A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Project 1 says be done now!
Project 2 says be done now!
Project 3 says be done now!
Project 4 says be done now!
Project 5 says be done now!
Project 6 says be done now!
Bank says be done with all projects now!
Dryer says make me your project now!
PTO says be done now!
Scouts say be done now!
I feel finished.
Here we go again!
Update: Main vent clear. Now checking innards for clogs.
As a teen, I went to two high schools. Only going to one wasn’t challenging enough. Okay, maybe that’s not it. I went to 9th and 10th grade at Lenape High School in Medford, New Jersey. I went to 11th and 12th grade at Germantown High School in Germantown, Tennessee. In the 9th grade I was on the track team doing pole vault, high jump, hurdles, and the 400 meter relay. That was fun! I gave it up because I learned that if you work for someone they give you money. I started washing buses for $3 per hour under the table. That was the end of my high school extracurricular activity. What a mistake! Between working and being absorbed with computers, I never went to a high school football game.
Since my daughter Sarah is now on the flag team at her high school, we are going to the games as good band parents should, to support the school. I have to say I have enjoyed the games very much (despite what Cathy’s pictures would have you believe)! I like bumping into friends, and the teams play really well! I’ll be going to many more.
Farragut vs Bearden was a loud game! We showed up earlier than last time and thought we’d missed kickoff. From the parking lot the stadium could be seen as packed and it roared with activity. I won’t review the game because there are more qualified people to do that. I’ll just say it was not boring. The Bearden band did not know their routine so the half-time show had no marching and no flags. That was a bit of a let down. I was tickled to see Brian Hornback on the field during Scott Moore’s presentation of a $500 contribution to each school! Cathy knew he’d be there because Brian doesn’t miss Farragut football games but we really didn’t expect to see him much less on the field! During half-time a woman in the Farragut bleachers passed out and several paramedics and police carried her out. I fear it was heart attack. I’d certainly like to know that she’s okay. They almost drove an ambulance into the stadium to get her. The game went into overtime and the teams played ferociously but Bearden ended up losing to Farragut 35 to 28. Despite their great playing, the high schoolers were distraught, some to the point of tears. Frankly, Bearden won the can drive and played an exceptional game. I know its easy to say but they should be proud! Get ’em next time!
Here’s the schools I attended:
Student: I will not be overwhelmed! I will not panic!
Master: You will succeed.
Student: Does it ever get easier?
Master: When you quit making it hard.
Do you Twitter? You should follow Tom Maszerowski. He also has a great blog through which I’ve vicariously explored Rochester, NY. I enjoy his tumblelog approach to technology posts. They are often ahead of other blogs, and more concise and relevant. Give him a visit and drop him a comment to let him know you were there.
Hello Adobe! Livedocs sucked much less (can’t say it was much better) when you could filter functions and tags by ColdFusion version. Believe it or not, everyone has not upgrade to ColdFusion 8 yet. Guess what! Not everyone will! I still have clients using ColdFusion 5. It isused to be very nice to be able to look in the documentation and see only the stuff that applied to a specific version of the product. Now you have to read the history notes to decipher what applies to your specific situation. Very cumbersome!
I am certain some marketing person told you that including the ColdFusion 8 function descriptions in the help would excite people using older version to upgrade and yes the CF8 new functions sound very intriguing but that isn’t going to inspire me to run out and upgrade. I’m the developer! Not the purchasing agent. All you’ve done is frustrate an advocate of your products.
Last night I had this feeling I was forgetting something. AT’s bash! It was one of the reasons that I didn’t want to go camping this weekend. What was I thinking?! Looking forward to seeing Mrs. Eaves pictures.
I am participating in a transition fair at West High School today. It is good to see so many familiar faces! Tommy’s teachers are there. Old friends are there. I like chatting with the parents of Tommy’s peers, the professionals, and people we have gotten to know over the years. The social opportunity, chance to catch up, and sharing of information is almost more valuable than the actual workshops. We talked our way half way through the first session!
This fair is exciting because Tommy has done so well for himself. I am excited at the prospect of Tommy going off on his own to further his education and then move onto be self-sufficient with a career. So unbelievable to consider either possibility since earlier in Tommy’s life we had assumed he would always live at home or otherwise under someone’s wings.
Do you have your chalk ready for tomorrow? Writing on the sidewalks is not vandalism or graffiti, it’s art! And it washes away.
Campaign to shift the paradigm from conflict to UNITY. From a double negative "No to War" To a double positive "Yes to Peace" [Source]
“Chalk4Peace” is a very simple, fun and inexpensive peace action
that you can implement in your local community [Source]
Get out tomorrow and draw a peace sign or a heart on the sidewalk!
Unbelievably stressful day planned today!
I build very complex web application systems. I mean so complex that sometimes I forget that certain functions were built into the program; sometimes they surprise and even impress me. One of my habits is to code for the impossible. I often will slip in error messages for conditions that should never occur.
"Ever since the first computers [t]here have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code… that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated? There free radicals engender questions of free will… creativity… and even the nature of what we might call the soul." [Source] excerpted from I, Robot
Tonight I was testing an application I am trying to launch when I received "Something strange has occurred. Please log out and log back into the system then try your request again." Strange indeed! I usually make my impossible error messages a little more meaningful.
Tonight was the elementary school’s open house. It may have been only the kindergarten open house but the cub scout troop was meeting so there were enough cars at the school that a couple of people parked on the lower branches of some of the trees and a couple of SUVs managed to find some space on the roof. Cathy went early and helped sell year books. I caravaned the children around town as we picked up Sarah, Sarah’s friend, and Tommy from high school activities. We ended up at McDonald’s having dinner with some cub scout friends of ours. In due time, we dropped Molly and Tommy off at the house with hopes Tommy would do some chores and the rest of us deploy to the school. Look out! Chaos coming!
We had a wonderful time, saw some friends, had pleasant chats with teachers, Sarah fell chasing Evan and bled all over the new kindergarten rug, and Amy was able to show off her school. As we came to a close, I noticed the volunteer form horribly empty so I inquired and put our names down. In that time, already-over-volunteered-Cathy stared on in dread as I swiped another bit of time out of her life with a few strokes of a #2 pencil. While she was entranced with my unsanctioned scheduling, Sarah and Evan departed, followed shortly by Amy. As the ever confident Amy found herself alone in the hallway, she took it upon herself to walk out the front of the school, through the dark parking lot, and off to the playground. The parents got a frowny face tonight. Sarah and Evan took one hall of the school. Cathy raced to the gym. A couple of scout dads joined in the search with one commenting "my child is missing too…but he’s old enough to walk home!" The teacher joined the posse. Amy was found on the playground and as she was walked into the school, her name blared across the school intercom so that all visitors became away that the McCaughans lose their children.
Didn’t Noah go with us? Anyone seen Noah?
Student: What’s that in my way?
Master: Life.
Don’t take hand lotion to the airports! Hand lotion is the next terror substance! Because..well..uh, terrorists have smooth hands? No, that can’t be it. Um… No..can’t publish that thougth.. that would take away the G rating of this blog? What’s that? I lost my G rating? Oh I never had one! So, Knoxville wants to be Boston?
A white substance left in a hospital emergency room, prompting a quarantine of the area may have been a hand lotion. [Source]
Oh NO! Potentially deadly substance found in hospital! What do we do?!
"It smelled good, so we’re thinking it was a hand lotion," [Source]
That’s right! Stick yer nose in that thar anthax and tell me ifn its dangerous. After the spokeswoman for the Knox County Health Department, whose job is apparently to go to crime scenes and shove her nose into unknown substances, you know, like medieval food tasters!, after she lived, it was determined that something had to be done with the substance.
A private contractor that handles the hospital’s wastes will incinerate the bottle and contents, Dougherty said. [Source]
You got that right! We determined the substance to be inert and harmless so instead of having a hospital employee, or the high paid (she does get paid well for shoving her nose into stuff right?) health department employee, or for that matter one of the sick people at the hospital, or a child, to simply throw the container into the trashcan, we are going to pay a "private contractor" (read that as expensive) to dispose of the substance. I had the personal privilege of working with one of the fine companies in Oak Ridge who get paid to move hazardous waste around. You know those spray cans of paint, compressed air, and so forth that you so casually chunk into the trash can? Those are considered hazardous materials and government agencies have to pay to have them "properly disposed of" which means that they are dumped into 50 gallon drums, sealed, and shipped to a landfill at $10,000 per drum. Not tightly packed mind you. Sure, they could fit a lot more cans in a drum if the spray cans were put in an orderly fashion but if you just throw them in the drum you have to create more $10,000 invoices (and it takes less time). So you can bet the private contractor is going to take a vacation on that container of hand lotion.
Does anyone think before they jump anymore? Or has the government just got you that scared! Is this over? No way! For your enjoyment, the News Sentinel promises to spend more money on this horrific event!
More details as they develop online and in Friday’s News Sentinel. [Source]
Anyone know what teenage boys do with hand lotion? That’s what’s happening with your tax dollars right here!
