Waiting for KafkaSpout Initialization

[Mitchell Rathbun (BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEX)]

In our topology we have a KafkaSpout. The KafkaSpout's FirstPollOffsetStrategy 
is set to LATEST, since we only want the updates that occur after our topology 
is up and running. The reason we can do this is because we notify the server 
that we need a "recap" of certain information, so we don't need any messages 
before that update. The problem we are having is determining when exactly we 
should notify the server that we are "listening". Currently, we submit the 
topology by using a LocalCluster object and calling submitTopology. However, in 
looking through the documentation, the KafkaSpout isn't really initialized 
until "after the first call to  
KafkaSpoutConsumerRebalanceListener.onPartitionsAssigned()". So my concern is 
that after we call submitTopology, we ask for a recap before the KafkaSpout is 
really ready to receive one, creating a race condition. Is there a way to wait 
for all of the spouts/bolts to be submitted and ready? Or more specifically to 
wait for KafkaSpout to be "initialized"? Or is there a different design 
approach that is recommended besides setting FirstPollOffsetStrategy to LATEST 
and asking for a recap?