Doing it Again and Again

I logged into my work PC tonight. I hadn't been on the PC in the den all weekend - we were out of town Sat. AM in Cedar Falls and today I slept in - so I was just kind of curious what had happened @ work after I left @ 5.

Shocking news. As I was leaving Friday, one of my friends Sue told me that her last day was that day and that I wouldn't see her at our employer again. Sue was a good Support rep and I think from what I had observed, she was learning quickly. That said, I didn't work with her daily so I admit I am not the best of judges.

So tonight, when I got onto my work PC, I also learned that my friend Leah is done at our employer as well. I will miss Leah. She would have had her 2 year anniversary in just a few short days. I learned my Girl Authority CD to her and she lost it. . I hope Leah lands on her feet and that her reason(s) for leaving work out for her.

I had high hopes for both Sue and Leah to lead the new generation of support reps. We had another guy, Derek, leave earlier this month as well. I don't know what's going on but I hope it's not something serious. Our Support reps are our first line of Customer Support and, frankly, we need knowledge up front. Training new employees is time-consuming. I hope the company hires replacements quickly. The Support dept has a lot of initiatives on-going and losing three people is not going to make anyone's job easier.

As for me, I have a meeting with my manager on Wednesday to talk about my progress in the last year. I have accomplished many things and I feel good about where I have progressed in the last year. I had an aggressive set of goals laid out for me but, frankly, most of them did not get accomplished due to the workload I was expected to complete. In my mind, I am doing the work of two full-time people. I hop from developing the UI for our Windows Screens product and releasing those changes to the clients over to actual writing documentation. I was asked, of the two, which I liked more. A year ago, hands-down, I would have said writing documentation. Lately, even before the J Walk training, I've been liking developing the UI as much. I think I'm starting to master those tasks. I still make mistakes and no, I'm not perfect. But in the sense of learning, I feel like I learn the most with developing the UI.

That all said, looking ahead, I have until the end of this month to clear away my backlog of projects - and the backlog is pretty thick - so that I can start writing documentation for a new product that will encompass 9 different new systems into a new suite. That means that there will be hundreds - I'm guessing - of new screens to write about and that will keep me very busy. That product is due to QA by the end of the year. I am really hoping that I can wrap my head around all the intricacies of it and make my goal of having it all documented by the time it arrives in QA at the end of 2008. I need to find a way to make that happen.

Which brings me back to trying to balance the work of two full-time positions. It's not going to work forever and something has to give. Hopefully, my conversation with my manager on Wednesday delves into how and what is going to give.

Stupid Blue Devils

At Duke University, there were four sophomores taking chemistry and all of them had an "A" so far. These four friends were so confident, that the weekend before finals, they decided to visit some friends and have a big party.
They had a great time, but after all the hearty partying, they slept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.Rather than taking the final then, they decided that after the final they would explain to their professor why they missed it.They said that they visited friends but on the way back they had a flat tire. As a result, they missed the final.The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day.The guys were excited and relieved. They studied that night for the exam.The Professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them a test booklet. They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points.Cool, they thought! Each one in separate rooms, thinking this was going to be easy ... then they turned the page.On the second page was written....
Scroll down....

Just a bit more.......


Oh, you can take it......







Almost there.......







You sure you want to read this? LOL Ok...... Here is "The Exam"....... ......... ......... .











For 95 points: Which tire?

Death Notice

130,339 People

Wrong City, People, WRONG CITY

Two upcoming events are being held in the WRONG city as far as I'm concerned:
An Evening with Terry Bozzio
West Music is proud to present Terry Bozzio on Oct. 21st at 6:30pm in the Redstone Room at River Music Experience, 129 Main St., Davenport, IA.

Bozzio is a phenomenal drummer, as evidenced below:

On top of that, West Music scheduled this event:
Meet & Greet Louie Bellson
Come shake hands with legendary percussionist Louie Bellson from 4:00-5:00pm October 14th at West Music, 4305 44th Ave., Moline, IL.
And Louie Bellson? Here's a small taste of his ability.

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OK GO

I listened to OK GO for the first time yesterday and now I'm hooked. Thanks a lot ChrisM.
I think this is my favorite song. I don't understand why my local rock stations have never picked up this band. They fit into the White Stripes kind of genre. And I can't freakin' believe it! They *just* played a couple of weeks ago on 09/26/2008 at the Regents Center in Decorah, IA. I'm totally bummed now. I'm trying to think of what I was doing on 9/26 . . .Oh, here it is. We went to the Regina football game.

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I like this song too:

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This is a live version of the song above.

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Only 2 hours 39 minutes or 126.81 miles away...

Closet Jerry Springer fan

I think I've seen a few episodes of Jerry Springer and I found the show kind of interesting.

Human Abstract, 36CF, ATR, and Trivium sampler

On Monday, I saw Human Abstract, 36 Crazy Fist, All That Remains, and Trivium. As a taste of what I saw:

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Generic

This is more of a note to myself than anything.

Somewhere Else
I looked today and not found
Resigned to cross another day
I wanted today but it too will pass
I continue the path
Envisioning the opportunity in my world
Tasting fulfilling
Opportunity went to someone else
Do I seek another

At this place in my life
I reach this place daily
Am I better off where I stand?
You shape my path
Envisioning I am somewhere else
Seemed to me at the time
Wanted to leave before now
Continuing on my path, I persist

Sun slowly approaches
It seems like this is it
Could this be my final day
To conquer all that is in front of me
You are the one
I have to choose what I do with it

It seems like this is the time

Do I confront this?
Do I take it on?
Where are my answers?
Did I know I'd be like this?

I longed to be somewhere else
Long before this day began
It seemed innocent then
Why go on like this
If opportunity takes me somewhere else
I'm ready for the journey
Someone higher decides for me
I just accept or decline the offer

How to kill a Conversation

My friend Sue passed this comic on the HATT list today: http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/10/a-little-less-conversation.html

Will speculate on why it is so applicable later tonight.

The Week Ahead

This week is crazy busy.

Monday, Alex has his piano lesson. I usually take him and sit in the teacher's living room and listen but, tonight, I'm going to a concert @ Hawkeye Downs. I only have heard two of the 4 bands (36 Crazy Fist & Trivium). Both are metal. I'll write a review of it for dailyvault.com

Tuesday, Megan has a volleyball game @ 6 so we leave immediately when I get home.

Wednesday, Megan has her piano lesson after being off the month of Sept and rarely practicing. I also have a coach's meeting for Alex's team @ North Dodge @ 6:30.

Thursday, Karen and the kids have haircuts and I'm donating blood.

Friday, we're going to see Karen's brother's band in Cedar Falls and staying overnight at his house.

Saturday, we're going to my nephew's football game (Karen's his godmother). Then we're coming back home and playing @ 5:15 Mass.

Sunday, Alex has basketball practice from 3-5. I have to mow the yard of the house down the street.

Then it starts all over again.

Devotion and Desire for 24 to come soon

Bayside is a band that I've learned about in the last couple of years. Their power punk is really worth a listening. I just got a flyer from their label that they have 2 new CDs coming out - a live CD and a studio. I hope to hear them both soon.

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Another fairly recent thing I like to do is watch "24" on the Fox network. I haven't seen the first 5 seasons - only season 6 - so I don't know a lot about what has happened the first 5 seasons. I guess some things take a while for me to catch on to. This is the Wikipedia page about the next season: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_(season_7)

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If you get an E-mail with "Nude Photos of Sarah Palin" in the subject line,
do not open it. It might contain a virus.
If you get an E-mail with "Nude Photos of Hillary Clinton",
do not open it. It might contain nude photos of Hillary Clinton

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Finally, unrelated to Bayside or the show "24" or anything else, really, we played 11 Mass today. We played a song called "Lead Me Lord" and, for my drum part, I did a pseudo-"Enter Sandman" floor tom rhythm. I really like that song.

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I also had this song in my head today:

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As well as this song:

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Sunday Poison

My keyboard leaked venom when it tackled the latest Poison release: http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=5698

Double bass amazing

Whew!

What a week. It went by very quickly.

The main thing is that I am happy. I think that says a lot about a person - how happy they are. I look at my life with a guarded disbelief. I find it interesting how life has been very good to me. I read in the newspaper and online about all these messed up people. At a local junior high, for example, there was a 12 year old boy who took down his pants and tried to get a girl to touch him. He's in the newspaper for sexual abuse. My daughter is 12! I can't imagine being in a situation where you have to talk to the police about your child's behavior. It's something I can't fathom.

We went to the Regina / Tipton game last night and, as expected, Regina won to improve to 6-0. Regina didn't play bad but it was a game that never felt like it had much of a rhythm to it. There were penalties on both sides. Tipton scored within the last 4 minutes to make it 27-7 and then tried an onside kick - those never work - to try to get the ball back. It was cold sitting in the stands but it was worth seeing the action. A Regina player leveled a Tipton player and laid him out. Tipton also had a 80 yard punt that they downed on the 1 yard line. Regina ended up scoring - if I recall correctly - on that drive.

Today is the MSU v. IA game. It's in Michigan and the Hawks desparately need a win to avoid being 0-2 in the Big Ten.

In Iowa, we are having friends come over ~5:30 and we're ordering pizza. I think the time between the end of the game and 5:30 will be spent cleaning up the house. We've identified some tasks - like cleaning up the bathroom closet and putting our ghosts out on the porch - as things that need to be done.

I took the van over to Linder Tire at 6 AM. I filled up the van with gas ($57), dropped it off, and walked home - it's about a mile. The issue with the van? The brakes squeal and Karen's not happy re: that.

I had the craziest dream and I don't know what brought it on. I dreamed that I went to my high school's first swim team practice in Cedar Rapids. I left my hosue @ 5 AM and got there @ 6 and had a talk with the coach. I talked about how I wanted to help coach and how I missed swimming and how I felt like I could contribute. In the dream, my former coach turned it into feeling guilty about my friend Lee's death and how it was just the grieving process that led me to practice. So then it was 7:15 and Alex - who mysterioudly showed up - had to be @ school in Iowa City - by 8 AM. And we had to take showers and get dressed before we could even leave. Then I had to turn around and get to work by 8. It was amazing how the circumstances of it all played out. I don't know what to really think of it all. I feel like I constantly think about Lee.

Lee was on the swim team with me all 4 years. He and Mike and I were the only 4 to go from freshmen to seniors. Lee and Mike were voted captains - I was not. Lee kind of took me under his wing. I remember - and the kids have heard this story - how he told me how to hold my fork. I don't really think anyone but Lee could have said "Hey, what are you doing?" and told me to not hold it in my fist. I chuckle when I think about him. I remember being in 10th grade geometry one day and he had a Sports Illustrated magazine. There was an article about Len Bias, a basketball player who had recently died from Marphan's Syndrome. His symptons were tall, skinny, big hands, and big feet. Lee proclaimed, "Hans, you have Marphan's Syndrome." I remember going as far as to send the article to my doctor at the time and ask what he thought. "No, you don't have Marphan's Syndrome."

Lee also used to kid me about how skinny I was. He said I was so skinny, I could go down the drain but my feet would prevent me from going all the way down. He also used to sing "I was born to love you / I was born to love you / I was born to love you / but you were born to love me first." It was paraphrasing "Caddyshack" : http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071030134508AAobb7X. I do miss Lee. Funny thing is that I doubt we would have even kept in contact after high school if he were still around. When he died in 1996, I went to the wake because of knowing him in high school and because I wanted to offer my sympathy to his parents and brothers and sister. It wasn't because we had been hanging out together. I know he's in a better place.


Work was crazy yesterday. I just got the 08V2R1 Mass Release out the door and had to turn around and start the 08V3R1 Early Release prep that has to go out Monday. I did take a moment to notice the following comic:






I got the biggest laugh when I removed "retail" in the final panel.

I also happened upon last Sunday's "Blondie" which I thought was very funny.


Finally, I used to contribute reviews to Jersey Beat. I still have them in my Favorites but it had been a while since I checked out their site. The last time I was there, the layout did not look *anything* like it does now. I like the design. I came across this review. I warn you - the writer uses the f bomb to make his point: http://www.jerseybeat.com/metallica_deathmagnetic.html. I also found Jim's blog: http://jerseybeat.blogspot.com/.

The Deal is Officially Communicated

Got this e-mail message from the realtor that is working the house down the street - the one I have mowed all summer.

Paul,

We now have an accepted offer on [the house] and it is scheduled to close November 3, 2008. In order to ensure you are paid, we need a final bill no later than Monday, October 27, 2008. Please account for at least one mowing that final week (of the 27th). Thanks for all your work!

Sounds awesome.

Something else that *always* sounds awesome is Don Dokken and George Lynch:

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And if you're going down 80s metal lane, you need to stop @ the Ratt stop. Here's a twist - the Donnas playing it!

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New Review

http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=5661

The Day Arrives Rather Unexpectedly

The neighbor's house down the street - the one the realtor paid me $50 to mow?

SOLD

So the months of earning $250 for mowing are over. I hope to squeak out at least another week or two before relinquishing the duty to the new homeowner.

Too Much TV?!?

Visit THE SONY TV MINISODES site!

Hump Day

Megan said it. Beautifully at supper tonight, during a pause in our dinner conversation, she says, "I can't believe it's already Wednesday."

I agree. This week has gone very quickly. Tomorrow will be very busy as well. At work, I have a schedule laid out for 9/20 through 12/31/08. I have estimates on when things are to be done and what I anticipate working on during a given week. I have given a copy to my manager and, when she returns from a day off tomorrow, I'm hoping we sit down and talk about it. I am anxious for the next months to come and go. There is a lot to be done and not a lot of flexibility as to when things are to be done. I think the challenge of scheduling it out is something I'm good at. I look at priorities and what I know about - understanding there are bound to be projects I don't learn about until they are sitting on my desk as well as projects that are created on Monday morning, programmed Monday afternoon, to my dept (QA) by Tuesday @ 8 AM, tested, and released by noon. Then it comes to me for documentation. My stack of work is quite large right now. Not all of the changes in my bin actually have documentation changes. However, I'm betting a lot of them do. I also have 50+ e-mail messages with suggestions for doc changes, including ones I sent to myself that note that a .htm file needs to be changed from a table-based layout to a tableless layout.
There are also authentic changes to the documentation that need to be done.

One thing to note is that my manager had sent along something she thought should be changed. It was the first documentation change I had made since 9/4/08, according to the tracking document I maintain. TWENTY DAYS WITHOUT MAKING A SINGLE DOCUMENTATION CHANGE! I hadn't realized it had been that long. There are plenty of things I could be doing with documentation but, for the rest of this week and into next week, I really don't think I will work on any doc changes. I'm hoping to have my other work done by noon on Tuesday so I can start making the doc changes. I have ~3 weeks before I will have to start doing what I've been doing the last couple of weeks again. Then by the end of October... know what - I'll document my plan when I have it in front of me.

So I move along. There was an e-mail message sent to the TWer list I subscribe to. Cheryl told me I could quote her so here we go. First, she sent this message to the list:

-----Original Message-----
From: Cheryl
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 11:11 AM

I work in software doing technical writing and support. I crochet as a hobby. I would like to explore extending my techcomm skills to tech editing in the crochet world for publishers, manufacturers and designers. Ideally it would make possible a dream job that would keep me working and loving it (more than I do now) way past retirement age. Has anyone on the list flirted with combining a hobby with their career?

Any pointers?

Cheryl

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So I wrote back:

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----- Original Message -----
From: Me
To: Her
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 4:25 PM

I combine my music hobby with writing. I've been writing music reviews forhttp://www.dailyvault.com/reviewers.php5?id=9 for over a decade. I used to get paid $20/column for a site that doesn't exist anymore.

Nowadays, I am "paid" by passes to concerts. I received two passes for a $35concert last Tuesday, I have two passes to a concert on 10/6 coming and I'm hoping to secure two more passes to a concert in Moline, IL, on 11/8 .

I also receive promo CDs in the mail weekly and if you figure $15/CD, I makea pretty good monthly gig!

I find that my review writing has crossed over into my tech writing and the conciseness I use in my TWing has crossed over into my review writing. I don't think writing about your passion has anything but good results.

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To which Cheryl wrote back:


-----Original Message-----
From: Cheryl Wallace
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:52 AM
To: Paul

... you are officially The Man. And you have great taste in music. :) Thanks for the only upbeat opinion that acknowledges that passion feeds the soul and it worthwhile even if it won't necessarily feed the body. In a perfect world, you'd be following Metalllica on tour writing reviews for shows in every city and I'd be on staff at a yarn maufacturer taking full advantage of a substantial employee discount!.

You play the cards you're dealt.

PS. I'm off to find the Hayseed Dixie Kiss tribute.

Cheryl

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Youtube is awesome:

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I helped Megan study her 44 vocabulary words that she got today for her test tomorrow. 44 words in a single night is a lot. One of her words was "sedated" which, music man here, said, "Oh! 'I Wanna Be Sedated!'"

"Huh?" replied Megan.

"The song is about being calm, which is the opposite of rock and roll. It's a great song."

So she finally could remember the meaning and, for that, I rewarded her by letting her watch this:

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Which then led me to Sugarcult:

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Missed a Day

I missed Neil Peart's birthday. It's not like he would notice I didn't send him a card. Came across this link, though, and thought it was blog-worthy. http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/09/happy-birthday-neil-peart.html

In other news, tragedy has struck near us. First, our friend's sister was found dead after an apparent suicide. I was told that her ex-husband found her dead on their wedding anniversary. Second, our friend's father passed away after fighting cancer. Third, I wrote about my next door neighbor being pregnant. She suffered a miscarriage. That happened a couple of weeks ago but by including it in with the more recent tragedies, it qualifies in the rule of 3 bad things happening. Right? RIGHT??!?

In other news, I heard on KRNA that Avenged Sevenfold, Buck Cherry, Shinedown, and Saving Abel are playing in Waterloo on Saturday, November 15th (info here: http://www.rock108.com/page.php?page_id=10345) and yes, these are the same bands I saw a week ago tonight and that I wrote about here: http://www.dailyvault.com/article.php5?id=153

Tonight, I finished mowing the neighbor's yard so I can turn in my invoice (maybe my last) for the month of September.

Also, a while back, Rush played the Colbert show. I had never watched the show - I know, where have I been - and, for my friend JR, I found this:

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Editor's Note - the video in question was removed from youtube.com

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Check out the groove @ 1:11. Phenomenal!

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Editor's Note - the video in question was removed from youtube.com,

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And that's about enough silliness for today.

Concert Review & the Week Ahead

The Buckcherry, ShineDown, and Saving Abel concert review is posted on Dailyvault.
The week ahead:
Mon: Karen has a training class @ night I hope to mow either our yard or our neighbor's yard. Kids have homework.
Tue: Megan has volleyball. Kids have homework.
Wed: Nothing @ night except homework
Thu: Kids have homework.
Fri: University of Iowa Homecoming Parade. We're playing music on the back of a flatbed truck!
Sat: Babysitting our neighbor's baby. Cleaning the house. Playing @ 5:15 Mass.
Sun: Karen wants to clean the storage room and take every thing out of it. We also want to get Megan's room in better shape and also the den and basement need to be worked upon to make them both better looking. At 3, Alex has basketball practice.

On the horizon, plus, "I'm that guy"

Megadeth is coming out with yet another collection of their "greatest" material. I am looking forward to hearing it in the not so distant future and will, of course, review it for dailyvault.com

Also, I wanted to write about something I do in the car. I air drum. I turn to my local rock station and, depending upon the song, I move my hands and arms with the beat to whatever song is playing. I'm that guy that you see driving down the road who is seriously jamming to whatever is playing. I have this sickness and it's called air drumming. There's even Youtube.com vids about it:

No, this is not me, but... it may as well be.

Pay Attention!

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with every thing? I am down in the den and it's a pit. The kids have stuff all over, I have CDs all over and it's like, do I even want to start cleaning it up? The main part of the basement is even worse - the kids have crap all over. I hate it when my wife comes down here b/c there's never a good result out of that. We just spent about a 1/2 hour trying to find my daughter's black purse that my mother-in-law wants to borrow when they go to Hawaii on Tuesday. Of course, we can't find it. My daughter's closet is a pit - new clothes in the same plastic bag as school papers - and my son's isn't much better. They have a toy box that had socks and underwear stuffed behind it and we didn't even bother to open it up. You go in their bathroom and there's wet wash cloths in a ball, the wet bath mat is on the tile and clothes and underwear and socks every where else. The trash can in there is overflowing b/c they argue about whose turn it is to empty it, there's dirty clothes in their baskets b/c they don't bring them down and then, this is the fun part, the one outfit that my wife is convinced my daughter needs to wear? Crumpled @ the bottom of the laundry basket, of course. My wife bought three new plastic toothbrush holders and, of course, no one can find those either. It's like "ENOUGH!"

I wish I could remember more things - like where I last saw that purse we were looking for or the toothbrush holders - but the last time I saw either, I didn't retain it. I didn't think it would be important to remember so I purged it and replaced it with something else - anything else, actually. Now I wish I would have paid attention to what was in front of me.

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Magnetic Death Demos! or Death Magnetic Demos

I have always liked listening to demos of songs. I think a demo of a song often is comparable to a rough draft when writing anything. Rough drafts often capture the writer's original spirit that is then refocused and refined and revisited countless times until you end up with the final product. With Metallica, their demos have often don't have lyrics or different lyrics than what ends up on the official version of the song. The demos for "And Justice for All" are like that. So, courtesey of YouTube, I came across a Blabbermouth.net news item that linked out to 10 videos of the demos for Metallica's "Death Magnetic" release. However, only 2 of them work!?!

Update: 10:35 PM - none of them now work... :<)

So I had to go and find this:

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And this:

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There was also a post that includes this quote from Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy:

"'Death Magnetic' is HANDS DOWN the best METALLICA album in 20 years. This is the CD I've been waiting for them to make since '…And Justice For All'. And thumbs up to them for doing the first REAL METALLICA instrumental in 20 years since 'To Live Is To Die' (if you don't count DREAM THEATER's 'Stream of Consciousness'). Welcome back, boys."

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On the same page, there was a video of Dream Theater playing "Master of Puppets" live in Chicago:

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Then I decided, "That's enough Metallica." How about another heavy band that I like? Lamb of God came to mind:

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And this is the song played by Lamb of God:

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Rainy Rain Days

First of all, Death Magnetic was released. My review of it was posted yesterday on Dailyvault.com (scroll to the bottom)

Second, my review of 4Lyn was published on 9/11 and you can read that here.

Third, it's Saturday and it seems like I have long enough to just pause for a moment before the schedule picks up again - both personally & professionally - and returns to its frantic pace.

Professionally, I can say I survived my week of training @ work on a development product that will replace our existing development product. Basically, we upgraded to what we could have upgraded to 10 years ago. On Monday, I will start using the new product to create a user interface that lays on top of a green screen application. That work (by my timeline) has to be completed by 9/24 @ noon. Then, in the afternoon of 9/24, I'll start putting together what we call the 08V2R1 mass release. That will go out the door on 9/26. THen I'll also put together what we call the 08V3R1 early release, which has to be to a client by 10/1. After that goes out the door, I *may* be able to return to writing documentation and online Help for our applications but, honestly, that's not a given. Using the aforementioned development tool to do a lot of cool things will take time and it will be a management decision what we do and how many resources we dedicate to those types of tasks. My ballpark estimate is that one full-time person could take 2 years to do all the things we want to do and, at that point, if it's me, documentation sits and grows mold. At that point it becomes my manager's decision regarding what I am to work on. I don't know what is going to happen. I think that there are some major decisions that need to be made and it will be very interesting to evaluate where all of this stands on 10/13.

Personally, I am going in 45 minutes to get an oil change for the car. Then Iowa plays ISU in football and I have said, for a couple of weeks, that I planned to sit down and watch it on the Big Ten Network (GO HAWKS!) so I'm still counting on that. I imagine the game will be over by 2. Then we are going to 5:15 Mass. I am playing drums and Karen is singing. I really enjoy playing drums @ Mass. I've been leaving my set @ church and us playing is turning into a good habit.

On Sunday, we need to winterize the camper, which means putting anti-freeze through all the pipes so that the cold winter doesn't break a pipe. We have to have that done by 2 (in my mind) because @ 3, Alex starts up his basketball team practice. It is from 3-5. I plan on making the kids run. If it ever stops raining, I'll mow our neighbor's yard.

Then the week starts. It'll start out slow on Monday but picks up steam on Tuesday. My friend Phil and I are going to Moline, IL, to see Saving Abel, Shine Down, and Buck Cherry. There was a 4th band - Avenge Sevenfold - but their singer has vocal cord problems so they cancelled the rest of their tour, including Moline. Also, on Tuesday, Megan starts her volleyball league.

On Wednesday, the kids have school pictures so that involves making sure they look nice in the AM before they get on the bus. Karen usually works early on Wednesdays but she is going in later so that she can make sure the kids look nice. If the weather is not rainy, I am planning to mow our neighbor's house down the street.

On Thursday, it is "back to school" night @ Regina. We will get to see their classrooms, have some watered down punch and maybe a cookie.

On Friday, we will hook up the truck to the camper and go to Zwhingle to store the camper for the winter. Then we are going to Balltown. I imagine we will be in Balltown by 8 PM.

On Saturday, we are going to help my father-in-law clean his windows that are on the 2nd story. There was originally talk about going golfing, but that's not a certainty. At night, we're going to a Catholic Knights dinner in Dubuque.

On Sunday, we'll return to North Liberty in time for Alex's basketball practice from 3-5. He was also invited to a classmate's birthday party and we are taking him there after practice.

Then we're to 9/22 and the whole cycle restarts. Karen has a training class @ night on 9/22. Other highlights include my deadline @ work on 9/24, and the Iowa Homecoming parade. Judy, our parish music minster, talked last Saturday about having a float in the parade and playing music on the back of a flatbed truck! Wouldnt't that be totally sweet?!? Saturday, we'll probably play @ 5:15 Mass and Sunday is basketball practice.

The following week (9/29) is the week of my decade of service @ my employer!

Rise above this

This is my favorite song. It is powerful, talks about meeting challenges and going forward.

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Take the light, undarken everything around me
Call the clouds and listen closely I'm lost without you
Call your name every day when I feel so helpless
I've fallen down but I'll rise above this, rise above this

Hate the mind, regrets are better left unspoken
For all we know, this void will grow
And everything's in vain, distressing you though it leaves me open
Feels so right, but I'll end this all before it gets me

Call your name every day when I feel so helpless
I've fallen down but I'll rise above this, rise above this
Call your name every day when I seem so helpless
I've fallen down, and I'll rise above this, rise above this doubt

I'll mend myself before it gets me
(I'll mend myself before it gets me)
I'll mend myself before it gets me
(I'll mend myself before it gets me)

Call your name every day when I feel so helpless
I've fallen down but I'll rise above this, rise above this
Forty eight ways to say that I'm feelin' helpless
I'm Falling down, falling down, but I'll rise above this, rise above this,
Rise above this, rise above this doubt

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In other news, things are crazy busy.

A Brief Pause

This week has been crazy and next week will be even crazier, both at home and at work.

At work, I am attending training for a product called JWalk. It starts tomorrow and goes until the 12th. Then, on 9/15, my co-worker and I will start developing changes with JWalk for release on 9/25. I don't think I will be able to work on documentation until 10/1.

Outside of work, some key dates:
9/11 - Megan starts her volleyball league
9/14 - Alex's basketball practice starts up again and I am the assistant head coach. The head coach, Tim, won't be there on that date so I get to run practice.
9/16 - I'm going to Moline, IL, to see Avenge Sevenfold / Buck Cherry / Shine Down / Saving Abel for *free* as Warner Brothers is sending me "hard tix" for that show.
9/17 - school pictures
9/18 - back to school night & Megan's volleyball league
9/19 - we're taking the camper to storage in Zwhingle and spending the weekend in Balltown.
9/21 - Alex's basketball practice

Somewhere in there, I will write a concert review of Avenge Sevenfold / Buck Cherry / Shine Down / Saving Abel. To say I have a backlog of reviews to write is an understatement.

I am still working on my TWing contract and I want to get that put to bed today so I'm signing off.

SP & Rush

I've tried to explain to some people what Rush did with "Tom Sawyer" when I saw them in concert earlier this year. Fortunately, You Tube has everything...

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Editor's Note - the video in question was removed from youtube.com so it is no longer available for your viewing pleasure.

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JM Review

Dailyvault.com posted my John Mellencamp review: http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=5629

While I'd like to say it's the best of 2008, I haven't heard all of Metallica's "Death Magnetic" yet so I'm not going there... except to say it is a really good release.

New Month, Old Error

I don't get it. I am now getting an error when I compile my CHM file.

I don't know why. I can't figure it out. If I have the CHM open and navigate to the same topic, the error doesn't display. It doesn't make sense to me. I want to finish this work either today or tomorrow, but I can't deliver this file unless this is fixed.

Update!

Figured it out! There is a file called eHlpDhtm.js that was included in my project. I made a backup, deleted all of its contents, recompiled and I'm good.