Slanted Fedora Convention

Stardate 56080.1 (8-01-2003)
I wrote up last weeks log entry, but never got around to posting it. So I will be posting two (this one and 56072.5) in one day. 

The convention was fun. It's the first time I've gone to one where I knew more than just one person. And it's the first one I've been to since StarFest 2000. The costumes were great. I loved the play Robert Picardo and Ethan Phillips put on. Ethan went off the script a number of times, and Robert playfully slapped him for it. It may have been part of the act, but it was good all the same. My only disappointment was that I could not get a personalized photo with the two of them. Their plane was delayed in Las Vegas, so they had to skip doing that. I did chat with Robert in the bathroom.
The pictures from the convention seem to be popular. At least the number of hits was up this last week

The Borg is Eric Allan Hall

The Starfleet officier is Brady

Ray Meyer

.
About half the week I was sick, so there is not much else to write. I didn't get any further with anything. The need to get a calendar system for the logs is growing with the number of entries. When I started doing this, I was not sure if I would keep it up. But I find that I enjoy it.

Well, I guess two entries is good, considering how short this one is.

End of Entry

Bruce Eckel

Stardate 56072.5 (7-25-2003)

I heard a bit on NPR during the week that IBM is moving more and more of their software development to India. My company is doing the same. Last wee the manager told us that she wanted to move the maintenance of the client utilities off shore to India. That way the developers could concentrate on a redesign of the same utilities. I'm sure that's what she intends, but I can't help picturing some exec higher up looking at the cost saving of the offshore maintenance, and wondering why we need to redesign something that already works. But then again maybe the Indians can answer some the the questions that go through three or four people, and then to me. I then answer what should be obvious to all. I mean, some the of these things are simple math or seeing what is in front of you.

So when I thing about my future as far as work, I can't see anything to look forward to. I have been doing the same thing for years. But I guess I should take the unspoken corporate message to heart, just be glad you have a job.

I have been working on one project in C#. It was not required to be in the lagnuage, and as far as the company is concerned it is not a real project. I went looking around the net for some resources, and decided to visit Bruce Eckel's site,www.MindView.net.It has changed since I was last there, and he has started a blog. One of the blog entries mentions a study that concludes that only 5% of software developers are effective. He went on to say that there were probably a number of developers in the field because someone told them it pays well, and not because it's something they enjoy doing. I think that could be said of a lot of professions. I personally enjoy doing things like the project above. I started it Monday morning, and when I thought to glance at the clock, it was afternoon. It's projects like this and the Perl stuff I mentioned in other logs, where I get to learn something new, that really interest me. A lot of the server program stuff is variations on things I have done a dozen times, so my productivity is not what it could be sometimes.

Bruce also mentions another study done in the 60s* that tracked 1500 some odd students going into college for a specific profession. It found that of these, 255 where there because the wanted to be, the rest because it would lead to a good paying job. Twenty years later, the same people were interviewed. About 101 were millionaires, and only 1 of those were not in the group of 255. So Bruce wondered what the world would be like if people could do what they wanted to. I immediately thought, hey, that Gene Roddenberry's vision in Star Trek. I can remember Captain Picard saying the the episode, "The Neutral Zone", as well as others, that the 24^th century human works to improve himself/herself, instead of accumulating wealth. I have trouble picturing how that works, but it does sound good.

End of Entry

* The other 90% by Robert K. Cooper, Three Rivers Press 2001

Disney Cruise

Stardate 56072.1 (7-21-2003)

I finally finished the script for the Visitors page. It was somewhat weird. The script worked fine on my machine, but when I tried it on the site, it refused to work correctly. I took out most of the regular expression syntax it was using to parse the lines in the log. I gradually added the rest of the expression, until it was back to the original. It worked fine. I have yet to figure out why this did not work in the first place.

It's been triple digit temperatures the last week and a half. The swamp cooler does not keep up when it gets this hot. I hope to have central air by next year. I have a hard time sleeping at night, because the house does not cool down until about 3 or 4 in the morning. 

I watched a helicopter tow something back and forth over the burned area near Farmington canyon and Francis peak. I was not sure what they were doing. The fire was started by some man wanting to go to jail. The Standard-Examiner ran a story about his family saying he had mental problems. I think every time I pass by, "well, DUH".  I don't normally use the phrase, but in this case it fits.

Rachel and my sister are coming back from a Caribbean cruise tonight. She sent us an email while she was gone, and she now thinks a cruise ship is the best way to travel. I hope to get some pictures so I can add a new scrapbook. (I did.)

I was the bearer of sad news today. Walter "Matt" Jefferies, the man who designed the Enterprise for the original series, passed away today. I would be grateful to see a mention of it in the paper tomorrow. Matt, I hope you knew how you inspired generations of fans to boldly go where no one has gone before.

I am thinking of added a Projects page. I keep thinking of new things, and this would help me remember them. For example, I was thinking a calendar marked with the dates of the log files would be a good idea. That would solve the problem of the increasing number of log entries running off the menu.  Of course, the projects page would need to have some way of adding to it from wherever I am. So the projects page turns into a project in and of itself.

End of Entry

GS Camp

Stardate 56071.3 (7-13-2003)

Karl Malone leaving the Jazz did not surprise me. I expected it after John Stockton retired. His going to the L.A. Lakers did surprise me. But let's face it, in the years he has left to play in the NBA, I don't think the Jazz will have a championship team. If Karl wants the ring, then he should go. Better that then staying here where he doesn't want to be. I could have been spared the word for word conversation a tearful Larry Miller related to the press.

April dropped Rachel off at Girl Scout camp on Wednesday, and she said Rachel was not happy about it. I picked up Rachel Saturday morning.  She saw me and started to cry. Everyone asked her why, and she finally said she did not want to leave. She talked about it the whole way back from Park City. She learned how to do different knots, how to make a campfire, and lots of other skills I would like her to have.

I read an interview  Jonathon Frakes gave in Trek Today. He stated that the franchised was being ruined by all the TV series, and blamed Nemesis tanking in the theaters on that fact. He also stated that DS9 and Voyager did not measure up to TNG.  I imagine a number of fans would take issue with that. I personally like each series for different merits. With a couple of exceptions, the first two season of TNG were not all that good.  On the other hand, he said the crew would come back for another shot if asked. This is in contrast to an interview with Patrick Stewart who stated he has finished with the character of Jean-Luc Picard.

April picked up issue 145 of Star Trek: Communicator for me. I didn't like this magazine as much as Star Trek: The Magazine, because that one had much more treknology in it. However, the editor, Larry Nemecek, wrote that in order to cut down confusion with their now-departed friendly rival, Communicator will change it's name to Star Trek Magazine. And even better, they are adding a new column called Fleet File. I'll have to keep an eye on this, especially since the other has gone to the land of Perpetual Destitution. 

The testing over the weekend went all wrong. A couple of updates I did to the server program caused it to crash. This is normally not a big deal, since this is one of the things the testing is designed to uncover. But combine that with getting knocked off the dialup and locked out of the Windows server, then the frustration sets in. Add the fact that the amount of data to test has grown so the full thing takes 16 hours, and I nearly lost it. I'm still working on the full test now.

To end on a happier and somewhat related note, I am once again in contact with Master Zog. He returned an email after many years of leading me to believe he had run afoul of a temporal anomaly. It relates to the last paragraph because it was he who cursed (he always says the word is 'hired') with the job I have now. Contact with him is always interesting. He wrote to say he liked the web site. My reply was 'It's an ongoing project. Half my time is spent on it, and half on the Operations site for the USS Ticonderoga. And due to a accident with the transporters during a beam up with an away mission in constant search of beryllium spheres which involved spilling a cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot) on some bioneural gel packs, there is another half of me to give a prompt "Aye, sir" to Captain Stark when he wants the main site updated." The trick is to pack as many different genre references in as possible.

End of Entry

Parade

Stardate 56070.9 (7-9-2003)

I am almost finished with the perl script to process the hits on the site. When I downloaded the latest log to play with, I noticed a few new hits since redoing the site. Then I noticed they didn’t’ go anywhere but the three links under the first menu. I guessed that the format was confusing. Carl Stark confirmed it when I asked him. I made few changes that should help. So much for being an avant-garde. ;)

Participating the Clearfield parade was fun. Rachel said she had a lot of fun, and Thomas was not happy about it until we got started. When he saw all the people waving and yelling at us, THEN it was fun. 

The BBQ after was good. Tonya Wright put out a ton of food. Galaxy Quest was put in the DVD player, and we went through the special features. I might have to rent or buy the DVD just to see how long I can stand the movie with Thermian dubbing. The planet scenes were filmed in Goblin Valley. The family was there on Easter, so Rachel recognized some of it. 

I walked to Layton Commons Park to watch the fireworks. They did a good job this year. Thomas loved it, except he fell asleep halfway through the show. I did get some excellent pictures.

April and Patrick went camping with a friend, Kim, and her son Hans at Tanner Flat the 3^rd and 4^th. They had a lot of fun, except on the 4^th Patrick fell asleep early in the evening. Hans can’t understand why anyone would sleep. Thomas is the same way. Pretty much every weekend he walks into my bedroom and tells me that it’s morning, and I need to get up. I disagree at those times, but when I think about it now, he’s right. Why waste a day staying in bed?

Sunday we went to see Sinbad at The Gateway. It was good, and after we ate at the Samba grill. Then we went down to the other end and played in the Olympic fountains for a couple of hours.

I finished the Harry Potter book. It was good, but it could have been less wordy. I am almost finished with another book called Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown. It’s techno-thriller about a new unbreakable encryption algorithm of the same name, and the National Security Agency’s efforts to prevent it from being used. It’s a good book, and I would recommend it to anyone into these types of books.

 End of Entry

Reg Ex

Stardate 56070.3 (7-3-2003)

I put together the new format for the web site last week. I like it, although I want to do a bit more before I am satisfied. There is also some content messing. I am struggling with some regular expression parsing on the log files. This is not one of my fortes. To most people this would look like the stuff used in comics when characters use profanity. What I am working on looks like this:

/^([^\s]+)\s          # site

([\w-]+\s[\w-]+)\s     # users

\[([^\]]+)\]\s          # date

\"(\w+)\s               # protocol

(\/[^\s]*)\s          # file

([^"]+)\"\s          # HTTP version

(\d{3})\s               # return code

([\d-]+)

It doesn’t quite work yet, but I’ll get it.

A friend of mine forwarded an article to me about the Trusted Computing Initiative. As defined by a consortium of corporations, it means that future hardware may be designed to prevent unapproved software from running on a home computer. If you are curious and want to find out more, search for the terms “Trusted Computing” and “Darknet” on Google or another search engine. I was thinking this is a good topic for a soapbox entry. I suppose something like this will eventually happen, given how importance of the Internet is growing in business.

I mentioned in the last entry that this month’s regression testing was on the Fourth of July. It turns out I was looking at the old schedule, and it’s next week. This means the weekend is more open than I thought. The ship is participating in the Clearfield parade. I did walk in a St. Patrick’s Day parade when I was a teen. This will be the first parade with a float that I have been in. I hope to have some pictures on the OPS website after the event.

I finally got my performance review. I scored an excellent, with the only note that I need to share more of my knowledge with others. This comes up every year. And every year I throw out a bunch of documents on the processes that I follow, flowcharts for the operations of the applications, and ideas on changes. One of the things I can’t communicate is the problem solving I do. I know its frustrating for others when I walk up and say “There’s the problem”, but I don’t know how to describe the process. There is also the thing I call “The Cardboard Cutout Syndrome”. It happens when someone calls me over to look at a problem, and it disappears. I always say if they had a cutout of me to stand in front of the computer, it will always work. :)

I received an email from Chuck Allison. I worked with him for a short time a couple of years ago. He’s really bright, and a very nice guy. Anyway, it was a notice to everyone in his personal address book that he is changing his email address. I get these occasionally, so at first I did think much about it. I idly looked at how large the addressee list was, and then it clicked. Here were the names of the Who’s who of software development. Names companies pay thousands of dollars to send employees to hear them lecture. I could print this out, frame it, and put it above the shelf holding the books I have that were written by these people. I feel a little in awe, and the phrase “I’m not worthy!” pops in my head.

End of Entry

Harry Potter

Stardate 56062.7 (6-27-2003)

The main event of the week was of course the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. April already finished it, so she can as she put it “get on with life”. I am about halfway through, and my daughter Rachel is to chapter 4. One of the challenges I gave her last year to encourage her to read is to finish the new book  when it came out. She’s doing well so far.

April’s campout with her Girl Scout troop went very well. I was home when they returned, and all the girls went on and on about how much fun it was and what went on. Rachel wants to set up the tent the next time the family goes camping.

My sister had Patrick stay overnight with her. Patrick has never been able to do it before. I told her what Patrick asked me while watching Nemesis. So she explained that there were four captains, Kirk, Picard, Janeway, and Archer. I had to point out after she brought Patrick home that she missed Sisko.

Work proceeds as before. My supervisor seems to be avoiding the subject of performance reviews. I’m not expecting much since the process was taken over by UHG corporate a couple of years ago. Their system limits raises and the money is set up beforehand to be spread over a whole department. Again, I always saw raises as a motivational idea, but I guess I am wrong.

I’m continuing to include Klingon words in the email when I send the weekly status report to my supervisor. The report itself is in English, although given my opinion of such things I might try Klingon next time. Today he grabbed a dictionary and replied with a phrase. I answered with another question, and he replied with another phrase that had no relevance to the question. I don’t think he knows what he is writing. I’m getting some practice, though. A little more and I might not get lost if I sign up on the KLI listserv.

The release last month was delayed a week to include New York state data that was late in coming. This means that this months regression tests are scheduled for the Fourth of July. I figure I will be dialing in Saturday the fifth to do it. 

I am still learning about Perl, although I haven’t done much with it yet. I see lots things I could do with it. I am impressed that there are versions for all platforms. I even have a version on my work laptop at part of some approved software. That’s got to be a first.

End of Entry

Bald Captain

Stardate 56062.0 (June 20, 2003)

I went to the library to pick up a book for April. While I was there, I picked up a few books on CGI (Common Gateway Interface) programming and Perl programming. I like the Perl language, and I see why it is so popular to do CGI programming with. A coworker made a remark that those things were passé. I replied that yeah, vogue style is to use web services. But if the ISP does not support ASP or JSP, it’s still useful. Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, not everyone uses IIS. This is not bad thing, considering that the company I work for requires any web server to be approved by network security. Apparently hackers attack the servers on a daily basis. I wish I had my camera to capture the look on the department manager face when she reminded us that this was corporate policy, and one of the developers told her that the time tracking server she had them set up was never approved.

On a similar subject, the captain added a link to my personal home page to the Seventh Fleet web site. This is kind embarrassing, considering there is very little here beyond this log and some old pictures. However, during a search for something else, I found a theme that I like, so I will try to find some time to update things.

April and Rachel went to a Girl Scout campout Thursday morning, so it has just been us guys. I put in the Nemesis DVD that night, and flipped through some of the action scenes. It warmed my heart to hear Thomas say “Whoa, cool!” when the buggy jumped into the shuttle. Patrick had me rerun the ramming scene quite a few times. I had to laugh because he asked me at one point if the bald guy was the captain. I said yes, that’s Captain Picard. He then asked if Captain Archer was on vacation.

End of Entry

Father's Day

Stardate 56061.7 (6-17-2003)

Did you ever get the feeling… you were being watched? I enabled logging on both my personal web pages and the operations pages. It logs the raw HTML requests and the address of the requester with a date/time stamp. I made it public access; so if you really want to slog through it, click here. I was curious whether anyone actually looked at the pages here, and how often. It would also be useful to see what is popular, so I can save some space by removing things no one looks at.

Father’s Day went very well. April did have to work, but got up at 2 am so she could be home at 2 pm. My kids insisted on fixing breakfast in bed for me. It consisted of a micro waved frozen waffle and chocolate chip cookies (more on this below). The only mess they made was the plates and the sheet used to bake the cookies. I was impressed. My dad and sister came up for dinner. My dad is in his mid-eighties, and the rest of us swap counts on how many times each of us has heard the same story. I need to get some of them down, though. It would be a shame if they were lost.

About the cookies: One day last week, April called to say Patrick, who is 5, baked himself some cookies for breakfast. He turned on the oven, took some dough out of the fridge, used the oven mitts to remove them when they were done, and turned the oven back off April said they were good. The ones on Father’s Day were excellent. April usually burns them a bit, and mine go the other way and are undercooked. I was not thrilled that he was using the appliances, but in his defense, he did ask. April was still half asleep and didn’t quite know what he was asking. The nutritional value can be questioned, but since fruits and vegetables disappear as fast as the candy does, I don’t worry about it too much.

End of Entry

The Geek Test

Stardate 56061.3 (6-13-2003)

April had her Girl Scout troop over last Sunday for a backyard campout. It was a lot of work to get the house and yard ready, but it was successful. The only hitch was the rain guard blew off one of the tents in the middle of the night, and some of the girls had to move in the house. Rachel made a comment to April the next day that this was the best time she had ever had.

The good and bad of the week is that April has been working most nights. The good in that is her income for the pay period was better than mine. The bad part is we play tag-team parenting a lot. We never get any time alone together. It’s going to be that way for a awhile, so I just have to suck it up and live through it.

Chief Ray Meyer set up a meeting at Captain Stark’s house on Wednesday to go over web site updates and maintenance. I decided to dust off my bicycle (literally) and ride it down there. I did good on the way there (it was mainly downhill). The way back was much harder, and I was only able to ride about halfway. It was dark and I didn’t have any reflective safety gear on, so I think it was for the best.

I took The Geek Test the captain had in his log entry for 56060.7. I only scored 32.5%, so there’s room for improvement. I did send the link around work, and so far I have outscored everyone. My boss was amused by the entry for studied an artificial language (Esperanto, Klingon). I make it a point to include a Klingon phrase in my weekly status reports.

Work continues with the dire warnings on raises. I’m trying to figure out when the subject went from a motivational topic to this. Actually, it was two years ago, when the parent company assimilated all accounting. The money for raises is part of the budget planning the year before. Essentially, this means you expect some people to do worse. I guess I would not make a good accounting troll (see 

The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams), because I don’t understand why it’s done this way.

End of Entry

Stardate 56060.6 (June 6, 2003)

Yay, school is out for summer! You would think that since I am not in school, this would mean nothing. That would be WRONG! Every morning, 5 days a week, I drag my kids and my wife out of bed. May is a very hard month for this. The sun is up until 8:30 – 9:00 each night. I hate to try and put my kids to bed in daylight, especially when there are other kids still out playing. Moreover, I want to get out and do things around the yard. So the result is the kids go to bed at 9 or 10, sometimes 11, then are back up at 6. The cumulative lack of a full sleep gets to them. They fight and cry increasingly. Now they can sleep in a little bit. Thomas still tends to get up as soon as the sun is up, but oh well.

The end of school coincides with the end of the TV season. Strange how that works. I don’t watch that much or as least I don’t think so. The one show I watch every week is of course Enterprise. I watch The Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants when I can catch them. April tries to hook me on ER, but I find it depressing. There are some other shows I am interested in, but I agree with Captain Stark, if I can’t remember to watch or tape them, they aren’t worth the time. The Amazing Race 4 has just started, and I am actively watching that.

When I arrived at work after attending Patrick’s end of school party, I had more good news. This was somewhat mixed news, though. The release scheduled for next week was delayed because the state of New York mandated changes at the beginning of the year, but just released the data to us for it. State and federal legislations do not seem to have the same concept of time the public has. Anyway, the mixed part is that we were on schedule to do regression testing during the workweek, instead of the weekend as has become the norm. But this means that will happen during the middle of next week. At least there will be a slowdown for a few days to catch up on some side projects.

I turned in my Performance Evaluation on May 30^th. What in the past was about 3 or 4 pages, is now 7 to 10. I have started saving all the proposals, tasks, and other stuff so I can build a nice chronology of accomplishments for the last year. As far as next year, the least satisfying, as they put it, is the lack of professional progress. I would like a chance to use the newer technologies and languages. But I will try and push the current project in that direction.

Started to carpool with a coworker the last two weeks. I live in Layton, and work is in West Valley. The commute is 20 miles each way. 40 miles a day adds up very quickly in wear and tear on the car, and in gas. So far, in the last two weeks, I have filled the car with gas once. Before this, I would have filled it three times.

We went to see Finding Nemo on Thursday, June 5. The movie lived up to what I expected. It was good. The only compliant I have is not with the movie itself, but with the advertising. By the time a movie is out, the promos and trailers have shown the best parts, and sometimes half the movie. I was not surprised by anything except the seagulls, which I found very funny. (Mine? Mine?)

For the department meeting, we watched Nemesis on DVD. I liked it a lot better this time around. When I saw it in the theater, the soundtrack was a little messed up, and the picture was slightly blurry. One guy went out several times to complain, but they did nothing. When I pay $7 to see a movie, I really expect it to be at least as good as in my home, and hopefully much better. My son Patrick came in a few times to watch when the battle scenes were on. His one question was “Is the bald guy dying? Not that bald guy (Patrick Stewart), the other one (Thomas Hardy).” Anyway, now I am intent on buying the DVD.

One goal is to write these a little more often, so they are not as long.

End of Entry

Spring

Stardate 56052.7

I had hoped to make a few log entries between this one and the last one, but the weather turned nice. This means there is much for me to do outside. Things like mowing the lawn, getting the sprinklers going, cleaning the shed. The battery cable on the van was loose, so the car would not start half the time. I finally spent an evening replacing it.

Thomas likes to run outside every morning, in pajamas or clothes. He then screams for his friends. One morning last week, he could not get out the front door because it was locked, and the garage was closed. The window in front was open, so he proceeded to scream out of that. It's a little embarrassing, but funny none the less.

Performance evaluations have started at work. The maximum raise anyone can get is 3%, so it's hard to get very enthusiastic about it. The money for raises is budgeted the previous year, and it has to be spread around to an entire department.

The lunar eclipse kind of impressed my kids, but I don’t think they quite understood. April tried to explain the concept of the moon moving into the shadow of the earth to her Brownie troop, but they didn’t quite get it either. After I explained it several more times, I think Rachel understood. I still remember a camping trip we took when she was 4 year old. I showed her the stars. She looked up, and said “Wow!” After a few minutes, she asked, “Daddy, where are all the spaceships?” That was another highlight to the fact that parents do make an impression on kids.

End of Entry

We're crashing

Stardate 56051.2 (5/12/2003)

The last weekend I was up a little early with my youngest son, Thomas. I was working on the computer. He came down, looked around, and then asked me if he could see 'that green thing'. I looked up, and the only green thing was my model bird of prey. I let him hold it, telling him to be careful with it. He zoomed it around in the air, making swooshing sounds. I turned back to the computer. In a minute or so, I heard him shout, "Look out, we're crashing!" I turned around to see him bumping it along the carpet. I cringed, but let him go. After about the third time, I finally said "No, I don't think we are crashing with this". He simply said "Ok, Dad", and handed it back to me.

My sister Susan went with us to the May activity. We were supposed to do some model building, but the weather did not cooperate. The captain made up a game called Star Trek Shout. The idea is to have two people stand up in front. Carl gives them a topic, such as TNG titles. Then in turn, each person shouts out a title. If you can't think of one that has not been said, you lose. I went up four times. I won two and lost two. The ones I lost were Star Trek reference books (I didn't hear him say "The Klingon Dictionary"), and Star Trek games. I think Susan had fun.

Susan also helped out with AYSO registration. This went better than April thought it would, although the rain kept many people away.

I got a notice for my twenty-year high school reunion. I am debating whether I want to go or not. High school and college were not favorite times in my life. I suppose I will, just to see what everyone looks like.

Work goes ok. The dial up system has problems. The testing of the monthly rules release went on this last weekend. The dial up kept dropping me. This is ok, since the testing program continues to run whether or not I am dialed in. But it did prompt me to change my password, which is annoying.

Tonight we went to the library. Thomas and Patrick whined about it, but once there, they ran off excited to find books about dinosaurs. Rachel really wanted to go. She's reading multi-chapter books now. It's hard to believe eight months ago she was crying that reading was too hard. Now she can't get books fast enough. She's a little disappointed that she has already read all the 'A to Z Mysteries' by Ron Roy. I finally convinced her to pick out some other mysteries.

I'm glad Rachel has learned to read. It opens up whole worlds. There are not many girls in the neighborhood, so she reads when there is no one to play with. April told me there were at least ten to twelve boys running around when she left for work this afternoon. Patrick has found yet another friend. A black boy about five moved in just a month ago. He's a good kid from what I have seen so far. Patrick amazes me with the ease at which he picks up friends. Kids are always over here looking for him.

Well, I guess that about wraps it up.

End of Entry

The next week

Stardate 56050.5 (5/5/2003)

It's been a week. Not that anything bad happened like in the previous entries. It's just that one of my depressions has kicked in, and I expend a lot of energy fighting it. Music helps, if I can find the right stuff. The problem there is that each time requires different songs. This time it seems that John Williams "Duel of the Fates" from "The Phantom Menace" is the one this time. Previous selections from past episodes have included "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch" from the Chuck Jones animated show, "Leaving Dry dock" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Rossini's "William Tell Overture", and AC/DC's "Back in Black". My psych 101 instructor used to shake his head each time he saw the variety of music I used to carry with a CD player. I remember taking a "standard" evaluation, and scoring in the "seek help". I don't put much stock in those things.

Describing the feeling is easy. There is a ball in my stomach. Self-pity consumes me, and I keep thinking of all the things that can and will go wrong. My term for this is "dark thinking", because it seems black and negative. It's hard to maintain focus on anything. It's at least somewhat genetic, because my mother would sometimes disappear for a while. My sister was seeing a therapist for the same thing. I have my family and the responsibilities that come with it to keep me going.

The Starfest convention in Denver this year from 56042.5 - 56042.7 sounded like great fun. I wish I could have gone, but it came down to a choice between feeding my family and going to the convention, and that's not a choice. Ray Meyer got to talk to Walter Koenig for about ten minutes. In all the conventions I have gone to I have never talked to the guests. That would be great, although I don't know what I would say. There is a convention coming to Salt Lake on July 25^th. We were going to be in Yellowstone, but with finances the way they are now, April changes the plans. It looks like I will be coming back the day before.
My brother Verne came over from Indianapolis. He's on his way to San Francisco. He works as a mechanic for United Air Lines. They have shut down the maintenance base in Indy, much to the indignation of the city and after much fanfare a few years ago opening it up. Verne only has to work to the end of the year to retire with full benefits, so he applied and got a position in San Francisco.

The day Verne came up, 56050.2, my Dad took us out to dinner. April and I were looking forward to a good meal. In the middle of it, Thomas started screaming and saying his foot hurt. He's not one to complain unless the pain is very real, so April and I took him to the clinic. As I was telling everyone where we were going, Patrick lost another tooth. Thomas's big toe swelled up. Given the events with my foot, we were nervous and I kept checking it. After a day or so, the swelling went down and now he seems fine. One thing I did feel bad about is Rachel had a friend, Audrea, staying the night. I don't know if she had a good time or not, but I hope she does come back sometime.

I volunteered for the U-6 Boys soccer coordinator. The previous person is leaving since her children have outgrown AYSO. I am still coaching on top of that, so I don't know if I am crazy or not.
I found out today that there is another grade level for software developers at work. My title is Senior Software Developer, which is the level 28 title. My grade level is 27. I had so many titles over the years that it really doesn't matter, but I wonder if it pays much more.

End of log entry.