The kids had a Mardi Gras celebration at school where they made floats. Rachel went with the New Orleans theme:
The other floats were pretty creative.
And then they did a parade. No beads were thrown.
Saturday, February 28, 2004
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Tubing
We went to Park City to do tubing in the snow with Susan.
By the end of the day the kids were worn out.
Then snowmobiling
Monday, February 23, 2004
New CIO
Stardate 57022.3 (02-23-2004)
One of the things that occurred to me about blogging the way that I do is that I have to finish the blog the same day. I can't enter something and leave it for a few days. This is because the Perl script builds the calendar by the name of the file, which is in the form sd.htm. This is a good thing, for the reason that I often start things, and never finish them. I think I need to pattern more things in my life similar to this blog, where I have to finish it before moving on to something else.
The new CIO had an all hands meeting today. I actually like this guy. Not sure why, but maybe it was the effort he made to get to know us. He did the normal things, such as talk about how we need to dedicate ourselves to helping the company succeed, etc. It's hard to buy into that considering I'll be lucky to get any acknowledgment no matter how much effort I put into it. The comment that surprised me was an answer to the inevitable question on training. He keeps up with trends by reading blogs. Past people in this position discouraged time spent browsing the Net. I'll take this as encouragement.
I thought of another project. It involves another blog, based on a comment form, that I can use to keep technical notes. I probably won't get it going, but I'll put the thought down just in case.
Rory Blyth is feeling better and blogging again. He posted a link to a Indian in Bangalore, saying it's harder to hate when you see they are human beings, too. I don't think I every doubted that these people are not out to take jobs away. They just want to make a living. There are some I like and respect. Others, such as the liaison, are just annoying. That's more to do with his personality than where he comes from. What I don't like is the attitude of the execs that think only in terms of stock price and savings. I think about the Looney Tunes cartoons that explained the basic capitalist ideas: Put money into a business to make it better, which increases profits, which are funneled back into the business. It seemed clear and simple when I was young, but it has gotten cloudy now.
Eric Gunnerson is also not OOF. He posted a link to an XP magazine series by Ron Jefferies I think I'll keep an eye on. I could learn a few things. Of course, every time I look at the name I wonder if Ron is any relation to the late Matt Jefferies. Chris Brumme has also posted a couple of articles. He posts about once every two months, but when he does, it goes on for 10 pages or more.
End of Entry
One of the things that occurred to me about blogging the way that I do is that I have to finish the blog the same day. I can't enter something and leave it for a few days. This is because the Perl script builds the calendar by the name of the file, which is in the form sd
The new CIO had an all hands meeting today. I actually like this guy. Not sure why, but maybe it was the effort he made to get to know us. He did the normal things, such as talk about how we need to dedicate ourselves to helping the company succeed, etc. It's hard to buy into that considering I'll be lucky to get any acknowledgment no matter how much effort I put into it. The comment that surprised me was an answer to the inevitable question on training. He keeps up with trends by reading blogs. Past people in this position discouraged time spent browsing the Net. I'll take this as encouragement.
I thought of another project. It involves another blog, based on a comment form, that I can use to keep technical notes. I probably won't get it going, but I'll put the thought down just in case.
Rory Blyth is feeling better and blogging again. He posted a link to a Indian in Bangalore, saying it's harder to hate when you see they are human beings, too. I don't think I every doubted that these people are not out to take jobs away. They just want to make a living. There are some I like and respect. Others, such as the liaison, are just annoying. That's more to do with his personality than where he comes from. What I don't like is the attitude of the execs that think only in terms of stock price and savings. I think about the Looney Tunes cartoons that explained the basic capitalist ideas: Put money into a business to make it better, which increases profits, which are funneled back into the business. It seemed clear and simple when I was young, but it has gotten cloudy now.
Eric Gunnerson is also not OOF. He posted a link to an XP magazine series by Ron Jefferies I think I'll keep an eye on. I could learn a few things. Of course, every time I look at the name I wonder if Ron is any relation to the late Matt Jefferies. Chris Brumme has also posted a couple of articles. He posts about once every two months, but when he does, it goes on for 10 pages or more.
End of Entry
Sunday, February 22, 2004
New Camera
Stardate 57022.2 (02-22-2004)
I bought a new digital camera Saturday afternoon. It's funny how you never notice some things. The quality on this is much better than the old one. Of course, the old one is ancient by technological time scales, but up until December it worked ok. It does remind me I need to put more photo scrapbooks together. It does have other advantages over the old one. It looks like a camera instead of a PDA, and April can take pictures with it. She never figured out the old one.
Friday Rachel had a friend on a sleepover, and then we went to her basketball game. I was out buying some things for a girl scout day later that afternoon, so I missed the game. The girls told me it was good (24 to 12 win). The girls went to the girl scout day, and then I dropped them off at a birthday party at Hill AFB. Rachel and two of her friends stayed here until about 7, and then she and my sons watched 'Holes' on DVD. Today we went with my sister Susan to Park City to tube, and then to dinner. Patrick told April tonight that this was one of the best days he has ever had. They were all very tired by the end of the day, and so am I.
April was watching the Screen Actors Guild awards tonight. Johnny Depp won best actor for 'Pirates of The Caribbean', which was something of a surprise. I really liked his performance in that movie. So do my sons, who grab a sword (or any conceivable object that might be imagined to be one), and state they are 'Captain Jack Sparrow'. 'Lord of the Rings' won for best cast, which is the equivalent in everything but name of best picture. April says that the movie that wins this almost always wins best picture at the Oscars. I hope so, because there has been a lot of talk lately about 'Lost in Translation'. I haven't seen that one, so I don't know if it is better. When I think of Bill Murray, I still picture 'Caddyshack'.
Rachel is still slogging through 'The Three Investigators' book. One of the main characters talks in long words, many of which she does not understand. So she has been asking for meanings quite a bit. Some people say I talk using long words a lot. I wonder if this is where I started doing that.
This morning, for the first time I can remember, Thomas went to April instead of me to ask for something. I've been short tempered lately, and from this and comments Rachel and Patrick have made today I realized I have been taking it out on my kids. I need to stop that.
There was more I was going to write, but it has moved on. I am drugged because of a sore throat, so that is part of the problem. The rapid strep test came back negative, so I can be thankful for small favors.
End of Entry
I bought a new digital camera Saturday afternoon. It's funny how you never notice some things. The quality on this is much better than the old one. Of course, the old one is ancient by technological time scales, but up until December it worked ok. It does remind me I need to put more photo scrapbooks together. It does have other advantages over the old one. It looks like a camera instead of a PDA, and April can take pictures with it. She never figured out the old one.
Friday Rachel had a friend on a sleepover, and then we went to her basketball game. I was out buying some things for a girl scout day later that afternoon, so I missed the game. The girls told me it was good (24 to 12 win). The girls went to the girl scout day, and then I dropped them off at a birthday party at Hill AFB. Rachel and two of her friends stayed here until about 7, and then she and my sons watched 'Holes' on DVD. Today we went with my sister Susan to Park City to tube, and then to dinner. Patrick told April tonight that this was one of the best days he has ever had. They were all very tired by the end of the day, and so am I.
April was watching the Screen Actors Guild awards tonight. Johnny Depp won best actor for 'Pirates of The Caribbean', which was something of a surprise. I really liked his performance in that movie. So do my sons, who grab a sword (or any conceivable object that might be imagined to be one), and state they are 'Captain Jack Sparrow'. 'Lord of the Rings' won for best cast, which is the equivalent in everything but name of best picture. April says that the movie that wins this almost always wins best picture at the Oscars. I hope so, because there has been a lot of talk lately about 'Lost in Translation'. I haven't seen that one, so I don't know if it is better. When I think of Bill Murray, I still picture 'Caddyshack'.
Rachel is still slogging through 'The Three Investigators' book. One of the main characters talks in long words, many of which she does not understand. So she has been asking for meanings quite a bit. Some people say I talk using long words a lot. I wonder if this is where I started doing that.
This morning, for the first time I can remember, Thomas went to April instead of me to ask for something. I've been short tempered lately, and from this and comments Rachel and Patrick have made today I realized I have been taking it out on my kids. I need to stop that.
There was more I was going to write, but it has moved on. I am drugged because of a sore throat, so that is part of the problem. The rapid strep test came back negative, so I can be thankful for small favors.
End of Entry
Saturday, February 21, 2004
I don't know
Stardate 57022.1 (02-21-2004)
I was told Friday the bonuses were handed out, and I was not on the list. That does not bother me. What does is that during the interview, my supervisor brought up the employee survey from last year. The results across the company were unanimous, there was not enough communication. So I asked what the criteria was for picking who got bonuses. The answer: I don't know, and the department manager does not know. How can I change the way I work to get one next year? The answer: I don't know, and the department manager does not know. The company goal is to increase revenue by 47%, how do they see doing that? The answer: I don't know, and the department manager does not know. Pretty much the same for every other question I asked. I'm sure he is telling the truth. So here we have the problem. The company wants everyone to support the goals, but they can't or won't communicate the methods and means for getting there.
The discussion in the carpool home was animated. One person known to have gotten a bonus worked 70 hours a week most of the year. The bonus was just over $1000. From an corporate economic view, that makes sense, at least in the short run. From my point of view, that's a major loss. I don't even want to work out the hourly pay on that. I know $1000 extra a year won't cover it. I suspect that played into the decision. It smacks of Dilbert, they like people who are bad at math. It was also mentioned that while waiting in the lobby for someone, he flipped through a magazine that listed the company as one the best stock performer for the last few years. Yet we are told how badly we are doing, and we need to work harder to turn things around. Mixed messages, indeed.
One the bright side, at least for me, is that a year ago the parent company was looking at how their provider network business was being done. They outsource the work at a cost of 5 million a day. At 5 days a week, that works out to 1.3 BILLION dollars a year. They looked at the internal systems, and all the favored systems will not have the technical ability to process this for at least a year. The bastard stepchild rules engine, however, has everything they need. And I am the only one with the knowledge of how it works to get it up and going for them in the time they want.
Another encouraging sign of improving times is that I have been approached by several different firms that are expanding and hiring. I'd have to take a pay cut in each case, but the fact that the jobs are there is a good omen of a better economy.
Not much in the way of blogs this week. Rory Byth, who posts two or three times a day is sick, Eric Gunnerson is OOF (Out of office, which he posted is the unofficial MS term for on vacation). Gibby has a girlfriend, Carl has a new position. I've been busy myself.
End of Entry
I was told Friday the bonuses were handed out, and I was not on the list. That does not bother me. What does is that during the interview, my supervisor brought up the employee survey from last year. The results across the company were unanimous, there was not enough communication. So I asked what the criteria was for picking who got bonuses. The answer: I don't know, and the department manager does not know. How can I change the way I work to get one next year? The answer: I don't know, and the department manager does not know. The company goal is to increase revenue by 47%, how do they see doing that? The answer: I don't know, and the department manager does not know. Pretty much the same for every other question I asked. I'm sure he is telling the truth. So here we have the problem. The company wants everyone to support the goals, but they can't or won't communicate the methods and means for getting there.
The discussion in the carpool home was animated. One person known to have gotten a bonus worked 70 hours a week most of the year. The bonus was just over $1000. From an corporate economic view, that makes sense, at least in the short run. From my point of view, that's a major loss. I don't even want to work out the hourly pay on that. I know $1000 extra a year won't cover it. I suspect that played into the decision. It smacks of Dilbert, they like people who are bad at math. It was also mentioned that while waiting in the lobby for someone, he flipped through a magazine that listed the company as one the best stock performer for the last few years. Yet we are told how badly we are doing, and we need to work harder to turn things around. Mixed messages, indeed.
One the bright side, at least for me, is that a year ago the parent company was looking at how their provider network business was being done. They outsource the work at a cost of 5 million a day. At 5 days a week, that works out to 1.3 BILLION dollars a year. They looked at the internal systems, and all the favored systems will not have the technical ability to process this for at least a year. The bastard stepchild rules engine, however, has everything they need. And I am the only one with the knowledge of how it works to get it up and going for them in the time they want.
Another encouraging sign of improving times is that I have been approached by several different firms that are expanding and hiring. I'd have to take a pay cut in each case, but the fact that the jobs are there is a good omen of a better economy.
Not much in the way of blogs this week. Rory Byth, who posts two or three times a day is sick, Eric Gunnerson is OOF (Out of office, which he posted is the unofficial MS term for on vacation). Gibby has a girlfriend, Carl has a new position. I've been busy myself.
End of Entry
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Miscellaneous
Stardate 57021.7 (02-17-2004)
Long while between entries. It's been a busy time.
Only four girls showed up for the practice on Wednesday. I heard after that there was a few other things going on. We did a little shooting and dribbling anyway. Rachel and I went to the Layton library after. I showed her some of "The Three Investigators" books that I read as a kid. She checked one out, although it is a bit hard for her to read. Then to Carl's house to get a tape he recorded Enterprise for me.
Lots to do all week at work. I guess this is a good thing. There are other projects I'd like to spend some time on, though. I am pushing to get an ok to take the data from the old defect tracking software and build a web site out of it. We don't enter new issues into that system, but we use it to reference old issues. Systems admin wants to get rid of the database because it is running on an old version of Oracle.
Friday was an accountability training class at work. It was done by the department manager, and she used me for some examples. The basic idea is that there is this line of success, and your behavior puts you above or below the line. You want to be above. The examples she used me with were both above and below, so I joked about always crossing the line. My supervisor told me afterward he doesn't believe the things I get away with. His problem is that he is afraid of the manager. I'm not, I just avoid her when she is having a bad day.
That night April and I went out to see Miracle. It was a good movie, and I got into it. Not nearly as much as the guy next to April. He kept yelling 'YES! GO!' during the game with the Soviets. I am not sure if he realized the US team did win the gold in 1980. We went to dinner after, and crashed when we got home.
Saturday it was back up at 7 to get ready for basketball. Rachel spent Friday night at a friends house in Eden. So she met us at the court. Then I went to a appliance place to get a new blower for the dryer. Then off to Thanksgiving Point with the crew. We had a great time, but Thomas wants to go back soon. I crashed again as soon as I got home (the kids fell asleep in the car).
Sunday, back up at 7 to get ready for church. I like the 8 am mass. It's not crowded. The priest is a little strange. He talked about the reading of the Gospel, and how the poor that receive riches in heaven are not the financially poor, but the spiritually poor. I would have equated that with lack of faith, and this confused me. It's not the first time he has done this. You don't question him on it. I avoid religious conversations anyway, since they often are perceived as attacks on someone's beliefs.
Home after to work on the dryer. It took about an hour, and amazingly enough I had all the right tools. It does not work as well as it should, but it does work. The batteries for my cordless drill have reached the end of their lives. That has to be my favorite tool. Attach a flathead or Phillips bit, and it's a power screwdriver and wrench. It helps because twisting my wrists is painful due to repetitive stress injuries.
Today was a day off from work, and they only called twice. They deleted the library files, so I had to help them rebuild it. Well, we have the technology.
Am I Evan? My wife tells me her friends complain about husbands not doing this or that, or not being around. Then she tells them I get the kids up in the morning, get them breakfast, fix lunches, and get them off to school. At night I put them to bed. I help with homework and do dozens of other things. When she tells me this, I remember a commercial a long while back where some women where talking about how a guy named Evan does this, and does that. They keep asking the other guys why they can't be like Evan. The ad ends with "Why do guys like Evan ruin it for the rest of us?" I think the ad was selling beer, but I am not sure.
End of Entry
Long while between entries. It's been a busy time.
Only four girls showed up for the practice on Wednesday. I heard after that there was a few other things going on. We did a little shooting and dribbling anyway. Rachel and I went to the Layton library after. I showed her some of "The Three Investigators" books that I read as a kid. She checked one out, although it is a bit hard for her to read. Then to Carl's house to get a tape he recorded Enterprise for me.
Lots to do all week at work. I guess this is a good thing. There are other projects I'd like to spend some time on, though. I am pushing to get an ok to take the data from the old defect tracking software and build a web site out of it. We don't enter new issues into that system, but we use it to reference old issues. Systems admin wants to get rid of the database because it is running on an old version of Oracle.
Friday was an accountability training class at work. It was done by the department manager, and she used me for some examples. The basic idea is that there is this line of success, and your behavior puts you above or below the line. You want to be above. The examples she used me with were both above and below, so I joked about always crossing the line. My supervisor told me afterward he doesn't believe the things I get away with. His problem is that he is afraid of the manager. I'm not, I just avoid her when she is having a bad day.
That night April and I went out to see Miracle. It was a good movie, and I got into it. Not nearly as much as the guy next to April. He kept yelling 'YES! GO!' during the game with the Soviets. I am not sure if he realized the US team did win the gold in 1980. We went to dinner after, and crashed when we got home.
Saturday it was back up at 7 to get ready for basketball. Rachel spent Friday night at a friends house in Eden. So she met us at the court. Then I went to a appliance place to get a new blower for the dryer. Then off to Thanksgiving Point with the crew. We had a great time, but Thomas wants to go back soon. I crashed again as soon as I got home (the kids fell asleep in the car).
Sunday, back up at 7 to get ready for church. I like the 8 am mass. It's not crowded. The priest is a little strange. He talked about the reading of the Gospel, and how the poor that receive riches in heaven are not the financially poor, but the spiritually poor. I would have equated that with lack of faith, and this confused me. It's not the first time he has done this. You don't question him on it. I avoid religious conversations anyway, since they often are perceived as attacks on someone's beliefs.
Home after to work on the dryer. It took about an hour, and amazingly enough I had all the right tools. It does not work as well as it should, but it does work. The batteries for my cordless drill have reached the end of their lives. That has to be my favorite tool. Attach a flathead or Phillips bit, and it's a power screwdriver and wrench. It helps because twisting my wrists is painful due to repetitive stress injuries.
Today was a day off from work, and they only called twice. They deleted the library files, so I had to help them rebuild it. Well, we have the technology.
Am I Evan? My wife tells me her friends complain about husbands not doing this or that, or not being around. Then she tells them I get the kids up in the morning, get them breakfast, fix lunches, and get them off to school. At night I put them to bed. I help with homework and do dozens of other things. When she tells me this, I remember a commercial a long while back where some women where talking about how a guy named Evan does this, and does that. They keep asking the other guys why they can't be like Evan. The ad ends with "Why do guys like Evan ruin it for the rest of us?" I think the ad was selling beer, but I am not sure.
End of Entry
Monday, February 09, 2004
Offshore
Stardate 57020.9 (02-09-2004)
Whoa! I realized today I totally spaced reviewing last weeks Star Trek: Enterprise. It's done now. I am wondering where I ever got the idea I was qualified to do something like this. I remembered Scott Adams "The Dilbert Principle", and the chapter on programmers and engineers. Part of it said these people consider themselves experts on everything. Ok, so I do sometimes think that way.
I may be getting obsessed with the Wired article on offshoring to India. But there was this post about it that caught my attention:
"Offshore outsourcing is a very divisive issue, especially for an Indian who has been here half his life with an American education. For certain industries like Healthcare, outsourcing makes a lot of sense. The healthcare industry is in a tremendous crises. It's facing a huge demand (aging baby-boomers) with very high costs where employers would rather not pay any more. So any gains that can be made in outsourcing can certainly help in the healthcare of the Americans. From the WIRED article, regarding NJ Senator Turner - would she like more hospital beds or more votes to get elected?
I have done considerable work in the healthcare industry where it's estimated that almost 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards overhead costs. There are a lot of inefficiencies in this industry that are just very staggering. This is an industry where being proficient in software engineering ('SEI-CMM', ISO9000, etc) can be truly beneficial - healthcare systems are quite complex and with recent Federal regulations (i.e., HIPAA), a more engineered approach to building such systems is crucial. Not too long ago, it was unfortunate to witness a tech manager with his Ivy-league degree take a healthcare systems company down the tubes. He failed to realize the necessity of an engineering approach. (He was not a software engineer). The point here is that outsourcing or systems development is a management issue and not a political one. I don't know of any US company that has achieved SEI-CMM Level 3+, laying off or outsourcing their systems development. So, for certain industries like Healthcare to get the job done right - I'd invite competition from companies the world over, be it from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, India, Ireland or Israel. I'd rather compete with these companies than hide behind the skirt of a politician."
I wrote a fairly polite response to the effect of working in the healthcare industry for almost twenty years, and I didn't agree. Privately I was thinking this person is nuts. I could believe the statistic about 1 in 4 dollars going to overhead (the joke about three types of lies in order of severity, lies, damn lies, and statistics comes to mind). But I cannot believe someone would suggest added more process tracking and procedures as a fix. I can't see anyone dropping their doctor because of non-compliance with ISO-9000. I have read a number of stories on nursing shortages where nurses quit because they spend more time on paperwork than patient care.
Using an engineering approach with healthcare? This one makes me question his statement about "considerable work in the healthcare industry". Your perspective changes when it's you or a loved one in the hospital, and the "engineering approach" goes against what you need. I learned to be skeptical of doctors. In my mid-twenties, my primary physician diagnosed me with high blood pressure, but refused to give me the exact numbers. I found out about a year later that my blood pressure was well within the normal range while giving blood. I dropped the guy soon after. "get the job done right"? This can be defined ten different ways by five people. He mentions federal regulation, but the states have jurisdiction over parts of the system as well. I'll agree that it is in crisis and probably broken, but the suggestions are crazy and unacceptable.
A scandal is forming in soccer. The state level has not heard from our region in over a year, and has never heard of the acting commissioner. The higher ups want to contact the old commissioner, who dropped out because her husband developed health problems. The region probably won't make it to the fall anyway, since the guy they never heard of has a new job and can't continue. No one is willing to step into the position. April and I have talked about going to the Layton organization next season regardless of whether soccer survives in Ogden.
Rachel had a surprise for me tonight, but she passed out on the way home from basketball practice, so I haven't found out what it is. I have a idea what it is. It is unusual for her to fall asleep like that, and not wake up even when I carried her in.
I glanced out the window a while ago. The full moon was peeking through a hole in the clouds, and lighting the cloud cover on the mountains in gray-white. Underneath that was a black band, and then the neighbors houses. If you mentally subtract that last part, it was an eerie picture.
End Of Entry
Whoa! I realized today I totally spaced reviewing last weeks Star Trek: Enterprise. It's done now. I am wondering where I ever got the idea I was qualified to do something like this. I remembered Scott Adams "The Dilbert Principle", and the chapter on programmers and engineers. Part of it said these people consider themselves experts on everything. Ok, so I do sometimes think that way.
I may be getting obsessed with the Wired article on offshoring to India. But there was this post about it that caught my attention:
"Offshore outsourcing is a very divisive issue, especially for an Indian who has been here half his life with an American education. For certain industries like Healthcare, outsourcing makes a lot of sense. The healthcare industry is in a tremendous crises. It's facing a huge demand (aging baby-boomers) with very high costs where employers would rather not pay any more. So any gains that can be made in outsourcing can certainly help in the healthcare of the Americans. From the WIRED article, regarding NJ Senator Turner - would she like more hospital beds or more votes to get elected?
I have done considerable work in the healthcare industry where it's estimated that almost 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards overhead costs. There are a lot of inefficiencies in this industry that are just very staggering. This is an industry where being proficient in software engineering ('SEI-CMM', ISO9000, etc) can be truly beneficial - healthcare systems are quite complex and with recent Federal regulations (i.e., HIPAA), a more engineered approach to building such systems is crucial. Not too long ago, it was unfortunate to witness a tech manager with his Ivy-league degree take a healthcare systems company down the tubes. He failed to realize the necessity of an engineering approach. (He was not a software engineer). The point here is that outsourcing or systems development is a management issue and not a political one. I don't know of any US company that has achieved SEI-CMM Level 3+, laying off or outsourcing their systems development. So, for certain industries like Healthcare to get the job done right - I'd invite competition from companies the world over, be it from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, India, Ireland or Israel. I'd rather compete with these companies than hide behind the skirt of a politician."
I wrote a fairly polite response to the effect of working in the healthcare industry for almost twenty years, and I didn't agree. Privately I was thinking this person is nuts. I could believe the statistic about 1 in 4 dollars going to overhead (the joke about three types of lies in order of severity, lies, damn lies, and statistics comes to mind). But I cannot believe someone would suggest added more process tracking and procedures as a fix. I can't see anyone dropping their doctor because of non-compliance with ISO-9000. I have read a number of stories on nursing shortages where nurses quit because they spend more time on paperwork than patient care.
Using an engineering approach with healthcare? This one makes me question his statement about "considerable work in the healthcare industry". Your perspective changes when it's you or a loved one in the hospital, and the "engineering approach" goes against what you need. I learned to be skeptical of doctors. In my mid-twenties, my primary physician diagnosed me with high blood pressure, but refused to give me the exact numbers. I found out about a year later that my blood pressure was well within the normal range while giving blood. I dropped the guy soon after. "get the job done right"? This can be defined ten different ways by five people. He mentions federal regulation, but the states have jurisdiction over parts of the system as well. I'll agree that it is in crisis and probably broken, but the suggestions are crazy and unacceptable.
A scandal is forming in soccer. The state level has not heard from our region in over a year, and has never heard of the acting commissioner. The higher ups want to contact the old commissioner, who dropped out because her husband developed health problems. The region probably won't make it to the fall anyway, since the guy they never heard of has a new job and can't continue. No one is willing to step into the position. April and I have talked about going to the Layton organization next season regardless of whether soccer survives in Ogden.
Rachel had a surprise for me tonight, but she passed out on the way home from basketball practice, so I haven't found out what it is. I have a idea what it is. It is unusual for her to fall asleep like that, and not wake up even when I carried her in.
I glanced out the window a while ago. The full moon was peeking through a hole in the clouds, and lighting the cloud cover on the mountains in gray-white. Underneath that was a black band, and then the neighbors houses. If you mentally subtract that last part, it was an eerie picture.
End Of Entry
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Weekly Status
Stardate 57020.8 (02-08-2004)
Am I in the F5 habit? Eric Sink wrote about this in September of 2003. Sometimes when you program, you make a small change, hit the F7 key in Visual Studio to recompile, and hit F5 to run it in a debugger. You do this over and over again until you get want you want. I don't think I do this a lot. If I am trying to learn, then this is one of the methods I use. But for stuff I already know, I write it, compile it, and send it out for testing. There are times when I don't have the luxury of doing a incremental approach. Just slam in the lines, fix the typos, and I'm done. I think this bothers some of the people I work with. Some of them spend a week on one issue. And if the code works, it doesn't please these people. Of course, if I want to see what bad habits I have, I look at my kids. They pick them up faster than anything else I can teach.
The weekly status report, which generally looks like:
DevTrack 4567: Implemented this
DevTrack 4568: Implemented that
and this might fill a page. This weeks report filled three. One line each. Last month I said I was doing more, and this highlights that.
I know what's wrong with the dryer, so I don't have to bang my head. The fan on the vent is loose, so it bangs and catches. The dryer takes all day to dry a load of clothes because there is a sensor on the heating element that shuts it off. I am sure this is because the fan on the vent is not working. I think I can fix this.
The basketball games went well this weekend. Rachel's coach (I am the assistant coach) told me the other coach chewed him out after the last game because she thought our team cheated. I'm not sure how that would have happened. There are a couple of refs in the game watching things. The coach is out of town Wednesday, as is the coach of the other team that practices that night. So they both asked me to take over. That night is going to be fun.
Soccer will be starting in a month or so. I gotta get the teams organized.
I finished the I.K.S. Gorkon: Honor Bound book. Pretty good. I'd like to read the other volumes in the series, but for some reason the library only carries volume two. This is true for a lot of the Star Trek book series. I can't figure this out. Why just the second of a book series?
End of Entry
Am I in the F5 habit? Eric Sink wrote about this in September of 2003. Sometimes when you program, you make a small change, hit the F7 key in Visual Studio to recompile, and hit F5 to run it in a debugger. You do this over and over again until you get want you want. I don't think I do this a lot. If I am trying to learn, then this is one of the methods I use. But for stuff I already know, I write it, compile it, and send it out for testing. There are times when I don't have the luxury of doing a incremental approach. Just slam in the lines, fix the typos, and I'm done. I think this bothers some of the people I work with. Some of them spend a week on one issue. And if the code works, it doesn't please these people. Of course, if I want to see what bad habits I have, I look at my kids. They pick them up faster than anything else I can teach.
The weekly status report, which generally looks like:
DevTrack 4567: Implemented this
DevTrack 4568: Implemented that
and this might fill a page. This weeks report filled three. One line each. Last month I said I was doing more, and this highlights that.
I know what's wrong with the dryer, so I don't have to bang my head. The fan on the vent is loose, so it bangs and catches. The dryer takes all day to dry a load of clothes because there is a sensor on the heating element that shuts it off. I am sure this is because the fan on the vent is not working. I think I can fix this.
The basketball games went well this weekend. Rachel's coach (I am the assistant coach) told me the other coach chewed him out after the last game because she thought our team cheated. I'm not sure how that would have happened. There are a couple of refs in the game watching things. The coach is out of town Wednesday, as is the coach of the other team that practices that night. So they both asked me to take over. That night is going to be fun.
Soccer will be starting in a month or so. I gotta get the teams organized.
I finished the I.K.S. Gorkon: Honor Bound book. Pretty good. I'd like to read the other volumes in the series, but for some reason the library only carries volume two. This is true for a lot of the Star Trek book series. I can't figure this out. Why just the second of a book series?
End of Entry
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Man in Space
Stardate 57020.5 (02-05-2004)
Patrick Stewart is against manned space travel, at least for the present. I have to admit being bothered by that. It just doesn't seem right that the actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise should have that opinion. One of my favorite all time favorite characters. Personally, I agree with the sentiment of this cartoon I stole from Captain Carl Stark:
Rory Byth gave his point of view of the Wired article. He'd be a P.O.P. Thinking again about it on the way home, this one sentence stuck in my mind:
As I meet [Indian] programmers and executives, I hear lots of talk about quality and focus and ISO and CMM certifications and getting the details right.
I wonder if there is the Indian equivalent of Dilbert. Do they have endless meeting on Total Quality Management, Peer Programming, and all the other fads that swoop in and out. I did recommend a project be given to them since they did bid on it. The details are not yet ironed out, but they want it done by March 1st. The kicker for me is that the output needs to be certified by an outside company. So there is a short development cycle, and a dependency on someone who doesn't have the same priority on it you do. This one has a "Cloud o' Doom" hanging over it. Another amusing thing about these guys. They constantly ask for documentation on coding standards. My retort would be, which of twenty or so do you want? Some were developed in-house, others were fostered on us from consultants, and still others were inherited from companies we assimilated. About a year or so before they stopped doing Christmas parties, they gave a big presentation on how we were like the Borg. Mindless, soulless, and out to give the same poor quality of life to all. Yup. Anyway, I keep thinking it's a pity we don't have the source for a program a consultant wrote about ten years ago. It was well commented, just in Espanol. The one I work on was heavily commented using just three words, Yes, No, and Oops. I myself have a temptation from time to time to write my comments in thlingon Hol.
I had questions today from the people writing the hot new replacement for what I am doing. Do you need all this information? (No, but the states and provinces do.) What is it used for? (Whatever the state workcomp and auto commission say.) Why don't you get rid of the older rules? (A client complained last year we did not have information to pay a injury claim from 1979. The speculation was that the case was in litigation for twenty years.) This is given to me when I have 11 outstanding issues that need to be done last Tuesday.
I skipped out on basketball practice Wednesday. The organizers handed out letters Monday stating that teams were picked at random, and there was no 'stacked' teams. I guess there have been complaints. I can see why. Rachel's team has won every game by at least 10, and more like 25 points. The coach does get caught up in it, and pushes them to keep going.
February is here. Time for disease to hit.
End of Entry
Patrick Stewart is against manned space travel, at least for the present. I have to admit being bothered by that. It just doesn't seem right that the actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise should have that opinion. One of my favorite all time favorite characters. Personally, I agree with the sentiment of this cartoon I stole from Captain Carl Stark:
Rory Byth gave his point of view of the Wired article. He'd be a P.O.P. Thinking again about it on the way home, this one sentence stuck in my mind:
As I meet [Indian] programmers and executives, I hear lots of talk about quality and focus and ISO and CMM certifications and getting the details right.
I wonder if there is the Indian equivalent of Dilbert. Do they have endless meeting on Total Quality Management, Peer Programming, and all the other fads that swoop in and out. I did recommend a project be given to them since they did bid on it. The details are not yet ironed out, but they want it done by March 1st. The kicker for me is that the output needs to be certified by an outside company. So there is a short development cycle, and a dependency on someone who doesn't have the same priority on it you do. This one has a "Cloud o' Doom" hanging over it. Another amusing thing about these guys. They constantly ask for documentation on coding standards. My retort would be, which of twenty or so do you want? Some were developed in-house, others were fostered on us from consultants, and still others were inherited from companies we assimilated. About a year or so before they stopped doing Christmas parties, they gave a big presentation on how we were like the Borg. Mindless, soulless, and out to give the same poor quality of life to all. Yup. Anyway, I keep thinking it's a pity we don't have the source for a program a consultant wrote about ten years ago. It was well commented, just in Espanol. The one I work on was heavily commented using just three words, Yes, No, and Oops. I myself have a temptation from time to time to write my comments in thlingon Hol.
I had questions today from the people writing the hot new replacement for what I am doing. Do you need all this information? (No, but the states and provinces do.) What is it used for? (Whatever the state workcomp and auto commission say.) Why don't you get rid of the older rules? (A client complained last year we did not have information to pay a injury claim from 1979. The speculation was that the case was in litigation for twenty years.) This is given to me when I have 11 outstanding issues that need to be done last Tuesday.
I skipped out on basketball practice Wednesday. The organizers handed out letters Monday stating that teams were picked at random, and there was no 'stacked' teams. I guess there have been complaints. I can see why. Rachel's team has won every game by at least 10, and more like 25 points. The coach does get caught up in it, and pushes them to keep going.
February is here. Time for disease to hit.
End of Entry
Monday, February 02, 2004
POP and India
Stardate 57020.2 (02-02-2004)
My carpool buddy handed me a Wired magazine last Thursday. There was an article on the tech jobs moving to India. It was pretty good. The Indians don't understand why Americans are upset, and what prompts the Pissed Off Programmer (POP). They have some good points. Americans have always preached to embrace change, but we complain when the change benefits others more than this country. This is true. Other things mentioned were amusing. They say they are taking away jobs because they are better at it then we are. There were some things the article brought out that I wonder about. Off shoring government jobs is not smart in the long run, no matter how much money is saved. Several state have put up legislation that would prevent this. The article ended with a comparison to the auto industry of the 70's and 80's. Japan took a lot away from the US, but failed to keep up on innovations. India looks to be the same.
Later that day I tried the handyman thing again and looked at the dryer. I banged my head on the cabinets getting up. It wasn't until Saturday that I didn't have a headache, and it still hurts when I touch the area. Not much progress yet on the dryer, but the nice thing is that it is not hard to take apart.
There are days when I wonder why I vote. The state legislature debated sending a 'strongly worded memo' to the federal government telling them the US needs to get out of the UN. I don't agree with the sentiment, but more to the point, it's a waste of time. There are more important local matters to deal with. I think the voters should send a message to some of the representatives in the state capital. Something like "God grant me the power to change the things I can, accept what I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference".
Sunday we went the the Cathedral of the Madeline in Salt Lake for a Scout ceremony. It was good, and I love the building. I've only been inside once or twice before. Rachel looked great in a brown jumper with her hair in a French bun. She and April went Saturday afternoon to get their hair done. Patrick wanted to spend more time with mom, but I don't think a salon was something he would have enjoyed. He was not happy about it, then Thomas pipes up with "But I like Daddy!"
We got home in plenty of time for the game. It was good, and not a blowout like I thought it would be. A big defensive struggle at first, and then the offense adjusted on both sides. It came down to the last five seconds to decide the winner. For a little while it could have gone into overtime. The other super bowl, the ads, were disappointing. The donkey wanting to be a Clydesdale was cute, but my favorite was MasterCard and Homer Simpson. The fallout from the halftime show controversy will have to be seen. I ate too much, but that's part of the fun. Hot wings, ribs, potato chips, and beer are traditional.
One of April's coworkers wants to do a case study of the problem with my foot. He sent some tests on her to Salt Lake, but they didn't do anything.
While going through and cleaning up my hard disk, I found a document on Rachel's schedule. It took us a few minutes to place it. It was done just before Patrick was born. My mother-in-law was coming up to help out, and wanted something to go by. Rachel never fit into it, but it is an interesting bit of the past.
Still wasting lots of time with AOE II.
End of Entry
My carpool buddy handed me a Wired magazine last Thursday. There was an article on the tech jobs moving to India. It was pretty good. The Indians don't understand why Americans are upset, and what prompts the Pissed Off Programmer (POP). They have some good points. Americans have always preached to embrace change, but we complain when the change benefits others more than this country. This is true. Other things mentioned were amusing. They say they are taking away jobs because they are better at it then we are. There were some things the article brought out that I wonder about. Off shoring government jobs is not smart in the long run, no matter how much money is saved. Several state have put up legislation that would prevent this. The article ended with a comparison to the auto industry of the 70's and 80's. Japan took a lot away from the US, but failed to keep up on innovations. India looks to be the same.
Later that day I tried the handyman thing again and looked at the dryer. I banged my head on the cabinets getting up. It wasn't until Saturday that I didn't have a headache, and it still hurts when I touch the area. Not much progress yet on the dryer, but the nice thing is that it is not hard to take apart.
There are days when I wonder why I vote. The state legislature debated sending a 'strongly worded memo' to the federal government telling them the US needs to get out of the UN. I don't agree with the sentiment, but more to the point, it's a waste of time. There are more important local matters to deal with. I think the voters should send a message to some of the representatives in the state capital. Something like "God grant me the power to change the things I can, accept what I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference".
Sunday we went the the Cathedral of the Madeline in Salt Lake for a Scout ceremony. It was good, and I love the building. I've only been inside once or twice before. Rachel looked great in a brown jumper with her hair in a French bun. She and April went Saturday afternoon to get their hair done. Patrick wanted to spend more time with mom, but I don't think a salon was something he would have enjoyed. He was not happy about it, then Thomas pipes up with "But I like Daddy!"
We got home in plenty of time for the game. It was good, and not a blowout like I thought it would be. A big defensive struggle at first, and then the offense adjusted on both sides. It came down to the last five seconds to decide the winner. For a little while it could have gone into overtime. The other super bowl, the ads, were disappointing. The donkey wanting to be a Clydesdale was cute, but my favorite was MasterCard and Homer Simpson. The fallout from the halftime show controversy will have to be seen. I ate too much, but that's part of the fun. Hot wings, ribs, potato chips, and beer are traditional.
One of April's coworkers wants to do a case study of the problem with my foot. He sent some tests on her to Salt Lake, but they didn't do anything.
While going through and cleaning up my hard disk, I found a document on Rachel's schedule. It took us a few minutes to place it. It was done just before Patrick was born. My mother-in-law was coming up to help out, and wanted something to go by. Rachel never fit into it, but it is an interesting bit of the past.
Still wasting lots of time with AOE II.
End of Entry
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Programming
Stardate 57012.8 (01-28-2004)
AHA! Using the search term “madden family” + xmission will get Google to return my site. It turns up a slight flaw as well. The frames are not available. So I put a link to get to the frame page. This post makes me somewhat glad I don’t get Google hits my web site. Then, of course, there has to be a person to who thinks of interviewing a search engine.
Been reading up on C#. There is a sizeof operator to give you the number of bytes a data type requires for storage. I find this interesting. Java doesn’t have this because the virtual machine specification says the sizes of data types are fixed and do not change from platform to platform. C# is only available on Windows, although I hear rumors of a Linux version. Of course, the underlying system is supposed to handle memory for you, so I guess they didn’t consider storage size an issue. I did find a bug list that had an entry for GDI handle are not released by C# when windows are closed. This is one of the reasons I object to automatic resource handling at times. It’s probably not a big deal, but when I was doing Win 95 work, there were a limited number of these. Every programming article pounded into you to release them the millisecond they were not needed.
I tried to get Regex Workbench up and going on my work laptop. It won’t work because I have the initial release of .NET. It wants the 1.1 version. I could download it, but Big Brother is watching net traffic. I had to burn it to CD at home and install it from that. Snarl.
GotDotNet moved the blogs, and I found the interesting ones this week. I rearranged things again to list the ones I like to check out every once in a while. I’d use the RSS feeds, but again, BB may not like it.
One of Eric Gunnerson’s blogs gives his view of ROTK, and the siege of Mina Tirith. He is not an LOTR fan, and he didn’t think the defense was done very well. I posted a comment to the effect that that was the point. Denethor considered the war a lost cause, and didn’t put much effort into defending the city. It got me wondering if anyone had put a scenario of the battle of Pelennor fields for Age Of Empires II. One is out there, and others are working on it. The big problem is there are no flying weapons to simulate the Nazgul. WarCraft might be better for this, but I don’t own a copy. Oh, well. There are also scenarios for Helm’s Deep.
The Pelennor scenario is well done, except for some strange mistakes. You command the forces of Kondor instead of Gondor. The wizard is Gandolf instead of Gandalf. The Riders of Rohan swept the Orc assault long before it reached Minas Tirith. These guys were aggressive, to say the least. After dispatching all the Orcs at the city, they went after Mordor all alone. This was good, considering the tactical mistakes I made (the game doesn’t understand that undead are not supposed to die). I lost both Theoden and Eowyn in that game. The first Helm’s Deep scenario I played was not very good. The designer divided the defenders, and you get the Elven archers. The troops from Rohan sit around while the elves are massacred. I think the guys from Rohan ought to be a little more aggressive.
I also noticed a Pirates of the Caribbean scenario. It might be fun to get this, and add the OST Patrick has as the background music. I’m considering looking at the FAQ on the scenario builder. It would also be fun to build a campaign for Belisarius against the Vandals and Goths, or the battle of Agincourt, especially if I can find some good sounds and music. I could spend many late nights as an armchair general on this.
Rachel’s troop is setting up a kiosk to sell cookies in front of Wal-Mart. They've been good about it. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
End of Entry
AHA! Using the search term “madden family” + xmission will get Google to return my site. It turns up a slight flaw as well. The frames are not available. So I put a link to get to the frame page. This post makes me somewhat glad I don’t get Google hits my web site. Then, of course, there has to be a person to who thinks of interviewing a search engine.
Been reading up on C#. There is a sizeof operator to give you the number of bytes a data type requires for storage. I find this interesting. Java doesn’t have this because the virtual machine specification says the sizes of data types are fixed and do not change from platform to platform. C# is only available on Windows, although I hear rumors of a Linux version. Of course, the underlying system is supposed to handle memory for you, so I guess they didn’t consider storage size an issue. I did find a bug list that had an entry for GDI handle are not released by C# when windows are closed. This is one of the reasons I object to automatic resource handling at times. It’s probably not a big deal, but when I was doing Win 95 work, there were a limited number of these. Every programming article pounded into you to release them the millisecond they were not needed.
I tried to get Regex Workbench up and going on my work laptop. It won’t work because I have the initial release of .NET. It wants the 1.1 version. I could download it, but Big Brother is watching net traffic. I had to burn it to CD at home and install it from that. Snarl.
GotDotNet moved the blogs, and I found the interesting ones this week. I rearranged things again to list the ones I like to check out every once in a while. I’d use the RSS feeds, but again, BB may not like it.
One of Eric Gunnerson’s blogs gives his view of ROTK, and the siege of Mina Tirith. He is not an LOTR fan, and he didn’t think the defense was done very well. I posted a comment to the effect that that was the point. Denethor considered the war a lost cause, and didn’t put much effort into defending the city. It got me wondering if anyone had put a scenario of the battle of Pelennor fields for Age Of Empires II. One is out there, and others are working on it. The big problem is there are no flying weapons to simulate the Nazgul. WarCraft might be better for this, but I don’t own a copy. Oh, well. There are also scenarios for Helm’s Deep.
The Pelennor scenario is well done, except for some strange mistakes. You command the forces of Kondor instead of Gondor. The wizard is Gandolf instead of Gandalf. The Riders of Rohan swept the Orc assault long before it reached Minas Tirith. These guys were aggressive, to say the least. After dispatching all the Orcs at the city, they went after Mordor all alone. This was good, considering the tactical mistakes I made (the game doesn’t understand that undead are not supposed to die). I lost both Theoden and Eowyn in that game. The first Helm’s Deep scenario I played was not very good. The designer divided the defenders, and you get the Elven archers. The troops from Rohan sit around while the elves are massacred. I think the guys from Rohan ought to be a little more aggressive.
I also noticed a Pirates of the Caribbean scenario. It might be fun to get this, and add the OST Patrick has as the background music. I’m considering looking at the FAQ on the scenario builder. It would also be fun to build a campaign for Belisarius against the Vandals and Goths, or the battle of Agincourt, especially if I can find some good sounds and music. I could spend many late nights as an armchair general on this.
Rachel’s troop is setting up a kiosk to sell cookies in front of Wal-Mart. They've been good about it. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
End of Entry
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Pits
Stardate 57012.5 (01-25-2004)
Friday was the pits, at least as far as work. Things were still busy, and piling up. By mid morning I was getting frustrated with it. I started to think "what's the point, they're going to replace this anyway". Resentment over others in the group working on web and Java projects started to boil. They get to do different things, while I am off on the edge of the 'team', feeling outside of it. One of the business analysts was shocked to learn that I had a software release due out this week, and couldn't do some work for her. She's been working here for years, and didn't have a clue about what I did? I've been working on the same thing for six years now. It's an important part of a profitable product, but it's the same thing day in and day out. I have talked to supervisors and managers over this, and they give me other C based projects. All this combined into black rage. I began to think I just could not work in the language anymore. I like the language, but it would be nice to see something different for a while. The resentment showed, because I received a corporate "Good Move" moral booster e-messages. The guy I carpool with was at my desk, and he mentioned that was the first time he heard anyone acknowledge how much I do.
I was in a foul mood by the time I got home. The hot water had been gradually slowing to a trickle over the last six months. I was sure we needed to replace the water heater. At April's prompting, I asked my carpool buddy about it. Where my weekend projects are to clean the house, get the Christmas lights down, or fix a light bulb, his are retiling a bathroom or building a pool table. He said his father had had the same problem, and bought a new water heater. When he took the old one out, he found a filter that had been completely closed with gunk from the hard water. I noticed that the copper pipes ran into a galvanized fitting, and decided it was worth a try. It took an hour to get the fitting off due to the tight space, but when I did, the inside looked like it had sand all over. I cleaned all of it out, and now we have normal hot water flow. I was much happier by then. I'll trade two hours of work and the feeling of accomplishing something for three to four hundred dollars for a new heater any day.
Saturday was spent running the kids to basketball, and Patrick to a birthday party for one of the neighbor boys. Patrick was invited to three birthday parties that day. At basketball he managed to get his hands on the ball this time. If it gets warmer I'd like to get some extra practice in for him. Rachel scored twice in her game, once by stealing the ball from the other team, and once on a rebound. Her game was moved from 9 am to 11:15 am. We were almost there at 11 when I got a call on my cell. One of the mothers told me the game had been moved again to 10:30. It started late though, so Rachel played the last half.
This weekend I've tried to stay away from the computer, but I did check out some of the regular blogs. Bruce Eckel wrote a couple of new entries. One is on how sometimes you get so caught up in making an idea or tool work, you don't think about how there could be a simpler solution. He admits to wasting a lot of time trying to get a snazzy new tool up and going when he had a less sophisticated solution. He has worked with collaborative tools like instant messaging and wikis. The word collaborative bounced out at me. I've only been involved with a couple of these, and not for very long. I find instant messaging to be bothersome, and I heard the server was shutdown by IT anyway. Wikis I have never quite understood. Well, technically, I do, but I don't see what they are for. So collaboration is something I should work toward.
The quote from the jar this week that has relevance is:
"I am proud of what I am. I believe in what I do. Can you say that?" Chekov, The Way to Eden, Stardate 5832.2. Not sure if I want to answer that right now.
End of Entry
Friday was the pits, at least as far as work. Things were still busy, and piling up. By mid morning I was getting frustrated with it. I started to think "what's the point, they're going to replace this anyway". Resentment over others in the group working on web and Java projects started to boil. They get to do different things, while I am off on the edge of the 'team', feeling outside of it. One of the business analysts was shocked to learn that I had a software release due out this week, and couldn't do some work for her. She's been working here for years, and didn't have a clue about what I did? I've been working on the same thing for six years now. It's an important part of a profitable product, but it's the same thing day in and day out. I have talked to supervisors and managers over this, and they give me other C based projects. All this combined into black rage. I began to think I just could not work in the language anymore. I like the language, but it would be nice to see something different for a while. The resentment showed, because I received a corporate "Good Move" moral booster e-messages. The guy I carpool with was at my desk, and he mentioned that was the first time he heard anyone acknowledge how much I do.
I was in a foul mood by the time I got home. The hot water had been gradually slowing to a trickle over the last six months. I was sure we needed to replace the water heater. At April's prompting, I asked my carpool buddy about it. Where my weekend projects are to clean the house, get the Christmas lights down, or fix a light bulb, his are retiling a bathroom or building a pool table. He said his father had had the same problem, and bought a new water heater. When he took the old one out, he found a filter that had been completely closed with gunk from the hard water. I noticed that the copper pipes ran into a galvanized fitting, and decided it was worth a try. It took an hour to get the fitting off due to the tight space, but when I did, the inside looked like it had sand all over. I cleaned all of it out, and now we have normal hot water flow. I was much happier by then. I'll trade two hours of work and the feeling of accomplishing something for three to four hundred dollars for a new heater any day.
Saturday was spent running the kids to basketball, and Patrick to a birthday party for one of the neighbor boys. Patrick was invited to three birthday parties that day. At basketball he managed to get his hands on the ball this time. If it gets warmer I'd like to get some extra practice in for him. Rachel scored twice in her game, once by stealing the ball from the other team, and once on a rebound. Her game was moved from 9 am to 11:15 am. We were almost there at 11 when I got a call on my cell. One of the mothers told me the game had been moved again to 10:30. It started late though, so Rachel played the last half.
This weekend I've tried to stay away from the computer, but I did check out some of the regular blogs. Bruce Eckel wrote a couple of new entries. One is on how sometimes you get so caught up in making an idea or tool work, you don't think about how there could be a simpler solution. He admits to wasting a lot of time trying to get a snazzy new tool up and going when he had a less sophisticated solution. He has worked with collaborative tools like instant messaging and wikis. The word collaborative bounced out at me. I've only been involved with a couple of these, and not for very long. I find instant messaging to be bothersome, and I heard the server was shutdown by IT anyway. Wikis I have never quite understood. Well, technically, I do, but I don't see what they are for. So collaboration is something I should work toward.
The quote from the jar this week that has relevance is:
"I am proud of what I am. I believe in what I do. Can you say that?" Chekov, The Way to Eden, Stardate 5832.2. Not sure if I want to answer that right now.
End of Entry
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Mistakes
Stardate 57012.2 (01-22-2004)
The week has been a comedy of mistakes and poor planning on my part, plus some strange failures. The testing cycle was messed up because I put the wrong version of the software on the server. This was combined with problems dialing in over the weekend. Monday was the Enterprise Blood Drive. It was not my turn to drive in the carpool, so I was without a car to get up there. It didn't matter anyway, since there were so many issues to deal with at work I could not have made it. Wednesday I thought I had put $5 in my wallet, but I didn't. No lunch, or any food until I got home. Today things are looking up.
Tuesday morning I drove myself in because my carpool friend couldn't make it. At 2 am that morning, the humidifier leaked on the electronics of his furnace and shorted it out. He spent the day replacing parts, and got it running again late in the afternoon. He said his house got down to 50 degrees. Given how cold it has been lately, fixing it was a big priority. I really need to try and be a better handyman. I do ok, but there are things I just don't know how to do. I do know that having the right tool makes a big difference.
Girl Scout cookie sales started on Saturday. The troop's goal was to sell 600 boxes. Rachel's cookie sales alone have reached 400, and she might top 500. It's kind of embarrassing now when the other girls ask how many she has sold.
Conflicts and schedule changes abound. Rachel's basketball games were moved from 9 am Saturday (right after Patrick's) to 11. I have to find a way to kill 3 hours between games. I heard a rumor that soccer team pictures will be April 17th. I had planned on being in Denver at that time.
We had an introduction to Oracle 10g by a guy who went to one of Oracle's conferences. He's very pumped about it. It is supposed to analyze and make all kind of adjustments and suggestions. I am skeptical about a computer telling me how to run things. I asked if this could be turned off, and I got a confused look. I have visions of a system trying to change what I am doing, despite the fact I know better. Every corporate executive dream is the M-5 that can replace all the employees. Of course, I don't see a reason for the exec anymore.
I've read some criticism of Bush's space program. It's mainly centered on solving the problems on this planet, instead of going to others. Not a bad point, but my rebuttal is that the problems here never go away, they're just exchanged for others. So if you wait on space exploration and concentrate on the planet, you'll never get into space. Next, I think it would be better for my kids to grow up looking to go to the Moon, Mars, and beyond rather than wonder when Osama Bin Laden will be found. The people who say we need to forget space and concentrate on this planet are a little short sighted.
There's more, but I am out of time for now.
End of Entry
The week has been a comedy of mistakes and poor planning on my part, plus some strange failures. The testing cycle was messed up because I put the wrong version of the software on the server. This was combined with problems dialing in over the weekend. Monday was the Enterprise Blood Drive. It was not my turn to drive in the carpool, so I was without a car to get up there. It didn't matter anyway, since there were so many issues to deal with at work I could not have made it. Wednesday I thought I had put $5 in my wallet, but I didn't. No lunch, or any food until I got home. Today things are looking up.
Tuesday morning I drove myself in because my carpool friend couldn't make it. At 2 am that morning, the humidifier leaked on the electronics of his furnace and shorted it out. He spent the day replacing parts, and got it running again late in the afternoon. He said his house got down to 50 degrees. Given how cold it has been lately, fixing it was a big priority. I really need to try and be a better handyman. I do ok, but there are things I just don't know how to do. I do know that having the right tool makes a big difference.
Girl Scout cookie sales started on Saturday. The troop's goal was to sell 600 boxes. Rachel's cookie sales alone have reached 400, and she might top 500. It's kind of embarrassing now when the other girls ask how many she has sold.
Conflicts and schedule changes abound. Rachel's basketball games were moved from 9 am Saturday (right after Patrick's) to 11. I have to find a way to kill 3 hours between games. I heard a rumor that soccer team pictures will be April 17th. I had planned on being in Denver at that time.
We had an introduction to Oracle 10g by a guy who went to one of Oracle's conferences. He's very pumped about it. It is supposed to analyze and make all kind of adjustments and suggestions. I am skeptical about a computer telling me how to run things. I asked if this could be turned off, and I got a confused look. I have visions of a system trying to change what I am doing, despite the fact I know better. Every corporate executive dream is the M-5 that can replace all the employees. Of course, I don't see a reason for the exec anymore.
I've read some criticism of Bush's space program. It's mainly centered on solving the problems on this planet, instead of going to others. Not a bad point, but my rebuttal is that the problems here never go away, they're just exchanged for others. So if you wait on space exploration and concentrate on the planet, you'll never get into space. Next, I think it would be better for my kids to grow up looking to go to the Moon, Mars, and beyond rather than wonder when Osama Bin Laden will be found. The people who say we need to forget space and concentrate on this planet are a little short sighted.
There's more, but I am out of time for now.
End of Entry
Saturday, January 17, 2004
St James Basketball
Stardate 57011.7 (01-17-2004)
It's been cold and foggy. The pollution has reach national records in some places in Utah. Every morning, my throat is dry and scratchy. I'm getting tired of the inversion. I don't mind the cold much, but the air is getting to me.
The week was busy again at work. There were a lot of issues with new regulations out of the states. Thursday one of the primary routers apparently went berserk, and it took out all the routers and the network for about an hour and a half. Earlier in the week the virus scanner on the e-mail server decided the Internet was a virus, and refused to get or send e-mail. The IT guys had to disable it. Even the vendor is not sure what is going on. Friday my carpool mate told me the department had turned over the source for most of the programs used to get data in and out of the system to the company in India. I had a few profane words over that. Not because they are now maintaining it, but because most of it has my name as the author. This means the liaison will be taking up my time answering the why questions.
Rachel and Patrick had basketball games Saturday. Patrick had a lot of fun, although he didn't get the ball much. One of the kids on his team has more skill than the rest, and kind of takes it over. Rachel is on a team with a girl who dominated last year. In the game Saturday she started to do the same, but then another girl started to do the same thing. The girls are older, so there is a lot more team work. Rachel did get the ball and shot at the hoop a couple of times. She is rusty and needs practice, though.
President Bush outlined his plan for the space program. It sounds good, and maybe my wish for manned exploration to resume will happen. He didn't drum up much money for it, and with all the other things going on, I wonder if it will happen.
The ship's web site has had a ton of updates, and there is more to do. As with most web sites, including this one, it's an ongoing task. I did put in links to dummy CSS pages on my site, and wrote a script to extract useful information from that. This will allow me to evaluate the changes to the site, and make it better.
I have started the Enterprise reviews again, but with the number of episodes the sliding menu does not work very well. It's a neat idea, but the flaw with it is that if there is more than five items, it is too slow. I could move the reviews to a table of links, but that just does not appeal to me. I need to look around some more for ideas.
I downloaded Eric Gunnerson's Regex Workbench. It looks like a neat tool to play with regular expressions. As I said in another entry, these are not my forte. I don't know anyone who is adept with these. They are very useful in picking elements out of a stream of data, though. I do a lot of processing on log files and data streams, so this is something that can help out a lot.
Carl Stark gave me a jar of Star Trek quotes at the BBQ. Unfortunately, I left them at Jef's house that night. I finally picked them up at the senior officers meeting Friday. The first one I picked out was from "The Bonding", where Picard tells Jeremy that as long as he is on the Enterprise, he is not alone. This is a good thought to start the year out on. They are popular with Rachel. I let her pick out a few since it is the seventeenth and I need to catch up. She didn't understand the Rules of Acquisition.
April told me that another mother got upset after Thomas went to the bathroom by himself. I guess she was not ready for him to grow older. That emphasizes to me that you need to take time and enjoy kids at the age they are now. This is important since I get caught up in what will happen in the future and forget about right now. Another mother told us a boy her son and Patrick hang out with at school is a troublemaker. He was at Patrick's party, and he seemed ok. Patrick's teacher is of the opinion that they are boys, and a little wild at times. I don't want to tell Patrick he can't play with this boy, but I do try to impress on him that if someone is doing something Patrick knows is wrong, he should not be joining in. He can't go through life avoiding everyone that seems bad.
Finally, Rachel asked me if the Ticonderoga was going to do another Fourth of July parade this year. She had fun last year, and really wants to do it again.
End of Entry
It's been cold and foggy. The pollution has reach national records in some places in Utah. Every morning, my throat is dry and scratchy. I'm getting tired of the inversion. I don't mind the cold much, but the air is getting to me.
The week was busy again at work. There were a lot of issues with new regulations out of the states. Thursday one of the primary routers apparently went berserk, and it took out all the routers and the network for about an hour and a half. Earlier in the week the virus scanner on the e-mail server decided the Internet was a virus, and refused to get or send e-mail. The IT guys had to disable it. Even the vendor is not sure what is going on. Friday my carpool mate told me the department had turned over the source for most of the programs used to get data in and out of the system to the company in India. I had a few profane words over that. Not because they are now maintaining it, but because most of it has my name as the author. This means the liaison will be taking up my time answering the why questions.
Rachel and Patrick had basketball games Saturday. Patrick had a lot of fun, although he didn't get the ball much. One of the kids on his team has more skill than the rest, and kind of takes it over. Rachel is on a team with a girl who dominated last year. In the game Saturday she started to do the same, but then another girl started to do the same thing. The girls are older, so there is a lot more team work. Rachel did get the ball and shot at the hoop a couple of times. She is rusty and needs practice, though.
President Bush outlined his plan for the space program. It sounds good, and maybe my wish for manned exploration to resume will happen. He didn't drum up much money for it, and with all the other things going on, I wonder if it will happen.
The ship's web site has had a ton of updates, and there is more to do. As with most web sites, including this one, it's an ongoing task. I did put in links to dummy CSS pages on my site, and wrote a script to extract useful information from that. This will allow me to evaluate the changes to the site, and make it better.
I have started the Enterprise reviews again, but with the number of episodes the sliding menu does not work very well. It's a neat idea, but the flaw with it is that if there is more than five items, it is too slow. I could move the reviews to a table of links, but that just does not appeal to me. I need to look around some more for ideas.
I downloaded Eric Gunnerson's Regex Workbench. It looks like a neat tool to play with regular expressions. As I said in another entry, these are not my forte. I don't know anyone who is adept with these. They are very useful in picking elements out of a stream of data, though. I do a lot of processing on log files and data streams, so this is something that can help out a lot.
Carl Stark gave me a jar of Star Trek quotes at the BBQ. Unfortunately, I left them at Jef's house that night. I finally picked them up at the senior officers meeting Friday. The first one I picked out was from "The Bonding", where Picard tells Jeremy that as long as he is on the Enterprise, he is not alone. This is a good thought to start the year out on. They are popular with Rachel. I let her pick out a few since it is the seventeenth and I need to catch up. She didn't understand the Rules of Acquisition.
April told me that another mother got upset after Thomas went to the bathroom by himself. I guess she was not ready for him to grow older. That emphasizes to me that you need to take time and enjoy kids at the age they are now. This is important since I get caught up in what will happen in the future and forget about right now. Another mother told us a boy her son and Patrick hang out with at school is a troublemaker. He was at Patrick's party, and he seemed ok. Patrick's teacher is of the opinion that they are boys, and a little wild at times. I don't want to tell Patrick he can't play with this boy, but I do try to impress on him that if someone is doing something Patrick knows is wrong, he should not be joining in. He can't go through life avoiding everyone that seems bad.
Finally, Rachel asked me if the Ticonderoga was going to do another Fourth of July parade this year. She had fun last year, and really wants to do it again.
End of Entry
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Life
Stardate 57011.3 (01-13-2004)
Just when you think reality TV can't get more stupid that A Simple Life, they go and do it. My big, fat, obnoxious fiancé looks like it tops the rest. The adage of you can't go wrong appealing to the fun of humiliated others is alive and well for the networks.
The KC Chiefs continue their long run of not winning a playoff game. They did ok, but it doesn't matter if you can't stop the other team. There is a reason that Peyton Manning is sharing the MVP award, and this shows it. The game between Green Bay and Philadelphia was better. I felt sorry for Brett Favre, but he does have a ring, so I was rooting for the Eagles. The playoffs this year have been good, with three going into overtime. I hope that doesn't mean the Super Bowl will be a blowout.
I'm almost finished with the goal of planning the finances for the year. Last year I didn't get started until July, and gave up after September. I might try a five year plan. I hate doing financial stuff, though. Last week I was pulled into trying to solve a report problem at work for a client. Two amounts that should have been the same were off by about one hundred dollars. They kept trying to tell me my program was to blame. I asked if the two amounts were calculated the same, and was told yes, of course. I dug into the data and after a half an hour came up with the second amount. During all of this, three people are yammering at me to look at this and that. I kind of tuned everyone out and focused on path I was traveling. Most everyone went away after this. Another hour was needed to work backwards to the first amount. The problem and the solution were obvious by then. I called another senior developer, and she confirmed what I had found. Two of the people were happy to have the solution, as they had been working on this for more than a week. The other hasn't said a word to me since then. I have no idea what he expected, but he asked me to look at it, and I did.
Contrast this with the problem I was asked to look at today. A developer was putting together a custom data export for a client using a template I designed in 1995. The application was aborting in a library I wrote to detect memory faults. I showed him the problem (he allocated a 2K buffer, and then stuffed 15K of data into it). Memory faults are supposed to take days or weeks to track, but this was solved in five minutes. I suppose its a point of view, but I don't understand why some things are supposed to be difficult.
I found out this week we have another new CIO. He wants to reorganize so that developers can share talents and technology. I wish him well, but I am pessimistic. The seem to be a number of personality clashes. I am thinking bungee boss.
Patrick had his first basketball practice Monday. He really enjoys it. This is good, because it is a pain. Rachel and Patrick have youth religious ed from 5 to 6 in Layton, and then we rush to get to the practice in North Ogden by 6:30. Rachel's practice is exactly when I did NOT want it to be; Wednesday, 6:30 to 7:30. Thank goodness for VCRs. One of ours began to eat tapes this week, and at that led to a discovery. The plain VCR is almost extinct. No one sells them. You can get a VCR/DVD combo, or a VCR/TV combo, but not just a VCR.
The Admiral's Banquet was fun. Craig Richard Nelson was entertaining, and April said a few people looked almost normal. I couldn't figure out who she was referring to. Maybe they were not members of the group. I was a little concerned about Karrie Buck. She looked very tired. She had surgery the week before, and I was wondering if it was wise for her to come.
If you get the impression from most of this entry that I am feeling a little disgruntled with life, you'd be right.
End of Entry
Just when you think reality TV can't get more stupid that A Simple Life, they go and do it. My big, fat, obnoxious fiancé looks like it tops the rest. The adage of you can't go wrong appealing to the fun of humiliated others is alive and well for the networks.
The KC Chiefs continue their long run of not winning a playoff game. They did ok, but it doesn't matter if you can't stop the other team. There is a reason that Peyton Manning is sharing the MVP award, and this shows it. The game between Green Bay and Philadelphia was better. I felt sorry for Brett Favre, but he does have a ring, so I was rooting for the Eagles. The playoffs this year have been good, with three going into overtime. I hope that doesn't mean the Super Bowl will be a blowout.
I'm almost finished with the goal of planning the finances for the year. Last year I didn't get started until July, and gave up after September. I might try a five year plan. I hate doing financial stuff, though. Last week I was pulled into trying to solve a report problem at work for a client. Two amounts that should have been the same were off by about one hundred dollars. They kept trying to tell me my program was to blame. I asked if the two amounts were calculated the same, and was told yes, of course. I dug into the data and after a half an hour came up with the second amount. During all of this, three people are yammering at me to look at this and that. I kind of tuned everyone out and focused on path I was traveling. Most everyone went away after this. Another hour was needed to work backwards to the first amount. The problem and the solution were obvious by then. I called another senior developer, and she confirmed what I had found. Two of the people were happy to have the solution, as they had been working on this for more than a week. The other hasn't said a word to me since then. I have no idea what he expected, but he asked me to look at it, and I did.
Contrast this with the problem I was asked to look at today. A developer was putting together a custom data export for a client using a template I designed in 1995. The application was aborting in a library I wrote to detect memory faults. I showed him the problem (he allocated a 2K buffer, and then stuffed 15K of data into it). Memory faults are supposed to take days or weeks to track, but this was solved in five minutes. I suppose its a point of view, but I don't understand why some things are supposed to be difficult.
I found out this week we have another new CIO. He wants to reorganize so that developers can share talents and technology. I wish him well, but I am pessimistic. The seem to be a number of personality clashes. I am thinking bungee boss.
Patrick had his first basketball practice Monday. He really enjoys it. This is good, because it is a pain. Rachel and Patrick have youth religious ed from 5 to 6 in Layton, and then we rush to get to the practice in North Ogden by 6:30. Rachel's practice is exactly when I did NOT want it to be; Wednesday, 6:30 to 7:30. Thank goodness for VCRs. One of ours began to eat tapes this week, and at that led to a discovery. The plain VCR is almost extinct. No one sells them. You can get a VCR/DVD combo, or a VCR/TV combo, but not just a VCR.
The Admiral's Banquet was fun. Craig Richard Nelson was entertaining, and April said a few people looked almost normal. I couldn't figure out who she was referring to. Maybe they were not members of the group. I was a little concerned about Karrie Buck. She looked very tired. She had surgery the week before, and I was wondering if it was wise for her to come.
If you get the impression from most of this entry that I am feeling a little disgruntled with life, you'd be right.
End of Entry
Saturday, January 10, 2004
Past
Stardate 57011.0 (01-10-2004)
The number of issues I have this month is way up. I have done about 40 this month, when the norm is 15. January is usually busy, but there have been a bunch of new methodologies. I did manage to get some breathing room Friday afternoon.
I read Bruce Eckel's weblog about hiring interns, and what a dismal failure it was. It was interesting that he examined it in the light of being having criticized others of doing similar things. He makes the point about the general Dilbert pointy haired boss. Techies often have the opinion management is there to impede them. Sometimes that is true, but on the whole it is not. I tried managing once, and I didn't do very good. I have learned a lot since then, but I don't think I would try again in the corporate environment.
An old colleague of mine stopped by. He worked with me about seven years ago. He showed me some of the stuff he had been doing. It makes me feel out of date. So I am giving some serious thought to a suggestion Brady made at the BBQ about creating a PDA version of the ship website. The idea has many pitfalls, but it might be fun to research. The biggest obstacle is that I have no idea what the end result would need to be.
Mike Gibby wrote in his blog about comparing yourself to the person you were ten years ago. In 1994, I was single, and pretty much a Total Geek. Now I am a husband and father. A lot has gone on in that time span. I am involved in things such as coaching kids that I would have never dreamed of in '94. The biggest change is that I am more confident and comfortable with who I am. One thing that has not changed is that I still feel the need to learn more. So to answer the question, would the '94 you be pleased with the '04 you, I can say with confidence "Yes!".
I did some rearranging and updates to the menu. I disabled some dead links, and removed the frequent visits page for now. I found that there was only one link on there I was using, and I would go to other options for links. There are still things to change, but I need to get away from the computer and into life for awhile.
End of Entry
The number of issues I have this month is way up. I have done about 40 this month, when the norm is 15. January is usually busy, but there have been a bunch of new methodologies. I did manage to get some breathing room Friday afternoon.
I read Bruce Eckel's weblog about hiring interns, and what a dismal failure it was. It was interesting that he examined it in the light of being having criticized others of doing similar things. He makes the point about the general Dilbert pointy haired boss. Techies often have the opinion management is there to impede them. Sometimes that is true, but on the whole it is not. I tried managing once, and I didn't do very good. I have learned a lot since then, but I don't think I would try again in the corporate environment.
An old colleague of mine stopped by. He worked with me about seven years ago. He showed me some of the stuff he had been doing. It makes me feel out of date. So I am giving some serious thought to a suggestion Brady made at the BBQ about creating a PDA version of the ship website. The idea has many pitfalls, but it might be fun to research. The biggest obstacle is that I have no idea what the end result would need to be.
Mike Gibby wrote in his blog about comparing yourself to the person you were ten years ago. In 1994, I was single, and pretty much a Total Geek. Now I am a husband and father. A lot has gone on in that time span. I am involved in things such as coaching kids that I would have never dreamed of in '94. The biggest change is that I am more confident and comfortable with who I am. One thing that has not changed is that I still feel the need to learn more. So to answer the question, would the '94 you be pleased with the '04 you, I can say with confidence "Yes!".
I did some rearranging and updates to the menu. I disabled some dead links, and removed the frequent visits page for now. I found that there was only one link on there I was using, and I would go to other options for links. There are still things to change, but I need to get away from the computer and into life for awhile.
End of Entry
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