if someString != null and someString.length() > 0
Another similar experience occurred later this afternoon, when I found myself wondering, "Where is the java List.find() method and how do I give it a closure to execute?" Oh silly me, I was doing it again. Closures in java? What was I thinking? I went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face to wake up from this ambiguous land of juby or rava or wherever my brain was.
The interesting part of this story is that when I went home and started playing with ruby, I didn't start thinking, "How can I add more parentheses? How can I turn this closure into an annoying class that implements a few obscure interfaces?" To me, it was a good real-life example of how the good ideas behind good tools stay with you because they're good ideas. In other words, a closure is really handy, and so is simple and expressive syntax, so my brain didn't want to let go of those ideas. It wasn't just a difference in dialect.
Then you have kids and you realize that the power of their lungs alone could probably jolt the moon out of orbit, if scientists were ever able to harness that power and direct it. Unfortunately, no one can harness that power. No one can control that power, except your one year old daughter, who is bent on destroying the gadgetry that composes your inner ear or driving you off the second-floor deck of your apartment. Or both. Our daughter likes to lure you in with a cute face until you are in maximal audio-frequency-blaster range.
Besides the "I'm cute, come have your hearing destroyed" tactic, Tova's other #1 weapon of audio destruction is the "It's six A.M. and I'm the loudest thing in the western hemisphere" tactic. It is more of a brute force attack, but it works brilliantly because at six in the morning I can't really see anything. By taking out my hearing, Tova efffectively renders me a zombie, eager to do her every bidding. I navigate by touch and smell (my nose directs me to the coffee maker) and I try to do things that make the screaming go away. Those things include:
- Picking up her hedgehog for the 4078th time so that she can throw it on the ground again.
- Giving her a different variation on Plums, Bananas, Blueberries, and Strawberry Medley organic smelly babyfood.
- Throwing cheerios back at her.
- Giving her food that is generally not edible by the human species, with the exception of teething one year olds (I'm thinking of the zwieback toast from gerber, which resembles scrap plywood coated in sandpaper).
- Generally dancing around like an idiot to make her laugh and stop the assault on my eardrums.
Lynn had a fun time taking care of both Elly and Tova, since Elly came down with a wicked bug right before I left for Seattle. She recovered a couple of days into Lynn's visit, but we were really grateful that she (Lynn) was willing to come out and give a hand on short notice. It was like calling up a one-man Navy SEAL team, except instead of shooting bad guys, she did laundry and changed diapers. One thing that surprised me was how close we are to Elly's family if you don't mind flying. One afternoon I said, "Elly, do you want to see if your mom can fly out tonight?" and then 6 hours later she was in our apartment. The fare wasn't bad at all, either. If only there was a nonstop flight to Hartford, we'd be all set.