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Shots fired at the capitol

Here’s my totally unconfirmed account. I post this without researching right now simply because it is Friday and on Friday no blogs or reads blogs except my wife and I.

There are reports shots have been fired in Rayburn House Office Building across street from U.S. Capitol. Entire Capitol complex is locked down.

they are now putting yellow tape around the entrance

swat teams and bomb sniffing dogs going into the building

The AP article.

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Broken habit

This week I’ve been developing a new (old) habit. I’ve been getting up at 3:30am. It feels good. There is a lot to the early bird worm thing. However, I worked hard this week and have worn myself out. At 3:30 am I woke, moaned, and happily went back to sleep to rise at 6am. The deeped extended sleep felt good but its addictive and despite not needing it, I want more! I still don’t use an alarm clock.

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Quote of the day

Brought to us by iWon:

Our greatest happiness in life does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson

You know, Mr. Jefferson looks a little bit like Gene Wilder‘s Willy Wonka!

I find this quote interesting because "the condition of life in which chance has placed us" is deplorable right now. Of course "chance" is me in this case. I’m not so certain I live in good conscience now-a-days. We are relatively healthy but I fear that is starting to fade. The poor cannot afford health. Occupation…huh…botched. Freedom? Freedom is for people with money. So what of happiness? We don’t meet TJ’s criteria. We have sustained happiness because we are a strong family but I fear TJ may be on to something.

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Don’t miss the bus!

Today is the last of day of school. As the year wore on, Sarah left the house progressively later and later without a care on whether or not she missed the bus. Today she left earlier than she has left all year. She carries only 3 nalgene water bottles full of water, a cell phone, and an iPod Shuffle – no backpack, no books, no pencil. So, why leave early? We can’t miss the bus because on the last day of school the bus driver lets the kids have a water fight on the bus!

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Lost in work – Charlie is an Other

Dean was correct. And thanks for the reminder!. I’ve been franticly trying to please my clients. Up at 3:30am and asleep sometime between 10pm and midnight. The rest of the day is work work work with necessary breaks to meet family need. However! I wanted to get one Lost note in from last week.

All the reviews I read were good. I think some people wrongly assess the episode as light. I found it a very necessary and connecting piece. Some of the characters have gone directions that I never expected. Locke was so strong in season one and season two has given him a beating but don’t we all go through that in life? We have our strong moments then we have our times of weakness where no matter how hard we try things don’t seem to go our way. Before I commented on this I had wanted to watch the episode again. Time didn’t permit so here is my comment that I only saw one person so lightly touch on…

Is Charlie working with The Others? Bringing the medicine to Claire was too convenient. It was also wrong. If you medical equipment like that wouldn’t you take it to the doctor instead of to a new born?! And to say he knows it doesn’t hurt because he has tried it is almost admitting that he is getting shots. I seriously doubt the vials would have such specific instructions. If you were among The Others or whomever the medicine is intended, you would be briefed on why and how to use it. Does that make Desmond an Other? The directions are specific to Claire. Charlie did not find the medicine! He was instructed to deliver it.

I am very much looking forward to tonight’s episode!

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Mummified

Have you ever looked at someone and wanted to shout, "Cut down on the botox!" and maybe as an after thought, "and drink some water." I saw this piece of leather in the car beside me today and couldn’t fight back a brief tribute to Joe DeRita. Yeeaaa ahhhh. Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck. I guess people from the beach are retiring in Knoxville.

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From the mouths of babes

Yesterday the neighbor caught me in the driveway as I started to take Noah to karate.

Neighbor: "Doug is Noah home? Beth (a first grader) is over an hour late."
Dad: "Noah is in the car."
Neighbor: "Noah, did Lisa (Beth’s mother) pickup Beth?"
Noah, 10 years: "No."
Dad: "Did Beth ride the bus home with you?"
Noah: "Yes."
Dad: "Did she walk home with you?"
Noah: "Yes."
Dad: "Do you know where she is?"
Noah: "No, her mom took her somewhere."

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Work Complete!

I just finished a fun piece of code for a client. In addition to web server logs, they have a prioprietary advertising campaign tracker. They needed data aggregated and queries optimized which was phase 1 and included some MS SQL stored procedure magic, queries of queries (ColdFusion), and manually creating query result sets.

Phase II was to minimize the amount of text presented, show results in graphs, and create a way for an advertising client to view only their data. Fortunately, ColdFusion comes through with a fancy tag called CFChart and after the server configuration was debugged, graphs appeared. Then text on the screen was hidden using CSS (and I’m really starting to use and enjoy the cascading aspect of css) and made to appear through JavaScript.

Since some charts show way too much data, a form was added to filter the data and only show lines on the graphs that are relevant to the end user’s needs.