mysql + Azkaban: Reading "LongBlob"

I am trying to build a query layer on 'azkaban' Database. (Language used: Java) I am running into, what I thought would be a simple problem (but turning out to be irritating).

This is the query I am running:

select exec_id, CONVERT(log USING latin1)from execution_logs

"log" is a Column of type 'longblob'

This is my Java code for reading "log"s:

try {
    Connection conn = AzkabanClient.getPhoenixConnection(conf);
    String s = " select exec_id,  log from execution_logs ";
    PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(s);
    ResultSet rs = pstmt.executeQuery();
    String logString="";
    while(rs.next()){
        int i = rs.getInt("exec_id");
        InputStream inputStream = rs.getBinaryStream("log");
        java.io.BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new java.io.InputStreamReader(inputStream));
        String str;
        while ((str = in.readLine()) != null) {
            logString += str;
        }
        inputStream.close();
    }
    conn.close();
}catch(Exception e){
    LOGGER.error("Error =>" + e);
}

The problem here is: By the end of while loop, I am able to read the 'log' for a row in the table, but the String is unreadable (encoded?)

eg:

logString = "‹Å\]Ç•}^ÿ>°]ÕÕÝUzY‰”Uà8Žììbg¦¥..."

I have tried to modify the query like this:

"select exec_id, CONVERT(log using latin1) from execution_logs"

But still the same issue.

I tried "utf8", but when I do that, I get NULL in column "log" of the ResultSet.

Please help if somebody has experience this or know how to go about solving this?

In the meanwhile, I will keep trying things.

Thanks

---

Still trying: I am using xampp now (just to do quick prototyping).

In phpmyadmin UI, when I click on the blob, it downloads a '.bin' file. On mac, I can open this file and see proper "English" words (or logs in english), as expected.

But how to do this programatically?