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Sunday, November 30, 2008

12 is a Decade + 2 and other Blonde-isms

Mark, my brother-in-law, and Susie, my sister-in-law, celebrate their 12 year wedding anniversary today. I'm trying to talk Mark into going to see Collective Soul @ the Dubuque Casino on Saturday, December 27th. That is the Saturday after Christmas and we will likely be in Balltown that day. The tickets are kind of pricey - $37 after fees - but it'd still be a good show. From what I've seen, there's no opening act and pollstar.com doesn't even have the gig listed.

So, that's the world I'm in.

I write the checks for our twice a month bills. I find it horribly ironic because I was an English major and struggled through all of my math classes. And there I am, in charge of the family finances.

This coming week is going to be very VERY busy. I have 4 major projects that are due on Friday, 12/5. I am 25% done with one of them. Obviously, my days at work are going to be non-stop laser-focused on getting the work done. Four big projects, all coming on one day. Plus, once that is done, I have 4 days to get through as many doc projects as I can. And I know that at least 2 of those days are going to be dedicated to a monster project. That's giving me Wed and Thur to crank through as much stuff as I can before the cut.

Then on 12/15, I begin assembling the Early Release of that cut, hopefully done by 12/19. Then I start back on doc projects OR (hopefully) I can start reviewing the UI of the 9 systems that are arriving in my dept on 12/31/08. I will probably get 12/22-12/24 (leaving @ noon to play drums at 4:00 Mass) and 12/29-12/31 to review the UI. And my goal, since mid-summer(?) was to have all the doc written by the time this project arrived in QA on 12/31/08. So much for that! I can write fiction but it won't help our users any to do that.

In the meantime, I have a confession to make. I like the show Lost.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Bloated

It's 8:20 AM and I'm burning a CD with a) McAfee AV and 2) an Excel viewer. They are both for my favorite mother-in-law. She has dial-up service in Balltown and downloading a huge file in that manner is extremely time-consumig so I downloaded it on my DSL and zip! it's done.

We are going up to Balltown today. We are going through Dubuque to go to Karen's cousin's wife's father's wake around 2 before we go to Balltown. It's 1.5 hours to Dubuque and 2 hours to Balltown. If we go to Balltown first, we'd drive 2 hours, then we'd drive a 1/2 hour into Dubuque, and a 1/2 hour back out to Balltown - 3 hours. This way, we drive a total of 2 hours.

My co-worker's grandma passed away. She was 100 years. I know my co-worker was close to her granma like I was to mine. The wake/funeral is tomorrow in Edgewood @ 10:30. Balltown is a 1/2 hour from Edgewood. I am feeling fairly certain I will go tomorrow. I can leave Balltown @ 9:30 and make it to 10:30 Mass.

Thanksgiving with my family yesterday was okay. My newest nephew Charlie looks just like his brother Sawyer. Sawyer talks now and is 4 1/2. He likes his DS and that's pretty typical. He also likes Star Wars so that's gcool. I don't know the next time I'll see them.

I've put 60 CDs onto a spindle from my rack and I have 17 piles x 10 CDs to go. Then I'll bring more spindles home from work - my (cool) manager said it's okay - and keep moving on.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Teen Bands Tearing it Up

I got an e-mail message from a girl I used to go to high school with. Her son is in a garage band and she's doing what she can to promote them. But that got me thinking about another local band that I like called Lipstick Homicide. Here's their website: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=75126601

So, this acquaintance's son's band - they have a myspace page and they have five songs by them - covers - and they are all rough. My basement band in 1989 could do better than them and we couldn't get through a single song! First of all, their myspace page - I won't give you the URL because they have pictures as the background and it's hideous. It is an example of what *not* to do. The music is rough. Each musician needs more time to dig through their parts and refine them.

In the meantime, I found this cute cover of a non-kid appropriate song being sung by a kid with his dad playing guitar.



I tried to beat my score on Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3 but it appears the magic is gone from my fingers.

Tomorrow night, we are, tentatively, going to see Madagascar 2. It pains me to see a flick for $8 when I know it'll be out on DVD before the end of January and I'll be able to rent it for under $5. It had better be good.

Thursday, we're playing @ 9 AM Mass - I volunteered us for that - and then going to my parent's house in CR by 2. My brother Mark, his wife Erica, and their sons Sawyer and Charlie are coming too. I have not met Charlie so I am anxious to meet him.

Friday, we're heading up to Balltown. My in-laws are returning from their daughter's house in Chicagoland so we don't need to be in an ultra-hurry to get there. Then we'll be there until Sunday. On Saturday, I know my father-in-law wants to put out his crib set in his front yard and we are going to Mass in the afternoon. I think we're having ham - my favorite - for supper.

Return on Sunday and get ready to start the final 31 days of 2008.

At work, things are crazy - still. In case it's not clear from my previous musings, I have, essentially, two full-time jobs. I have my Tech Writing job where I am ultimately responsible for all internal and end-user documentation. I also have a second job, which is a combination of developing a Windows UI for a green screen and assembling our software to be burned to CD. For the last couple of releases, I've also burned the 3 sets of CDs for our clients (right around 150 CDs) and labelled them as well. That is what my former co-worker BSS used to do before he left for greener pastures.

I was BSS's backup and when he left, it got it handed to me. There was no one else. I had a very poor attitude about it all in the beginning of taking it over. I wanted nothing to do with the new part of my job. Part of it was that I wasn't comfortable with that aspect. All the instructions I had said to do things a certain way and, from my perspective, there wasn't enough 'why' in the documentation to explain 'why' it had to be done a certain way. Now that I've processed these tasks for nearly 2 years (well, 2 years in April 2009), I have changed the doc to explain better why I'm doing what I'm doing. I would like to get the procedures to the point where it is so easy to do that anyone in my dept could process the tasks and assemble the software for the CDs.

Anyways, now it's 9:45 PM and I was only going to be here until 9. Hmmm.

I've pulled 200 CDs from my CD rack that do not have a hard case in an effort to make room for more CDs. So far, so good. I have to update my "media" list as I put the CDs onto a spindle so that, if I wanted to find one, I'd know where to look.

I'll leave you with Trivium covering Metallica's "Master of Puppets." I wish they would have launched into this at their CR show!




Monday, November 24, 2008

Enjoyed the Impalement



I just nailed the song "In Your Eyes" by Verax in the game "Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3." I made six mistakes!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Trip to to the Past

When I was first getting into heavy metal, both Gothic Slam and Forced Entry were two bands that were overlooked by the mainstream media that I really enjoyed.





Never realized the cheesiness of Gothic Slam's visual stuff.




N O U

I really like Bayside. I think they have a lot of hooks that are interesting and their "Blame it on Bad Luck" song is amazing.
"No One Understands" is a great song from their latest release, Shudder. I really like that they have a knack for playing their songs acoustically. If you want an overload...

1 of 5


2 of 5


3 of 5


4 of 5


5 of 5


I would so like them to come to Iowa... but, once again, the band goes around Iowa - see their tour schedule - instead of playing in Iowa City or Cedar Rapids.

DNR - Do Not Reply and DNMLT10PBS - Do Not Make Less Than 10 Passes Before Shooting

I don't like spam e-mail messages. They clog up my Inbox and they cause conflict in the world. Read the one I got here followed by the comment to that blog post. It makes me shake my head in disbelief why people would do this to other people. What's the point?

In other news, we had Dudes practice. We've lost 2 games in a row, mainly because the boys don't run the offense. We tried something different today. No shooting until you make 10 passes. If you make less than 10 passes and shoot and make it, it doesn't count. "That's not fair!"

No. What's not fair is telling you to run the play that we work on in practice and watch you not do it. What's not fair is telling you to pass the ball and watch you run down the court and throw up a wild shot. What's not fair is you not playing team basketball because, frankly, you're not learning the beauty of this game.

One kid was very vocal. "This rule sucks! It sucks!" Reminded me of "The Karate Kid" when he gets kicked out of soccer practice. I was ready to tell him to get out of my gym.

Basketball is a game played by a team. There are five on the team. The team is coached by an adult who tells the team what to do. I am ready to no longer be that adult if these kids don't quit whining. Some of these kids think they know, after only being on the earth 10 years, how to play the game of basketball. They think that they know what they should do. I can tell them in complete certainty they don't. I have been around the sport of basketball since 1980. I played YMCA ball, I played 7th and 8th grade, I played intramurals, I've watched tons of teams. I've been to basketball camps and I've put my time in at the gym. These kids who think they know how to play the game DO NOT. Thus, listening to them whine about having to pass 10 times is ugly to my ears.

One parent said that he was on the top ranked basketball team in the state in high school. He said the coach got so mad that he took the air out of the ball so they couldn't pass.

Brilliant. Guess what we're doing at our next practice on 12/7?

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Boring? HAH!

What should have been a boring stay-at-home Saturday is quickly becoming a day on which there is a list of things to accomplish. What else is new? We watched "Kung Fu Panda" last night. I think I fell asleep for a couple of minutes but what I saw, I liked. Karen was falling asleep too. I think I fell asleep because when I woke up, I was suddenly more alert - like it had taken the edge off. I ended up watching some "Everybody Loves Raymond" DVD episodes (we have all but one season on DVD). Then I sent the kids to bed @ 9 and eventually did fall asleep on the couch. When I woke up, my whole left side of my body was tingly and I could barely stand up. I seriously contemplated just staying on the couch because I felt like I was going to fall to the ground when I stood up.

So today, I am walking over to Linder Tire to pick up our van. We are then going to get the house cleaned up (again) because tomorrow, when it's 46, we're going to put out our Christmas lights.

Our Thanksgiving plans thus far are to go to Mass on Thanksgiving Day, then to my parent's house in Cedar Rapids. My brother, his wife, and two sons are coming down from Mpls. I am anxious to meet Charlie, my nephew. I have never met him and he will be 2 in early 2009 - I don't have his birthday in the forefront of my mind. Also, my other nephew, Sawyer, will be there and so will my sister-in-law, Erica. After things are done, then we will return to North Liberty.

Friday, we will get up drive up to Balltown and spend the afternoon, Saturday, and come home on Sunday. Alex doesn't have basketball practice so I'm unsure when we will leave Balltown. That's our plans.

For right now, I'm going to continue updating my media list so that I have it all up-to-date by the time 12/31/08 hits and I create a copy of the 2008 list to create my 2009 list. I have a lot of work to do.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Coming Soon

I thought more about my idea to purge my Hotmail e-mail account. I am going to start it on December 1, 2008, and go through a page a day. That's 20 days of getting rid of junk. I'll be done before Christmas.

Here's a taste of what I have in my Inbox.
This link takes you to a freeware site that has registry cleaners. Who doesn't need a good registry cleaner to get rid of all the garbage applications leave behind when they are uninstalled?
http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwregtools.html

I had junk on my PC:

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.30Database version: 1412Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2
11/21/2008 6:48:23 AMmbam-log-2008-11-21 (06-48-23).txt
Scan type: Full Scan (C:\)Objects scanned: 222636Time elapsed: 2 hour(s), 38 minute(s), 1 second(s)
Memory Processes Infected: 0Memory Modules Infected: 0Registry Keys Infected: 2Registry Values Infected: 0Registry Data Items Infected: 0Folders Infected: 1Files Infected: 3
Memory Processes Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Memory Modules Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Registry Keys Infected:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87255c51-cd7d-4506-b9ad-97606daf53f3} (Adware.Coupons) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\{7370f91f-6994-4595-9949-601fa2261c8d} (Adware.BHO) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
Registry Values Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Registry Data Items Infected:(No malicious items detected)
Folders Infected:C:\Program Files\Antivirus 2009 (Rogue.Antivirus 2009) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
Files Infected:C:\System Volume Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1472\A0750228.exe (Trojan.Downloader) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.C:\Program Files\Antivirus 2009\av2009.exe (Rogue.Antivirus 2009) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\svchost.exe (Heuristics.Reserved.Word.Exploit) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Gone now.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Dissing a Legend and No Backlash

I think one of the best parts of my writing life is that I write and I write and NO ONE CARES! I write this blog - no followers. Not even my friends. I write a review of a legendary band (Megadeth), give the latest release a D and... NO COMMENTS. http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=5778 NO ONE CARES whether I write a fragment, a comma splice, or even have tpyos! I have total freedom to brake all the rulz I wnt 2 brake in the English language. Who cares about what I write.

Total freedom.

Blissfully ecstatic.

11:15 PM. Tired.

My friend Phil went to see Nine Inch Nails and Boris tonight. I had no desire to go so I didn't. For Phil's sake, I hope it was a good show.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

RIP

Todd Peters passed away on Saturday, November 15, 2008. He was the drummer for the local rock band Skin Kandy. I never saw him play drums so all I can offer is a video of him playing. My sympathies to his family going through this difficult time.





Todd was the drummer for the KISS tribute band called "Strutter."




Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Who is listening when I complain?

Months ago, when it was announced that Metallica was playing in Des Moines and then in Moline, I bemoaned that there was not a decent place in my area that attracted concerts. So now, who goes out on tour? Motley Crue. Where do they play? They play on Wed, 02/11/09 @ the iWireless Center, Moline, IL with guests Hinder, Theory Of A Deadman, & Last Vegas. Then they go north to Grand Rapids, MI, on 2/13 and to Madison, WI for a Valentine's Day gig. Then they hit Rockford, IL, on a Sunday night. Monday, they could play in Cedar Rapids @ the US Cellular Center or an Iowa City gig @ Carver-Hawkeye Arena before going to Des Moines on 02/17/09 @ the Wells Fargo Arena, in Des Moines. It doesn't make sense. Who do I have to complain to in order to change things around? Why can't Hinder and ToaD play a gig in Cedar Rapids? Even if MC needs a day to rest their bones, it's no reason why the rest of us music fans should suffer.

Hell, even Manchester, IA, gets Tonic Sol-fa on Friday, December 12,2009. Cedar Falls gets Skin Kandy on Saturday, December 27 (plus my brother-in-law's band on 12/31/08!) And I miss this:








What does Cedar Rapids get? Nine Inch Nails and some'thing' called Boris. Pathetic. I so long to live in a Chicagoland area where there are good gigs nightly. I mean look at this. One page full of gigs and it is only through 11/22 - this Saturday?!?

And as a side note, I am not requesting to go to the WinWriters 2009 Conference in Seattle, WA. Just for kicks, though, I went to look at the Seattle schedule on Pollstar.com for when I would be there, if I were going. I'd probably fly in on Sunday, 3/29 and be there until Wed, 4/1. Guess what pollstar says is in that city during those dates?

Not a single band! Look at this and don't say it's not freaky. Nothing on the schedul from Sunday 3/29/09 to Wednesday 4/1/09. That bites.

Monday, November 17, 2008

At least I'm not Late...

It's a Monday. That means Karen works early so I get the kids up around 6:20 AM and we leave the house by 7 to make the bus by 7:15. Megan doesn't understand why she has to get up so early. The consequences for us missing the bus are that I would have to drive them to Regina, which is east of us, then drive west to catch I-380, and then north to Cedar Rapids, where I work. I have had to do that before, last school year, and it's not fun to be in that situation. So I don't mind being early to the bus and sitting in the car with the kids for a few minutes before they get on the bus. It's definitely better than being late in my opinion.

Tonight is Alex's piano lesson. We pushed him harder this week to practice so I'm hoping that he does better in his lesson. Alex talked about not wanting to play the piano or even not playing drums. He said to me, "Just because you play drums doesn't mean I have to." I agree. I am not really interested in paying for piano or drum lessons if he's not going to practice. Piano is a lot like his schoolwork - it doesn't come easy and when he gets frustrated, it's easy to quit or throw up his hands in disgust. "I don't know!" he'll say.

We went through this last night with his state flash cards. He has to memorize the state capitals of 9 states. "I know them," he says as we sit down. We went through those flash cards 6 times before I felt comfortable he knew them. He couldn't remember Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina. I gave him 3 Rs - Raleigh, noRth caRolina, and I think he can remember that. I hope so. We have to hammer things into his head. It's part of apraxia - it's a part of our life.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

14 Minutes

The muffins that are going to be served with Karen's homemade white soup with ham & hash brown cubes have to cook for 14 more minutes. She calls her mother; I come down to the PC.

Tonight's episode of "Desperate Housewives" looks really good.

If I weren't on the PC, I'd be watching "Bridezillas" on the WE network.

I am looking forward to work tomorrow. I have one week to get through a bunch of documentation changes. I'm encouraged because the project I thought would take 1 week is moving along quite nicely. I started it on Friday and hope to finish it tomorrow. I still have 491 End-User HTML files to convert to my tableless layout and 991 Internal HTML files to convert.

Not much else to say.

Did it... and glad I didn't

I purchased the Metallica gig from http://www.livemetallica.com/ yesterday AM and I'm glad I did. They sound tremendously good and I'm not disappointed.

What I didn't do was go to the Avenge Sevenfold/ BuckCherry/ ShineDown/ Saving Abel show in Waterloo last night. On Friday night, at 7, I hadn't heard from the publicist so I called it. I called my friend in Waterloo that I was going to go with and said, "I haven't heard from him, I'm calling it." That way, he could make plans if he wanted to and I could make plans as well.

Yesterday AM, I checked my email and he had written back @ 10:30 Friday night. I made the choice to not call my friend and go. I decided that, frankly, I'd rather spend time with my family. We went to 5:15 Mass, I played drums, then we went to Hy-Vee, got a pizza for Alex and I, got Chinese food for Megan and Karen, went to Mr. Movies and rented "Cast Away" and "Forgetting Sarah Silverman," came home, and by 10, Megan had taken herself to bed, Alex was asleep on the couch, and Karen and I were nearly asleep. We cashed in.

Does that mean I wouldn't have had a good time at the concert? No.

It does mean that, given a choice between family or a free concert, I chose family.

Does that mean I would make that same choice a year in the future? Depends upon the band. Rationalizing it out, I saw 3/4ths of the bands in Moline, IL, in September so I knew what to expect. I'll just go with it.

Today, Alex has basketball practice @ 4. Other than that, there's nothing really going on.

I did start the project I talked about here. So far, so good. I've put 16 CDs onto a spindle.

When I listen to the lyrics of "The Day That Never Comes," I hear a story about domestic abuse. Watching the video, Metallica doesn't hear the same story I do. Powerful video.


Metallica - The Day That Never Comes


Friday, November 14, 2008

Purging a bit... and two Deaths

Before I get to the title of this post, I did have my meeting with my (cool) manager and it went well. We talked for 2.5 hours and discussed my work, my progress in certain areas, and where I need to improve. One of her recurring themes is that I need to figure out what others can do to help me because I can't do it all. I have 6 weeks of work on my desk and even more en route, including the 9 systems I talked about in my previous post. So there is a lot on my plate and a lot of things that need to get done. I really think that my job is not going to slow down anytime soon. One of the things I like is that I was able to map out when I am going to work on things. I know that I will have next week to get through as many doc changes as I can. After that, I will have 2.5 days the week of Thanksgiving to do user interface design. Coming back from Thanksgiving, I am giving myself two days to finish that UI design work. Then Wed-Friday, I have to uncomment some doc changes I made for a project that was slated for the release we just shipped out but then got delayed to the next release. By that Friday - the day after I turn 39 - I need to have all my doc changes done and any doc changes that I need to do for other projects have to be small changes - no massive projects can be undertaken because by 12/12, the cut should be made and by 12/15, I should be prepping for the Early Release CDs. Somewhere in there, I'll get the 9 new systems and I will still have additional projects to work on that are unrelated to those 9 new systems. The number I threw out today was that if those 9 new systems have 100 screens each, that's 900 new help topics to write. I hope it is not even close to that many help topics. About 450, or half of the 900, would even be a lot to work with and, I guess, right now, I haven't seen enough to have a feel for what I am going to have to deal with when these systems arrive on my desk.

Now... onto the purging and deaths in my life today.

First, the purge. I have a Hotmail account. I have 20 pages of e-mails in my Inbox, dating back to March of 2008. I have 500 messages. My goal is to purge my messages until I am down to 25. In order to do that, I am (probably) going to be including a lot of links to version websites in my blog so that I have some sort of record regarding links that I, at one point, thought were pretty cool. In a brief survey of some of the messages, I noticed links to freeware sites. There will probably be all kinds of other things as well.

According to Cal Thomas, a political writer, there was a death with the election of Barack Obama - the death of the religious right. I am Catholic. I believe in God and I believe in making good choices because that, after all, separates a man from a beast. Thus, this is the link to Thomas' article: http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2419

The other recent death in my life is my grandma. She died on April 23, 2006. Today, 11/14/08, she would have been 100. I miss her. A lot. I think I probably have written about our connection in the past and just to say it again, I still feel our connection. Our lives were woven together. I credit her with starting my music collection: http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=5202. I still use the red drumstick holder she made for me. It is tied to the lugs of my floor tom. I stilll have some of the denim drum cases she made for me. I also remember her coming to watch me play drums at Mass @ St. Pius X in Cedar Rapids. There are all these memories that surround us and make me smile - not sad - when I think of her. I remember her daily when I get into the 1992 Oldsmobile Achieva I bought from her for $5 when she was no longer going to drive. So, today is her 100th birthday. I'm sure she's up with my grandfather, Leo, and our white toy poodle, D.D. (Damn Dog), having a blast. My Uncle Jim is up there as well. My hope, as a good person on Earth, is that I get to end up with them as well.

So that is the game plan - purging my Inbox of 500 messages. Onward...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Uncertainty

I meet with my (cool) manager tomorrow @ 9 AM to discuss the review she wrote about me. I received a favorable review - considered "excellent" - so I'm feeling good about how I'm doing in my work. I've had to deal with a lot of things outside of my comfort zone and as long as I'm persistent in trying to master them, I think I'm okay. Sometimes, I start a sentence and I really don't know where I'm going until I reach a conclusion. Then I think to myself, "Wow. That does make sense."

Things like that remind me of an English professor in college who didn't think I could speak. I was consistently dinged for not getting involved in the class discussions. In my "letter of recommendation," he mentioned that. He talked about how he had spoken to me about it and it was something I was going to work on, to speak more. Reading that letter now, I really question why I ever sought one from this specific professor. Great guy and all, but he thought he knew me. He didn't. I used to spend a lot of time trying to live up to his expectations and to my cooperating student teaching teacher.

This is ancient history - Fall 1991, Spring 1992 - but it bears mentioning because I am so much further now than where either of those two thought I could ever be. I have achieved so much in my career already, it's a tremendously awesome thing. I mean, without those two doubting what I was capable of achieving, who would I have to prove wrong in my life? I think we are given people in our lives that are there to question you, to doubt you, and to make you think you don't know what you're doing. Those doubts, those insecurities, they are so much more powerful to me than people that say "you can do it!" or "Way to go!" No, the ones that say, "You cannot." are my favorite. Those two were in my life for a reason.

Fast forward to 11/14/08 and I can't help but smile at the coincidence of it all. On what would have been my grandma's 100th birthday, that's when I talk to my (cool) manager about my accomplishments over the last year and my goals for the coming year.

And, to be clear, the coming year is going to be chaos. I am already, roughly, 10 weeks behind in my work. Based upon what is in my Inbox, I have 6 weeks of work. I did some trolling in our call report system and found 160 hours (or 4 weeks) of work that I need to do. Plus I have my own projects that I want to complete like changing my HTML files from a table layout to tableless. This is something I have worked on for over a year. I have ~390 files to change in my end-user RoboHelp project and 991 in my internal RoboHelp project.

On top of all of that, I talked to the lead programmer guy yesterday. We are rewriting systems in a new language and I've been asking for the UI so I can at least start to build shells for my Help topics. He said to talk to him Friday (tomorrow) as he hopes the UI is close to frozen. There are 9 systems and there's a pending due date of reaching QA (my dept) by 12/31/08. There is so much work to be done! As of right now, I'm going to open their project in Visual Studio and identify the form IDs and then create a corresponding HTML file. There are NO specs, NO requirements, and NO functioning programming. This is going by the UI and trying to figure out what is happening. I hope to begin working on it by Monday but I may not be able to do so unless I can get some of my other 10 weeks worth of projects tapered down. But, as I mentioned, there's a looming 12/31/08 date. I have 1.5 months to write doc for 9 rewritten systems. I should count how many times the word "challenge" is used in my meeting tomorrow!

I do have a sense of pride regarding the work I did this week. I solved my MOTW issue. I changed 220 links to call a .htm file whose sole purpose is to display an embedded PDF file so that IE 7 displaying RoboHelp's WebHelp on a local PC works as expected. I think the other solution - posting my help files on our server and requiring our users to have an Internet connection to access online Help is in the future. That or using the relatively new Adobe AIR format, which basically zips up the WebHelp files and creates a single .exe file. I think that would be awesome as it could, potentially, be updated through the Internet through automatic update checking. There's some things that I need to be more comfortable with - how to call it from an app, whether I like the "Mini-TOC" feature, and whether the Index works correctly when two or more topics are assigned to the same keyword - but it does have potential.

There is a lot of uncertainty in the world with the economic situation and the way people are freaking out and withdrawing from their 401(k) plans - not me - according to NPR. I hope everything works out okay. I'm starting to believe that flying to the Grand Canyon is not in the cards for 2009.

The Dudes lose...

We were ahead for most of the game, playing "the little kids" that also go to Regina. All of a sudden, it was tied. Then they scored. Then we missed. And missed. And missed. We scored 2 points in the 2nd half. We got out hustled. The "little kids" wanted to win more than we did. They dove on the floor. They took the ball from our guys. They intercepted our passes. They worked the floor and set picks for each other. They ran the court.

They beat us 18-14.

Some of our kids were visibly upset because it was a slice of humble pie.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Why I hated playing along with recordings & BB

I used to read in Modern Drummer magazine about drummers who would drum along to their heroes. I never really liked that because I could never really hear the recording over my drums. For me, I need to hear the other instruments in order to play with them. Yes, the drummer should nail the tempo but I also like listening to the other instruments.

The following is a cool band I like - Breaking Benjamin. The groove around 3:46 is serious and 3:58 is serious as well.



Skin Kandy is a local band and I like this cover of the Iowa fight song!

Three Topics: So this is going to be a big looonnnnggg

There are three major topics I wanted to address that came up today. While partially "work-related," they are also areas that impact the way I live life outside of work. First of all, there is the issue of coding, followed by choosing the right tool for the job, followed by a quiz about volcanoes.

I subscribe to the Word-PC list where MS Word users post about their issues they are having with the software. This post is from Lisa. While she was asking specifically about VBA coding, I am answering based upon what I do with my HTML / CSS coding.
Lisa wrote:
This is a question for everyone....
I've had occasion lately to have to convert someone else’s code. I'm not going into whys or wherefores... But it's raised a number of thoughts for me and I thought I'd try and get *your* thoughts on VBA coding as well. Soooo!!!!!I'm trying to look at the way people code and why.

How do you process and debug code? I run my code in IE 7 and verify that what I just coded worked the way I want it to work.
Do you write code that doesn't need it?
Not sure I understand.
Do you use Debug.Print a lot?
N/A
Do you make use of breakpoints or Stop statements?
N/A
Do you use MsgBox?
N/A
Do you use the status bar?
N/A
Have you developed anything that you use to debug code?
No
Do you use 3rd party software?
I use the tool to validate HTML to verify my code is okay. That is mainly during troubleshooting why I am getting an error.
Are you *always* successful in finding faults and if so ... How do you do it??? :-)
Yes. I continue to pound and pound away at my code until it works. Failure is not an option.
Do you include any code "as a rule" for "debugging"?No.
Do you use line numbers?
No
Do you include an exception routine in all of your procedures?
No
What are the advantages of working the way you do?
Since I’m 100% self-taught, I don’t know any other way to do what I do. I just write HTML code, test it in the browser and, assuming it works, I move on....
And of course... Do you think there are any disadvantages and what are they?
I think I’ve been able to pick up formatting of code to make things easier to read. However, doing so takes more time than I want to spend so that leads to code that is sometimes difficult to read.
Do you *Always" do anything?I always try to add a comment in my code if I think it will help me in the future....
Why do you think it's good to do so?I won’t remember things in the future and having a trigger – whether it’s a project # that caused me to change something or a sarcastic “I know you won’t forget how long it took you to make this code work” comment – I think it leads me to the resource that caused my changes.
Have you ever seen code for which you though ... OMG!??I don’t know if that’s a OMG – cool or OMG – what the hell is happening. I’ve done both. I right-click and View Source a lot when I see some effect. I routinely adjust code to make it bend to my will.
Have you ever seen code for which you thought... Neat!Tons of times, especially with JavaScript.
Ever had to change code that other people wrote and er... Had some problems?... What were they?
I had code for adding customized links to my HTML pages and it caused IE 7 to choke. Had to take it out.
Are there any "standards" that you would always advise?If you have any question re: whether you will remember anything, add a comment.
Is there anything that you think... Nah... It's not necessary?
Formatting code. I’m not as picky anymore. It makes it easier to read, sure, but it’s not worth the time to format every piece of code I write.
Had any particularly interesting hurdles lately that you've overcome or worked around?
Running WebHelp in the c:\dir1\help directory, using Mark of the Web (MOTW), you cannot open a PDF file. I have to create 229 .htm files, 1 for each of my PDFs, so that I can display the PDF on the PC.... Why did you have to work around it?è Users couldn’t open a PDF in our online Help system./...
How did you get past it?
Cursing and Google.
Got any useful web sites to share that you've gotten solutions or ideas for solutions fromGoogle.
Do you use a naming convention for your variables...... What is it... ... ... Your own?... ... ... Why? What makes your naming setup easy for you?... ... From another source?... ... .... Why that one? N/A Do you always use Option Explicit?... Why?... Why not?N/A
Do you comment a lot?I try to add comments to help me remember stuff.
When you deliver code do you obfuscate?Never heard of it, so I used Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obfuscated_code No, I don’t obfuscate code.
When you deliver code do you insert line numbers for debugging?No.
Do you document you code separately?Yes. I maintain a Word doc that explains how to write documentation for my employer. It is over 400 pages and has lots of useful information.
Do you use the comments in your code as documentation?No! I’m writing the documentation for my company’s software!
Do you think... As a lot of people do!!! That if you have to document then it's too difficult to use?
I think that what makes perfect sense to me does not make perfect sense to someone else. Therefore, by commenting or updating the aforementioned Word doc, I hope I can give an insight into what I was thinking or trying to solve at the time.

The next subject is using Word to code HTML
Karen, on the Word-PC list, posted this:
My team recently started using a content management system. The content is formatted in HTML through a WYSIWIG that's not too useful and sometimes does odd things to the code. Mostly we'll be composing new content directly in the WYSIWIG -- that's no big deal. Occasionally, though, I'd like to use Word to organize and edit the text because Word just has a lot more useful tools to help me with the editing process. I'd like to create a Word template that'll produce relatively clean HTML.We've gotten relatively good results by copying the content from Word to Dreamweaver and then copying the code from Dreamweaver to the CMS. We'll always have to do additional clean up once we get the content into the WYSIWIG, but I'd like to make it as easy as possible. Any ideas for formatting in Word that'll make the transition cleaner? Types of formatting tricks to stay away from or to always use. We use a lot of numbered and bulleted lists and that's our biggest headache. 
Thanks, 
Karen 

 To which I wrote back:

If you already have Dreamweaver, why on earth would you write HTML in Word? Quit trying to use Word as a HTML editor. It doesn't suit your requirement -relatively clean HTML - and is only going to make you take longer to do things that would take less time if you just coded in DW in the first place?
Word doesn't belong in your equation so remove it. If you really want to use Word, preview your code in IE, ctrl + A, ctrl + C, go to Word and ctrl + V. That'll get your content into Word. Use that Word doc to do whatever editing process you need to do and then make the same text changes in DW. Double your work, but you're already not working efficiently if you're trying to get "relatively clean HTML" from Word.
which triggered some sort of holy war:
Notepad in Windows make clean HTML but it is much work and tables are no fun.
In Word it goes quickly but no clean code.
Dreamweaver adds another license and training cost.
Word is free while all has it and can make documents. Easy training to learn to save as Web Page.
Excel is also free and can be used.
to which I wrote back:
Word is free? Really...
After considering what the person probably meant, I wrote this:
Additionally, just because you already have a copy of Word - if that's what you were getting at - it is not free if you have to pay someone to clean up the HTML code. Plain and simple, if you want clean HTML code, Word is not the right tool. If you want to have ugly code, sure, go ahead, use it. My point is that if the original poster wants to have "clean HTML code," Word is not the tool, especially when they already have Dreamweaver.
David G chimed in with this:
Tables in Dreamweaver are a breeze IMHO, and the trash that Word (or and other M$ Office product) generates is a real pain to clean up. General users shouldn't be making HTML anyway in this case I would think. Learn DW and move on.
Meanwhile, about this time, on the Dreamweaver list I'm on, this post appeared:
Cheryl D Wise wrote:
Publisher is a desktop publishing program also know as a print tool. Despitewhat Microsoft says you should never use it for web work. Same goes for Word, Excel and other Office programs. Yes, you can save content from those programs as html but that doesn't mean they should be used.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Melissa
Hello! I am new to this group and just wanted to introduce myself. I started my own virtual assistant company earlier this year, and tried to design a website using a template, but was never happy with it. Then I downloaded Kompozer and messed around with that a lot, never able to get it the way I wanted. THEN I designed (what I considered to be a first timer's masterpiece) through Publisher, only to find out that it was a complete waste of time because Publisher's coding is not universal and wouldn't upload properly. SO, I finally buckled down and paid for Dreamweaver. Now I don't know how to use it!!
Then back on the Word-PC list, this appeared:
From: Don
Since they already have Dreamweaver cost isn't an issue. They are taking the document from Word and importing it into DW now so they obviously have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to use DW. They would be much better off taking the time to learn DW better as the results would be considerably better overall.

Positive reinforcement for what I had wrote! Yeah! Then... the horror stories roll in:
FYI Recently, I had to make a quick change to a web site. I ftp'd the file, saved it to my desktop, made the change in MS Word 2003, and FTP'd it back. Whole site went belly-up. Word kindly changed all links on the page to blah blah desktop blah. Had to replace the links in notepad. Not a happy camper.
David G chimed in again with
I use DW as a rank amateur. I would much rather use it than Word. The learning curve was not that steep and I am self-taught. In a standardized corporate environment I would suspect that some common rudimentary training in DW would be all that is needed. OTOH, Someone with reasonable VBA skills could probably write a WordAdd-In that could parse out all (or most) of the offending parts that Word insists on putting in.
That led to a comment that Dreamweaver has a "Cleanup Word HTML Code" option. I found it on the Commands menu.
So that was my day, while trying to fix my issue with MOTW and my PDFs.

Finally, I came home and, in order to help Alex prepare for his science test tomorrow, guess what I did? Yep, typed a study guide in Word so that he could practice matching the vocab words with the definition.

More

More of fixing my online Help files so that I can access PDFs on the c:\ drive.
More of fixing JavaScript that gives me errors.
More of fixing my RoboHelp project. I think the database file wasn't able to handle my changes to my Dreamweaver file. I think something is going on but I can't put my finger on it. In the meantime, I save often.
More of hoping the BuckCherry / Avenge Sevenfold / ShineDown / Saving Abel show happens for me on Saturday
More of feeling better today than I did a week ago.
More collections of Megadeth's previously released material, this time packaged as the "Anthology" release. Three previously unreleased songs out of 35. Gave it a Damn! rating. I wrote it as an open letter to Dave Mustaine. I wrote "Seriously?"

Monday, November 10, 2008

M in M Setlist & other news

This is the concert I missed Saturday night in Moline, IL:
DISC ONE
That Was Just Your Life
The End of the Line
Harvester Of Sorrow
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Kirk Solo #1
One
Broken, Beat & Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
Wherever I May Roam
The Four Horsemen
Kirk Solo #2
DISC TWO
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Blackened
Kirk Solo #3
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Last Caress
Breadfan
Seek and Destroy


In other news, I have a solution for my MOTW issue that I wrote about last week. The issue is that I am attempting to access a PDF from a HTML file on the local PC. The HTML file is coded with the MOTW code but the PDF doesn't have that coding. Therefore, when the HTML file tries to go to the PDF, IE 7 says, "Nope, you don't have MOTW. You're not safe," thus making the PDF not open. The solution is to create HTML files that embed the PDF. I have to create a HTML file for each PDF. I worked on this project on Saturday morning. I go through the As and the Bs in my list of PDFs that I have to change. This gets a bit complicated, but I also have to change the names of 55 PDFs.
The reason for that change is that the HTML file is already reserved by an .exe file. For example, I have an app called "apples.exe." This app, by default, uses apples.htm as its help file and the PDF version of this documentation is called apples.pdf. If I create a new apples.htm that will embed apples.pdf, the existing content in apples.htm is replaced, which is not good. Since the coding is looking for apples.htm, I have to create apples_eu.htm and rename apples.doc to apples_eu.pdf so that generating the PDF creates apples_eu.pdf.

I then have to change my DOS batch file to copy apples_eu.pdf from the network drive and also have to change, if any exist, any link to apples.pdf. So far, my design to only actually open a PDF from the topic I call "Print Documentation" has paid off as there is only one link to change from "PDF/apples.pdf" to "apples_eu.htm." It's the details - updating a tracking doc I maintain, updating the DOS batch file, renaming apples.doc to apples_eu.doc, and then, finally, creating the apples_eu.pdf that is copied by the DOS batch file. I estimate I have 184 more links to change. I hope to breeze through these changes by the end of the day Tue so I can return to my actual writing.

Additionally, the Iowa men's basketball team won their exhibition game against Wayne State yesterday @ Carver. The Iowa women's basketball team also won their exhibition game. So both teams start out 1-0. Good start.

Finally, this week is going to be busy.
Mon - tutor & piano
Tue - clubs after school plus Alex has a test on Wed
Wed - dentist appts, Alex has basketball @ 5:30 and Megan has piano @ 5:30 - no petting Max
Thu - Survivor, Grey's, & ER
Fri - NOTHING
Sat - Saving Abel, ShineDown, Avenge Sevenfold, & BuckCherry in Waterloo
Sun - basketball practice from 4-5 @ Regina

Then it starts all over again.

Optimistically, it seems my cold is wearing away so I may feel like sitting @ the PC @ night and writing reviews. I got a new Who DVD yesterday and I also have a Genesis DVD to review, plus a bunch of other stuff I have neglected. Need to get back in gear.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Daddy Time

Daddy time exists in my world. Daddy time is saying we are going to work on bedrooms, the living room, laundry, getting lunch ready, and other normal chores @ 11 and still sitting at the PC, struggling to make my Help files work correctly when I compile my RoboHelp project. I had a problem where the PDF .htm files were not looking in the right directory. I need to look at making sure they are created correctly with the .net app I'm using. I manually fixed the path on my 4 test files and am compiling now. It is now 11:40. Of course, the kids are not going to actually do their work @ 11 unless I crack the whip and do my own work as well. My goal is to be done with 'chores' by 2:30 so I can sit down and watch the Iowa / Penn State game until 4, which is when we'll leave for 5:15 Mass (I'm playing drums even though Karen is in Chicago on her Women's Weekend Away) and I'd like to not be late.

Back in the Groove

  1. What a week. I got hit with a cold around Tuesday and avoided this PC at night. I am still not healed - my chest is tight and I still cough - but I do feel better. I have not had to take my DayQuil to feel okay so I guess that's good - I kind of like not having to be drugged up to be functional.
  2. The week at work was crazy. I took 4 hours of vacation yesterday and, judging by the e-mails that flowed to my Inbox, I wouldn't have been bored yesterday afternoon. We are getting ready to send out the next Mass Release and because of some changes we made, there are a lot of loose ends to clean up to make sure we make the release seamless for the clients.
  3. I did have a thought about my increasing CD collection. The way my collection is now, when I add a CD by a band that starts with "A," I have to shift the CDs in my collection down one to make room for it. At work, we order CD-Rs in 100 packs for distribution of our releases to our clients. We use white envelopes - instead of jewel cases - and end up with empty 100 pack spindles. My (cool) manager has said that I could use those spindles if I had a use for them. Right now, there are 4 spindles. I could take 400 CDs from my rack and put them on the spindles. Then I would have more room. The only things to consider are that
    • I need someplace to put the cases and inlays for the CDs I put on the spindle
    • I need some way to not forget what CD is on what spindle
    I can fix issue 2 with an up-to-date CD list. I don't know how I can store the inlays and CD booklets where I can know where they are. In essence, I already have this type of scenario with the existing CD-Rs I already have on spindles. The only difference to overcome is what to do with the booklets, etc. I can find a plastic Rubbermaid to put that stuff in, I guess, and use some sort of filing system to keep things organized.
  4. On to music news. I am not going to Moline, IL, tonight to see Metallica. I am going to purchase the show on http://www.livemetallica.com, like I would have anyways, but, as a side note, I don't really have to purchase *that* show. Someone I was talking to said that I could just pick any show and I apologize, I don't remember if it was Dave, Phil, or Kevin that made that comment to me. So, yeah, I'm going to purchase a show and call it done. In hindsight, I kind of want to know if I would have had better luck seeing them in Des Moines, IA, and talking to Lars Ulrich than in Moline. I never considered going to Des Moines on a Sunday night. It wouldn't have been easy to work into my schedule but I suppose for a free Metallica ticket, I could have found a way.
  5. In the meantime, I'm looking ahead to a week from today. Tentatively, I'm going to Waterloo to see Saving Abel, Shinedown, Buck Cherry, and Avenge Sevenfold with my friend JR. I have to put the finishing touches on that 'deal' before I call it sealed.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

MOTW

Given: Make a link on a HTML page in your RoboHelp WebHelp system that is installed on the local c:\ open a PDF that is also stored on c:\ drive.

Here's other 'givens':

If you include Mark of the Web (MOTW) in your HTML files, the link to the PDF breaks but all your HTML pages do not display the information bar in IE 7.

If you don't include MOTW, the link to the PDF works but all your HTML pages display the information bar in IE 7.

If you embed each PDF into its own HTML file , you have to deal with "very limited options, can't be resized, lacking toolbars."

The only workaround I see is to right-click the link to the PDF, select "Save Shortcut," go to the Address bar, right-click, select Paste, then press . That "solution" is a technical workaround and not user-friendly.

My (cool) manager wants the PDFs distributed with the Help.

Putting the PDFs on our server is not an option.

Putting all of our online Help on our server is not an option either. All programming resources are tied up in critical projects that cannot be delayed while they would be working on this issue.

What do you do?

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Regina is Done

Regina played Mid-Prairie last night and lost so the football team is done for the year. They lost 38-20. Not the way the Regal fans are used to ending their season. No trip to the UNI-Dome (where state football is held) this year.

Still no word on Metallica.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Metallica on Tour and I'm...

...waiting to hear if I'm getting a pass to the Moline, IL, gig on Saturday. I haven't heard from their label. I'm hoping it happens! Otherwise, I will have to purchase a ticket - I am really excited to see them. This is what they played in Portland, OR, on Saturday:

That Was Just Your Life
The End of the Line
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Ride The Lightning
One
Broken, Beat & Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
And Justice for All
No Remorse
Kirk Solo #1
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Fight Fire With Fire
Kirk Solo #2
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Last Caress
Stone Cold Crazy
Seek and Destroy

Simple to Complex

What I failed to mention in my last post, apparently, is that when Karen went to leave for work on Friday, the driver's front tire on the van was flat. We shifted all of the kids' Halloween costumes to the truck because it was already 7:20 and I really didn't want to deal with it. I actually wanted to go to work. I told Karen I would deal with it tomorrow.

Well, tomorrow (11/1) came and I went out to the garage around 7:30. We have had a flat tire on our Dodge Caravan van before. There's a plastic plug that lifts up and you use the tire thingie to turn this nut counterclockwise. That drops the tire to the ground, you fish a plastic thingie through the middle of the tire and you're set. Change the tire and move on.

Except that turning the nut counterclockwise only lowered the cable that the tire is threaded through but not the actual tire. I worked on it for 45 minutes. I reread the manual that came with the van. I looked at the tire again. I reread the manual. 45 minutes later, I just didn't get it.

I called our former neighbor Bill and asked him to come over. He did. He looked at it and tried to get the tire to lower. Wasn't happening. Bill says let's see if the tire will hold air. We concluded that the tire was flat because of a bad valve stem. So we put 36 pounds of air into the tire and it took air. I told Bill that if he was going to split wood, to call and I would come over and help him. Alex and I got in the van and drove to Sears. We noticed some smoke coming from the engine when we backed out.

Now, here's the funny unfunny part. I had my cell phone with me. It is set to vibrate. I have it in my pocket. We're standing in line and there's about 4 people ahead of us. We noticed that at the other desk, where no one is standing at, the phone rings. A guy shows up from the garage area and answers the phone. "No, there's no Dodge Caravan here." In hindsight, that makes sense. We had parked by the garages and you can't see that area from where this guy was standing. We thought about calling Karen but didn't because there are a lot of Dodge Caravans in the world.

Turns out, we should've.

About that time, I felt my phone vibrate. It was Karen. She had been trying to reach me on my cell because she was worried that the van's tire gave out while we were driving from North Liberty to Coralville. She had called Linder Tire, where we normally do a lot of our car business, and she had called Sears and no one knew where I was. Looking at my call history, she had tried me repeatedly - yet, I only felt my phone vibrate the time I answered it and it was in the exact same spot where I felt it - in my pocket.

Karen was on her way down to Sears because she thought I was in the ditch. Alex and I hopped in the truck and rode back to North Liberty. My wife wsa mad that I had not answered my cell. I tried to explain that it wasn't my fault but she really didn't want to hear about it.

So, anyways, we had pancakes, eggs, and ham for breakfast, did some laundry, and put away Halloween stuff while we waited for Sears to call. I ended up calling them ~11:30 and the van was done. It was a valve stem and the smoke came from some excess fluid burning off - nothing to worry about, they said.

So then, Bill calls and says that he is going to split wood.I told him we'd be there between 1:30 and 2:00. We left to get the van picked up and then Alex and I drove to Bill's - stopping at Casey's for a 1 liter of Pepsi for me and a A&W Root Beer for Alex - to help him split wood. We worked at Bill's until 3:30, which is when we left to take showers and get ready for 5:15 Mass. We were planning to leave @ 4:10. The women got home around 4 and we left ~4:15. Got to church, warmed up, and played Mass.

After Mass, we went to BK for supper. Then we went home, packed a cooler and went over to Bill's for a firepit. It was windy and cold so we didn't last long outside. We went inside and played Euchre. The men beat the women, 2 games to 1.

Then we came home, watched a little TV, and I went to bed.

What started out as a simple day - change a flat tire - turned into a complex series of events. It should have been
a) change the flat tire
b) drive to Sears on the spare
c) fix the tire, take off the spare and put it back
d) come home

It shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did for everything to get done yesterday. Every thing turned out okay but it was kind of a rocky road.