Java/Database SQL JDBC/Object Serialization

How to serialize/de-serialize a Java object to the MySQL database.

/*
 * mysql> CREATE TABLE java_objects ( 
 * id INT AUTO_INCREMENT, 
 * name varchar(128), 
 * object_value BLOB, 
 * primary key (id));
 **/
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;
public class SerializeJavaObjects_MySQL {
  static final String WRITE_OBJECT_SQL = "INSERT INTO java_objects(name, object_value) VALUES (?, ?)";
  static final String READ_OBJECT_SQL = "SELECT object_value FROM java_objects WHERE id = ?";
  public static Connection getConnection() throws Exception {
    String driver = "org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver";
    String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/databaseName";
    String username = "root";
    String password = "root";
    Class.forName(driver);
    Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
    return conn;
  }
  public static long writeJavaObject(Connection conn, Object object) throws Exception {
    String className = object.getClass().getName();
    PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(WRITE_OBJECT_SQL);
    // set input parameters
    pstmt.setString(1, className);
    pstmt.setObject(2, object);
    pstmt.executeUpdate();
    // get the generated key for the id
    ResultSet rs = pstmt.getGeneratedKeys();
    int id = -1;
    if (rs.next()) {
      id = rs.getInt(1);
    }
    rs.close();
    pstmt.close();
    System.out.println("writeJavaObject: done serializing: " + className);
    return id;
  }
  public static Object readJavaObject(Connection conn, long id) throws Exception {
    PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(READ_OBJECT_SQL);
    pstmt.setLong(1, id);
    ResultSet rs = pstmt.executeQuery();
    rs.next();
    Object object = rs.getObject(1);
    String className = object.getClass().getName();
    rs.close();
    pstmt.close();
    System.out.println("readJavaObject: done de-serializing: " + className);
    return object;
  }
  public static void main(String args[])throws Exception {
    Connection conn = null;
    try {
      conn = getConnection();
      System.out.println("conn=" + conn);
      conn.setAutoCommit(false);
      List<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
      list.add("This is a short string.");
      list.add(new Integer(1234));
      list.add(new Date());
      long objectID = writeJavaObject(conn, list);
      conn.rumit();
      System.out.println("Serialized objectID => " + objectID);
      List listFromDatabase = (List) readJavaObject(conn, objectID);
      System.out.println("[After De-Serialization] list=" + listFromDatabase);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
      conn.close();
    }
  }
}