Because now I don’t need to look up the torque settings. I’ll be in the driveway for the next hour or two.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
From the mouths of babes
"Drive faster Daddy. I can’t hold my potty stuff in."
Can’t fight the force
Looks like it will be a struggle just to wade through today. My arms feel heavy. My head feels like it is in a vice. Light seems brighter. I’m going to do those things I have to do. I think I am subconsciously struggling between what needs to be done and what I want to do. Coffee might help fix this.
Van wants shoes
I just noticed how ridiculously bald the tires on the van have become. I was hoping for one more month but I fear we are in danger of a blowout or simply sliding off the road. I sure don’t want this vehicle being driven in the rain! This is not the best time for this type of maintenance but when is it a good time.
The next step
Want: to clean my desk
Should: help wife
Need: to work
Will: go to bed
When coders dream
Apparently I wrote the solution to this problem in my web application while I slept. It certainly is not in the code and I really remember putting it in the code. It was some slick programming too!
Learn to Speak Programmer
Phrases to add to your vernacular:
"Oops"
and
"Hehe. That was stupid."
How to get into programming mode
Have a ritual! Some morning I just want to stare at the computer and bemoan, "I’d rather be blogging." Today I have a video I want to make and other fun stuff like painting the kitchen but responsibility has to come first. How do you kickstart yourself? My ritual to start programming:
- Pour a cup of coffee
- Read a few blogs (get it out of the way) then CLOSE the feedreader
- Write a blog post
- Refill the coffee
- Light a stick of incense
- Get some music going
- Wear some ear plugs (kills the white noise and seems to make me focus better)
- Determine a milestone which will be my next break
- Begin typing like mad.
Ahhhh….better! Less mop.
Before
After
Twitter’s OLDER link will return
Twitter suffered a Denial of Service attack and had to temporarily remove the link to preserve performance on the site. Reported on the Twitter blog. You can follow the mundane details of my day on Twitter.
What am I doing to my brain?
The mental exercise of jumping from one project to another at a rapid pace with breakneck deadlines is like making a bootleggers turn at interstate speeds particularly when the environment of each project changes slightly or even drastically such as CF with MS SQL to CF with MySQL to ASP with MS Access. I’m sure this either good for me or the seed for a tumor.
Why I could never work in an office again #6243
I am most productive when burning some Sandlewood.
Consultants – Warranties
Every now and then you get a phone call that goes something like this "That code you wrote for us a year (or more) ago doesn’t work anymore. We were thinking of doing more work with you but if we can’t get this fixed we may have to go with someone else." The proper answer is "No problem. That will be $x per hour to troubleshoot since we do not currently have a contract." The real answer is usually "ok. I’ll look into that real quick." because a) you know darn well the real answer will send them packing b) you are a nice guy and like them and c) you haven’t yet reached a level of financial stability to be blowing off customers (note: you’ll fix c if you use the real answer more often).
When your code doesn’t change and after a length of time it suddenly doesn’t work, the problem is almost always with the web host or the client. Sometimes they have discovered a very well hidden bug but rarely. In my case, the permissions on the directory which the application used to upload files had changed to not allow for uploading. How do permissions magically change? They don’t.
My poor daughter
Dad needs to hang out with a hairdresser for a couple of days.
