JavaFX is the latest toolset for the Java language. Based on the old F3 code, it allows developers to easily add multimedia, animations, transitions, and other shiny pieces of UI goodness to their applications.

This is important for two big reasons. First, the standard Java UI toolkit, Swing, is old, ugly, and loved by almost no-one. Building an attractive interface in Swing is possible, but it’s not easy.

Second, their is a big push toward Rich Internet Applications, things that live in a Web Browser, but behave like they live on the desktop. Things like the Google Web Toolkit, which was used to create GMail, or Adobe Flash. JavaFX is Sun’s push into the RIA world, allowing developers to create a rich application that runs equally well on the desktop, in a browser, or on a cell phone.

JavaFX is one of the coolest things to come out of Sun in a long, long time, and has the potential to revolutionize Java User Interfaces.

It’s also doomed to fail.

Why? Because Sun is completely incapable of releasing a Software Development Kit that doesn’t suck. They have this insatiable need to force people to use their NetBeans IDE to do any kind of Java development, and so they bundled JavaFX into a NetBeans plugin. If you want to develop JavaFX, you have to run NetBeans.

Which is both idiotic and infuriating. But even more infuriating is the fact that the JavaFX plugin simply will not install. When I searched for info on adding this plugin to NetBeans, I was taken to a page that gave me the following instructions:

1. Click Tools > Plugins from the main menu of the IDE.
2. In the Plugins window, select the Settings tab.
3. In the Settings tab, check the Active checkboxes for all the update centers listed.
   The other update centers are checked for any updated plugins on which the JavaFX Script plugins may be dependent.
4. Select the NetBeans Beta update center and click Edit.
   In the Update Center Customizer, select the URL text field and type in the following value, if it is not already set:
   • http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/6.0/uc/final/beta/catalog.xml.gz
5. Click OK
6. Select the Available Plugins tab and click Reload Catalog to get the latest list of available plugins.
7. In the list of available plugins, locate all the plugins in the JavaFX category.
   You can type javafx in the Search text field to help locate these plugins.
8. Check the Install checkboxes for the JavaFX plugins, as shown in the figure below.
   Click Install.
   The NetBeans IDE Installer window appears.
9. Click Next.
10. Read and accept the terms in the license agreement displayed, if you agree.
11. Click Install.

Installation progress is displayed.

12. After the installation completes successfully, select Restart the IDE Now and click Finish.
    The IDE exits and is restarted.
13. Proceed to the Getting Started with the JavaFX Script Language tutorial to create your first JavaFX Script program.

This is a stupidly complex set of steps. There is no good reason that installing JavaFX involves anything more than “Click here to download.” And the best part? These steps don’t work. JavaFX depends on some obscure Scripting framework that isn’t included with NetBeans, isn’t included with JavaFX, and isn’t available through the plugin manager.

All I need to develop a JavaFX application is the JavaFX Library, a Language Guide, and a text editor. But no, please try to install several megabytes of crap onto my computer for me. And then fail, because you can’t find some idiot plugin that I don’t even really need.

JavaFX is being touted as “bringing advanced graphical interfaces to the common man,” or some such tripe. I went to four years of college to learn how to develop software, and I can’t even install your plugin, and you think you’re going to let “the common man” develop rich apps? Please.

I want to move back to Syracuse. I’m tired of living in a small, economically-depressed, unexciting town. I think I’d rather live in a medium-sized, economically-depressed, unexciting city.

The big thing Syracuse has over Rome: Wegman’s. Wegman’s is the greatest grocery store ever built. The place is just so classy, their food court is top-notch, and they sell furniture.. Good furniture, too, not the stuff you’d grab for $20 at WalMart, but “I’d actually like to have this in my living room” stuff. Not that I’ve ever wanted to buy a table while I was getting my chicken, but it’s nice to know that the option is there.

I read an article today that said Gas Prices Plummet Below Four Dollars. One, “$3.99 per gallon” is not plummeting. Two, the title should have continued, Unless You Live In New York, where the state motto, “Ever Upward,” is talking about the cost of living, and where the operating theory of government finance seems to be “if it’s a noun or a verb, we’ll tax it. Also, some adjectives.” Last I saw, gas was still sitting at $4.09 a gallon.

This week I learned that you it helps to add water to the pot before you attempt to boil a chicken. That was… unfortunate. On the other hand, I learned that a par-broiled chicken, drizzled with garlic olive oil and brushed with Mrs. Dash and Kickin’ Chicken is excellent. However, trying to eat five of them in one day is… trying.

One of the (many) things that really bothers me in the gym is when some frat-boy wunderkid sees me doing my things and decides to leave his 47 sets of curls, or whatever Muscle and Fiction lied to him about this month, and do a set of whatever it is I’m in the middle of.

Now, I’m all for doing something more useful that “blasting your guns” and “making a kissey-face at yourself in the mirror,” but could you at least wait until I’m done? Or even ask to work in between sets? Because this is generally how it goes:

Me: 17. Huff. 18. Puff. 19. Gasp. 20. (dies)
Frat Boy: Sweet, he looked away for a second! Time to jump in and impress the ladies! Ninja powers activate! (jumps in on dip bar / chin bar / anything else useful)
Me: Where did I put that dumbbell? Oh, there it is… (hits frat boy in head with dumbbell)

And then there’s Naked Lady. She isn’t really naked, but she’s close enough to be revolting. Her operating theme seems to be “if I walk around in a sports bra, maybe they’ll look at me like they did in high school,” which is almost as annoying as the crowd of 30-something men following her around, whose operating theme seems to be “you bet we will!”

I’ve started calling the “clean and jerk” the “clean and press.” I’ve found that I get fewer dirty looks that way.

Monday: MetCon with Sierra
5 Chins
10 Renegade Rows @ 25 lbs.
5 Snatches @ 95 lbs.
10 Long Lunges per leg
20 Pikes
3 Circuits

Somewhere during the second circuit, Sierra said “I am going to hate you by the end of this.” That’s a direct quote. Apparently, hating me was part of some grand plan; she wasn’t there yet, but she would be, and she was confident enough in this fact to narrow it down to a 20 minute timeframe. Right now, we’re good buddies, but in 19 minutes and 45 seconds, I plan to be cursing the very day you were born.

Tuesday: MetCon with my haunted dreams
5 Chins
20 Dips
20 Dumbbell Swings @ 45 lbs.
10 Overhead Lunges @ 45 lbs.
20 Axe-Handle Dumbbell Swings @ 20 lbs.
5 Circuits

This workout, for the record, sucked. On the bright side, there were a couple of girls working out near me tonight, doing some kind of situp-dumbbell combination… thingie. I’m not really sure what it actually was. But they were apparently watching me, because the next time I looked over at them, they were doing axe handles. That was kind of gratifying.

Thursday: Ultimate Frisbee for about 2 hours.

I would have trained on Friday, but Shaun and Jenna got married. Stupid lifetime of happiness, interfering with my training plans. Some people…

The sun rose this morning.

That may not be particularly surprising to many of you. The sun has, after all, been pretty consistent with the whole “rising in the east and setting in the west” thing for the last 6,000 or 4.5 billion years, depending on who you ask. But I think that it’s important to mark the occasion anyway, because it’s indicative of another fact: the earth continued merrily in its orbit.

Again, not particularly surprising, but it is illustrative. I’m something of an information junkie. My brain gets bored pretty easily, and I like to have a steady flow of information coming into it. I have a whole list of sites that I check every day for news, current events, and major happenings, in the financial, political, technological, and spiritual fields. I can, and often do, spend hours each day consuming pieces of information. I have trouble going to sleep at night because I want to read just a little bit more. It almost borders on addiction.

Most of it is really just white noise, though. This weekend, I went to see an old friend from High School. I ended up staying the night, and so I spent two whole days unplugged from my computer. No internet, no email, no FaceBook… I even turned off my phone, because service was unreliable.

Events continued to unfold in Iraq. The people in Washington continued to debate about who is best qualified to lead our nation. The turmoil in the Real Estate market continued to boil. The price of gas continued to be measured in “arms” and “legs.” And the earth continued in its orbit, and the sun continued to rise.

All of this happened without my knowledge or intervention. Instead of reading about the latest Washington scandal or economic crisis, I spent time with friends, and talked about what was going on in our lives.

The trend today is to become ever-more connected. We’ve got IM, text messages, FaceBook and YouTube on our cell phones, constantly tethering us to the digital world. Cut the cord for a day. Make a connection. See if your world still turns.

Today’s food for thought: would you rather be master of your own failure, or slave to your success?

Being bald is not easy.

Well, I suppose it’s easy if you’ve lost all of your hair, but if you’re intentionally removing it, it’s a bit more involved.

The head, for those of you who have never made an in-depth anatomical study of the subject, is round-ish. It’s the “ish” that causes most of the problems; there are all kinds of little bumps and curves that make it just this side of impossible to stroke a razor over your scalp in anything resembling a smooth motion. The end result is that there’s usually a patch of stubble somewhere, which you never notice until you’re five minutes from your office.

I’ve been shaving my head for about a year now. When I first started, it took me almost twenty minutes. I got that down to about ten or so, but I was still using a hand-mirror to do the back, and burning through an new razor every day.

But for a while now, I’ve been hearing rumors, whispers of a product that would transform my head-shaving world. People on internet forums – yes, we do get together on-line to talk about how awesome our skulls are – claim that this legendary thing would cut my shaving time down three minutes, and leave my head as smooth as a baby’s behind.

An aside: why the behind? Is the rest of a baby’s skin so coarse that only its tushy is a suitable metaphor?

Anyway, I finally caved in and bought a Head Blade.

It’s a fairly neat little invention. It rest in the cup of your hand, and has a little wheel built into it, allowing you to shave your head just by brushing your hand over your scalp, the same way many of you run your fingers through your hair.

It does indeed drastically cut down my shaving time, though I have to admit I don’t notice any particular improvement in the baby-butt-ness department.

Also, I have cut myself every time I have used this thing. And we aren’t talking trivial cuts, either. The first morning, I ran the Head Blade over the back of my scalp, and when I took my hand away to rinse it, I found myself thinking “gee, that’s funny, I don’t remember my entire freaking hand being that color red.” And then I felt the blood dripping down onto my back. It took me forever to get that one to stop.

But what really gets me in the directions included with the Head Blade. The little pictures that showed Mr. Clean palming the Head Blade and running it over his scalp were useful, but the accompanying text…

Insert a new Head Blade brand razor into your Head Blade. Warm your scalp and the Head Blade with warm water. Lather up your head with Head Blade brand shaving cream. Stroke the Head Blade over your scalp. When finished, apply Head Blade brand after shave, followed by Head Blade brand skin conditioner. For an extra shine, apply Head Blade brand Head Lube.

Seriously? Head Lube? Seriously?

And I know that there’s like some legal requirement to pimp your own products in the instructions, but I’m amazed they didn’t tell me to warm the my scalp with Head Blade brand water, dry it with a Head Blade brand washcloth, and let the razor dry in Head Blade brand air.

There’s a Kelly Clarkson (shut up) song that I’m fond of, Beautiful Disaster. It’s about a girl who falls in love with an absolute train wreck of a man; she sings about how hard it is to be with him, how much chaos he’s brought to her life, but how, at the same time, she just can’t let him go.

I’ve been in that situation too many times, and the last go-around nearly got me killed, literally. Needless to say, that’s left me a bit gun-shy. And now that I’m starting to think about who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, I’m less tolerant of a lot of things.

One of the big things for me is that I have a very hard time dealing with someone that can’t relate to my sense of humor, or follow me in a conversation. My humor tends to be dry and sarcastic, and while I don’t mind light conversation, I like to be able to jump into deeper waters. I get very frustrated when I’m talking to someone that can’t follow along with what I’m saying. I really don’t like having to stop and explain myself.

But there are a lot of little issues, little things that I pick up on, because picking up on things is what I do. Things that don’t make me dislike a girl, but things that make me wonder if I could put up with them forever. Forever is an intimidating word.

Of course, since I’ve systematically ruled out pretty much every girl in this hemisphere, I wonder if I might be a bit too demanding. I know, intellectually, that no one is perfect, but applying that knowledge can be difficult. I struggle to know the difference between “realistic” and “compromising.” There’s a balance.

I was talking with a friend last night, and she happened to mention that she wasn’t ready to date anyone, because she felt that she needed to get her own life right. I told her, also, that there’s a balance; if you wait until you’re perfect to, as she said, “drag someone else into your life,” you’re going to die alone. At the same time, though, you don’t want to inflict yourself on someone if you are, truly, a walking disaster.

But I know where she;s coming from. I pick up on little things about myself, too, and I have a tendency to disqualify myself. Strange things, things that really don’t have a whole lot of bearing on a relationship. I’ve found that if my training is lacking, I have trouble thinking about a relationship. Once I get that dialed in, I tell myself…

Another friend once told me that I’m a bit too hard on myself. She may be right, but at the same time, there’s something inside of me that thinks other people are too easy on themselves. It’s a bit of a neurosis, actually.

Anyway, the point of this rambling monograph is this: no one is perfect, and if you’re waiting to be perfect, or to find someone that’s perfect, you’re going to be waiting a long, long time. Keep going, keep progressing, keep improving, but don’t miss out on life while you’re doing it.

Sweat pants with words on the butt.

I really don’t get these. You combine all the wittiness of ironic t-shirts (hint: they aren’t that witty; Will Farrell is witty; quoting him on your clothing is not so witty) with the added benefit of people ogling your hindquarters. And I understand the thrill of they are so totally checking me out right now, but its generally not the hottie doing Olympic lifts doing the ogling; it’s usually the creepy old guy on the ab machine. Or the mop guy. Stupid mop guy.

And then there’s the pants that say “pink,” often in blue letters. That’s not even accurate.

I would like to take this opportunity to make the following request of the management at WalMart: when there’s a line of people fifteen deep, open more than one bleeding line. Thank you.

I know that this is a losing battle, but the left lane on a two-lane highway is typically referred to as the “passing lane.” If I’m trying to pass you, get out of my way. You are slow and annoying. And for the record, if you’re doing 45 in a 55, and I’m roughly three inches from your bumper, I’m trying to pass you. You see that lane over to your right? It’s calling your name. And so is the baseball bat in my trunk. Choose wisely.

For some inexplicable reason, I had the theme song to the Smurfs stuck in my head for a good portion of the afternoon. About five minutes of that is enough to dive a man legally insane, and about five hours of the is enough to have that same man singing “la la la la la la, stab stab stab stab stab.”

My tanning booth smelled like girl tonight. That isn’t a complaint, just an observation. The other option is apparently “feet,” and between the two, I’d definitely prefer girl. And what does girl smell like, you ask? Strawberries and promises, my friend, strawberries and promises.

I really don’t know why the mop guy is so fascinated with me, but he seems to follow me around a lot. I was working out a few months ago, and the guy – no joke – came over and mopped under my feet while I was squatting. This time, he just moped underneath me while I was getting dressed. I really don’t understand this. Was the floor in such desperate condition that he couldn’t wait ten minutes? Did I look like I really enjoy wet socks? I don’t know.

The Generation Conference was this week, which threw something of a wrench into my schedule, but I was still able to get to the gym a few times. One of the great things about MetCon is that, when I need to, I can get in, change, work out, stretch, shower, and get dressed, all inside of an hour. I even had time to use the massage chair after. Mmmm… massage chair.

Everyone else made a bunch of excuses. “I have to sing in front of hundreds of people in a couple of hours.” “I haven’t eaten since 9am.” “I’m running on four hours of sleep.” “I strained a ligament in my knee and my doctor told me that you’re an evil sadist that should be avoided at all costs, you psycho.” Well wahh.

Monday: MetCon

5 Chins
20 Dips
20 Dumbbell Swings @ 45 lbs.
10 Long Lunges per leg
20 Crunches
5 Circuits

Thursday: MetCon

5 Chins
20 Pushups
20 Dumbbell Swings @ 45 lbs.
10 Long Lunges per leg
20 Pikes
5 Circuits

Friday: MetCon

5 Chins
20 Dips
5 Snatches @ 95 lbs.
10 Long Lunges per leg
20 Crunches
5 Circuits

My diet this week, for those of you who are following along, was comprised mostly of Diet Coke and Skittles.

I’m not a huge fan of talking about money in church.

Now, I need to say that my pastors are all men of integrity, we have an annual business meeting to discuss how the church is spending money, and I’ve never felt manipulated into giving anything.

My issue is more that other people have an issue. Religion has a bad reputation when it comes to money: people tend to assume that everything we do is just to get the people to give us more. Even when this isn’t true, people often expect it to be, and I sometimes cringe when it’s time to take an offering, because I wonder how it all looks.

But that wasn’t the case last night.

Pastor Benny Perez spoke last night. He’s the Senior Pastor of a relatively new church in Las Vegas, and one of the ministries they have started is an outreach to teenage prostitutes. He started to tell us the stories of some of the young girls he and his people have been reaching out to, girls as young as eleven years old, selling themselves on the streets for seventeen dollars a day, abused and exploited by some pimp. He told us the story of eight of young girls that came to his youth ministry- with their probation officer, of all things – and gave their life to Jesus Christ. And he told us about how their pimp retaliated, about their blackened eyes and broken bones.

Benny’s church is doing something about this situation. They’re putting together rescue teams, people who will go and pick up any girl who wants to escape from that life, people who will minister to them, love them, and tell them that they are far more valuable than they ever believed. And they are building safe houses, places where these girls can go while God works on their heart and they put their lives back together.

Craig Groshel talked Wednesday night about a Godly burden; he said that you could recognize it because it would break your heart, or make you angry. This qualified on both counts. I wanted to weep as I listened to Benny tell these young girls’ stories, and I wanted to find the men that had hurt them, and make sure that it never, ever happened again. These burdens, he said, were given for us to act on.

There isn’t a whole lot I can do for a ministry in Las Vegas while I’m in New York, but I can at least sow into what he is doing, and I was very glad when pastor Mike took an impromptu offering. It was amazing to watch hundreds of teenagers coming forward and putting their dollars and cents into an offering so that other teenagers, people that they would never even meet, could be blessed. This was a true, dramatic, New Testament offering. Tonight, Pastor Mike told us that this group of young people raised over ten thousand dollars to help these girls through this ministry.

Benny isn’t even really “my kind” of minister; he’s more charismatic, and I’m more cerebral. But what he’s doing in Las Vegas is absolutely “my kind” of ministry. Lives are being changed, and girls – eleven year old girls, for God’s sake – are getting their first real chance at life, and I thank the Lord that there’s a Man of God like Benny Perez doing what he is doing. Differences in style and even theology absolutely do not matter, because the Gospel, the real, life-changing Gospel, is being advanced by his church.

Benny Perez is the senior pastor of The Church at South Las Vegas, and if you want to donate to his program, you can do so on line.