Love this Old Florida picture.  The gal in the middle looks a bit unsure, but the other two are confident!

Photo credit:http://oldflorida.tumblr.com/page/33

One of my absolute favorite restaurants is the Columbia in Florida.

Below is a photo to the Ybor City location entrance.  There are other Columbia locations in Florida: Orlando and St. Augustine are very special to me. 
St. Petersburg is out on the water, and Tampa in an old cigar factory.

If you go, take time to enjoy your meal, it will be one of the finest, authentic dining experiences you will ever have.
My recommendation:

1. Don Cesar Crianza, distinctive red wine from Spain.
2. 1905 Salad
3. Snapper “Alicante”, personal favorite
   
4. Boliche “Criollo”, crowd favorite
5. Paella if you have time, nobody does it better
6. Finish with a cafe con leche

Source: http://www.columbiarestaurant.com

Some neat graphics and logos from the heritage Lockheed and Martin companies.
I found these at: https://mfcbastion.external.lmco.com/missilesandfirecontrol/our_company/history.shtml

The original Glenn L. Martin Company (heritage company to Lockheed Martin) building.  Martin later merged with American Marietta Company in 1961 and became Martin Marietta.

The facility below is located off Sand Lake Road & Kirkman Road in Orlando, Florida.  It was built in 1956-1958 for the Army's Pershing tactical ballistic missile and later the Patriot defense missile.  One of the last contracts I worked on was the Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared System for Night (LANTIRN) Target and Navigation Pods.  These were mounted on F-14's as an upgrade to their weapons systems.

The facility is now surrounded by tourist attractions including Universal Studios and others along International Drive.  I walked the breezeway, with those signature roof-line waves, between 1996-1999 when i worked at this facility.

This photo was from a postcard hosted at Vintage Travel Postcards.
Larger picture

The "Tower" was built in front of the original building.  You can see the walkway/breezeway in the bottom right of the tower photo.  I used to work in the Tower, the original Martin building depicted above, and manufacturing facilities in Orlando.  Judging by the car in the photo, this may have been taken when the building was first completed.  The entire complex has changed since the time of this photo provided by H.J. High Construction (see below)

From the Lockheed Martin website, there appears to be a new building out front to the east of the tower.  The original Martin building and breezeway are blocked by the tower in the photo.  It's interesting to see how the complex has changed over the years.

Above is the old Martin Marietta Data Systems building off Rio Grande in Orlando.  McCree Construction built the facility in 1981 and Lockheed Martin has since closed the Orlando Data Center operations housed in this building.  I'm not sure what is housed in this building today (a bank or credit union?).  I have not been in this area since 2003 when I taught for Florida Southern College, which had a building within sight of this one.  Photograph provided by McCree.

Ever find yourself in a predicament?  Hold on tight, it will pass.  Hopefully.

03-November, 2011Our 4-H crew went out to the extension office for an afternoon of rocket building.  We built a rockets individually, then went out to the field to launch them.  As the dawn set in, launch time approached.  Mission control (Parker County extension agent Kayla Neill) called for all engineers and 4-Hers on deck to prepare for the launch!

We had a great time building and launching the rockets.  The participants learned interesting facts about space exploration.  I hope we do this one again!

Did you know the USA has a National Jukebox?  The Library of Congress has converted over 10,000 audio recordings between 1901-1925 over the past two years. 

My young daughter recently asked me, "Daddy were you alive during Roosevelt's presidency?"  I laughed.  I must seem older than dirt to her. 

Browsing the jukebox, I found a speech by Teddy Roosevelt.  Other notable political speakers include Taft, Harding, Woodrow Wilson, and William Jennings Bryan.


I browsed the religious recordings and found some of my favorite songs:

• Nearer my God to thee
• When the roll is called up yonder
• God be with you till we meet again
• Holy, holy, holy

Other good finds include:

• She is my daisy - a Scottish comedy by Harry Lauder.  His thick Scottish accent adds so much to the stories.
  
• De karger chusin un kalle - this one is recorded in Yiddish and is apparently a comedy about a "thirfty lover."  Have no idea what they are saying, but it sounds good!

Let me know if you find any other treasures!
Source:http://www.loc.gov/jukebox

Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek)
December 4-10, 2011 – is a call to action to share information and offer activities that will advocate for computing and elevate computer science education for students at all levels. Everyone can participate!

Some ideas for College and Higher Ed professors:

• Offer Engaging Computational Thinking Courses for Non-Majors
• Visit youth in formal and informal settings
• Host an Open House at Your College or University for High School Students
• Entice Non Majors and Community College Students to Learn about Computer Science
  

Ideas for Professionals and Industry:

• Spread the Word About Computer Science
• Raise your Voice: About Computer Science Education
• Host a Company Tour

Horwath's book was just recommended to me.  I plan on reading it soon (perhaps on the Kindle Fire?).  The reviews are fantastic and call the work "simple", but effective way to focus limited resources and to implement  a strategy.  Horwath opens the book with "85% of executive leadership spends less than an hour a month discussing strategy."

Amazon Description
The inability to set good strategy can sink a company - and a leader's career. A recent "Wall Street Journal" study revealed that the number one most sought after executive skill by organisations is strategic thinking, but few leaders have that skill set. In this book, Rich Horwath dissects the three most important elements of strategic thinking, breaks them down into simple and attainable skills, and shows readers how to apply them every day. He provides managers with a clear path to mastery of three disciplines: Acumen - generate critical insights through a step-by-step evaluation of the business and its environment; Allocation - focus limited resources of time, talent, and money; and, Action - implement a system to guarantee effective execution and communication of strategy throughout the organisation. This book is based on research with senior executives from more than 150 companies and Horwath's own experience as a professional strategist. Armed with the knowledge from this book, every reader can become an expert strategist and an invaluable member of his or her organisation.
Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Dive-Building-Strategy-Resources/dp/1929774826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321464641&sr=8-1

Interesting draft from NIST on Security and Privacy Guidelines for Cloud Computing.  Researchers have found that "organizational identification and authentication framework may not naturally extend into the cloud and extending or changing the existing framework to support cloud services may be difficult." (Chow et al., 2009)

One alternative is to create a new "cloud" identity system.  Given the current state of information technology investment, it will likely be a "hard sell" to design, build, and support a second identity management system.  Another alternative is to adopt a combination of eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).  The latter provides a secure mechanism to exchange "assertations" for authentication.  The former (XACML) offers the capability for a  cloud provider to control access to cloud resources in a standard/non-proprietary fashion.

The guideline paper concludes with this thought: "Many of the features that make cloud computing attractive can also be at odds with traditional security models and controls."

Source: NIST Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing