But here's a list of things I would rather do, for your perusing enjoyment.  And if you are one of those lucky independently wealthy individuals or unlucky unemployed individuals, you can use this list for ideas about how to spend your Monday.

• Watercolor.
• Mail my watercolors to all the people I love.
• Lay by the pool with my library books all around me. (Books include Leap Over A Wall, by Eugene Peterson, Etiquette, by Emily Post, The Circle of Simplicity, by a lady who's name I can't remember, and The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, by Judith somebody.)
• Bake bread, and be around all day for the multiple risings and restings and long baking time.
• Go on a run so long that I would have to walk some.
• Go to Austin House of Prayer, which is only open during hours I'm at workie, and soak...
• Paint my dining room table white, instead of spinach-colored.
• Go buy fabric to sew curtains.
• With all my extra energy from the day, take my mtn bike to a great trail and have at it.

Okay, so I might need a whole week.  Which could be okay.  

What would YOU do with a day off?

However, at around 2:30 PM, a man - in his early 30's I suspect - walked in with a beat-up backpack hung over his shoulder. I cheerfully greeted him at the entrance and asked how I can help. Without a response, he simply set his backpack down and began searching through his twenty or so pockets. After a few minutes, he emerged with a dirty-looking MacBook and a broken power cord and says, "I want this repaired."

I asked him to wait a minute and I went back into the main office where my boss was. He explained to me about how we don't do any repair work and approached the customer. As he explained that the store can't repair things for customers, the man angrily replied, "Wow. This is incredible. You fix nucelar reactors for the Navy but can't fix a broken power cord?"

I wasn't quite sure who was more surprised, my boss or the customer. They engaged themselves in a brief argument, and soon the man stormed out, leaving my boss and all my co-workers still trying to process what just happened.

I've only worked here for a few weeks, so angry customers is quite a new addition to my life. But as far as I know, the local RadioShack in this tiny little town I live in has no connections whatsoever with the United States Navy.

仕事内容
料金
振り込み方法
今後

WE'RE BACK !!!!!!!

To some of you, this may be more a curse than a blessing. But try to keep up . . . we're really not pedaling that fast!

To those of you who actually noticed we were missing for a while, and who might've even missed us for being missing, we say thanks for thinking of us, even if it was in an offhand, "Hey, what the hell ever happened to that weird little cartoon Jackson used to draw?" kind of way.

Now the next question on everyone's mind -- just where in hell was Jackson Press all summer?! Well, if you refer to our last Jackson Press entry below you'll notice that it's barely been a month since we last communicated, but daggone does it feels like it's been all summer!

And what do we have to show for our absence?

Well, wouldn't it be great if we told you that we took the entire month (or so) off to travel, to see the world and inject some much needed culture into our lives? To say we saw England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Pakistan; that we walked among the pyramids in both Egypt and Peru; that we drank goat's milk with Mongolian herders and ate sushi with Japanese fisherman; that we gambled with natives in New Guinea and swam with dolphins off the Australian coast?! Wouldn't it be great to tell you that we saw Michael Phelps win his fourteenth career gold medal live?!!

Man, wouldn't that be great?! Yeah, that would've been great.

Instead, we here at Jackson Acre were insanely hard at work for the past five weeks! We barely left the house to go to work (more on that later)! We barely had time to eat or sleep!! I don't even think I pooped those five weeks! There was no time!! There were things to do!!! And in the end, the last of our great Jackson Acre projects were completed!!!! Now we are finally, finally relaxing ... and waiting for rain.

So what have we been up to, you ask? What the hell could be so important that you can't even bother to write, can't take five minutes to maybe throw a crappy cartoon or two out there to keep the plebeians entertained?

Well, my friends, we undertook two major projects here at Jackson Acre: we face-lifted the front porch and we rerouted the drainage tiles. Those two "projects" pretty much ate up half of July and all of August. The porch alone required two weeks worth of concrete work, including building forms and pouring cement. Then there was a weekend spent fixing the porch columns. Then another weekend resurfacing the concrete only to discover that someone didn't mix the resurfacer properly or - more likely - that it was a bad batch that mixed too lumpy and looked like crap when we put it on, so we scraped it all off and complained loudly at the idiot who mixed while we drank beer. Then we spent another weekend adding the porch rails.

Yes, all of this took a while, but the end result is a nice homely front porch, suitable for sitting quietly on while sipping lemonade and waving at passing cars. A real quaint, old fashioned kinda porch, although I prefer to sip beer and belch at passing cars, but that's just me.

The drainage tile project was another level of effort entirely. I'm calling it the Big Dig. That particular project only took us the entire Labor Day weekend (including 10 hour days on Saturday and Sunday) and I'm pretty sure I blew my knee out from all the stooping and squatting I did while laying pipe, checking grade, moving dirt, laying pipe again, checking grade again, moving more dirt, laying more pipe, checking grade again, moving more dirt . . . you get the picture. The trench wound up being about 130 feet long, so there was a lot of dirt to move and a lot of grade to check. That was my entire Labor Day weekend. Nothing like laboring on Labor Day weekend!

But we finally completed what we've wanted to do since we figured out just how boogered up the drainage here at Jackson Acre really is. And we're hopeful that all of that Labor Day weekend labor will actually work, so maybe our flooding won't be quite so severe and maybe our never-ceasing sump pump will get a break this winter.

We'll find out around Thanksgiving, I suppose. Worst case, we managed to use the extra dirt to fill in some of the low spots in our yard, so mowing shouldn't be quite so hard on the keister anymore.

I'm using up the last of my old Civil Servitude stock. Enjoy! There are new adventures right around the corner. It is an election year, after all.

Can I say keister on national TV?

It is not easy to write something that you knew would bring bad news to the recipient. As much as possible, you would want to state rejection in a tone that would not be so discouraging to the applicants. Here are some guidelines that would help you make a better rejection letter.

• Make it personal. Use the name of the applicant on the address and or salutation.
• Be grateful for his interest. Your advert for hiring would be a failure if nobody showed interest so thank the applicant for his time and effort.
• Point out his good qualities. This will help him be motivated despite being rejected.
• Never mention that the reason for rejection is due to failure in meeting job qualification. You can always state that you found someone with better qualification.

Here is an example of a rejection letter

Hello Andrea,

Greetings!

We wish to thank you for taking time to take our written exam and participate in the interview.  We recognize your effort and interest to be a part of our growing team.  Your background in E-commerce programming would really be a great help in a company such as ours, however, we found someone else with better qualifications and experience.

We will however keep your resume on file and notify you should there be future job openings that would fit you.

We wish you good luck in your career development.

Best Wishes,

Trisha Jaranilla
HR Manager

The last day of my internship was uneventful. I spent most of the day working with another batch of those marshmallowy pieces I worked with at the beginning of the term. I began to get annoyingly sentimental as the day wore on, all “This is the last time I’ll walk down the blue aisle of the shop floor!” and “That was the last time one of the shop floor guys is going to say something really strange to me!” not to mention, “That’s the last time I’ll hear the guy on the other side of my cube screech ‘CAW! CAW!’ out of nowhere – oh, no, wait a second, he just did it again.” Two Mikes and a Not Mike gave me a going-away present of a story-laden lecture about what I can expect as I embark on my latest career choice. Words of advice from Manager Mike: “Keep your expectations low.” I totally needed to hear those words one day earlier. The incurable optimist in me will be working on that concept.

Last summer, near the end of my internship, I happened to slice my index finger open on the abrasive saw. To be clear, it wasn’t actually the saw that cut me, it was the housing of the saw. I put a little too much weight into the wrench as I tried to pry the nut off the wheel, and the next thing I knew, I was thinking very calmly, “Oh crap, I’m going to need stitches.” I wrapped a wad of paper towels around my finger and applied pressure, trying to subtly elevate my hand above my heart without drawing too much attention to the fact that oh-my-God-my-fingertip-was-going-to-fall-off. Unfortunately, one of my favorite heat treat guys came in then and started chatting with me, and if you’ve ever seen me talk, you know that if I wasn’t allowed to wave my hands around or make any facial expressions, I’d have nothing to say. So there I was, talking with my hands and trying to play it cool, my bloody and mummified left index finger tucked firmly into my left fist, and all the heat treat guy could do was watch my left hand and wonder what I was hiding. Luckily, he didn’t ask any questions (or report me to our militant EHS lady) and instead, left me to contend with my finger. I’m happy to report that my finger didn’t fall off, nor did I require stitches (even though it may have been a good idea – but I’ve been terrified of stitches ever since the whole stitches-up-the-nose incident in grade school), and it took only three months before my fingernail looked normal again. So the moral of this story is: wear gloves when working with machinery. The buffer zone between torn nitrile gloves and missing fingertip is smaller than you think.

Anyway, personal tangents aside, life is good right now. I've been at my job for almost a year, which makes me feel kinda strange. I think about all the friends I've made and then said goodbye to, how many people I've seen, (both customers and employees) how many people I've outlasted...I won't lie. There are days when I miss my old friends so bad I want to scream. But at the same time I've learned the transitional nature of life, and that the ones who really matter will stay in touch. They will stay connected with you, even if it's just an occasional text message or funny email. There's some comfort in that. And it's also interesting to watch relationships form between you and the other people "left behind", as well as new people who come into your life. This is probably a lot more evident in a grocery store since by its very nature it's a place of constant change, where as there are other jobs when you're probably stuck staring at the same people for years on end. In a way I think that might be worse.

I didn't expect to have the same job for so long, but I'm glad I stayed. It's a rough place to work sometimes but overall the experience has been positive for me. It makes me stronger, physically and emotionally. I like that. And it's definitely widened my view of the world and the people in it. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Well, it's late and I need some dinner. Sundays are always busy so I'm wiped. Good night, world. If you're reading this, go poke somebody you love. If they ask you why, say a stranger online told you to do it, then see what their reaction is. *evil grin*

Oh and did I mention I ordered a bunch of kickass video games this week? XD Oh yes...

windows vienna is the code name for windows 7. it used to be called blackbomb but they changed it in like 2005 for some reason. i found a screenshot of it and it looks exactly like windows vista. the only difference i saw was that windows added some options to the right click menu when you click on your desktop.

windows vista screenshot:[link]

windows vienna/blackbomb/7 screenshot:[link]

links:wikipedia article
windows 7 official website

GAME MAKERS!

game makers is my new social network for people that like to make games. you do not have to be a game maker to join. i just made it a few minutes ago so we dont have any members. when we do it will be a great place to find programmers or graphics people.

please tell your friends about it we need lots of people.
link:game makers

Anyway, one of my co-workers was tapped to replace the day supervisor and has taken the position on weekends. However, he is reportedly very upset by this as he cannot work in the ICUs as often. He also is sick of listening to nurses, RTs, and our RT directors all whine at him. 

I am tempted to gun for the position when he inevitably resigns and returns to ICU therapy. I don't know if I would like it, but it's more money and it's a good resume-fluffer. The positives: less "actual work," more interaction with department leadership, more pay, more flexibility and more information about what exactly is going on in the hospital. The negatives: as a supervisor you get pressure not just from the bosses but also from the staff. You get yelled at by RTs, physicians, nurses, and RT managers. You must be capable of tapdancing on land mines in the midst of firefights while juggling a basket of eggs and two chainsaws. No wonder all the supers either quit or do a halfass job!

On reflection...maybe I don't want to be a supervisor. Not here, anyway. Thoughts?

Too bad it was so short.

Actually, I think they may be on to something.  The last two weeks have been the start of school(s) and that meant both the boys high school and the seminary.  It has been a rush of info literacy, library tours, and bookmark passing out.  I guess the books are on to something, because no matter how well I plan, I feel slightly ineffective.  My blog posts have been so-so and one of the many library tours I gave consisted of me standing in the stacks and saying "All the books about God are to my right, all the books about things not related to God are to my left".  Scarily, this seemed sufficient for the group of 14 year old freshmen to whom I was speaking.

This whole don't-multitask-and-become-more-effective thing seems counter-intuitive to me, and pretty much for my entire generation.  We're the same kids who have  taught ourselves to IM while watching TV, eating dinner, texting our friends and flipping through a magazine (which I caught myself doing last week).  But I'm willing to try a new phase of monotasking to ease the ever present feeling of nervous energy.  Wasn't I the same blogger who was complaining about people needing to slow down?

So, I'm curling up for my Sunday evening and going to read about how I shouldn't be multi-tasking.  I will try to remember that I wrote this post and report back on what I learn.  Writing it down on my brand new list of "action items".

Thinking about where I want to take my career, I want to be a CTO.  Hell, I'll even say CEO.  I think my reasoning stems from the above musings.  My ultimate goal is to become successful, to contribute to the world, and to leave a historical legacy.  To do so is to explore my potential.  So, I take the highest level of achievement I can think of and aim for that  The destination isn’t important, it’s the journey that matters.  Reaching the destination is just realization that the journey was successful enough to bring me somewhere meaningful.  And you know what, the titles aren’t important.  CTO, CEO, CFO - In my mind (which is key), someone at that level must have worked hard and done great things.  That is what I truly want: to achieve my goals and to be at a position that affirms it.

Coming back to earth - I admit that I could be more specific in my ambitions - even something lofty like to cure world hunger or solve the energy problem.  But so far I haven’t latched myself to any specific problem.  I may never.  I know, however, that I love helping people.  So it’s currently satisfying to be good at my craft (software engineering) and to help others to solve the problems they see fit to tackle.

I saw my Sunday School teacher from my former church at the school in the PM and he told me that one of the member's daughter died that morning. She had been sick for years. The last I attended that church was in 2005 and she had been sick for at least 2 years. It's amazing to see someone one day a normal teenager and then all of a sudden weak, sick and in and out of the hospital. Her mother is a strong mother! She had to deal with so much.

I pray for their family that God will comfort them and His peace will be upon them. I also pray that those who are not saved in their family would realize how fragile life is and surrender to Jesus.

This past week, I did not have a session. I did, however start a new job. I was afraid to blog about the transition, because I didn't want to write anything public about my old job. The first week went really well. Because it would be criminal to drive to a job that is around the block from our house, it forces me to get over my fear of walking around the neighborhood (particularly the house of our very aggressive neighbors). So far, I have a lot more energy because I am not spending my time trying to keep myself sane in what amounted to a psychologically abusive work environment, so I have been able to start conquering my fears surrounding cooking. All in all this was an enjoyable, productive week. I only wish that Michael would be able to have a quick commute to a job that he thought was fun.

It's interesting having two books to work on that are so different from each other. And I don't even mean story-wise either. See, Mask of Manolo is fully intended to be a black and white book, whereas Overthrow! is going to be colored. And as I'm working on these pages throughout the week and alternating which books to work on and when... I realize that it's a different set of artistic muscles that gets exercised every time.

When I know that a book is going to be black and white, I'm very generous with my hatching. There are lines literally all over the place. Even if I know that I'm going to apply tones to every single page later on, I still apply my hatch lines. That might very well be a waste of time, but it just helps me put it in a different place, y'know, mentally as well as visually.

Overthrow! is going to be colored, and I'm helping Justin scout for a colorist. I think I've already spotted one, but I'll let you guys know when it's solid. I'm not very hatchy when working on this book. My blacks are quite a bit more solid and defined, and I leave a lot of space for a colorist to interpret slight tonal shifts. For instance, while I would apply hatching to a slightly darker (read: midtoned) side of a rock in a black and white book... I would leave it untouched in a colored book and leave it to the colorist to give it a shaded hue. Color me noobish, but I feel like overdoing hatch lines muddles the colors quite a bit.  But when used right and just suggestive enough, it can be a powerful unifier for when a colorist does his magic.

I don't know if I'm doing it right yet though, but the colorist candidate guy says I'm on the right track, which is encouraging. Go me.

::: ::: ::: :::

Eno's Oblique Strategy Card says: Cluster Analysis

::: ::: ::: :::

For those of you who missed it, a coupla friends and myself have decided to kill what little free time we have left to do a comics review show. It's in the journal entry right before this 'un. Tres Komikeros is/was/will be a podcast hosted both here and on The Independent Comic Site. ICS has pretty much identified itself as Newsarama's evil twin, which I think is a really fresh take on comics journalism. Matt Brady meets Maddox.  I have great respect for Dominik, the EIC, and I just know that site's just waiting to explode. I can feel it in my amateur podcaster loins.

::: ::: ::: :::

I'm not allowed to show anyone any Manolo stuff till November, but Justin's been posting some previews of Overthrow! at his work blog. Go check 'em out. Laterz!

Afterwards, we ate at Wendy's with my mom and then went on a shopping spree at Target and Sam's Club for our regular needs.  I finally bought crap for my eczema.  So hopefully new treatment will dampen the stress so I can actually focus on other things that matter.

So, I've been thinking about something.  A client of mine (who works for Microsoft) has put it out there that I may have a huge opportunity to get a position as a UI designer, as I hear they are in dire need of them.  I do app UI, but I'm not sure.  I'm too hesitant and too attached to everything out here to move out to Redmond, WA by myself... even if it was to just see how I feel about it.  I have no idea, maybe something entirely new and different maybe better for me.  I just wish if I chose to do it, I wouldn't have to go it alone. =/ 

Maybe I'll chase it later.  For some reason, I really just don't feel ready.  My connections will always be open—yes, I am saying this with high hopes.  Call me stupid if you wish.  We'll see what happens.  Who knows... in a year might be headin' Northwest. ;)

Ok, I'm off.  I have company coming over.  Time to jam on Soul Calibur IV.  Actually... hrm.... 'slam' on Soul Calibur?  lol  Whatever, you know what I mean.  I'm gonna play a damn game.  :)

It's been amazing but all too quick.  I feel like I learned plenty and had numerous and wonderful opportunities.  I was sent to Seattle twice.  I was sent to India.  I led a developer seminar and I presented a tech fair and the Tech Summit.  I worked on my own project as well as assisted on a number of others.  I think my team really valued me.

I'm scared to move on.  My new team will be local and I'll probably feel the pressure.  That's if I even have a team. So far, I'm the only one on it besides the lead.  And speaking of my lead, he is insanely smart and opinionated.  I have to make a big impression on him.  Moreover, the director and vp of my organization have their collective eyes on me.  I feel that it's time to prove my worth or -- the unspeakable.

I should have more faith in myself.  I've made it this far.  I think I'm meant to be here and to be successful.  This is the fist time I've made a big change at Adobe and the first time I've made such a big change in my career.  And for the first time in my life, I believe in myself and that I have the ability to take myself to the next level.  I'm going to get a promotion this year and I'm going to deserve it.

Internet connection should be up and running, for the moment.  I am currently standing on my head typing in a Northeastern direction so as not to irritate my Comcast modem.  I have a feeling we are going to have a very love/hate relationship.

My PCT training school starts tomorrow.  Sigh.  I have 8 weeks of training which I guess is okay, they are paying me, although the only really new thing I will be learning (as far as I can tell) is their own policies and how to do catheters (which isn't allowed in CA).  I will also be on PM shift, which is basically good, I can attend school still and get all my training time in, but I am not entirely sure how much sleep I will be getting.

Oh well, it's only until mid October then I will be back to my three day weekend work schedule.  I can handle it, hopefully. 

Other than that nothing new is really going on, to be honest, I am having a kinda feel sorry for myself day, I cried then felt better, but then had a moment of panic when I realized I am broke.  How nice.

So I am now repeating this mantra:

It will be okay, the first month is always hard.

It will be okay, the first month is always hard.

You may repeat with me, if you'd like.

I finished a job today that I estimated would take a week. It took nearly three, which is stupid for the size of the room - but there were so many different tasks involved, half my days were spent fetching different tools and materials. Here's a before-after:

This project involved gutting a tiny bathroom and tile shower down to the studs, new sheetrock on the walls and ceilings, new window, new tile shower and floor, vanity with a custom linen tower, new plumbing, shelves, lighting, finishes, and paint. Very nice outcome, but gosh it took me forfrickinever.

So TSHanna came and went, and all I did was got wet. A very rainy morning calls for movie watching, and we went to see Ye Olde Darke Knight at a matinee. Totally worth the ticket price to see that on the big screen. But I couldn't believe people were bringing their little kids to see it. The psycho-weirdness, dark and complex plot, and violence are pretty stout in that movie, and I wouldn't bring youngsters to it. 12-14 year olds, possibly.

It reminds me of the time I saw the Goo-Goo Dolls live, and folks who knew their radio hits thought this would be a family-friendly show. Not so much. A few naughty words are to be expected at a rock show, but this featured vigorous vulgar vindictive - and volume. It was painful even for a half-deaf has-almost-been rock star like me. Toddlers on dads' shoulders were all over the place, while the aroma of sweaty drunk rockers almost overpowered the burning cannibis.

Time to pay some bills, plan a party, and book a trip. Have a great night!

On the  brink of this...transitional period, its just, unnerving. I need some antacid.

Career fair is this Tuesday! (My stomach, the butterflies!)

I'm currently back to school, after being laid off from Dell Computers in June.  It was a good job, but a tiny bit bitter at the lay off, as our dollar is in the slump.  I guess it's for the best.

I am at Carleton University.  I am taking Art History 1100, History 1002 (Europe in the 20th Century) and Natural History 1902.  It's going to be a wild ride, but I know I can take it.

Sarah and I are off to Germany in the next few weeks, so updates will be coming for that for sure.

Stay Tuned...

The CouchDB website, wiki, and mailing list archives were actually pretty good for getting started.

Easy Install

Thankfully, CouchDB has some pretty good installation information on its wiki and in its source distribution README file. In a short amount of time, I had a working CouchDB server on Ubuntu and OS X.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 build and install

The CouchDB wiki page for Ubuntu contains links to the two following blog posts. I followed the Barking Iguana instructions.

http://barkingiguana.com/2008/06/28/installing-couchdb-080-on-ubuntu-804
http://www.chetanmittal.com/2008/6/15/install-couchdb-on-ubuntu-hardy-heron-8-04

Notes:
The Barking Iguana update-rc.d step and the init.d copy step should be switched. Also, I would add the couchdb user as a system user.  The CouchDB source distribution README file has this step in its instructions, but the home directory should be /usr/local/var/lib/couchdb.

sudo adduser --system --home /usr/local/var/lib/couchdb --no-create-home \
--shell /bin/bash --group --gecos "CouchDB Administrator" couchdb

To allow CouchDB to listen for external requests, modify the BindAddress in the /usr/local/etc/couchdb/couch.ini file, and update any firewall settings as needed:

;original
;BindAddress=127.0.0.1
;modified
BindAddress=0.0.0.0

Bind the CouchDB server to an externally available IP address or to 0.0.0.0.

OS X Leopard binary

http://jan.prima.de/~jan/plok/archives/142-CouchDBX-Revival.html

Thanks to Jan L, one of the Apache CouchDB committers, CouchDBX is the easiest way to get a CouchDB server running on OS X. To allow CouchDB to listen for external requests, view the CouchDBX.app package contents, edit the /Contents/Resources/CouchDb/etc/couchdb/couch.ini file, and update the OS X firewall as needed.

Replicating 3 Documents

CouchDB comes with the Futon Utility Client, a browser-based user interface to setup databases, add/update/delete documents, run a CouchDB test suite, and manually initiate replication through its "Replicator" page. The Replicator tool offers replication from a source to target database, hosted locally or remotely available through HTTP. Pretty straightforward to use. Strangely, error messages are displayed in JSON format through a JavaScript alert, but it's not a big deal.

So, at this point, I had two CouchDB servers on two different machines. I created a database on each server by using the Futon client and used the same name for both databases. I then proceeded to add 3 documents with randomly added fields and values into my designated "source" database. Now that I had servers, databases, and documents, it was time to figure out how to replicate the database automatically...

Lo-and-behold, I found out that CouchDB currently doesn't offer "automated" replication without writing some code. Ok, fair enough. To get things started, I modified the couch.ini file by adding a line for DbUpdateNotificationProcess. More information can be found on the CouchDB wiki page for updating document views.

DbUpdateNotificationProcess=/usr/local/var/lib/couchdb/potatoe.rb

Why is the information on a page about updating document views? Well, the notification hook can be used to update views before a user actually queries those views. The page contains an example Ruby script that does just that. In addition, the same notification hook can be used for kicking off full-text indexing. But I had simpler (useless) needs.

CouchDB will take care of starting the process and will output (stdout) a short JSON message to notify the process each time a local database is updated. Make sure that the couchdb user has the proper privileges to run the script/executable.

[sourcecode="js"]
# example update message
{"type":"updated","db":"mytestdb"}
[/sourcecode]

Anyway, here's the (simple || stupid) script that got one-way replication going between two databases containing 3 documents hosted on 2 different machines sitting 3 feet apart. It uses the RestClient gem.

[sourcecode="ruby"]
#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'rubygems'
require 'logger'
require 'json' # sudo gem install json
#require 'json/pure' # sudo gem install json_pure
require 'rest_client' # sudo gem install rest-client

logger = Logger.new('/usr/local/var/log/couchdb/potatoe.log', 3, 1024000)
logger.level = Logger::INFO

REPLICATE = "http://192.168.0.4:5984/_replicate"
SOURCE = "http://192.168.0.4:5984/mytestdb"
TARGET = "http://192.168.0.2:5984/mytestdb"

begin

logger.info "Ready for CouchDB..."
replicate = RestClient::Resource.new REPLICATE
replicationMsg = {:source => SOURCE, :target => TARGET}.to_json

loop do
unless (jsonOut = gets).nil?
logger.debug jsonOut
message = JSON.parse jsonOut

if message["type"] == "updated" and message["db"] == "mytestdb"
logger.info "'#{message['db']}' database updated."
logger.info "Replicating..."
response = replicate.post replicationMsg,
:content_type => 'application/json'
logger.debug response
results = JSON.parse response
if results["ok"]
logger.info "Replication succeeded. " +
"session_id: #{results['session_id']} " +
"source_last_seq: #{results['source_last_seq']}"
else
# Currently, CouchDB 0.8.1 doesn't work this way.
# It returns an HTTP 500 error instead of false.
logger.info "Replication error: #{results}"
end

end
else
logger.info "CouchDB has gone away..."
break
end
end
rescue Exception => e
logger.error "Error message: #{e.message}"
logger.error "Stack trace: #{e.backtrace.inspect}"
ensure
logger.close
end
[/sourcecode]

Basically, the script makes sure that it cares about the database that was updated and POSTs a JSON string to the CouchDB server's _replicate "resource" (I know...calling it a resource doesn't make sense). This initiates the replication process between the SOURCE and TARGET databases. The script doesn't stagger the updates -- it does kick off replication after every database update. This means that replication will occur each time a document is updated in the source database. And it doesn't do anything if the target database is unavailable...fault-tolerance-shmolerance!

With the script in place, permissions all set, and the CouchDB server restarted, all I had to do was update a document in the source database to initiate the replication process.

That's it.

Yes, that's it. Three documents were replicated on the other machine. Seriously, it was everything I had hoped for, and more. :-)

I'm sure other people are going to replicate millions of documents across thousands of CouchDB servers and databases on all types of hardware and networks. With documents containing a ridiculous number of fields and content. And maybe using another CouchDB database to store a list of databases to replicate, and replicating that database as well. And obviously all in Erlang too...but not me, at least not today.

Notes:

• The _replicate response message contains the "ok" result as well as a history of replication events. I found out through the CouchDB mailing that the response will contain information about the last 50 replication events. However, I noticed that the events that were returned were unique to the client that initiated the replication. I didn't see the same history when I kicked off replication through a Ruby irb session, the DbUpdateNotificationProcess script, or through the Futon client.
• You can also do a hot-backup copy of the database files if you don't need "replication" like this and if your database files are small.

Feedback is welcome.