by 24 points at Bama and they come back?!. They almost set the record for rushing in the SEC. Put that in your pipe and, after cleaning any residue, smoke it.

That being said, Bama imploded, which is at the feet of Saban, like a lit bag of dog poop on Halloween. I'd recommend that Ga get Malzon to replace Richt, except their offense has not been the problem, even wtih a freshman quarterback. You can make a case for Ga being in the mix with just a whiff of defense and a full season with A.J. Green. Tech is a train wreck, and the Paul Johnson Experience will not end well.

I won't take credit for this one, but a friend threw this one out: Whatever professional team drafts Newton should also draft Malzon, for whatever the going rate is. He won't run that much in the pros, but they've got something working that no one has figured out, and Newton knows how to run it.

I'll end with one last thought: Don't underestimate 'The Ole Ball Coach'. He started this whole mess....and he may end it.

But I woudn't bet against Auburn.

Atlanta Falcons - The Hangover

As a life long fan of Atlanta sports I can only echo what everyone has said and is always the nasty premonition which is circling in the back of our collective brain. No matter what it may look like, in the end, we will lose....and it will be embarrasing. What has been refreshing about the Falcons under Mike Smith is that they always seem to at least have a plan, even though they lived on the razor's edge. They had finally shaken all the stupid mistakes and penalties. For once we were getting the breaks. But in 10 minutes we went from being on the verge of something great to --- what else can you say --- Atlanta.

 

"Forget it Jake, its Chinatown."

10 Rules for Writing and Delivering Quality Software - by Doug Pinkston

10 (12?) Rules for Writing and Delivering Quality Software

Book Proposal

Outline

Chatper 1 - Requirements are Requirements

Why requirements are important

   Aligns customer, budget and builders

   Drives the technical design and architecture

   Drives the look and feel

The golden triangle

Capturing requirements

            Listing Objectives

            Prioritizing Objectives

            Process Flow Diagrams

            Mock-ups

            Business Requirements Docs

 

            The Collaborative Process

                        Customers

                        Web Designers

                        Architects

                        Engineers

Using requirements

            The importance of keeping in sync, keeping in front of the customer and getting unambiguous sign-off    

Mapping BRD to Functional Design Docs

            Discipline around

                        Documentation

                        Scope Creep

           

Working with Stakeholders

                        Internal (Customers and other Groups)

                        External (Customers and Vendors)

                        Mgt

           

Using Integrated PM software

           

Chapter 2 - Would You Bet Your Paycheck on it?  (Test, Test, Test)

The Scientific Method

Using Tools

Requirements are Requirements

Importance of Testing Environments and Realistic Test Data

            Dev

            QA

            SIT

            Prod

Building Test Cases

Iterative Functional Tests

Iterative Regression Tests

Iterative Test Automation

Iterative Load Testing

Ad Hoc Real World Testing

Customer Testing and User Acceptance

Defect Mgt

Breaking the Application

            User Interfaces

                        Intuition and Common Sense

                        Building better idiots

            Unexpected Events

            Multiple Users

            Multiple Locations

Value of Beta Launches

Chapter 3 - Speed Kills

Why is response time important?

What causes latency and how do I fix it

            Database

                        Lack of Capacity

                                    Hardware

                                    Software

                                    Version

                                    Cluster

                       

DB Design

            Too little normalization

            Too much normalization

            Too many joins

            Poor indexing

            Poor use of DB capabilities like SPs, Views, Jobs, Triggers, etc.

SQL

            Poorly constructed

            Never tested and optimized

            Network

                        Lack of Capacity

                                    Bandwith

                                    Network devices

                                    Load Balancers

                        Too many hops

                                    Webservices

                                    SOA gone wild

                                    Overly architected (solving future problems that don’t exist)                  

                        Delivering Static content from appserver layer

                        Too much Javascript (also an app issue)

           

            Webserver

                        Hardware

                        Software

                        Version

                        Load Balancer Optimization

                        Distributing

                        Delivering Static content

            Appserver

                        Hardware

                        Software and Versions

                        Distributing and Clustering

                        Performance Tuning

            Application

                        Database Layer Design and Code

Connection Mgt

                                    SQL

                                    Caching

                                    Using the DB: Stored Procs, Views, Triggers

                        Business Layer Design and Code

                                    Memory Mgt

                                    Calculations

                                    Messaging

                                    Caching

                        UI Layer Design and Code

                                    Network impact of

                                                HTML

                                                Images

                                                JS

                                                Other static resources

                                    Leveraging JS for business logic

                                    Impact of AJAX

Chapter 4 - Its All Data

What is data?

Storing Data

            Memory

                        Immediate

                        Intermediate (caching)

            Disk

            Database

Importance of the Database Design and Implementation

            Normalization

                        Advantages

                        Traps

            Benchmarking Queries 

            Using Database Components

                        Indexes

                        Stored Procedures

                        ETLs

                        Jobs

                        XML

Messaging

            Network Impact

                        Numerous quick messages vs. one big one

            Guaranteed Delivery

            Using queues

            Webservices

Chapter 6 - Design is Not Over Rated

Importance of the design phase

How requirements gathering and architectural design work together

            Listing and rating objectives

            Flexibility vs. Progress

Understanding the budget

            Hardware constraints

            Resource constraints

Using design tools

Using mock-ups and POCs

Documenting design

Chapter 7 - Five Average Programmers != One Great Programmer

The Gap

            The significance of the gap between almost getting it, and getting it

Separating the great from the good and the good from the average

            Finding Great Talent

Overcoming fear

Dealing with the objections that must be overcome when hiring talent

Managing Talent and Rookies

            Meetings

            Design Conflicts

            Schedules

            Documentation

           

Chapter 8 - Deja Vu All Over Again (Build re-usable components and re-use them)Value of reusable components

Buy vs. Build

Build vs. Get for Free

Service Oriented Architecture

Using XML

Messaging Strategies

Configurations in the DB

Utility Classes

Managing Libraries

            Interfaces

            Black box strategy

            Publish libraries

            Enforcing the use of libraries

Deploying libraries

            C#

            Java

            JavaScript

Chapter 9 - Divide and Conquer (Divide up Roles, Responsibilities and Tasks for Faster, more Focused and Accountable Development)Project Roles and Responsibilities

            DBA

            Architect         

            Programming Lead

            Programmer

            Web Designer

            Graphic Artist

            Technical Writer

            Business Analyst

            Project Manager

            Systems Engineer

            Financial Analyst

Dividing up coding tasks around end-to-end functional specs

Dividing up coding tasks around layers (UI, Messaging, Business Logic, DAO, DB)

Template plan (Architect and senior engineer(s) develop a template for each solution end-to-end so other engineers can copy.

Divide around deployable components (.dlls, .wars, .ears)

Object Oriented Concepts

Solving hard tasks first

Code Re-use

Utility classes

Configurable

Configuration Management

Chapter 10 - Nothing is Finished Until its Documented

The Real Value of Documentation

Documentation as an Afterthought

Documentation as a Development Task

Utilizing Technical Writers and Copywriters

Documentation as a Project Deliverable

Iterative Documentation

Example

Chatper xxx. Manage the Details

Overview

Project Management

            Organizing Roles

            Organizing and Tracking Tasks

            Using Tools

Source Control

            Importance

            Enforcement of Rules

            Using Tools

Chapter xxxx. Understand the Web

Why the web?

Deploy one place, access everywhere

Deploy one place, update one place

Leverages current and future reusable components

Leverages access to external web services and resources

Understanding web apps

What is really happening?

Process flow, forms and data

JavaScript

DHTML

CSS

Java vs. .NET

AJAX

Flash

Short Stories by Doug Pinkston

http://www.cateringcomplete.com/pinkart/shortstories/shortstories.html

Grayton Beach Memoir by Doug Pinkston

http://www.cateringcomplete.com/pinkart/graytonbeach/graytonbeach.html

Pink Art - Personal Website of Doug Pinkston

http://www.dougpinkston.com

Catering Complete - Everything You Need to Know About Catering - by Doug Pinkston

My book on catering.

http://booklocker.com/books/833.html

http://www.cateringcomplete.com/

American Season - A Novel - by Doug Pinkston

Self published novel. Now available on Amazon.com, published Print-On-Demand by Booklocker.com.
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4114.html

Excerpt
http://www.cateringcomplete.com/pinkart/americanseason/AmericanSeason.htm