Charlottesville Blogs

Priscilla Chan, aka Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg, got married over the weekend to the Facebook founder. The best part? She wore an off-the-rack wedding dress made in the USA by designer Claire Pettibone. Pettibone makes her dresses in Los Angeles with a vision to provide brides with a romantic, ethereal look. We have to say she achieved that with the design Mrs. Zuckerberg wore. She looked absolutely elegant yet not over the top for the couple’s small backyard wedding.

Congrats to the couple and to Claire!

From the National Archives:

Patent drawing of Artificial Arm by John Condell, titled “Improvements in Artificial Arms,” issued as patent 48,659, dated July 11, 1865

Had a chance to visit with Jenny Peterson, a personal trainer who is opening a pastry shop in the Glass Building next to the Blue Grass Bakery & Grill–hence the name. Here’s what I wrote up for the Hook:

Amidst construction work, unopened equipment boxes, stacked furniture, the smell of fresh paint, and general chaos, a chocolate layer cake sits temptingly on a high table covered with a dusting of sawdust. Paradox Pastry owner Jenny Peterson (shown here with her manager, Maureen Scott, right), her hands stained with paint, hopes there will be many more such tempting treats on display before the month is out. Work on her location in the Glass Building, right next to the Bluegrass Grill & Bakery, began a few months ago, and the high-ceilinged, light-filled space has a industrial cathedral feel to it. The cake was sinfully good, too.

But there is a paradox. READ MORE

I’ve been seeing a lot of interest in pt-online-schema-change (nonblocking MySQL schema changes), with a lively discussion on the mailing list (which I think I’m not keeping up with…) and a couple of bug reports filed. I’m really interested whether people have tested it rigorously to ensure that it maintains your data integrity. I have done so, and there is a set of tests for it in the codebase, but nothing replaces real-world testing. If you find any problems or have questions, please address them to the percona-discussion Google Group.

Further Reading:

• Planned change in Maatkit & Aspersa development
• Free webinar: non-blocking MySQL schema changes
• Simple and complex types in XML Schema
• ASP.NET’s Profile DB schema
• High Performance MySQL, Second Edition: Schema Optimization and Indexing

W. Howard by Rufus W. Holsinger (January 25, 1919). A costumed member of the cast of musical revue O Susie Behave, performed by the University of Virginia Theatrical Club. (Here’s another great image from the same production.)  O, Susie Behave was a 1918 silent film starring Fay Tincher as well as a popular song. (Holsinger Studio Collection, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia; Indiana University)

On this day in 1860, George B. McClellan married Ellen Marcy at the Calvary Church in New York City. Much sought after, apparently, Miss Marcy had already received a proposal from George’s good friend from West Point, Ambrose Powell Hill. He had asked for her hand four years earlier, but Marcy’s father, an Army officer, disapproved, and our entry on Hill notes that his health may have been a contributing factor. According to the historian James I. Robertson Jr., Hill suffered from prostatitis, the result of gonorrhea he had contracted while at West Point. “The summer of 1844 was generally a pleasant time for Hill,” Robertson writes, and so it was for a cadet of “lithe figure and manly bearing.” But such things come with a price. And that price, quite possibly, was Miss Mary Ellen Marcy.

George McClellan, meanwhile, served under her father, Randolph Marcy, who was “encouraged by McClellan’s pursuit of a civil career,” as our McClellan entry puts it. As counter-intuitive as it might seem in retrospect, the Army was no place for social advancement in those days. Robert E. Lee was miserable and always threatening to quit. And McClellan did quit. He joined the railroads, became a vice president, and married the lovely Miss Marcy.

The aging and eminent Winfield Scott attended, as did the future Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston. Even a rival suitor showed up in support of McClellan, but not, as far as I can tell, poor A. P. Hill. His next meeting with McClellan would be on the battlefield.

NOTA BENE: I am a Cole Porter fan (who isn’t?), and I am a Pogues fan, and I miss the late Kirsty MacColl. Put the three together, and you have “Miss Otis Regrets” after the jump.

A version of this post was originally published on May 5, 2011.

IMAGES: Ambrose Powell Hill, hand-colored daguerreotype (The Museum of the Confederacy); McClellan and his wife, 1862, by R. W. Addis

E.W. Jackson (r) with George Allen

“Private sexual behavior, unless it is against the law, should remain private,” Jackson said.

He and his wife have been married for forty years, have 3 children and have resided in Chesapeake for 13 years.