Below is the obituary that was run for him:


SIMMONS Mr. Alvin T. Simmons-A native of Alabama and a resident of Mobile, died on Saturday, January 16, 2010. He was born on January 5, 1922 in Monroeville, Alabama. He received his B.S. Degree from Livingston State College in 1953, and a Masters Degree from University of Alabama in 1971.

Mr. Simmons taught Physics and Chemistry in the Mobile County School System for 31 years. After retiring in 1984, he taught 10 years at Mobile Christian School.

He served in World War II in the Pacific. Mr. Simmons was an active member of Regency Church of Christ and a volunteer Treasurer for 40 years. He was preceded in death by his parents Alvin T. Sr., and Eva Simmons, two sisters, Berniece Gaston and Laura Kathryn Roth.

He is survived by his wife, Wilma Clark Simmons, of 49 years; one sister, Dorothy Zorn, Mobile, Alabama and two nephews, George and Travis Roth, Tampa, FL. Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 10:00 AM from the chapel of Radney Funeral Home.

The family will receive friends at the funeral home 9:00 AM until service time. Interment will be in Magnolia Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to The Alzheimer's Association Research Fund or American Cancer Society.

Funeral arrangements by RADNEY FUNERAL HOME, 3155 Dauphin Street, Mobile, Alabama 36606.



Some of the memories I recall of him were his impeccable dress. He always wore a jacket and tie during every classroom session. His wife would coordinate his outfits and he would tell us that when she would go out of town, she would number the jacket, pants, and ties, and then leave him a key as to which numbers to associate for each day she was gone. The man always looked sharp.

I remember him relating a story from his public school days of a kid that was sitting by the window in the classroom on the first floor, and kept throwing things out of the window. After being told to stop repeatedly and not listening, Mr. Simmons tossed him out the window. Probably shocked the kid more than anything. I would say he didn’t throw things out of the window anymore after that. Unfortunately that kind of thing today would get you tossed from the school system, but back then was a different time, and it seemed like a perfect way to not hurt anyone but set the tone for the classroom and his expectations.

I still remember the “factor-label” method he used for diagramming out solutions to conversion problems and that in his class, there was much tasking of the students to show their solutions on the board to the rest of the class.

It is amazing to think of how many lives he touched after 41 years of teaching. It definitely showed me the wide reach teachers can have. Truly a noble profession to those that take it on.

The last time I saw Mr. Simmons was a couple of years ago at my grandmother’s funeral (they attended the same church). He still had an incredible, witty personality. He seemed thrilled that I ended up with a minor in Chemistry from college and that my future aspirations involve a Ph.D. and teaching at the college level.

He was truly a man that lived a good life and left the world a much better place than he found it. Definitely a life that can be an inspiration to us all. Thank you, Mr. Simmons, for all of the lessons and the ability to continue teaching me even now after you are gone.

One of the pieces of equipment that is used for improving various skills is the parallette. It is a small set of mini parallel bars that can be used for pushups, L-sits, planche moves, handstand pushups, and more. The set of parallettes demonstrated on that site are simple Do-It-Yourself models created out of PVC.

Today I set out to create my own set of parallettes so I could begin practicing various movements from the Beast Skills site. The cost to build a set of PVC parallettes is only about $20 and take 10-15 minutes to assemble.

I built mine out of 1 1/2″ PVC pipe and the pieces needed are:

• 10′ section of 1 1/2″ PVC pipe
• 4 T-joints
• 4 90 degree elbow joints
• 8 end caps (though I’m an idiot and only bought 4)

Here are 2 great tutorials about the actual build process though it is pretty self-explanatory.

Homemade Parallettes

DIY Parallettes

I did not use cement to put mine together and it doesn’t look like it will even need it. Plus, no cement, means I can disassemble them for easy storage. I used 18″ pieces for the parallel portion of the parallettes and 6″ pieces for everything else. I will probably change it to use 12″ pieces for the vertical sections to get a bit further off the ground and be able to do L-sit dips. 6″ is a bit low for that. Other than that I’m very happy with how they turned out.

As far as exercise routines for the parallettes, American Gymnast has a set of workouts on their site here (requires free registration).

This is their recommended beginner training guide (though I think I need the remedial training program):

• Tuck Sit 3-5 sets of 10 seconds
• L-Sit 3-5 sets of 10 seconds
• Tuck Planche 3-5 sets of 10 seconds
• Straddle Press to Handstand Against Wall 2 sets of 3-5 reps
• Handstand Against Wall 2 sets of 30 seconds
• Handstand Pushups Against Wall 2 sets of 5-7 reps
• Push-ups 2 sets of 7-10 reps
• Handstand Forward 1/2 Pirouette 5-7 reps

Probably take me a year to get worked up to that level of fitness (especially pirouettes without killing my self) but it is a good start and a great way to build my core. If you have a free afternoon, put a set of these together and get to training.

This technology allowed me to subscribe to a wide variety of information (Tech, Finance, Friends, Travel, etc) and have it presented to me in a simple format for reading. I have used this with great success to keep up to date on these topics.

Though there were always web-based feed reader programs, I have always preferred a thick-client installed application to present me more of an MS Outlook type interface. The app that I found which was my favorite was called Sauce Reader. It was built using Delphi and had everything I could ask for in a feed reader. Unfortunately the product was de-supported (though in just searching I see the company has posted their story and the executables are still there for download).

My laptop where I was running Sauce Reader on Windows XP recently crashed. I reinstalled Ubuntu Linux and have been looking for a replacement feed reader program. Unfortunately I did not have a backup of my subscription list of feeds, so I’ve had to piece them together from memory. I decided to give the Google Reader application a try and see if the web-based readers had improved.

I must say that I am highly impressed with how the application functions. It is very easy to use and imitates a thick client application by having very nice hotkey support built-in and a great interface. It will also look at the feeds you are subscribed to and make recommendations of other feeds you might like. Since this application is web-based, I can browse my feeds from any computer and still keep track of what I still have left unread. In addition I can even pull the application up using my iPhone. Now I can truly read my feeds everywhere.

If you have tried web-based feed readers in the past and found them to be lacking, I encourage you to give the Google Reader application a try. Of course a small caveat from my paranoid self. Google knows more about you than any other company on the web, so putting your feeds in their application just gives them a little bit more of a picture of who you are. But if that does not bother you, then please try it out and see what you think.

The first is an incredible book that breaks down overall diet and nutrition into pure simplicity. It is called Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating

It is written by Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard Medical School and after reading this book you can see through the silliness of all the fad diets out there. It really breaks down what constitutes a healthy diet and the science behind it. Much of it is based on the Healthy Eating Pyramid that the Harvard Medical School put together (shocking to find out after reading the book that the FDA pyramid was very tied to much lobbying by the dairy and cattle industry). I especially like that the book is very up front about stating things that are fairly certain based on the research, things that they think should be done but need more research, and things that should be ignored until further research is completed. It also goes into great detail about diet and nutrition and how it relates to various ailments (diabetes, high cholesterol, etc).

The other resource I ran across is the website and forums of John Stone. The John Stone Fitness site and especially his site forums are a wealth of information on strength training and overall fitness. You can see on the front page of John’s site the amazing transformation that he did himself. This sticky post at the top of the beginner forum has some incredible links on fat loss, strength training, and nutrition. They are worth spending some time reading even if you don’t dive into the rest of the forums.

His site and forums is actually where I found out about the Dr. Willett book that had such an impact on me. If you are interested in improving your health or just learning more about exercise and nutrition, check out these two resources. There is no down side to improving your overall health.

American Heart Association
American Cancer Society

Of course if you have a friend or family member that has been afflicted by some disease,then you may like to adopt a charitable organization related to helping people with that illness. There are plenty of worthy charities out there. Find them and give back if you can.

If you are unsure whether a charity or non-profit that you are thinking of donating to is on the up and up, then check them out via the BBB Wise Giving Alliance.

Recently I became aware that you could stream Netflix directly to the Xbox (a fantastic gift from Casey last Christmas). This caused me to take a look at the packages available again, and I was very pleased with what I saw. They have a $9/month plan that offers 1 DVD out at a time via the mail as well as access to the entire streaming catalog. I went through checking out the streaming catalog via their website and saw there was a large collection of media that appealed to me. They have new movies available, full seasons of TV shows available, and of course an incredible collection of classic movies. Plus with their selection algorithm they supposedly can estimate what movies you will enjoy based on how you have ranked previously viewed movies. This is a great way to find undiscovered gems that you might not every watch.

To add to the appeal, they offer a 2 week free trial so there is no pressure before you decide if the service is for you. They also allow you to suspend your monthly account at any time if you find the need (the ultimate in low commitment). Given that there was no commitment or pressure, I finally decided to sign up for a free trial.

Much to my internet provider’s dismay, I have been watching and enjoying an incredible amount of streaming content in addition to the discs I have ordered through the mail. With just a minimal amount of watching media it is more than worth the $9/month. I wish I had been told about this service earlier. Oh, and if DVD’s and streaming via the Xbox are not enough, you can also watch streaming content via any PC or from Windows Media Center. It is really a fantastic service.

If you have not tried it I recommend going to their site and looking at the media available. If you see things that interest you, sign up for the 2 week trial and give it a go. I don’t think you will be disappointed. I’m really enjoying the movies and TV shows I have been watching. If you call and I don’t answer, I’m probably in the middle of watching a movie. Got to make sure I get my $9’s worth and then some.

Yes folks I’m talking about the Angola Prison Rodeo at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, LA. I had never heard of such a thing until a couple of years ago when the GF Casey attended and could not stop talking about how great a show it was. Though she talked it up something fierce, I still wanted to hold on to my disdain for most things related to livestock and country music. Fast forward a couple of years and Casey was dead set on attending again. I decided that now was the time to branch out and try something new, and boy am I glad I did.

For the uninitiated Angola Prison holds a prison rodeo one weekend in April and every weekend in October. This is a full fledged rodeo with the inmates competing in the events. Angola is a maximum security prison with the majority of the prisoners serving life sentences. This creates an environment where the prisoners are looking for excitement without a whole lot of regard for their individual safety. They compete for the adventure and for the chance to win money for their prison bank account. For spectators this means lots of excitement and daring feats.

Tickets to the rodeo can be purchased online (they currently use Tickets.com but they really should switch over and use Birmingham’s TicketBiscuit) or via telephone, but they sell out almost immediately after going on sale. So if you think you might like to go, you really need to plan ahead and get your tickets. The rodeo takes place in a very nice covered facility built by the inmates and all seats are assigned (the best seats are in the upper sections opposite the shoots since these keep the sun out of your face).

A couple of things to be clear about, the rodeo takes place inside of a state maximum security prison. It is one of the few times people are allowed to roam freely around. By attending the event you agree to have your car or person searched if they so desire. Also, no cellphones or cameras are allowed into the prison (as well as weapons and drugs of course). I was expecting to be wanded or patted down but during our time there we were not searched. If you leave your car unlocked, they will search it (got to make sure no inmates are hiding in there). Approved media personnel can bring cameras and film the event.

That said my experience was completely pleasant. I was a bit uneasy about giving up my privacy rights while inside the prison but there were no incidents and I would definitely go again. While the rodeo is the main event, there is also an arts and crafts show that is equally amazing. The prisoners create all kinds of crafts for sale. From t-shirts to leather goods to drink cozies to fantastic wood-working projects, they have something for everyone. The level of craftsmanship is really incredible. It is obvious these guys have lots of time to spend perfecting their creations.

The prison facility itself is a sight to see. It encompasses 18,000 acres of land in Angola, LA (about 50 miles from Baton Rouge) and is bordered on 3 sides by the mighty Mississippi River. It is a full working farm with the inmates growing much of the food they consume. In the warden’s words related to running a peaceful maximum security prison “you’ve got to keep the inmates working all day so they’re tired at night.” I like the concept of the inmates being able to work and create while incarcerated versus just spending 23 hours per day in isolation. It seems like a model facility though it does cost $98 million/year to house around 5,000 inmates. That works out to about $20,000/year per inmate. At least for that $20k/year the good people get entertainment value from the Rodeo.

When it comes to the rodeo itself, the inmates compete in a range of events that go from mildly amusing to downright life threatening. They ride the bucking bulls, they wrestle calves to the ground, ride horses bareback, and even try to play tug of war against wild horses. But where it really gets crazy are in events like Convict Poker. In this event they seat 4 inmates around a poker table each holding cards. Then they release the angry bull into the arena. Last man still sitting and holding his cards wins. What we saw in this event was a bull running full speed ahead ramming into the back of one of the players and knocking the entire table and everyone seated at it into the air. Amazingly no one was injured.

We did see one poor prisoner get knocked out when trying to wrestle a calf to the ground (an event called Bull-Dogging). He must have taken a stray hoof to the head because he went completely limp. The medical staff immediately sprang to action and got him to an ambulance for attention.

In another event they placed nine hula hoops on the ground and placed one inmate in each hula hoop. They then released the angry bull with the last man still standing in his hula hoop winning the event. Apparently the bulls trigger off of any movement so the prisoners tried to remain as still as possible. Unfortunately when the bull would get to close, someone would invariably lose their nerve and flinch causing the bull to charge full speed ahead sending those poor fellas flying.

In addition to the untrained inmates, they had professionals on hand as well. The Girl’s Rodeo Association performed an event of barrel racing. It was an incredible sight to see extremely young girls riding with such skill. A professional MC, rodeo clowns, and cowboys are on hand to ensure the safety of the inmates (as much as possible). The rodeo clowns and cowboys make sure that after someone has been dismounted from a bucking animal they are able to get to safety and the animal is corralled out of the arena. I had never really seen cowboys work livestock before, but the way they maneuvered their horses and used their lassos was unbelievable. I never realized the amount of skill required for such a thing. They really blew me away. The rodeo clowns showed an remarkable speed and agility. To be able to taunt a bull and then out maneuver him takes serious guts.

One of my favorite events was put on by Team Ghostriders. This was a demonstration of dogs working sheep into a corral. But it was not just any dogs, they were beautiful Border Collies (considered by many to be the most intelligent dog breed). Oh, and these dogs were not working solo. Oh no, they were being ridden by monkeys. Did you hear me? Dogs wearing saddles being ridden by monkeys dressed in full cowboy gear (hats, vests, chaps). Now that is my kind of entertainment. The monkeys rode their faithful steeds with acumen and corralled the sheep into their pen with no problems. That is worth the drive over to attend all by itself.

Oh, but wait there is more. The last event of the show is called Guts & Glory. In this event, they place a poker chip onto the forehead of the meanest bull they have. Then they release a group of inmates to try to take the chip off of the bull’s forehead. Definitely guts required for that one. Apparently it usually takes quite a while for the inmates to finally get the chip, but during our show someone must have been looking out for these guys. The bull got distracted by one group of inmates and another was able to rush in and grab it within 60 seconds of the start of the event. He was a very happy camper indeed winning $500 into his prison bank account.

I can’t speak highly enough about the Angola Prison Rodeo. It was an incredible experience. The inmates we talked with were all polite and courteous. The prison staff were extremely organized and efficient, and I felt completely safe at all times within the facility. It is definitely a first-rate event. I would have to say that everyone should attend at least once. Careful though you may get hooked and make it an annual thing.

*Pics from Frank3.0’s Flickr set. Click the pics to view the details or see the whole set here: Angola Prison Rodeo, 18 October, 2009 (Set)

You can read 2 great articles about the company and their technology here:

Clojure and Rails – the Secret Sauce Behind FlightCaster

Building FlightCaster’s Frontends for the Web and Smartphones

Their application is available as an iPhone or Blackberry app. Since I was to be traveling to Denver shortly after originally reading about this company, I decided to make my first app purchase for the iPhone (9 months of iPhone ownership and I still had only used free apps) for a whopping $4.99 (the price is now down to $1.99).

The app itself was simple and visually very appealing. As I went to enter my flights, I discovered that you can’t enter your flights until around 24 hours prior to takeoff. This is probably a limitation on the airline data available to FlightCaster so this was not much of a bother. On my flights out to Denver the weather was great and there was no prediction of delay. Sure enough none of my flight had issues.

Unfortunately on the way back home the application wasn’t able to find either of my 2 flights. They were small regional flights, but it was still a bit disappointing to not be able to use the app on the trip back home. That aside, I would still recommend this app to any traveler.

I’m definitely not a road-warrior so this was the only time so far I have tried out the application. Since my flights had no problems I can’t really say whether the app works as they say, but given the comments and reviews it sounds like it does (it did predict my experience on the way out correctly). If you travel much you really should check out this app. Especially with the lower $1.99 price, this should be a no-brainer for frequent travelers. And if you are a technology person, you should really read about how the company approaches and solves the problems of predicting the unpredictable. It is very interesting stuff.

http://news.ycombinator.org: This site posts various articles and commentary and has an extremely technical slant with a focus on the startup community. YCombinator is a startup incubator that was started by Paul Graham (whose articles are also an incredibly good read) of Viaweb fame. This site is what Slashdot was 10 years ago and what Reddit (which is a YCombinator alumni) was 3 years ago.

For actual print books I tend these days to read them online using the wonderful Safari Books Online from O’Reilly. I actually read them through my ACM membership account. The ACM offers a great selection of books online for members.

Coding Horror is a great site written by Jeff Atwood. I was a longtime reader of his site and actually got to hang out with him when my friend Brian worked for Vertigo Software out in San Francisco. He is a very sharp fellow that does some great writing. He is no longer with Vertigo and his moved on to create another site that I am a huge fan of.

StackOverflow.com – This site created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky is what a Q&A site should be. I hate Experts Exchange with a such a passion that I actually update my hosts file to resolve their site to 127.0.0.1 so it fails quickly when I click on one of their links from Google. StackOverflow is an incredible resource for reading and learning and also for giving back to the community and answering questions. Answering questions is an incredible way to push your knowledge forward. Normally you will know an answer but still have to do some more research to fully prove and justify your response. I highly recommend getting involved with this community that Atwood and Spolsky have put together.

Joel on Software – Joel Spolsky tends to be a bit of a lightning rod in the tech world. Some people love his viewpoint and ideas while others can’t stand him. I am in the first camp and really enjoy his writing and thoughts on the industry and creating and running a company of technical resources. Even if you disagree with him, you can still learn much from him and the successful company, Fog Creek, he has built.

Then there are the sites that I don’t read everything, but just skim and find a few worthwhile nuggets to read like Planet Apache, the ThoughtWorks Blogs, Planet Eclipse, AskTom.Oracle.com (a great Oracle Resource).

Just by spending as little as 10-20 minutes per day reading some of these resources you can help keep yourself up to date with what is going on in the tech industry. Unless you want to find some legacy technology and become a greybeard you will need to make the effort to keep your skills relevant. The sites I have listed always have interesting content and great communities of people around them. Dive in and enjoy.

One of the issues when writing one of the greatest in-browser JavaScript libraries ever is testing all of your changes across the various OS and browser versions. The test suite for ensuring that there are no new bugs or regression bugs is very extensive. The hardware that would be required to have implementations of all of the OS’s and browser flavors for testing would be very expensive and prone to lots of maintenance.

John approached this problem in a wonderful distributed format with an application he calls TestSwarm. He created an application that allows end users to load up their browser and allow it to wait for tests that need to be run to be sent to it from the central server. So by opening up a browser window to a certain page, it polls for any work to do. If it finds something to do, it pulls the test, executes it and sends the results back to the central server. This allows JQuery to be tested easily across many OS and browser implementations and quickly find any bugs that may appear.

Here is John’s original blog post about TestSwarm. Being the forward thinker that he is, John also designed the code so it can be adapted to run any kind of distributed JavaScript testing, not just JQuery.

Kudos to John on a great application. Go check it out, sign up, and donate a couple of spare CPU cycles to the cause.