Current Brainstorms
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Someone asked me the other day about New Years Resolutions. Do I make them? Do I keep them? Well my answer was, "Kind of". I am very good about having intentions of doing the right thing. I'll decide I want to do something and make a concerted effort to keep it. For a time. During school I would typically schedule things so I had time to go to the gym and work out. That might last until the first round of tests. After that, it was almost certain to fall along the side of the path.
This year my resolution is the same as it is almost every year. Loose weight. I'm a big boy. I recognize that. I have always been heavy, however this year is different. I wouldn't say I've reached a crisis point, but I'm well beyond what I would be comfortable with. I know it can be done. My father is a great success story. He has lost over 300 pounds. (Yes Three Hundred) He has done it through a very strict diet in conjunction with metabolic weight loss products and exercise.
This last weekend I purchased some push-up hand grasps and an exercise mat. I have been using the push-up grasps along with my formerly dusty ab-roller (from a previous attempt). I also have a funky little walker thing that I got from my grandmother and a set of Tae Bo videos. My favorite piece of exercise equipment is an Elliptical walker. I have checked out Oshman's and Academy. Oshman's has a mid-line one for about 200 dollars that I'm considering getting. I'm just not sure where it would fit in my tiny apartment.
With that all said and done. I wish you much luck and love in the new year. 2002 has been a roller coaster year for me. I was laid-off and in the job search for five months. I finally found a new job that I truly enjoy. In the middle of my search I met an enchanting young lady who has since become my girlfriend.
I have been richly blessed. I have wonderful supportive friends, the strength of my family behind me, and the love of a pretty girl. What more could you ask for?
May you all be blessed in the following year. And to all those who have been my comfort in an overwhelming storm. Thank you.
9:35 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, December 30, 2002
I am my father's child.
I listen to the radio at work. At 1:15 PM there was a tornado warning announced over the weather alert. The weather said that there was a funnel cloud spotted over The Colony that was headed towards Frisco where I work. My first reaction? Well after telling everyone else in the office what the radio said, I walked down to look at the clouds and move my car under the car port.
What's funny about that? It's exactly what my dad would do. The difference? I'm back to programming rather than watching the storm.
1:52 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Friday, December 27, 2002
I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Mine was good, but it seemed awfully rushed. A whole lot of driving. I got lot's of goodies. Oddly enough though, I didn't get a new set of headphones for work. So I'll go to Ultimate Electronics during lunch and find a nice new pair with my Christmas money.
10:54 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, December 24, 2002
It's 2:30 and all's well.
Good News: I have all the data at the moment and need to put it into a temporary table so that I can return a resultset to the client. Layman's terms: I know what I need to do to be where I want to be.
Bad News: My productivity is rapidly declining. My back has started to protest all this abuse (these aren't the best chairs for back support) and I am having a problem concentrating. I think I'm going to go to Wal-Mart for a little while and see what there is to be seen at this hour. It's more just a trip to get up and move around than anything else.
2:28 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Don't you hate it when you spend 4 hours trying to figure out why your program isn't working only to find that you named a variable the wrong thing. It was doing exactly what you told it to do. Oh well... The music is cranked and the caffeine drip is flowing. It's actually not that bad. I'm typically a night owl. Now just don't try to get me up in the morning.
It is officially Christmas Eve. This momentous occasion finds me at work at 1:00 in the morning. Why? Well other the obvious lack of sanity, I'm trying to get my tasks done so that I can take off at noon and not worry about this place again until Friday. I wouldn't say that I was exactly quilted into it, but my own stubbornness has coupled with guilt has brought me to this state. Theoretically it's supposed to slow down. We're hiring another programmer. I think I'm going to be his mentor. That should be very interesting.
Since I'm taking a few moments of distraction to tell you of my plight, I thought I would also provide you with this one little bit of insight. The Two Towers lived up to even my very high expectations. I still have not see Star Trek: Nemesis, but my time has been severely limited of late.
Merry Christmas everyone. This afternoon I will be undertaking my annual whirlwind tour of Texas. Stops this year include Brownwood, Abilene, and Quanah before returning to Dallas Thursday night in preparation for working Friday.
12:47 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, December 19, 2002
You know, everyone is entitled to their opinion. It's when they try to force their opinion on someone else that I care.
Someone is trying to force the movie execs to change the name of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers based on political correctness.
Here's a
response that I think sums up my feelings much more eloquently than I could.
Update: I'm still coding like mad. Three down. One to go. But in the mean time I have been given a new assignment. Write a
stored procedure in
DB2 that will do most of the work of a program in Java. It's currently 867 lines of highly
object-oriented Java code. Oh.... and did I mention, I've never written a stored procedure in DB2?
Well... I told Yaser to, "Bring it on!" I guess he's doing just that. Muhaha!!!
10:25 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Today I have been a mad coding fool. Well actually, not just today. The last couple of days. I am writing data transfer to go to insurance carriers that have to be written by the 1st... My test files need to be sent by next Monday. I have some corrections to make to one of them, but 2 down, 2 to go.
WHOOP!
I don't know how many times you get in the zone and you really can't do any wrong, but that's me at the moment. I love this feeling. It's why I'm so passionate about coding. Well that and I love to solve problems. And that's what coding is all about.
I'm almost not upset about not getting to go see the Two Towers today. Hmm... I'm thinking Saturday. Yes, definately Saturday. Well... that is if I don't have a breakdown and sneak over to the theatre during work hours.
Can you tell I'm jazzed up on coke and Starbucks?
2:34 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, December 17, 2002
News of the weird that's just a little too weird:
Drunken Elephants Kill Six
1:13 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Prayer Concern:
My
brother's girlfriend Samantha moved down here from Michigan a little over a year ago now. When she left she knew her father had a brain tumor, but he'd been fighting it for a while. She got a call this weekend from one of her uncles telling her that he may or may not make it to Christmas. She was able to fly up to see him courtesy of hospice a few months ago, but I know this is very hard on her. I would ask for your prayers for her, her father, and her family.
7:36 AM Posted by Big Dave
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A lot has happened over the last several days. I unfortunately don't have time to recap them. Here are some cryptic highlights. If you really want to know. Ask. My mind does turn to mush at some points and needs something else to do besides code reports.
Christmas shopping with Mom and Desiree
"2 Minutes" at
Borders = 20 Minutes
Lunch at
Genghis Grill with my mom and her parents
My brother got "Tea'd" on
There is a mystery Tea man on the loose.
Mmmmm... Leather (insert my best
Homer impression here)
Sleep? What's that?
7:30 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, December 12, 2002
I'm sure someone will be really amused by my Christmas list, so I thought I would list it here.
-
Lilo and Stitch on DVD
-
Ice Age on DVD
-
Crossroads of Twilight by
Robert Jordan. (Pre-order)
-
Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Season 3 (Pre-order)
- Any little gadget or toy
-
Lego Mindstorm
-
Build your own robot kit/book (Barnes and Nobles has these)
- Book on how to play Harmonica
-
Cowboys tickets (should be really cheap right now)
-
Stars tickets
-
FW Brahmas tickets
- A national championship for the
Aggies
- Tennis shoes – 10.5 Wide or 11
-
Open the Eyes of my Heart [1] – Christian music compilation
- Closed ear headphones
-
Segway Human Transporter
-
Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (NRSV)
- Car Tape adapter for CD player
- 2.4 Ghz Portable phone
- Dilbert Books
-
Legos
- Gift certificates –
Best Buy,
REI
- Board game – Trivial Pursuit
- Dominoes with ATM on them (for
42)
- Folding camping chair with arm rest (and drink holder)
- Shirts – 3XL
- Football
- Book shelf
- Folding camping table
1:17 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I'm having a real problem concentrating today. Very annoying. Especially when I have a ton to do. Oh well...
1:34 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Saturday, December 07, 2002
I'm at work today. Not my ideal way of spending part of my Saturday, but I couldn't stand being up here any more last night. I finally left about 7:00. When I left Yaser and Eric were still going, but planned to get out of there soon. I came in this morning and Eric was here with his daughter. Apparently he and Yaser had been up here until 7:00. He went home to change, eat, and clean up and came back up here.
Now I love what I do. Don't get me wrong there. I love the problem solving aspect of programming, but I give it all I've got for 8-10 hours a day. At the end of that day, I'm exhausted. I don't understand how these guys can do the same type of thing for 20 hours or so at a time. I don't know if it's an endurance problem, but somewhere in there, I have to have something else for my mind to do. Otherwise it turns to complete mush. I think it's just insane. Oh well...
The reason for the madness? We have a new client going live on Monday. We thought we had it well in hand. I guess we were mistaken.
12:22 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Friday, December 06, 2002
A friend of mine has told me that one of his co-workers has 6 Golden Lab puppies that are available free to a good home. They are in California, but we can probably figure out how to get them to where they need to be later. Any of them that are not claimed will be taken to the animal shelter.
3:35 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Hmmm... $5,000 for a
Segway. I don't quite think I want to fork that kinda money over.
12:06 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, December 03, 2002
There is a security camera above the entrance I use when I come in to work. I look up at it almost every time I come in. This week I came in to discover the camera had been replaced by a new camera. I had looked at it to try and figure out if it was real. But they had the cables connected and everything else. I guess the camera was a fake camer they replaced with a real security camera. I have seen fake security cameras before, and it really amuses me. I think it's very funny that we are kept honest by the parania of being watched. Someone was telling me that their office had installed fake security cameras in the bathrooms because they kept being vandalized. After the cameras were put in, the vandelism stopped. Nevermind that if you stopped to think about it you would realize that real security cameras in the bathroom would cause all sorts of legal issues. Maintain order through paranoia. Big brother is watching.
1:02 PM Posted by Big Dave
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I had this ready to go yesterday, but got busy and didn't get it posted. So... here it is.
Well... my boss has all the files locked again and hasn't yet made it in to work. The boy works mad crazy hours, but usually doesn't come in until 10:00.
Since I have a little time on my hands, I thought I would recap. This Thanksgiving Desiree and I did the holidays with each other's families. This was something new to me. I enjoyed it, but I have to admit it was a little odd.
Thanksgiving day I went with Desiree to a gathering of her father's side of the family. She had originally warned me that last year they had 100 people. We got there about 11:30 and they had a priest give a blessing and do communion. I know there were 40 who took communion, but I think the total number was closer to 65. This was all in the grandparents house so it got a little crowded and noisy in there. I decided to escape and went to play with the kids. I played and watched them as they played hide-and-go-seek for about 2 hours. I wasn't being very social, but I had a good time.
From there we drove to Quanah. It's a little bitty town where my mom's parents and one of her sisters live. We had a nice big group. I don't think we had enough chairs for everyone to be there. I think we may have to get some more chairs for grandmother. I actually went out to my car and brought in my little camping chair that I leave in it. It sure made me feel short.
We drove to Abilene Friday night after a big melodrama before we left. Things were said that probably shouldn't have been said, and someone's feelings got hurt. We relaxed and played and visited. I went to play geek for a couple of hours on Saturday. We went to church on Sunday with my mom and drove back.
All and all it was a great weekend. It seemed like I was always on the go, but I had a lot of fun. Dezi amazed me with her ability to become immediately at home in any situation. Now I'm back and have a long couple of weeks with work before Christmas.
Speaking of which, I really need to get some shopping done.
Another highlight of the weekend: Saturday night after a failed attempt at going dancing, we watched
Fellowship of the Ring in preparation for seeing
The Two Towers.
17 16 Days and counting.
9:04 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, December 02, 2002
Well I'm back. At work and in one piece. I had a marvelous Turkey Day weekend. Thanksgiving with the families was fun. Everyone seemed to have a bug of some kind or another. I ate a lot, laughed a lot, and drove a whole lot. I need a little more sleep, but I'm actually drinking coffee this morning. We'll see what it does to keep me awake. I hope you all had fun with friends and family.
8:54 AM Posted by Big Dave
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