Month: November 2004

I need a good PHP reference. Suggestions?

I can understand software developers becoming schizophrenic and affected with multiple personality disorders. We often have people attacking us for blame or “why doesn’t this do that?” and then we have such conflicting rules in our lives like “meet the impossible deadline but don’t neglect the documentation or quality.” One of my favorite quality assurance quotes is “9 women can’t make a baby in 1 month.”

My roots are in software quality assurance but I’m basically a developer now. I know why and how to document software but we all know that often budget ($) and time just don’t allow for the documentation and correct coding.

But it’s so infuriating when you have to take on a project that is undocumented and obfuscated! I’m on what should be a simple simple project but the previous developer went ‘include happy’ (that is, writing 5-25 lines of code in one file and including it in another but not reusing it anywhere else) and tried to write this object oriented. This project did not deem the need for object oriented code. I’m about to pull my hair out.

I tried to get Sarah to join do a song but she clammed up. “Dad you’re so embarassing!”

A New Day!

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This Morning

Woke this morning, added wood to the fire, lost the battle with the puppy on housebreaking (it’s going to take 3 concentrated days of effort) and decided to settle on some programming. Allowed myself to get lost in some blogging. I’ve been wanting to do a followup post to Spy Journal Blog Tips “How do I change my cursor?” and succeeded in posting “Styling the Cursor“. Now I can settle in for a long day of programming.

I went out last night around midnight in jeans and no shirt to collect kindling for the fire. The air was crisp. The sky cloudless and the moon full or nearly full. I stood on the stump 2.5 feet of what was once a tree that must have stood 100 feet tall–that is until I climbed it and cut it down. Now there is a small clearing in my yard where I can stare up at the moon and see the leafless trees around me reaching up toward the sky as if they were placing the stars on the sky as decorations. There is a chill in the air but I am not cold. Nature’s energy abounds and brings serenity. The ground glows in the moon light and man’s modern contraptions and technologies seems unusual silent tonight. Nature itself is peaceful. Few dogs bark. The coons are not shuffling about. The hoot owl is silent and there is no drone of crickets. I breath in deeply through my nose and stare up at the moon to break the still air with a hushed “hello mother!” What a beautiful night.

Tonight is the same and I had to sit on the retaining wall of the driveway and simply enjoy and revel in nature’s beauty. I would enjoy a backwoods camping trip right now.

You heard right! On the Briefing on MediaWise Video Game Report Card (Nov 23) Unfortunately C-SPAN only keeps the video archive up for 15 days. It’s an hour long and exceptionally presented. The discussion is about how to keep “immoral” and violent video games out of our children’s hands. Although I do not agree with all their points, the speakers deliver their message very well. We have all been faced with our children asking to play Grand Theft Auto and we can deny them but what happens when their are at their friend’s house? It is up to us as parents to instill a sense of right and wrong in our children, an understanding of reality versus pretend, and to openly discuss with our children what we want them to do or not do with the choices we can expect them to need to make (games, sex, shoplifting, drugs, laws and so on). I enjoyed hearing David Walsh speak.

Click here for a screenshot (not work safe—well, it was on C-SPAN) Fleshbot has other screen grabs.

The Guy Game

A New Day!

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This Morning

Woke cold. I’d let the fire die down but we still had enough coals for me to get it roaring again. The dog and I will do battle today and try to begin teaching her to go outside. I am now the only person in the house trying to train her and I haven’t put the right amount of time into her training so I will try to sqeeze in some training. I will try to work in some work on 3 different projects. At some time I need to go drywall this weekend as well as make repairs on my own house.

Well we all went over to the inlaws and had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat then we headed over to the dump but the dump was closed it being Thanksgiving…whoever heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving…so we headed back to our house which closely resembles the dump.



We had a calm and relaxing Thanksgiving Day with the exception of Cathy’s grandmother falling, splitting her head open, getting 7 stitches, MRIs and CAT scans. Oh, our appliance curse followed us to the inlaws as their gas heater started making a peculiar sound and vented a lot of heat to the outside. We played Aggravation , Pokeno, built card houses and had a blast!

  

A New Day!

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This Morning

Woke up feeling a bit anxious but calmed.

Today I am thankful for:

• all the small miracles that keep my family functioning
• for my children and child to be
• for my wonderful wife
• the strange ways the bills get paid
• the reminders about the truly important things
• my parents and the values they instilled within me
• the winning lottery ticket I’m holding but have yet to check
• the cold front coming through and not being terribly cold
• Bush’s term is one day closer to finished

Started my day off with phone calls to prepare for my 2 hour phone call then followed it up with some more phone calls then called State Farm to see if a replacement heat pump could be amortized as part of the home owner’s insurance and they said to call KUB for that service plus gave me a phone number for a great heating and air person so I called him then when the tree down the street fell across the road I made 3 more phone calls (one with a 35 minute hold time..fortunely they had a ‘leave a msg/get a call back’ service) to County Roads (fast response!), Comcast, and BellSouth and followed up with a phone call to the heating and air person to warn him the street was blocked. Some phone calls paid off and the road was quickly cleared and lines retensioned. Heating and air person showed up and said he couldn’t buy the part needed until next week. Took a break to take the wife, Noah and Amy grocery shopping and during our shopping I took another 20 minute business call. Went into Walmart with Noah came out without him?! (Grandfather came and took him for the evening) Came home. Had dinner. Power napped and now prepare to work some more.

A New Day!

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This Morning

I missed all my goals yesterday. Unbelieveable! Today is going to be similarly crappy. Everything needs to be completed by lunch because after lunch there is going to be chaos and panic in this house. Oh. And I have a 2 hour meeting from 9am-11am. The tension level will go through the roof as panic over lack of groceries ensues.

Rather to Resign ‘CBS Evening News’ Post

Dan Rather, whose nearly 24-year tenure as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” was clouded by a recent questionable report on President Bush’s National Guard service, said Tuesday he will step down in March.

It’s the new world order folks. Say anything bad about your leaders (no matter how truthful) and the thought police will screw with your life. It’ll start with the IRS or your employer and get uglier from there!

MSN has a nice article titled “20 Ways to Boost Your Baby’s Brain Power” You’ll be surprised by the power of these easy, everyday moves. By Alice Sterling Honig, Ph.D.

The list:

1. Give your baby a physically healthy start before he is born.
2. Have meaningful conversations.
3. Play games that involve the hands (patty-cake, peekaboo, this little piggy).
4. Be attentive.
5. Foster an early passion for books.
6. Use diaper time to build your baby’s emotional feelings of having a “lovable body.”
7. Choose developmentally appropriate toys that allow babies to explore and interact.
8. Respond promptly when your baby cries.
9. Build trust by being attentive and focused.
10. Use body massage to decrease your infant’s stress and enhance her feelings of well-being and emotional security.
11. Enlist help from your toddler at clean-up times — a good way to practice categorization.
12. Set up a safe environment for your crawling baby or toddler.
13. Sing songs such as “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Ring-Around-the-Rosy.”
14. Match your tempo to your child’s temperament.
15. Make meals and rest times positive.
16. Provide clear responses to your baby’s actions.
17. Use positive discipline.
18. Model empathic feelings for others.
19. Arrange supervised play with messy materials, such as water, sand, and even mud.
20. Express joy and interest in your baby.

For more details read Alice Sterling Honig’s full article

Perhaps the economy is improving or perhaps business is just saying “let’s get on with it” but I’m getting good phones. Yesterday I received a call for a ColdFusion contract in Florida. No details yet.

ARM & HAMMER® Super Puppy Pads I found them at Target. I can’t seem to find these online. These pads works so much better than newspaper! Let mess. Less smell. Scented to encourage the puppy. The only problem I have with them is that they are intended for “puppies” and our puppy doesn’t match that definition. The pads are 22.5″ x 22.5″ so we use two at each of Molly’s 4 favorite spots. The website mentions a “ARM & HAMMER® Home Alone Pads”. Perhaps that is what we need instead.

If you are trying to house break a puppy, I highly recommend this product!