Plan "B"

This will be my third year helping out with the haunted house. W really gets excited about decorating - and frustrated when all the black covering falls off the walls overnight. It was fun, but even more funny was when W's eyes lit up at the sight of the 7' tall Frankenstein at the grocery store for $59. She was a kid in a candy store, and had to have it.

There's going to be a StarGate at the end that enters a Pirate Ship (because Pirates rule). That's going to be neat to see.

It's almost the end of the year. Can you believe it? The weeks are just flying by. I can't believe it's Friday again. Well, I just found something on the web that reminded me of the New Year's resolutions I made some ten months ago...

1. Body fat <20%
2. Read Matt, Mark, Luke, John
3. File a patent

Well, my body fat was 18.8% last night. I'm currently in the middle of Acts, and whereas I never filed that patent, I do see that I'm credited in a book that got published this year.


http://safari.oreilly.com/0131732943/pref04


That was an interesting piece of work, but my current piece is really interesting too. Heck, most all of my work is interesting. I just wish I had time to do it. :-)

"Closure"

I almost deleted my old blog tonight. My "other" blog that is. The blog I kept until 2004. I'd since forgotten the password and no longer had the email account that it was linked to. So, after finding it earlier this week I decided that I really should do something about it. Through hook or crook, I regained access to the blog and almost deleted it. I had my finger on the trigger, but stopped short.

Instead, I started reading it. I started it the week I got divorced and stopped updating it about two years later. I really spilled my guts there, but not in a way that anyone should read about. The best term I can think of is "raw". There were no holds barred, and I really let it rip on many ocassions. It didn't matter if I was right or wrong - it was how I felt at the time.

In one respect, it was healthy to blog my feelings. It was therapeutic. Like two years worth of spilling my guts to a shrink, but it didn't cost $100 per hour. I was able to get a lot of things of my chest and expose them to the outside world. And it really didn't matter that the outside world was full of strangers. It was enough for me to know that another human being saw the pain in the words and possibly felt something because of it.

I exposed EVERYTHING in that blog as I re-read through it. There were no secrets and I'm sure that exposing some of these things to people I know would cause a lot of pain. I'm pretty sure that people would be devastated if their names were attached to some of my entries. But these were facts that had affected my life, and I couldn't hold them in any longer.

Fast forward 2-3 years (which really doesn't sound like that long now that I read that small integer). I've decided that I'm over all that and I've moved on. I made an effort to get access to that old blog that has been out there since 2002. I'm a different person now - people *DO* change, despite my earlier claim. And I was ready to delete that person and their thoughts since I was no longer that person.

Then I recall the wise words of someone. "Never throw away your love letters. They may be all you have when you grow old." I don't know who said that, and I may not understand what they meant now, but I keep all my old love letters. So, I thought that I might want to keep at least part of this blog. I went through and deleted those entries that could be traced back to people I know and cause disturbances. Then I went back through again and deleted those entries which were either inconsequential or trivial. Then, I went through again and pulled out individual entries that were either redundant in feeling or too deep for anyone to understand.

I also deleted some of the "pity party" entries, but not all of them. I think it's important for me to remember that I was pretty pathetic at one point in my life. It will keep me soft when I'm old.

What's left is (in my opinion) a pretty accurate representation of who I was during 2002-2004. But I'm not ready to share it with the world yet. My goal is to be completely transparent, but I'd need to make sure that the Internet caching won't bring up any of my deleted entries. Too many people would be hurt if they knew what others did.

O.K. I'm being mystic now - sorry.

In short, let me say this. It's important to know who you were. It helps you understand who you are; and where you're going. Keep a journal and re-read it years later to see if you like where you're going. Or if you're going anywhere. And if you're not going anywhere - why are you in this trip?

Another night of barbershop. This was a costume party in support of Jude, who's the head mistress of the Golden Chordsmen (dot org). I believe a fun time was had by all except poor Rocco who for some reason came dressed for dinner in an outfit that he couldn't possibly eat in. Edward Scissorhands. On the one side, it was fun watching him try to manage, but on the other side, it was a sad sight indeed.

I nearly blushed when he and I were standing outside the men's room wondering how all that was going to work. ewwww. Anyway, he really put a lot of good effort into his costume and was really convincing. He's a real chameleon.

Meanwhile, my washer/dryer also appeared yesterday! w00t! It took longer than I had wanted, but nevertheless (still one word?) it's here. I've been doing laundry since church let out around noon, and one load yesterday, just to be sure everything was in order.

I'm very happy to report that now, I get to pack for my next trip. :-) O.K. I don't leave for two weeks, but I have the whole house to myself with Kim in Singapore. I thought she was also going to Kuala Lumpur, but that's in Malaysia - as I discovered while checking on spelling. :-) So, I really don't have a good bead on where she is, but I'm pretty sure she'll be back after I'm gone.

I hope she doesn't chew gum there.

ROFLOL! Rocco's too funny. If you don't know aunt Carole, imagine upsetting someone simply by putting butter on their toast. Then, imagine her reaction as best described as "wrath".

They're going to kick back $45 for my troubles and come back to try it again this Saturday. I hope they'll be done in time for Jude's shin-dig.

Meanwhile, Kim's going to Singapore on Saturday for two weeks (ish).

And now for the comedy act of the day. At work, we use an internal chat/IM system. A coworker and I were chatting and then were done, but he left his chat window open. Then, he put his power cord across his keyboard - right on the [Enter] key. So, I started getting a stream of empty messages. I couldn't respond. I couldn't close the application. I couldn't open any other programs because the default is for this window to pop to the front.

I finally decided to walk down the hall and knock on his door. We both had a good laugh. :-) Ah, nerd humor.

Well, last night was Salsa lesson #1. That was really fun, and I'll go again next week for sure. I'm glad they have the 'intro' lessons at the beginning. Otherwise, I'd be completely lost. Even with the instruction, I sometimes got lost on where my elbow goes. :-)

Anywho, lots (LOTS) going on today. I just gave a presentation on databases and everyone seemed to like it. I got compliments afterwards - which means I either did really well, or everyone felt sorry for me. But I knew the answers I needed to know and I kept everyone awake (i think).

Now, off to the wall of work that was once my in box.

So, I'm still without washer or dryer. Here's the short story. I decided to spend a little extra and go to a retail seller of washers and dryers because I didn't want the "cheap" experience that I've experienced when I get large appliances from Big Box stores.

That was my mistake. I figured that I would describe as best I could what my situation was and they'd get a stackable washer/dryer that would fit. I gave them measurements and information like it was on the second floor and it's going to fit into an existing drain pan. They asked me about power, and I said I didn't know. They told me that they could use either 110 or 220, so I didn't think anymore about it - until delivery day.

Delivery day came and they started hauling out the old. They got to the outlet and immediately stopped. They couldn't install my washer/dryer because I need both 110 AND 220. Their option was to run a 110v extention cord down the hallway. I declined, and they wouldn't continue with hauling off the old or installing (but not hooking up) the new. They gave me time to think about my options.

This new washer is almost twice the capacity of my existing one because it's a front loader and doesn't have an agitator. I couldn't find any other front loaders that would fit, so it had to be this one.

I called back and rescheduled for Friday (another day of working from home). I waited all day and around 3pm, I called. They didn't have me scheduled after all. O.K. when then? They informed me that they could do it on Saturday. I made them give me their name and confirm a Saturday delivery.

At this point, I was just going to run the 110v cord down the hall whenever I needed to use the washer until I could get an electrician in to fix it and a few other things I've wanted around the house.

Saturday came, and so did the washer/dryer. A different guy this time started leaning the washer forward to remove it. He took a look at the plug and said he couldn't install it today. He said it was because I had 220v 4 phase and he only had pigtails for 220v 3 phase. Ugh! I suggested that Western Appliance was about 2 blocks away and I was about 1 block from a Sears and Home Depot. Also, the old unit had what he was looking for - and could he please install this "third time's a charm" washer/dryer.

He refused, and after a brief telephone call with Western Appliance, he left. After he left, I dashed out to Home Depot and picked up a 220v 4 phase, 6' cord for him and returned to Western Appliance with their options. Either install my washer or return my money. I decided that a fourth attempt was approaching too many chances to give these people. Then, I recalled that this is the only supplier of the washer/dryer unit that will fit. (even though because of the 110v/220v thing it doesn't fit 100%). It was about 2 o'clock and nobody could get ahold of the driver - who we found out later had taken his truck home for the night.

So, I'm going to cower myself and call them on Monday to arrange for another Saturday attempt. Notice I don't call it a Saturday delivery.

============================================================

This seems to happen to me whenever I order something that has to be delivered. The worst story I have is from when I tried to order a dining room set from Sears HomeLife, and months later after several failed attempts on their side to deliver the merchandise, they charged my credit card again for the priviledge. I have a file in my filing cabinet labeled, "Stupid Sears".

Everything's going fine on this project that I can almost put to bed, when its fragile nature shows itself in some pretty ugly ways. Imagine a string of database connections very similar to a daisy chain. Like a real chain of daisys - ya' know? They're fragile as you can imagine, and if even one daisy goes limp, the whole chain breaks. Now, imagine each daisy under the control of a different person who doesn't know about the other people in the chain. Database design changes, maintenance windows and a whole host of other problems at a single point can bring the whole thing down to its knees. Now, imagine that this daisy chain stretches from here to the moon, and you'll understand how fragile it is.

O.K. not the best design, and I'm working on some autonomic solutions, but in the meanwhile it's more like an unfunded "do it on your own time" project of personal conquest. I need to program a way for the system to say, "give me the latest data you have, but if you don't have any data, then give me the most recent data I'm aware of or have stored locally." "Oh, and I need to handle changes in the design as well, so magically pick out the items that are important to me and link them to the other daisys in the chain."

Now, that would be a neat trick.

On the brighter side. 23 DAYS UNTIL THE CRUISE!!! w00t! I can't wait. I was looking through some pictures from my first cruise to Mexico. Wow! That was fun.

Perhaps that's why they call them baby showers.

I remember one day, years ago, when my wife was going through the bills. She expressed sadness because one of our credit cards had a high interest rate. Matter-of-factly, I took the bill and picked up the phone.

Me: "Hi, I just noticed that our interest rate is N%, and I was wondering what you could do about it."

Voice on phone: "Just a moment sir. [pause] Yes, we can reduce your rate to the introductory rate of Y% for the next 12 months on all new purchases."

Me: "Great. Thank you and have a great day"

My wife was puzzled, but I thought everyone knew that trick. If you don't like your interest rates, you get them lowered. Don't like your seat assignment (provided you're not on the plane yet), change it. You might even get first class. Now, don't insist and don't dwell on it. If somebody's going to give you an ocean view when you've only paid for a city view, you should be appreciative, and if they're not, you shouldn't whine. You're getting what you've paid for. Oh, and never EVER begin to pay for an upgrade and then out-of-the-blue ask if you can have it free instead.
Faux Pas.

I'm just saying that there are ocassionally "freebies" out there just waiting to get gobbled up. Here's one I found while cashing in some bottle tops. I have a membership to www.mycokerewards.com for entering those little codes on the insides on my coke bottles. I drink enough coke to warrant this as worth my while. So, I was busily picking out my rewards. I decided on two magazine subscriptions: Popular Mechanics and Veranda. I'm not sure what Veranda was, so I Googled it.

yadda yadda yadda

After a while, I ended up finding the online subscription web site, but I noticed some tags in the URL. I'm always willing to fiddle with URLs to see what else is out there, and what did I find? Editing one character would save you different amounts of money.


https://secure.hearstmags.com/subforms/ver/ver_hm001.cfm?cds_response_key=QNHM002 Free Trial
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"The Internet isn't a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

-- Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Senate commerce committee on Internet e-commerce

Um, guys? Did somebody vote for you?

My brakes started squeeking last weekend, which probably means that the indicator is attempting to "indicate" something. Since I don't want to be stranded when I drop off the truck, I decided to look in my local neighborhood for a reputable brake shop. I pulled up Google maps on one screen and bbb.org on the other. None of the brake shops in my area had a satisfactory ranking. So, I decided to go with a big name like Midas. Same deal.

Now, I'm looking into the dealership to see if I can get a coupon or something. Is ist the industry that's crooked or the customer base that is clueless? Your comments.

And I'm not just speaking as the Godfatha either. She's 1 1/2 years old and can nearly count to 20. She knows her colors. She definitely knows "please" and "thank you". Kudos to Rocco and Maria.

>Click Here.

P.S. Sorry about the granola bars in the pillows (you know who you are). I had to do something to show that I was able to get into the house. :-)