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Saturday, February 18, 2006

Star Trek Personality

Stardate 59021.8
Star Trek Personality Test Results: INTJ

This test says you are an INTJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinker, Judger).* In Star Trek, you share a basic personality configuration with the characters of Jean-Luc Picard, Seven of Nine, and
T'Pol.

"Things are only impossible until they're not." - Picard

Qualities

People like you are generally autonomous, reserved (perceived by others as "aloof"), and intellectual. You sometimes give the impression you have no need of others, but you're intensely curious and driven to learn. You're cautious with others socially and respond best to people who don't push you to be friendly or affectionate. You appreciate when others follow your lead and accept your advice in the helpful spirit in which it is intended. You're calm by nature and feel off-balance when confronted by highly emotional people.

You're highly organized and expect the same of others. You analyze automatically and enjoy seeing patterns and trends. When your mind is made up, that's it, which means that while you're definitive and strong, you can be stubborn and arrogant. You live in a world of ideas.

You respond best to other people's needs when they tell you about them clearly. You value honesty greatly and you're excellent at employing constructive criticism. You prize people who listen to you and respect your ideals. You are somewhat contemptuous of those who don't pay attention to what you say and extremely contemptuous of those who can't do their jobs well.

Goals

Your primary goal in life is achieving independence and being able to live according to your own standards. Your reward is continual expansion of your competence and knowledge.

Work

You are almost completely project-driven. Though you won't work against your fundamental principles, the current job before you can consume pretty much all other considerations. You will perform
all-out for a superior you respect, but you have a sometimes unfortunate tendency to let bosses know when they've lost your admiration, or when you disagree with them.

You lead and follow equally well, as long as you believe that what you're doing will work. Perceived futility can make you shut down, and you will suffer intense feelings of failure if your end product is not "perfect." A good supervisor will give you praise for all successes. A bad one will only add to your stress by pointing out problems you already know about for which you are probably already punishing yourself. When stressed, you may deny blame out of self-preservation.

Make sure you market yourself and your ideas at work, or you may be taken for granted. All too often, the logic of your strategy can be lost on others, so don't resent it when asked to explain
your actions.

Relationships

Social skills may be your undoing, especially making small talk at parties or flirting with strangers. You feel everything very deeply, so you've learned to keep what you feel to yourself. This combination can alienate people instantly and even make stubborn suitors give up in frustration.

On the flip side, you can learn to interpret others' visual and vocal signals with expertise if you're willing to make the effort. You're better at understanding people than you may think, and you work hard at relationships you care about. But beware answering someone's request for emotional support with advice and solutions.

Jobs

Good careers for your type include being a starship captain, intellectual property attorney, news analyst, design engineer, software developer, inventor, Webmaster, architect, and ex-Borg.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

ENIAC Storm

Stardate 59021.6
Whoa, for a little storm, it sure messed things up. Yesterday it started to snow. And snow. And snow. After watching the traffic reports, I decided that a phone wire would be a less slippery way of working. It turned out to be a good decision. On the way to pick up the Rachel from school, there were lots of slid offs and accidents. I did manage to get Rachel to her piano lesson. That was interesting because they had about 50 Star Trek and Star Wars micro machines. Her son’s valentine box was a paper Mache’ Enterprise-A. Later I found out whole sections of I-15 in Bountiful and Centerville were closed.
James at fencing was surprised we showed up. He said few came when there was a lot of snow. Patrick went through the motions, but didn’t suit up this time.
This morning was a repeat of yesterday. I dropped the kids off at school, and when I headed back, the freeway was slow, and stopped completely at Layton. So back to telecommuting. The snow stopped and the sun came out, and the streets cleared.

Happy 60th birthday, ENIAC.

End of Entry

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Flowers

Stardate 59021.4
Bit of a bug fix for the calendar code. Actually, it was in the function that builds the star date from the date. I have to manipuulate the day to get the filename, since for the most part I can't have a file with a dot and them a dot htm. So for 2/13/2006, it would take the 13 and divide by 10, store the integer value (1), then strip that off (0.3), multiply by 10 to get 3, then use PHP's sprintf to put all the pieces together to get the log file name, sd59021_3.htm. Unfortunately, if I did the same with 2/14/2006, sprintf says the .4 times 10 is reeealllyyy close to 3, so make it 3 (the floor() function, for anyone familiar with programming). The calendar then showed the log entry for the 13th on both the 13th and 14th. I went about splitting the day without doing the times ten step.

I ordered a dozen roses to be sent to April's work for Valentines today. FTD states on the site that they cannot guarentee a delivery time, and sure enough, they arrive after she left. Oh, well, it is the thought that counts. FTD also has some nice wine baskets, but Utah law says you cannot deliver alcoholic beverages, so that was a no go.

I watched "Sharpe's Company". I thought these were a BBC TV series, but each is about 90 minutes, so they are more like a full movie. It was good, except I had some trouble with accents. I added the rest of the movies to the queue. The weird thing is that I sent it back to Blockbuster, and the next movie in the queue is "Cool Runnings" with John Candy. They sent us "Corpse Bride", which was third on the list. Maybe the other movie was not available, but it usually says as much. "Alien vs. Predator" had a short wait status for a couple of weeks, and April put "The Best of American Idol" in the queue, and it has had the "short wait" status for the last couple of months.

I hope everyone has a happy Valentine's Day.

End of Entry

Monday, February 13, 2006

No Fencing

Stardate 59021.3
Patrick decided he did not want to do fencing last Wednesday, so I was free to go to a Ticonderoga meeting. That was fun, and I like having it on Wednesday. That was also the day a few contractors were scheduled to come out. One is for building an overhang for the patio in back. He’s anxious to start, but we are still thinking about it. Another came to look at the door in back. We haven’t heard back from him.

I got pulled in to help another project at the end of the week. I didn’t do much other than to point out the tests were being run in Salt Lake against a server in Minnesota. That’s why they were taking 10+ hours to run. I managed to find some alternatives, and it got done. I met my new boss as well. I think he’s a little nervous that the team is averaging a new manager every three months lately. I guess we are a lot like herding cats.

Saturday Thomas’s game wasn’t until 9:45 AM, so I got to sleep in a bit. We were going to miss Rachel’s game, but a friend offered to take her to the Weber State Women’s basketball game, so she played. I missed Patrick’s game to go and get her. She was not happy about playing, but I heard she did much better, and was in a good mood by the end of her game. She spent the evening with her friends, which helped her mood. She talked non-stop after I picked her up. She had a few disappointments over the week, and I think some of them bother her more than she wants to admit. Unfortunately, she is like me, and refuses to talk about it.

We also had a guy come out to give an estimate on the kids’ bathroom floor. The laminate is cracking and coming up around the edges. I thought it was amusing that I need to remove the toilet. The flooring guys are not allowed to do that, since that would be plumbing and requires a different contractor. No big deal unless the bolts are rusted on, which after ten years is a good possibility.

Patrick also figured out that the laptop can play Battlefield: 1942, so he, Thomas, and I can play at the same time. LAN parties with his friends can't be far off.

Sunday I took the kids to see “The Pink Panther” remake/prequel. It was pretty faithful to the original, with much of the same slapstick comedy. I was pleased they kept the Mancini theme. Cartoon Network ran the Pink Panther cartoons on Saturday, and one announcement said this was the cartoon with the coolest theme music. I’ve always liked it. Steve Martin did a good job, as the trailers show. The pacing changed toward the end and Clouseau become almost competent, although he started bumbling at the end. Kevin Kline seems a very evil Dreyfus, and Thomas asked me several times if he was the bad guy. No, but his motives were not as good as Clouseau. I thought it was a good movie, and if you liked the Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers version, you should like this.

Weight: 195 lbs. Not good. I need to eat better.

End of Entry

Monday, February 06, 2006

Super Bowl

Stardate 59020.6
Everyone has weighed in on the Super Bowl, so I might as well. My initial reaction was that the Seahawks got the short end. Yeah, some of the penalties were ticky-tack, and on some key plays. But Hasselbeck got a fumble reversed. I watched replay after replay of Roethlisberger’s touchdown, but I can’t say for sure if the ball broke the plane. Hasselbeck personal foul on a block was a bad call. The referees are human, and there is a lot of pressure in this game. Not every one of the Seahawks drives were stopped by a penalty, and the last drive in the fourth quarter was dismal. John Madden said it time and again during the game; the Seahawks played well, and dominated the offense, but were unable to turn that domination into points. If the Steelers had played better, there would not be so much chatter. The Bus has retired with a ring, and the Seahawks can be happy with being removed from the list of teams who have not made it to the big game. Speaking of the list, the Saints are returning to the Superdome. I had thought someone said the dome had to be demolished. April and I, and a lot of friends, would be happy to have that team also removed from the list.

In other sports news, Patrick played his first game in the next set. His team lost the playoff game. They are still moved up to the A list (although this is more because the B-list teams play on Saturdays, and most of the team has basketball or ski team). This means the last set of indoor games will be hard. From what April is telling me, I think the boys are burning out a little.

The basketball games went well on Saturday. Thomas has fun, and is trying hard. Patrick got to take the ball out a number of times, and is now trying to drive in to the basket. He got screened out each time, but at least he tries. Rachel played two games. This is the problem one. The coach’s daughter continues to ignore all but one of the players. Rachel has pretty much given up. She and the coach ignore each other. Most of the other parents are just waiting out the last four games.

Oh, yes, I’ve done some re-arranging. I decided there was no need for a separate blog page. I sent a day redoing the calendar on the right in PHP instead of Perl. I like the PHP code better.

End of Entry

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Basketball

Stardate 59020.2
Basketball has been something of a pain, especially when you add other activities to the same day. Last Saturday, all three kids had a game, Patrick had the Pinewood Derby with Cub Scouts, and Thomas was invited to a birthday party. The day did not go as long I had originally thought, though. Thomas did well with his basketball game. Patrick also did well in his game, although some of his teammates have not picked up the idea there is more than one person you can pass the ball to. Right after Patrick’s game we rushed over to St. Paul’s church for the derby. I had thought this would go about 3 hours, but there were only 18 cars entered. Apparently not as many Cub Scout packs came this time. The derby ran an hour, which was just the right amount of time to get Thomas to his friend’s birthday party. We killed some time at Home Depot. It started to snow pretty good, so I got Thomas a little early.

Rachel’s game got April mad. The coach’s daughter is under the impression she is the team, and won’t pass the ball to anyone but her friend. Her friend does get the ball to who ever is open. At practice Wednesday, I saw the same thing in a skirmish between Rachel’s team and the other team that was practicing. I talked to the coach afterwards. The guy is not happy with this league. I tried to point out that his kid is getting mobbed because she won’t pass, and if she would spread the ball around she could get open a lot more. I don’t know if I did any good, but I guess we will see.

Patrick’s team lost their soccer playoff. I didn’t see the game, but April said they did well the first half, but started to come apart the second, and made some bad mistakes. I think that after 8 weeks of games, they are getting a little burned out. These are 8 year old kids, not adult professionals. I am wondering if they need a little break. Patrick and some of the other players also play basketball, and Patrick does fencing, so that’s a lot. Tuesdays are especially grueling; the kids go to school at 7 AM, to religious ed after school, and to either cub scouts or basketball practice. They don’t get home until after 8 PM. It’s only for a few months, though, and a little suffering is good.

Favorite Quote: “When Googling for information on zeppelins, it really pays to add "-led" to your search terms. Trust me.” – David Morgan-Mar, Irregular Webcomic
Actually, the official site for Led Zeppelin was the first on the list, but the next two were sites on airships.

Weight: 190 lbs I finally replaced the battery in the bathroom scale. I was thinking I would be closed to 200, so this is a pleasant surprise.

End Of Entry