The Changelog

Today, Bryan O'Sullivan, Don Stewart, and I are announcing a new book we're working on with O'Reilly: Real-World Haskell. I'm excited about the book and about working with Bryan and Don on this project.

O'Reilly has agreed to publish this book under a Creative Commons license! We plan to post drafts of chapters incrementally at the book's website, seeking feedback from readers and reviewers as we go.

Haskell makes a great practical parsing and scripting language, but this aspect of it has been under-documented. I look forward to helping change that!

He's almost 8 months old now. Terah and I went outside today and took some pictures of him.

He was quite interested in the grass, so it was hard to keep him sitting up straight. He kept trying to lean over and pull at the grass. But I think we got a few good ones anyhow. He's wearing his grandpa's outfit in all of these.



To see more, click here to view them all.

One of the things about living in the country is that there isn't all that much predictability. You can have your water supply disrupted by ants, sewage issues, power supply problems, etc.

But today was a new one that disrupted my morning commute.

It wasn't mud, or harvest.

No, it was traffic. On our driveway, just a few feet in front of our front door.



Takes only one of those standing on the driveway to make a traffic jam.

This is a steam-powered tractor, which I photographed last August at my hometown's annual festival, Threshing Days. It is a massive thing, full of detail, noise, and action.

Threshing Days (see earlier articles about it) brings people in from across the country. The town's usual population of 600 multiplies for this.

The engine pictured here was being used for a threshing demonstration, which was how wheat was processed before combines were invented. A big flywheel on the engine was connected to a large belt, which powered the threshing machine. That machine separated the wheat like a modern combine does, but was supplied by farmers dumping wheat onto it.

A couple of days ago, I posted a radar image.

The above photo is the result of that (and a following) storm.

It's the muddy road at the end of our driveway. Your guess as to which road is the driveway.

Here's another road near us:



Cliff also has some photos from this same storm system.

Many of you probably know what this means. That was what I saw early this morning when the weather woke me up. I went downstairs and checked the weather on the Internet. And sure enough, a line of thunderstorms was slowly moving across pretty much all of Kansas.

This morning, when we woke up, our driveway looked like this:



It was a calm, still, pleasant scene. Birds were chatting, rabbits were hopping, and there were soft rumbles of thunder in the distance. This must be why Terah says she likes thunderstorms.

On the other hand, thunderstorms make me nervous. Given the right conditions, severe thunderstorms can spawn tornadoes with little warning.

Friday night, most of Greensburg, KS was destroyed. So far, 9 people have been confirmed dead. Estimates are that 90% of the town's structures are lost. You can see the damage in aerial and land pictures. I know that Greensburg will rebuild, better than before. Tornadoes don't seem to ever scare people off. They seem to just make them more determined than ever to stay where they are because it's home.

Like today, for instance. I was driving home, like usual. About to hit our road. Ready to drive through 2/3 mile of a road that is mostly just mud. Ready for that slipping, sliding, dirty, mud-slinging experience.

And then, off in the distance, I see a streak of white. Is this what I think it is?

Yes! GRAVEL!

Though it looks like they ran out of gravel about halfway down the road.

I don't think I've ever appreciated a gravel road so much, now that I've had to drive on a mud road for almost a week. On the other hand, Terah and I both actually made it down the mud road without getting stuck, so that's nice.

Even the "good" road (that we have to drive on for 2 miles) doesn't have this much gravel; it's mostly sand and potholes.

I think I'll go out and take pictures of the road tomorrow. If I can find my boots.

And yes, while you all are snickering anyway, I do know the Jeff Foxworthy joke: "You might be a redneck if the directions to your house include 'turn off the paved road'"

That's a picture of Jacob in his "suit", with his soft shoes. Both came from Indiana.

He's been really growing, and is big. He's about 7 months old now, and is a lot of fun to play with.

Sunday was child dedication day at church, and Jacob was dedicated that day, wearing his suit. (Here is an explanation of Mennonite child dedication if you're curious)

We took him to the front of the church (along with another family who also had a newborn). We promised to nurture him as a child from God, said a few words, and then the pastor -- as he always does -- carried Jacob down the sanctuary aisle.

Jacob watched as the pastor introduced him to the congregation. He said "these will be your Sunday School teachers, mentors, and friends." He pointed out Jacob's grandparents. And he said, "These are the pews your Great Grandpa Alvin sat in. If he were here today, I know he'd be proud of you."

After it was over, we went back to our seats, breathed a sigh of relief that Jacob wasn't screaming during the whole thing. And promptly had to take him to the nursery because he started screaming right about then.