If you are eligible to participate in today’s elections, please do! We must actively work to get ourselves and others to the polls. Every vote counts! You have time. Your employer is required to let you go vote!
How consultants really terminate a project
The software industry is filled with "two more weeks" promises and deadlines. The truth of the matter is that I can always tell a project is nearing the end when the incense starts to run out. I’m down to pine, musk amber (Cathy says smells like dust), and rose. This is almost as bad as running out of coffee!
I dream solutions to my problems
At 3am, I was pounding my head on my keyboard with this bizarre problem. The PHP code I had written was reading the XML data from the XML file but for some inexplicable reason was breaking one of the nodes in half. If it was supposed to read "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" it would instead create two nodes such as "the quick brown" and "fox jumped over the lazy dog". Maddening! So I slept. And in 5 minutes this morning, I solved the problem. I still wish I could take a pill instead of sleeping.
Update: The correction to the problem was to read the whole file instead of reading it in 4096 chunks.
Its all about contests now!
So, what happens when a blogger wins a prize? He becomes addicted and let’s his posts become links to other people’s Personal Blogs in hopes he can win a iPod Video Nano. Browie was inspired by Darren Rowse’s Problogger giveaway. Apparently he won a cash prize and much like contestblogger, he is passing the good fortune onto us. This is not a paid post but does gain me an additional 2 entries into his contest. Cathy sure could use an iPod!
Why dads yell
Because we don’t get Calgon!
The decibel level in our house exceeds anything considered safe. Last night as we played D&D with some friends, Cathy pondered why our friend‘s house was so quiet compared to ours. We conjectured it is the televisions and computers but I think it comes down to Amy. 
She is so shrill! Then Evan tries to match her. We get multiple conversations going on simultaneously. So while someone is at the table finishing their dinner with the clinking of utensils, we have Cathy typing at her computer to pull up the children’s grades and talking to one of the teenagers about their school performance. I am listening in on their conversation while running water over the dishes and cleaning up counters and talking to another child with some segues to interject on Cathy’s conversation. Meanwhile Evan clomps across the wood floors while screaming like a girl with Amy chasing him and screaming. The adults increase their volume to be heard. The teenagers yell their conversation. The tea kettle blows (no reason).
Does this sound like your calm evening? We are definitely no like dinnertime with the Cleavers, My Three Sons, or Pleasantville. I think tomorrow I will wear ear plugs.
Doug’s Mantras
I will not shop at Food City ever again.
From the mouths of babes
Evan wakes from nap: "Daaaaa oooeeww Daaa. Da DAAAA. OH Daa DAA!"
Doug’s Mantras
Trash goes in the trash can; not on it.
I sleep for my clients
In college, I spent a lot of time trying to live on only 3 hours of sleep a night. It was that "sleep is a waste of time thing." After a couple of years, I crashed and slept through a summer break. For the record, you cannot catch up on sleep. If you think you can shave a few hours one night and make them up another night, you are fooling yourself. However, you can make yourself sick.
Last night I wanted to pull an all nighter for work. I chose to sleep. I might have produced some sloppy work last night in twice the time it will take me to wrap it up this morning. I may deliver a little later than I had hoped today. But my work will be higher quality and I feel healthier. Because I slept. Still wish I could take a pill instead of losing those hours.
So that’s what it feels like!
I’ve been waiting since January 2004 for that! Special thanks to:
- Frank Murphy
- STAR 102.1FM
- Knoxnews’ Andrew Eder
- Knoxviews
- Michael Silence
- Knoxnews.com
- Knox Blab
- SchoolMatters
- RockyTopMBA
- Street View Gallery
- Newsvine
Apologies if I missed anyone. Just let me know in comments or email juggler [at] gmail.com
Marijuana Cave is up for auction
The famous TN marijuana cave is being sold on auction. The 2 mile cave will be split between two potential buyers with the buyer who gets the entrance having access to only 360 feet of the cave and the other buyer with the 1.5 acre tract of land getting the cave below the surface but having no entrance to it. How do you enforce your neighbor from staying out from under your property when you cannot even get to it?!
Everyday several visitors come to Reality Me to read about the cave because periodically it hits the news again. I had some thoughts on the cave. And the original reference. Need a secret passage?
Update: Wisconsin cheesemaker to make curd instead of cannabis as noted by Michael Silence.
Blogging Abby Ham for hits
I listen to music on Pandora at the recommendation of a college professor who told me that Pandora and its algorithmic music selection is the rage of his research assistants. Wanting to hang with the cool kids, I checked it out and was impressed. Now thanks to Darren Rowse at Problogger, I also listen to Sky.fm and enjoy the higher quality streaming but am not thrilled with the narrow selection of music choices. Thanks to my brother-in-law’s gift of XM Radio to Cathy I rarely listen to regular radio anymore.
I like Frank Murphy. He blogs and performs in my improv alma mater, Einstein Simplified. Even before the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra I had the best of intentions of checking out his STAR 102.1FM morning show but as is typical of "best intentions" I haven’t done it yet…until today. Frank drew me in with his mention of Reality Me’s report that Google Street Views is in Knoxville. What did I learn from today’s morning show? It is good! And apparently if you blog about Abby Ham, in particular Abby leaving Knoxville for Cleveland somewhere, you get traffic to your blog!
Good luck Abby Ham! Be strong!
Update: By the way, I highly recommend the 10th anniversary 5.5 version of Winamp!
Update: For Abby Ham fans, Frank Murphy suggests visiting Terry Morrow’s blog and Knoxville Trivia Blog.
I love the Fall!
Wow! It is so beautiful outside right now. The air is crisp. Earlier there was a smell of leaking gas (yes yes…gas is odorless but they add a smell) but it has dissipated and been replaced by that smell of…crisp air! I could really enjoy a camping trip right now. Means I should get to work and clean my plate so that I can take a break.
CONFIRMED! Google IS mapping Knoxville.
I wasn’t sure if it was Google or a competitor driving around with the camera on the car. It is confirmed! That is a Google car!
Doug’s Mantras
It takes two to tango but only one to screwup the dance.
