As a fan of John Denver for many years I was excited to see the Denver Center Theater Company's production of 'Almost Heaven'. Without having read extensively about the production I expected an impersonation of Denver in a telling of his life with a musical retrospective thrown in.

The production we saw was not at all what I expected. Instead of a main character with a few supporting characters, there is an ensemble cast of six vocalists and five instrumentalists. The beautifully interwoven arrangements presented Denver's music in ways I never would have considered. With so many wonderful arrangements it is difficult to know where to start. Jeff Waxman's arrangements include a complex medley of Annie's Song and Leaving on a Jet Plane woven to show the simple beauty of the love between John and Ann as well as the complex times of conflict and termoil. The medly, as do the other songs, succeeds in sharing the beauty and harmony as well as the variety and complexity of the music and the man who created the music that has touched so many. Read more about 'Almost Heaven'

There is a hint on Mac OS X hints today about enabling the DoD's Common Access Card login for OS X. Apple has a document that provides more details about how the system works and how to configure it. Has anybody come up with a way of using other smart cards yet?

Ever wonder what it means to stand up for what you believe in? Senator Harry Reid (D) of Nevada knows as he stood and spoke for over eight hours on the floor of the Senate on Monday. The senator's response to the Republican majority's plans to have a marathon 30-hour debate later this week on controversial conservative judicial nominees the Bush administration would like to see confirmed.

There seems to be a sourceforge outage today. Problematic for those of us who are attempting to get new sites up today. It does bring to light some concerns about having so many great projects in the open source realm hosted by a closed-source company.