Deftly Dodging Sanity

And the headache continues

2011-11-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

I hate medical insurance.

I know, I know. "Hate" is a very strong word. It's not often I use that word and truly mean it. But in this case, I feel absolutely justified in my use of it. Medical insurance has caused nothing but trouble in my life. When dealing with cancer several years ago, the insurance carrier who my employer was using refused to pay any of my bills, claiming it was a "pre-existing condition." They stuck me with around $60,000 in medical bills. Needless to say, this has caused some problems in my life. Now today, cancer is once again being... well... cancerous.

After getting all treated and "cured" of all that nasty cancer business, I still have to go in for yearly checkups. I have to get my blood drawn to make sure that my T3, T4 and thyroglobulin levels are good. I have to get an ultrasound on my neck to make sure nothing's regrown. And I have to shake my doctor's hand and say "Thanks for not letting me die!" It's a pretty simple set of procedures, really, but it's costly nonetheless. For that trouble, the doctor's office charges $641. Ouch. Not to fear, medical insurance to the rescue! ...or maybe not. While they were kind enough to get the charges reduced to $221.91 due to "preferred rates" (umm...what?), they didn't actually pay any of it. Not a single penny. Nada. But wait, my work has planned for just such a problem! We have a second bit of coverage titled "Hospital Confinement Indemnity (GAP) Insurance." Yes, that does say "Hospital." No, I did not get this work done at a hospital. Don't worry, I'll come back to that. So now, a few phone calls, emails and hours later, I've got a GAP (is this supposed to be an acronym for something? Because I sure don't see it...) claim form to fill out and send along to this OTHER insurance company. As I am informed by our insurance carrier however, they will not cover the office visit. They will only cover the procedures performed there. So this leaves me with $61.37 (their cute little preferred rate) to pay of an original $641 bill. Not bad; I can handle that. After filling out the form, gathering up my doctor's bill, my original insurance explanation of benefits (in which they explained that they are going to do absolutely jack,) I faxed off all 9(!) pages to the GAP insurance company. Done deal! I should have a check in my hand within 10 days; fantastic!

But wait, you say, what about that "Hospital" business? This is where I get confused. I did not have my procedures performed at a hospital. I have not even been to a hospital in some time (knock on wood) and that is perfectly okay with me. This GAP coverage is specifically worded to be for hospital confinement resulting from sickness or injury. Granted, there is an "outpatient" section under which I may theoretically be covered, but I'm not holding my breath. Our insurance broker is absolutely certain this will be covered. After all, that's exactly why we got this silly second bit of coverage. Why wouldn't it cover it?

I'm just waiting to cringe and bend over at this point.

I hate medical insurance.

No wonder our nation is obese

2009-08-13T09:37:00.003-07:00

You know, it really saddens me (and in fact, enrages as well) to read news headlines, every single day, along the lines of "Weight Lifting Benefits Breast Cancer Patients," and "Health Buzz: Diet and Excercise Protect Brain and Other Health News." Those are just two examples taken straight from Google News today. If I go digging onto individual news outlets, I get more wonderful gems. Take, for instance, this one from CNN: "Could Fat Babies Mean Fat Toddlers?"

Seriously, people? Is our nation really that mentally challenged that we still can't figure out what keeps us at the top of the list of fattest countries in the world? Here, let me save everybody a whole lot of time and sum it all up in one quick sentence: Healthy diet, combined with regular exercise, will keep you healthy.

DONE.

If you want to lose weight, start jogging. If you want to gain muscle, lift weights. If those don't sound attractive to you, take up another hobby involving physical activity; dance, hiking, rock climbing, soccer, swimming, ANYTHING. It's not that difficult of a formula here, people. We're not searching for the elusive Higgs Boson. We're not trying to find the last digit of Pi. It's a simple matter of common sense and paying attention to your own body.

There is, of course, one other important message buried in this rant; most especially in that last paragraph. That message, for those of you who didn't notice, is: If you're not happy with the way you are, CHANGE. Don't say "I wish I was healthier;" do something about it!

If you find this posting offensive, first off, thanks for reading far enough to even become offended. That shows that you found some relevancy here. Second, try to think about why exactly it offends you. Hit too close to home? Think hard. Then do something about it.

A new burp tasty recipe!

2009-03-24T13:43:00.002-07:00

Okay okay okay yeah it's been a long damn time since I've posted... again. Last night though, I made a great new recipe that I just had to share! Best of all, it's easy to make and most of the ingredients you really SHOULD already have available in your kitchen!

So, here we go. There's not really a name for it, but it's got two separate pieces which go together wonderfully. Here they are:

Caramelized balsamic onions
* 1 medium size red onion
* 1/2 stick unsalted butter
* About 1/4-1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
* Healthy sprinkle of black pepper
* Light sprinkle of salt
* Light sprinkle of ground thyme
* 2 tsp sugar

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Slice the onion into half rings, about 1/4 inch wide and add to the melted butter. Pour the balsamic vinegar over top of the onions and stir until they become soft, about 5 minutes, adding the pepper, salt and thyme about halfway through. Once the onions are soft, sprinkle the sugar over the whole thing and let it cook until the onions start to turn golden brown, stirring less frequently.

Once the onions are ready, set them aside and place another skillet onto your already warm burner for the following:

Lemon balsamic tilapia
* 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
* About 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar (enough to fully cover the surface used to cook the fish)
* Slightly less lemon juice than balsamic vinegar. You want about a 4:3 ratio of balsamic to lemon.
* A dash of ground cloves
* Tilapia fillets (I made 3; much more and you'll overcrowd the pan, causing you to lose heat)

Toss the garlic into the pan and let it sizzle for a minute to bring out some flavor. Next, lay the bed of balsamic and lemon juice, being sure that your entire fillets will fit inside this bed. Be sure that the garlic is evenly distributed throughout the bed also, so that you don't get too heavy of a garlic flavor in one spot. Now, add the tilapia on top of everything and put that dash of cloves over top. You don't want a lot, just a hint will do the trick. Cook for a couple of minutes on each side, until it's thoroughly cooked through. This shouldn't take long at all.

To serve, just toss everything onto a plate. There should be plenty of juices in both pans to give you a nice drizzle over top.

Enjoy!
P.S. This also reheats very well!

Getting Sun's JDK working right in Fedora

2008-08-19T14:59:00.002-07:00

This should be an easy task, right? Just download the RPM, install it, done and done. Right? Well, no, not quite.

I've managed to whip up a couple commands that help with the post-install though. Namely, overriding all of the various symlinks throughout the system to IcedTea and GCJ. Here, for your viewing and usage pleasure, is what I have come up with. Please feel free to emend where you deem appropriate, and please let me know if I am missing things!

alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/java 20000 --slave /usr/bin/keytool keytool /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/keytool --slave /usr/bin/orbd orbd /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/orbd --slave /usr/bin/pack200 pack200 /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/pack200 --slave /usr/bin/policytool policytool /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/policytool --slave /usr/bin/rmid rmid /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/rmid --slave /usr/bin/rmiregistry rmiregistry /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/rmiregistry --slave /usr/bin/servertool servertool /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/servertool --slave /usr/bin/tnameserv tnameserv /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/tnameserv --slave /usr/bin/unpack200 unpack200 /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/unpack200 --slave /usr/lib/jvm/jre jre /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/jre

alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javac 20000 --slave /usr/bin/appletviewer appletviewer /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/appletviewer --slave /usr/bin/apt apt /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/apt --slave /usr/bin/extcheck extcheck /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/extcheck --slave /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jar --slave /usr/bin/jarsigner jarsigner /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jarsigner --slave /usr/bin/javadoc javadoc /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javadoc --slave /usr/bin/javah javah /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javah --slave /usr/bin/javap javap /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javap --slave /usr/bin/jconsole jconsole /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jconsole --slave /usr/bin/jdb jdb /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jdb --slave /usr/bin/jhat jhat /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jhat --slave /usr/bin/jinfo jinfo /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jinfo --slave /usr/bin/jmap jmap /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jmap --slave /usr/bin/jps jps /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jps --slave /usr/bin/jrunscript jrunscript /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jrunscript --slave /usr/bin/jsadebugd jsadebugd /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jsadebugd --slave /usr/bin/jstack jstack /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jstack --slave /usr/bin/jstat jstat /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jstat --slave /usr/bin/jstatd jstatd /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jstatd --slave /usr/bin/native2ascii native2ascii /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/native2ascii --slave /usr/bin/rmic rmic /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/rmic --slave /usr/bin/schemagen schemagen /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/schemagen --slave /usr/bin/serialver serialver /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/serialver --slave /usr/bin/wsgen wsgen /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/wsgen --slave /usr/bin/wsimport wsimport /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/wsimport --slave /usr/bin/xjc xjc /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/xjc --slave /usr/lib/jvm/java java_sdk /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07

You may notice that I did not include the manpages in these alternatives definitions. This was intentional... because alternatives is looking for gzips and the JDK, by default, does not gzip them. Whatever. I leave that as an exercise for the user. I just didn't feel like bothering, myself. :)

Another yummy veggieful recipe

2008-07-21T12:42:00.006-07:00

I may not be on my low iodine diet anymore... and it may have been a few years since I've been vegetarian, but I still enjoy experimenting with foods related to both diets. In that light, I made up some totally delicious pasta on Friday evening, which I felt needed to be shared. The idea originated from the Pasta Romantico at Boulders on Broadway, then changed a bit from a recipe found on the side of the pasta box... then received a few changes and additions of my own. A nice personal touch from yours truly.

The resulting recipe has no name, except for delicious. Here it is:

Ingredients:

1 package (8oz) angel hair pasta
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
3 whole scallions, chopped
1 red onion slice, chopped (I sliced one ring from the middle of the onion)
1-2 small white mushroom(s), chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 lime
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp fresh chopped basil

Directions:
Preparing the pasta:
Boil 3 quarts water, add noodles to the boiling water, let the water return to boiling, then cook for an additional 3-4 minutes or until noodles are tender. Careful not to overcook! Once thoroughly cooked, drain and rinse with cold water to ensure they don't continue cooking.

Preparing the rest:
In a large skillet, heat up the olive oil. Once warmed up (just a couple minutes) add the garlic and scallions to the olive oil. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Don't let these brown! Next, add the scallions, red onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepper and basil. Cook all of this for another 5 minutes or so, continuing to stir frequently. You want the garlic to start getting yellowish, but not browned and give all of the flavors a chance to mix together.

Final touches:
Once both the pasta and veggie medley are ready, combine them in a large bowl (including the olive oil you cooked the veggies in!) and toss them together. Squeeze the 1/2 lime over top of the mix. Toss some more to make sure all the flavors are mixed throughout, and you're ready to go!

Serving:
Serve warm (not hot!) with a sprinkling of feta cheese over top. Makes about 6 full size servings.

This does refrigerate and microwave well. A good sized portion takes 60 seconds to get warmed up perfectly in my microwave.

Enjoy!

As always, let me know if you have tried and enjoyed the recipe!

P.S. If you want to get a small bit of meat in here, I haven't tried it myself but I would bet that if you sauteed some shrimp and added them in here, it would be quite tasty.

Highs and lows

2008-06-28T16:15:00.002-07:00

Life definitely has these, all the damn time. Today was going great. Hanging out with my buddy Don and his kids. We had lunch, I went and picked a new SWEET tv, we had just gotten that dropped off and were heading to a movie, when BAM! A lady pulled right out in front of me in an intersection. What is it with people and pulling in front of me? Seriously. It's like I've got a big flashing sign over my head saying "PLEASE PULL IN FRONT OF ME!" So now the front end of my car is all smashed up. The passenger side headlight is hanging down, the entire bumper is hanging down, as is the front grill. It's quite lovely. Luckily, nobody was hurt... and the airbag didn't deploy. Still though, it sucks ass. I can't even really drive at night now, because one of my headlights is popped out. Hell I don't even really want to drive much at all if I don't have to. I'm worried parts might start falling off.

sigh.

Oh well, at least I can sit here and watch my pretty new TV. I may be moving in a week, but I just couldn't help myself. There's no way something like that is going to stay in the box around me. :)

A whole new level of frustration

2008-05-28T19:25:00.003-07:00

This whole low iodine diet thing is going to kill me one of these days. Not only is it a hassle to have to cook all of my meals, with very limited ingredients... but I'm also staying with friends right now, so I don't have all of my normal kitchenware and spices. Then to top things off, since I am staying with friends, my entire life is packed up in boxes in the garage... which, up until 5 minutes ago, included all of my cookbooks and loose recipes. Just about an hour ago, I began the endeavor to hunt for these materials... and I have just now finally gotten to sit back down at my computer, finally having achieved my goal. I had to, quite literally, climb around, over and THROUGH all of my belongings. I opened nearly ever box that I had packed in the hopes that these were in there. Now, I know what you're thinking... cook books, the box should be labeled "Books". That's what I thought. Next logical guess.. "Kitchen". Nope. Then I started going through the unlabeled boxes, of which I had plenty. I packed and moved in a bit of a hurry. By the time I got to the last 2 boxes, I was about ready to give up. One of the boxes is nigh impossible to get to without removing half of my other belongings first. The other box, which was in fact right out in front within easy access, I had discounted right off because it was far too large. Certainly I wouldn't put books in a box that large. ...right? Oh well the hell, so I tried it, and lo and behold, there are my freaking cookbooks.

Damn that sucked.

At least I can say I got a good workout today. Even if it wasn't rock climbing, my thus-far limited experience with it certainly helped, finding foot holds and hand holds through that mess.

...now I have to spend the time actually cooking something. Ugh.

I think I may just go get some of The Joey Pizza.

The Joey Pizza

2008-05-27T13:05:00.004-07:00

Alright so I've been enjoying this pizza so much (in fact, a few cold slices served as breakfast this morning -- yes, it is incredible cold) that I decided I should post it up here to share with the world. Really, I can't take credit for the creation myself. That credit goes to Eric Geryol, owner of Boulders on Broadway, which is a bar I happen to frequent. The reason this pizza is that I was on a low iodine diet at the time, and there was no way Eric was going to let me be stuck at home because no restaurants would cater to me. Out of the many dishes I tried, this one stood out in amazing glory. Now granted, there is *some* iodine in this pizza, because there are minimal amounts used in the dough and perhaps a bit in the pizza sauce (I have also gotten it without the sauce though and it is still wonderful.) This pizza can be easily made at home, however, using the pizza dough and tomato sauce recipes from ThyCa's low iodine cookbook.

Anyhow, without any further ado, the pizza is as follows:

Thin crust (essential!)
No cheese
Pizza sauce (optional, as noted above)
Artichoke hearts
Garlic (actual chunks, not just powder)
Basil
Balsamic vinegar

The vinegar should be drizzled over the top before cooking. In my opinion, you can't really be too liberal with this. The sweet/tart flavor of the vinegar really makes the pizza. Cook it until the crust is a light golden brown and enjoy!

Not only is this pizza one of the staples of my low iodine diet, I have continued ordering it regularly since... and other people have actually called me up to ask what was on it so that they could order it as well!

If you try this pizza out, let me know what you think! Also, if you happen to be around Tempe, AZ and craving a pizza, I highly recommend stopping into Boulders on Broadway and trying out the original! This place has the best pizza in town, by far.

Enjoy! Also keep a look out, I may be posting some more recipes soon, as I'm starting back on the diet for a few weeks.

The last bit of my sanity is officially gone

2008-05-16T15:00:00.005-07:00

I just proved this to myself a minute ago. You see, for anybody who didn't know, I'm a bit of a weather nut. I enjoy monitoring and learning about the weather... so I've got all kinds of notifications going on my computers for different kinds of weather events. So just a few minutes ago, a severe weather alert pops up. Curious... these are usually just for big storms, and our cloud cover just rolled out of here last night. After clicking and waiting anxiously for the page to load, I am presented with the following:

...RECORD BREAKING HEAT EXPECTED ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHWEST ARIZONA DESERTS...WITH NEAR RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES ACROSS THE GREATER PHOENIX AREA THIS WEEKEND INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK...

A STRONG RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE THAT HAS BEEN PARKED ALONG THE WEST COAST WILL SHIFT EASTWARD THIS WEEKEND...FOR SIGNIFICANTLY WARMER WEATHER ACROSS THE DESERT SOUTHWEST. RECORD TO NEAR RECORD HEAT IS EXPECTED SUNDAY AND MONDAY...BEFORE A COOLING TREND BEGINS MIDWEEK. TEMPERATURES ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHWEST ARIZONA DESERTS WILL NEAR 110 DEGREES SUNDAY...WITH A FORECAST HIGH OF 112 DEGREES AT YUMA ARIZONA MONDAY. THE CURRENT RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE FOR SUNDAY AND MONDAY AT YUMA IS 109 DEGREES.

ACROSS THE GREATER PHOENIX AREA...THE FIRST 100 DEGREE DAY OF THE SEASON IS EXPECTED AT PHOENIX SKY HARBOR AIRPORT SUNDAY...WITH A FORECAST HIGH OF 103 DEGREES SUNDAY AND 106 DEGREES MONDAY.

Now most people... normal, sensible, sane people anyhow, upon reading this would react with something along the lines of "Aww crap. Not more heat. Just what we need." That would be the sensible reaction. Of course, me, being far from sensible, my instant reaction was a very emphatic "YES!" accompanied by pumping my fists in the air and doing a little dance of joy in my chair. I think that right there is definitive, irrefutable proof that I have no shred of sanity left in my mind.

Oh well, it's more fun this way! Now I can go swimming this weekend, get another sunburn the color of a fire truck and not care! Hooray! :D

Moving haiku!

2008-04-21T11:07:00.001-07:00

Moving is teh suck
I hate packing all this shit
Will it never end?

People are cheap bastards!

2008-04-21T09:01:00.003-07:00

It really is true, people are cheap bastards. Especially on Craigslist.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Craigslist. You just won't catch me trying to sell things on there anymore. It doesn't matter how cheap you try to sell something on there, chances are nobody is going to jump on it.

Over the past week, I have been giving away ridiculous amounts of things away on CL and people have been all over them, since they've been free. I've received probably *at least* 50 responses per item, with the first response being only minutes after it was posted. I did try selling 2 items though: a small stereo, and a queen size headboard/frame. The stereo got zero responses. I moved it to the free section and it was gone within hours. The headboard/frame got 2 responses. The first person had an emergency and bailed. The second person came, looked at it, nitpicked, and left. Now I moved it to the free section and, despite the fact that it's 2 days old and not even on the first page, have already received a response.

Damn you, people! Stop being such cheapskates! I've spent probably $300-$400 on items from Craigslist myself. Am I the only person who actually goes on there looking to spend money? Sheesh!

Feeling a bit lost here...

2008-04-18T12:47:00.002-07:00

Life really does happen all at once... and it really does suck. I've been through a fair bit in the past year, which has thrown my life into total chaos. Anybody who knows me is well aware of that. Right now, however, seems to be the most troubling for me. I'm supposed to be moving out of my house by Sunday. No big deal there. I'm buying a house, right? Well, we haven't closed on the house yet. In fact, we've run into a snag which may prevent it from closing soon. We're in the final mile and just now being told that it's not going to happen. Of course, this is just my luck. So now I'm supposed to be staying with friends -- the ones who are selling me the house, in fact, until the house is finalized. That's great, don't get me wrong. The problem is, I have a LOT of stuff. They have offered to let me use their garage for storage... but I don't think they understand just how much stuff is involved here. So now I've decided that I'm just going to start giving things away on Craigslist... and I don't mean just one or two things. I mean... well, a lot. Almost all of my furniture. Even my couch is going tomorrow. It feels pretty good to be giving all of these things away... and with this, I'll be able to get new stuff, which is good. I just feel very frantic right now. I'm not really sure where I'm going to be living, and for how long... and I'm not sure where all of my things are going to be, or how long they are going to be there.

One of my biggest problems is going to be my VW Golf. It's in my garage... back in one piece again... but it doesn't run. It doesn't even start. It's been sitting too long as an unattended project. This one could suck.

Anybody got some free space? :)

...and my list of issues grows even longer.

2008-04-04T11:56:00.002-07:00

Not that my new issue is a particularly bad one... or even a new one for me. I just have a name for it now. This particular one is called, apparently, Islomania. Islomania, according to this Wikipedia entry, is an obsession with islands characterized by an irresistible attraction towards them. This would explain my recent longing to visit pretty much any island I can find. It would also explain why I have, at different points in my life, been determined to move to each of the following: Hawaii, The Philippines, Mauritius, Reunion, Isle of Man, Guam, Bermuda, along with a few others. I know that there were some Micronesian islands as well.

I really like the quote from the original identification of the condition:

We islomanes, says Gideon, are the direct descendants of the Atlanteans, and it is toward the lost Atlantis that our subconscious is drawn.

That sounds like a good explanation to me... I'll accept that idea. :)

Atlantis, here I come!

Life = Insanity

2008-03-27T16:07:00.004-07:00

Yes, it has been several months since I've posted on here again. Bad Tarky, bad!

Life has been, if possible, more insane in these few months. This week, however, seems to be somewhat of a culmination of all of this craziness. Just today I've dealt with car insurance, 2 different people about my health insurance, Big Brothers Big Sisters, City of Chandler, the HOA for the house I'm renting, a mortgage consultant and helping an employee with a broken down car. The good news is, my car is getting fixed, my health insurance is finally getting taken care of so that hopefully everything will get paid off, I'm getting rid of all the old clothes which have been bagged up in my garage the past few months, I'm getting rid of all the large trash that's been cluttering up my back yard, the front yard for this house will stop sucking, I may very soon be a home owner and I may get to help replace a clutch... very good experience there!

The big news there, of course, is the house. This bit of good news, however, comes covered with acid. Apparently not all of my friends are happy with me because of this. To be more specific, I have fully lost one of my best friends, and perhaps gained an enemy solely due to the fact that I am buying a house. Now, okay, we had talked about me moving into her place because I have to be out of my current house by April 20 and I didn't have another place to go. So it worked out great for me. Then recently I had some other friends basically drop a house in my lap and say "Here, buy this. Please. We want you to buy this and we will help in any way we can." Great! What an opportunity! This is of course something which I did convey to the friend I was going to be moving in with and we talked about it very briefly but I had made no final decisions at the time. I would note, however, that not once during these conversations did she say "No, you can't do that, I need you to move into my place like we talked about before." To me that basically solidified the fact that offering me a place was basically just a friendly gesture... which I appreciate greatly. As I found out today, after conveying the good news of the house, it was apparently not. What I am hearing now is that she needs me to move in so that she can cover the bills. Great for me to know that NOW.

This puts me in quite a dilemma. Do I drop out of the home buying process now, so that I can help a friend? Do I continue buying the house and just let this friendship drop? I don't want to lose a friend, for sure. She has been a wonderful friend and helped me through a lot. Then again, this whole situation is, for lack of a better term, pretty fucked up. From our brief conversation today I picked up on a few things. The first one was, of course, that she can be quite self centered sometimes. It's very rare that I do something for myself as opposed to doing everything I can for everybody else. This is something that people have been getting on my case about for a long time now, including the very friend now angry at me for doing this. The second piece is, seeing how she knew about the house opportunity and that I was interested in buying it, that means that she ASSUMED I was going to fail in some form or another. In her mind, there was never any possibility that it would actually happen. What kind of friend is going to assume that you will fail in your endeavors?

Either way, I'm out of a backup place to live now, in case the mortgage falls through for whatever reason. Today was just initial application and docs. There are still a million things that could go wrong. Hell, I could even decide to back out still at this point.... I think. Not that I would want to, this is a pretty exciting prospect for me. This is like a defining point in my life, buying my first house... and most importantly doing it on my own.

I think my new motto is going to be: Fuck it all, I need a drink.

Low iodine confusion

2007-12-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Even though I am drawing near to the end of my current cycle of the low iodine diet, I have still been looking into the specifics more and more closely over recent days. This is especially after receiving a print-out from my doctor's office yesterday (I had been instructed over the phone to begin the LID, thus never received it before) which brought up many questions for me.

You see, every publication I have found regarding the low iodine diet disagrees on some points... usually several. In general, they agree on most things. I have found some almost disturbing discrepancies, however. For instance, every guideline I have seen so far says no soy products. Well, almost. According to Dr. Kenneth Ain, in The Low Iodine Cookbook (Norene Gilletz; Your Health Press, 2005)

Soy lecithin is extracted from soy oil, rather than the protein parts, and has just trace amounts of soy proteins (only enough to bother people with soy allergies). Soy oil, in reasonable amounts (usually as part of a vegetable oil mixture or a minor ingredient) won’t add any discernible iodine to the diet and is not goitrogenic. There is no reason to think that soy lecithin is in any way unsafe for the LID.

Okay, good to know. SOME soy products are safe. Then I receive these guidelines from my doctor's office yesterday, and there is NO mention of soy at all. Not a single word of it.

Another point of confusion is with fruits. Yes, fruits. According to the ThyCa LID guidelines, there are no issues with fruits, aside from maraschino cherries and rhubarb. They make for wonderful snack foods and there are no problems with any fruits aside from the two mentioned. I have been going by this notion for the duration of my diet so far... only to find that this may be grossly wrong. The banana & strawberry smoothies I have been making for breakfast may in fact be quite high in iodine. The guidelines I received from my doctor yesterday states:

Allowed fruits and fruit juices: Apple (fresh only), apple juice, apricots (fresh only), avocado, berries, cherries (fresh only), cranberries, figs (fresh only), grapefruit, grape juice, grapes, mangos, lemon juice, melons, nectarines, oranges, orange juice, peaches (fresh only), pineapple (canned), pineapple juice, plums, tangerines
Disallowed fruits: Bananas, dried fruit (raisins), applesauce, fresh pineapple, canned peaches or any fruit not listed in the foods allowed.

Now I have found, through my own research today, thanks to The World's Healthiest Foods Website, that strawberries are in fact one of the most iodine rich foods in the world. This source, at least, provides solid numbers. This I can work with. I'm tired of all of these lists of do's and don'ts with no numbers or resources to back them up. I need to start finding solid numbers.

I could continue on and on with the discrepancies between the diets, but what's the point? Nobody really agrees. For my own sanity, however, I need a single definitive source. I need to know the iodine content of different foods. I need to know what foods I can and cannot eat while on this diet. I was astounded yesterday when I was reprimanded for drinking orange juice on the diet, by a lab technician who was assisting with my case! Not even doctor's staff knows the specifics of the diet! This should go to show just how contended the diet really is!

I think I have some work ahead of me...

Cancer haiku!

2007-12-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

I'm disappointed
I got irradiated
...and I still don't glow.

Don't ask. These things just come to me out of the aether.

Hooray for TSH!

2007-12-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

I get radiation Monday! Yay! (I know. Strange to be cheering for being irradiated... but it is a good thing.)

Obviously, it did not happen this past Tuesday. When I first got my blood tested for TSH levels, on the 4th, I believe my I was at a 12. Now I realize that this number, by itself, means nothing... it will become slightly more clear though. This past Monday, I went in to get checked again (see my previous posts...) and my levels came back at a 25. Unfortunately, this did not meet the required level of 35. Hence the lack of radiation on Tuesday. Of course, this does not get me off the hook for radiation, nor would I want it to. So yesterday, I went in to get tested again. I just got the call from the doctor, and obviously, from the beginning of the post, I met the required levels. Not only did I go up to 35... I shot all the way up to 52! Holy crap! (I *believe* these measurements are in parts per billion, in case you're curious.) I guess I've been doing a good job with this diet after all! Hell, I've already been working on planning a Christmas feast with all low iodine ingredients! ...and if anybody has recommendations on that, I'm open to them...

Anyways, I'm happy! 10:00am on Monday, I go in to get my dose! YAY!

EDIT: It turns out, the TSH measurement unit is in uU/ml, which means picograms per milliliter... a picogram being one trillionth of a gram. Learn something every day!

Stretch-a-roo!

2007-12-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

After almost 9 months with 0 gauge holes in my ears, I finally stretched up to 00. I guess it really was just a matter of time. I was just sitting here at home the other night, getting ready to cook some dinner, and I suddenly said to myself, "Self... I need a stretch." So I ran down to my friendly local piercer, HTC, and got some new suckers popped in! This means that the holes in my ears are now 0.365 inches, or 9.27 millimeters. I wonder how long this one will last...

Plus, on another happy body mod note, I will hopefully be getting back in contact with a tattoo artist I used to know, who I would absolutely LURV to have start my ink!

Floating

2007-12-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

I feel a bit like I'm floating right now. Not the happy Cloud 9 floating that everybody talks about... this is more like an "in limbo" floating. It's a bit odd.

Right this moment, I should not, by any means, be awake. I should not have the least bit of consciousness. From when I woke up Saturday morning until now, I've had a total of right around 9 hours of sleep... all of it restless, waking constantly, tossing and turning. Basically useless sleep. Yesterday, I was running on mostly adrenaline. Today, I woke myself with coffee which would easily be mistaken for tar. I'm sure that kept me going most of the day. The rest of the day, I've had to keep myself moving. Do a few pull-ups... pace around the house... move some things around... clean, go shopping, whatever. I just spent most of the past 3 hours in the kitchen, cooking. I made a pizza from scratch, each piece of it, from the dough itself, to the hamburger and other toppings. Even the pizza sauce was cooked during all of this. Not only that, I made enough dough for a second pizza, which is now in the freezer... and I took the leftover hamburger that I cooked up and turned it into a mini stir fry of sorts (which would work wonderfully for some fajitas, I must say.) Regardless, my point is, I kept myself running around the kitchen all that time in order to just keep myself going. As soon as I sat down to enjoy the fruits of my labor, I could feel the energy draining from my body. The only problem is, now that I want to go to sleep, I find myself unable to again.

It's an odd thing, being unable to sleep, when you feel exhausted enough to sleep for two days straight. I've never had a problem with insomnia before, but I certainly feel sorry now for people who suffer this chronically. I don't know what it is, really, that's keeping me awake. It could very well be stress. Stress over my cancer... over whether I get radiation in the morning or not. Stress over work... whether I will be able to live up to my word and meet the deadlines that have been set, despite the fact that I can hardly keep myself focused on one thing right now. Writing seems easier to focus on, but this is just a pouring out of my thoughts. I'm not having to think through every possible scenario that this writing could go through, like I have to when I'm writing code.

I think this whole radiation thing may really be getting to me. I'm chomping at the bit for this right now. I've been so freaked out over my diet, I've cut my iodine intake to practically nothing. I take no risks with what I eat. Aside from meals I have cooked myself, the only ones I have had were at my favorite bar, Boulders on Broadway, where they actually have my diet restrictions pinned up in back so that they can figure out things to make for me. I love those people, I really do. How many places would do something like that for just one patron? I can't personally think of any others. They even custom tailored a beer dinner for me. This was an event with around 40 people, eating dishes custom crafted to go with the particular beers that were being presented. Obviously, some of these things, I was unable to eat. Going above and beyond, they created a whole different menu for me to replace these things. This was something I never expected. In fact, I told them I wouldn't be able to attend because of my diet. They would have none of that talk. Obviously.

Possibly the biggest reason I'm still anxious about the radiation right now is that I still don't know if I'm going to be receiving it... and I'm scheduled for 11:00 tomorrow morning. This morning, I went in and got my blood drawn again for my final test. It was written specifically with orders to get the results immediately, by this afternoon. Of course, as has been the case lately, Murphy was lurking in the shadows. The machine which would analyze my blood for TSH levels was not working this morning. This means that they had to send my blood over to Sonora Quest Labs to get the results. Sonora Quest, however, was unable to get the results by this afternoon; they aren't ruled by my doctor's office... they have other orders to fill. Because of all this, my results were delayed until 8:00am tomorrow morning. Three hours before I'm supposed to get my radiation dose. The absolute drop dead cut-off point for my results is 9:00am in order for me to receive the dose at 11:00am.

Several people have suggested sleeping pills already, but honestly, I refuse. Maybe it's that I don't trust the pills. Or maybe it's that I don't trust myself with them. I don't really know... I don't think it really matters. Whatever the case, I won't be using them. I fully intend to simply let myself drift off to sleep in a natural fashion. How I'm going to accomplish that, I'm still not certain.

But I'm certainly going to try.

The real effects of cancer

2007-12-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Lance Armstrong said it right in his book, It's Not About The Bike: My Journey Back to Life.

When you have lived for an entire year terrified of dying, you feel like you deserve to spend the rest of your days on a permanent vacation. You can't, of course; you have to return to your family, your peers, and your profession.

Now granted, I haven't gone through anywhere near the ordeal that Mr. Armstrong did, and I am eternally grateful for that, but the same thing still applies. You see, when I was first in Dr. Glenn Rothman's office and he told me that I had cancer, I had no reaction. None at all. I just said, "Okay. What do I do now?" as though it were an everyday thing. I said it the same way I would place an order for food. No emotion, just a routine piece of conversation. This was my personal form of shock. Any and all emotions I had in reaction to what I had just found out went straight to the back of my mind, locked away in a little box, marked "Do not open."

Eventually, however, as this whole ordeal unfolded, that box did come open and I did start to react. I think one of the biggest triggers was when I started reading Mr. Armstrong's book. In the beginning of his book, he recounts his initial trip to the doctor when he first found that he had cancer. Not only did he have testicular cancer, it had metastasized into his lungs. Reading this piece, seeing another person's situation, his reactions, his emotions, was just too much for me to handle. That box opened wide and I finally reacted. I cried. This is cancer. This is serious.

The quote I cited earlier is so true it hurts. After you have cancer, no matter what form, no matter how curable, everything else seems inconsequential. It doesn't matter how successful you are in life, cancer can take all of that away in one fell swoop. So what's the point? These are, in fact, thoughts that I am still fighting with. It's made especially difficult by the fact that I am currently without any thyroid hormones; I was taken off of my pills in preparation for my radioiodine treatment. This has put my entire chemical balance out of wack. Earlier this morning, I was freezing cold... now I'm sweating. I had to fight myself for a half hour to even open my eyes this morning, when normally I jump out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off. Another unfortunate side effect has been my mood changes. I have begun to experience mood swings so bad that I would be labeled as bipolar. All of this is still just the tip of the iceberg though. Needless to say, this has been quite a trying time.

One thing that I have learned from this whole ordeal, however, is more patience... if that's even possible. Since November 23rd, I have been on a special "low iodine" diet. Essentially, I have to cook all of my own food. I can't trust almost any processed, packaged food to be free of iodine. As another nice side effect, this has gotten me into the kitchen much more, and I have been becoming much more handy at cooking. In addition to the diet, I have also been, as I mentioned, off of my medication since November 29th. This is all in preparation for my radioiodine treatment which will be, I am hoping, on December 11th. This is supposing that all of my blood tests come back with the desired results.

The way this whole thing works is, on December 11th, at 11:00am, I will go in to my doctor's office and he will give me a pill. I'm somewhat fuzzy on the exact details at this point, but I'm fairly certain that I will wash down this pill and head home. Now here is a bit of frightening information. For 72 hours after I take this pill, I can not be around infants or pregnant women, as I could cause irreversible damage to the underdeveloped thyroids. It is also recommended that I keep at least a one to two meter distance from other people, just to be safe. Once I have received this pill, 7-10 days later, I will go see the doctor again for a body scan to make sure that the radioiodine was sucked up and is doing the job that it's supposed to be doing. At this point, I will finally be able to go back on a normal diet (first thing I'm eating after is sushi!) and will start taking my medicine again. This will be a glorious day, I assure you. Just in time for Christmas vacation as well! Of course, this is all assuming that the TSH levels in my blood are at an appropriate level, indicating that my body is severely starved of iodine.

So now, this whole thing has been going on since August, when I first went to see Dr. Smith. The main part of the treatment will be finished near the end of December... but it won't really be over. I'm going to be taking pills for the rest of my life, to replace the hormones that my thyroid would be producing. I am also going to have to go in for yearly body scans... meaning that I will be dealing with this diet and no medicine again, once a year. If I ever move, I will have to get copies of all of my medical records (which I have been keeping a personal copy of now anyhow) and find a new endocrinologist immediately near my new home. Then again, Dr. Duick is, in himself, a reason not to move. From everything I have heard and experienced so far, he is one of the best. Hell, when I scheduled my first post-op appointment with him, I wasn't able to get in to see him for over a month! That says something about his demand, for sure. What are the chances that I can find somebody as good in a new location?

I said before that all of this has taught me more patience, and it had. That's not the only thing it has taught me though. Through all of this I have gained more humility, awareness, compassion... and certainly knowledge. You don't go through something like cancer without learning about exactly what is happening to you. I ask the doctors and nurses about everything; what they're doing and why, what they are looking for when they draw my blood, what the results are and what ranges they are looking for on everything. Cancer is certainly not something I would ever wish on another living being... but it is most definitely a growing experience which most people would benefit greatly from. A bit of an odd sentiment, I realize, but very true. Here's an even stranger way of putting it: I think that society as a whole would benefit, and be much better for it, if everybody had to go through the experience of dealing with cancer in some way. Then again, we may just end up with a society full of lazy people, never wanting to work again...

Amen!

2007-12-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

That is all.

All Your Data Are Belong To Us!

2007-11-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

I just had a rather interesting article pointed out to me, on Computerworld UK. According to David Litchfield, a UK based security researcher,

"There are approximately 368,000 Microsoft SQl Servers... and about 124,000 Oracle database servers directly accessible on the Internet,"

Given these numbers, I have to wonder what would be found if he were also to look for other widely used databases; MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, etc. It's a bit of a frightening prospect to think that I probably have personal information stored on at least one, if not more, of those exposed servers. Things like this make me wonder how so many IT professionals keep their jobs when they really have no clue as to what is really going on. The most likely scenario is that these people are all book trained, they have their degrees and certificates and all that nonsense... then they get into a real world environment, thrown up against a huge ball of servers, and they have no idea what to do. Hearing about these things makes me very glad for the opportunities and experience that I have had. I learned better, LONG ago, than to make amateurish mistakes like this.

You can view the full text of the article here: http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/security/data-control/news/index.cfm?newsid=6198

Small annoyances

2007-09-26T12:00:00.001-07:00

Despite everything that is going on right now, I still somehow manage to find time to be annoyed by the smaller ... annoying things. When I got in to work this morning, my roommate sends me a message, asking me what happened to my car, because he had noticed a large dent. "Well that's odd," I'm thinking, "I hadn't noticed one." So I go out to check and sure enough, most of my right rear quarter panel is dented in. It must have been some idiot driver who bumped into it when they were pulling into/out of the bar last night. Why me?

Oh well, I need to learn how to pull out dents anyhow... a larger one will be easier to practice on.... I think.

Why I Hate Doctors.

2007-09-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

Or, "Surprise! You've got cancer."

Yes, that's the news I heard today when I went to a second doctor. Luckily, it's not a serious cancer. The name is some ridiculously long medical mumbo-jumo for thyroid cancer. Am I scared? Not really. Every person I know in the medical field assures me that this is the "best" cancer you can have. It's basically 100% curable. I just have to have my thyroid removed, take a radioactive iodine pill, and then take thyroid supplements for the rest of my life. Simple enough.

For my last surgery, yes, I was scared. Everything was unknown. I had never had surgery before. I had never been put under before. I wasn't even sure I trusted the doctor. I was scared. Luckily, his colleague was there to assist with the surgery, and was greeted warmly when we went into the OR. This made me go under with a nice warm fuzzy feeling, not entirely brought on by the medications they were pumping through my system.

This time. I know what's going to happen. I already have the experience of being put under, and I already trust this doctor who will be performing the surgery. Let me explain this whole big trust thing going on here a little more. I'll start from the beginning. First off, right when I meet the first doctor, Dr. Douglas Smith, he's got a smile that belongs on a used car salesman. A bit creepy. But he seems to know his shit. He checks the lump, looks down my throat with a scope, says it's most likely just a cyst but we're going to get a CT to check it out and then proceed with surgery to get it removed. We are also going to try, as another possible route, some antibiotics... according to Dr. Smith, cysts will sometimes react to antibiotics because they can be just large infections. Sounds good to me.

So, head from the doctor's office, off to the pharmacy to pick up that antibiotic. May as well get it taken care of right away. Get to the pharmacy, give the script to the pharmacist.... he pulls up my medical records... looks at the script... looks back at my medical records... looks at me... and asks, "What doctor gave you this prescription?"

A bit confused, I tell him, "Dr. Douglas Smith."

After which he asks me for Dr. Smith's phone number. Still confused, I give him the phone number for the doctor and inquire as to why he might need it. "Your records state that you are allergic to amoxicillin." I confirm with a nod. "What kind of reaction do you get when you take it?"

Getting even more confused, since I know the doctor didn't prescribe me amoxicillin, I simply tell him "Hives."

"That's one step in allergic reaction before anaphylactic shock. This prescription is for a derivative of amoxicillin and could possibly kill you if you have the same reaction to it."

This was quite shocking. Obviously. A major screwup which could have been potentially very disastrous. At this point, I should have gotten a clue.

I never claimed to be very bright.

So we got my prescription fixed and, being that it was only a far outside chance that it would have any effect anyhow, it did nothing. A week later, I got a phone call telling me that a surgery date had been set and I needed to come in and finalize some paperwork. "Well," I figure, "he specializes in surgery... not medicine." Stupid rationalization, I know. I managed to convince myself with it though, because I wanted this over with. Plus I was scared out of my wits... that may have had something to do with it. I need to get somebody to go along with me for these types of things and smack me with a billy club when I do something stupid. But I digress...

On the morning of Wednesday, August 29, 2007, I go in for surgery. Dr. Smith comes in with his far-too-toothy smile to greet me before surgery. I'm bodily shaking... only in part because of my reaction to needles... what with a large IV needle sticking out of my arm now and all. However, when we get into the OR, I hear a friendly "Ah, Dr. Bartell, it's good to see you!" (Dr. Thad Bartell is Dr. Smith's aforementioned associate.) Next thing I knew, I was waking up 2 hours later in the recovery room, receiving several doses of morphine and demerol. I was happy.

About a week later, Dr. Smith calls me up to tell me that I need to speak with a Dr. Glenn Rothman. He's rather vague about why. All he tells me is that there was "a growth" in the middle of the cyst that was removed, and it is likely "a common thyroid problem," which is "easily curable." Well, that doesn't sound so bad. I set up an appointment with the new doctor and go about my business, figuring it's something caused from hyperthyroidism. That's not so bad. I can deal with that.

Today, I went in for my appointment, and after talking for less than a minute, Dr. Rothman asks me, "Wait, what exactly did Dr. Smith tell you about why you were coming here?" So I tell him what Dr. Smith told me. The next words out of his mouth, I could never hear again from a doctor and be live perfectly happy. "I'm so sorry," he told me. He then proceeds to tell me what Dr. Smith should have. That this growth was in fact cancerous, although it is easily treatable. Amazingly I maintained my cool through this whole thing... I think. Next step, Dr. Rothman is ordering the results of my CT scan and scheduling a chest x-ray and ultrasound just to be absolutely certain that nothing is missed. He's thorough. I like that. He's candid, he's kind, to the point, sincere. This guy, I feel I can trust. I hope. At least I can be more analytical with this one. I've already looked into his credentials. They seem impressive enough. I don't know anybody who knows of him, but I'm going to keep asking around.

I just want this all over with.

Then, no more doctors. For a long, long time.

Franken-me!

2007-08-31T07:18:00.001-07:00

So uh yea, for those who don't know, I had surgery on Wednesday morning. I just now took the gauze off, and this is what I was greeted by!

Holy monkey! When he told me 9 stitches, I was figuring on something smaller than this! Kinda cool though... just too bad it isn't Halloween, I wouldn't even need a costume! Anyhow, just thought I would share this with the world. :)

Geeky happiness

2007-08-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

Okay so uh, I just have to let out a little explosion of happiness. I'm finally getting my boss to order servers on par with what I think they should be... and we just ordered what is, by far, the beefiest machine we've got. I think it may actually be pretty much the beefiest I've worked directly with. This thing has got 2 quad core Intel Xeon CPUs, each with dual 4mb cache... it's got 8gb of RAM... and the hard drive is SAS; Serial Attached SCSI. Basically, this thing flies. It makes me all kinds of giddy.

Okay, that's really all I needed to say.

Happy! Eeeee!

Now off to have some fun tonight before my surgery in the morning.
Catch ya'll on the flip side!

Why Safeway rules.

2007-08-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

Okay so just a very short post here.

Aside from having one of the best organic sections I've seen at any large chain grocery store (including their own "O" organics line of products,) I saw something on the way to work this morning which definitely impressed me. I ended up behind a Safeway semi... at a stop light. Definitely not my favorite place to be. However, in my boredom while waiting for the light, I started reading the back of the semi and saw a large stamp which said "Powered by BioDiesel." Is it just me, or is that totally awesome? Granted, I haven't done a lot of looking into the subject, but this is the first time I've seen any semis using BioDiesel... at least, advertising it so blatantly.

Anyhow, that's just one more reason for me to shop at Safeway.

Management frustration

2007-08-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Okay so it's been a while since I've posted on here. Today, however, I have to rant.

Now it's not that I have anything against Indians (dot, not feather -- thank you Simrin) but I have to say that I absolutely hate hate HATE the offshore IT industry! It all started with tech support. You call up some large computer company, only to find that you are not talking to a native English speaker... you are speaking with somebody who very likely learned English just for this job, and has a vocabulary limited to the subject matter at hand. I'm not saying that I'm some linguistic genius. "I speak two languages: English, and bad English." But when I'm calling an American owned company, as a native English speaking American, I expect to speak to another native English speaking American so that we can both fully understand what the other is saying, without having to slow down our speech, repeat ourselves, and watch carefully not to use any colloquialisms which the other person wouldn't understand simply because of their cultural background.

So we started with the offshore tech support.... but wait, it gets better! Now we've moved to offshore programmers. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this is an alright idea for some companies. They have no IT staff, they need something done and need it cheap. This solution will accomplish those goals. Now take an instance like the company I work for. We do have an IT staff ... well, if you count myself and a part-time sysadmin. Anyhow, we do have a staff. I do all of the programming, tech support, assist with sysadmin work (our sysadmin is an intern... so I'm tutoring him part of the time) and, well, whatever else needs to be done. However, we also have an offshore programmer working on one of our projects. He appears to be a very competent programmer from what I've seen, don't get me wrong. He's also fairly good with English. I don't believe we have had too much trouble with communication; a few small cases where the English language simply failed to explain itself. There are some major frustrations, however. There are days I really wish I had somebody sitting here in front of me, so that I could directly guide then on this project. I could also beat their head in, if necessary. In fact, I could throttle them, slap them around, throw things at them and tell them "NO NO NO STUPID! THIS is how it needs to be done! L-I-S-T-E-N to me.... do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth!?" That's the joy of having somebody working directly beside you. Or at least, in the same general area.

See, what got me all riled up this morning is an email I got from this offshore programmer of ours. He's working on a project that's going to involve some audio and video processing. This is obviously not a simple process. In fact, in a previous post, I discussed just how easy this isn't. I also talked about how intensive a process it is on a system. So right now, this offshore developer is actually working on building this part of the system. This is a rather important part of the system... despite the fact that there will not be a heavy load imposed from video and audio processing; i.e., we aren't going to have people uploading constantly like YouTube. There will be at most 50 videos uploaded per day. Still, we have currently 3 web servers, and these servers are not very powerful machines. They deliver web pages; they don't need to be anything special. With this in mind, we definitely don't want to be doing the video processing on these servers. Our encoding time -> video time ratio would be through the roof. If somebody uploaded a 3 minute video, it could take upwards of 5 minutes to encode. This would tie up the web server for 5 minutes, starve it of RAM, kill its swap space, send the server into a processing frenzy. All the while, this server still needs to be able to deliver other web pages. Remember, only 3 web servers... and we're serving thousands upon thousands of web page requests per day... and with this new project, that number will potentially increase exponentially. This is simply NOT an acceptable situation. Keeping this in mind, I sent our developer some specifications saying that video and audio files are to be processed on a separate server. I won't go into exact details here... but I imagine it's actually an extremely scaled down version of how sites like YouTube actually work. Offload the work, keep the web servers freed up, continue serving web pages effortlessly, and get the media processed on a nice beefy server. Sounds great, right? Well apparently our developer and his "technical team" do not agree on this. I got an email this morning which said the following:

50 / day is not a big number to think of a separate server. So we can do this on the Web Server itself, instead of a new one.

Wait wait wait..... what? Did you not listen to what I was saying? (See my previous examples of screaming in this post to see how I would have liked to react to this ridiculous statement.)

Well, needless to say, my Friday morning buzz of happiness is now 6 feet under. In fact, more like 10 feet under. That sent me into a bit of a rage... and I still have to reply to this email.... the worst part is, I have to be polite! This is also taking me COMPLETELY off track from the project I've been working on, which is a very very bad thing.

So not happy right now.

Oh and to those who were wondering, yes I'm still alive. I just keep forgetting to post here. Thanks for the reminder!

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

2007-05-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite short pieces of literature has always been one by Robert Fulghum, titled "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Sadly, it seems that most people have never read it. I know that my life, for one, would be much better if some of the people around me were to read it and actually learn from it. So for the benefit of all those near and far, I give you this wonderfully educational piece:

--

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK . Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

--
http://robertfulghum.com/index.php/fulghumweb/booksentry/all_i_really_need_to_know_i_learned_in_kindergarten/

Job Hunters

2007-05-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

Right now, I am trying so hard not to laugh that my eyes are watering. I'm having trouble breathing, and I'm getting light headed.

What's so funny, you might ask?

I'm reading resumes. I am hunting for potential candidates for a job opening in the company I work for. We're trying to find a qualified systems administrator to take a chunk of my work load and get all our systems running the way I want them to be. Simple enough. There should be plenty of those people out there.

Wrong. WRONG.

After doing my initial filter and having to discount most of the resumes immediately because they're from out of state... I start to dig a little bit more. A lot more of them are thrown out pretty quickly because all I see are jumbles of letters starting with MS. Yay Microsoft certifications. TRASH! So far, I think I've had 3 people who got past these filters... one of them was actually fairly impressive, but works with technology that's on a scale I only wish we could afford here. The other two, however, are the ones who have me laughing so hard.

The first little gem I found was somebody who had been working for several years in the US Navy as an "Information systems technician"... alright, he's got my attention there. I'll bite. Looks like he's out of the Navy now... should be holding a fairly decent job but... wait, this says he's a "Cement finisher" now. Hmmm. He's a cement finisher, and he's asking for a $75k salary. BZZZZT! NEXT!

I found that previous one pretty amusing... but the one that's causing my asphyxiation is even better, at least to me. The headline on this resume reads "Information Systems Operator/Analysist". Even better, in his work experience, he lists "2006-2007 U.S. Army Signal Core - Information System Operator/Analysist". Will somebody, anybody, PLEASE tell me what in the world an "analysist" does!? I love it when people make up words... especially on a document as important as their resume!

Also, notice a common theme with these two applicants? That's right, they're both fresh out of our United States armed forces! I thought they were supposed to be able to get good careers (or at least be able to spell...) when they got out of the military. Things ain't looking so good for Uncle Sam...

I hate customers.

2007-04-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

Okay so I like their money... but I hate dealing with customers. Every single one is so self-important and certain that they're the center of the universe, that they can't stop for one moment to realize that you're just trying to do your job and keep things running smoothly, just like they are. I really wish I didn't have to deal with customers; it's not even in my job description. IT people aren't suppose to interact with end users, it's just not how it's done. That's like telling Rainman to teach a math class. It's just not a good idea!

I think this is proof that I should never work in a job of any form where I need to deal with the public.

Milk does the muscles good

2007-04-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

Just a small bit of interest... a new study suggests that skim milk is far more likely to promote muscle growth than alternative soy supplements. It's something to do with differing types of protein. While soy does have sufficient protein to keep you healthy, it isn't as helpful as casein for building muscle mass. Now that I've started working on building muscle, maybe I should be drinking more milk...

Anyhow, here's the article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/04/19/skim.milk.reut/index.html

Social Networking

2007-04-19T13:12:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that social networking is getting somewhat out of hand nowadays. Personally, I've got accounts on Blogger, last.fm, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, Hi5... and I can't even remember others I may have signed up on in the past. This is just ridiculous. Worse yet, on most of these accounts, I have very similar friend lists. Other people I know who have signed up on some or all of these sites. So when does this all end? Does it ever end?

Now granted, some of these sites have definite differing purposes. Blogger is more for pouring out your thoughts as I'm doing now, than for networking. But there is still that social aspect to it. Flickr is for sharing photos... but again, it has a very community-based design, and it's becoming more so all the time. Last.fm is about tracking music listening habits and discovering new music... but it also has a very social aspect to it: friends, "neighbours", forums, groups, etc. Still, why do we need ALL of these sites? Despite all of the ones I have an account on, I know there are far more that I still haven't signed up on!

It's actually starting to get pretty frustrating keeping up on all of these... what I need is some method of consolidating all of this collaboration into one single point of contact. Some method for keeping up on all of them from one central system. I'm trying out this Flock web browser in the hopes that it would provide something of the sort, but no such luck. It provides an easy interface for blogging (which I'm using right now) and drag-and-drop uploading for Flickr images... but that's about it. What I'm looking for is... a control panel or command center of sorts, for all of my social networking and collaboration sites. Some way to get an overview of what's happening on all of those accounts, without having to log in and load them up individually. I want to be able to "link" friends on different networks, so that I can see who I have added where. Hmmm, perhaps this calls for a brand new website... SocialControl, or something of the sort. Couldn't hurt to try. After all, my contact page is getting way too cluttered with all of the sites that I'm on now. Now this is an idea I may have to run with.... does anybody else have any input on this? Similar thoughts? Does this seem like something that might be useful?

On a side note, I noticed a very important feature missing from that Flock browser as I was publishing this post. It doesn't let you tag your post... I had to come in and do that by hand after the fact. Oh well, not everything can be perfect.

UPDATE: 3 hours later, I decided to do a quick google search for something along the lines of what I was thinking, and I came across The Internet Address Book. Could this be something useful? It's apparently been out since September '06, and I've never heard of it before, so I'm guessing it's not faring as well as most of the network it claims to connect to. On the other hand, from what I see so far, it doesn't so much connect to these networks as simply lists your IDs on them. I was definitely thinking of going beyond that. More to come later... perhaps?

Encoding Flash Videos

2007-03-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

One of our clients recently sent us a video that they want to have displayed on their website... and we've decided that the best option would be to use an FLV (Flash Video) file. We're also going to be using the same video format for an upcoming site of our own... one small part of the site will have uploaded videos, so they will need to be automagically converted to FLV. This sounds simple enough, right? Sure, it should be.

Turns out it's not all that simple.

After lots of trial and error, I came up with this command:

mencoder -vf scale=216:144,hqdn3d -af resample=44100:0:2 -hr-edl-seek -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=flv:vqmin=3:v4mv:vmax_b_frames=0:vme=4:vqblur=0.0:tcplx_mask=0.2:mbcmp=6:trell:cbp:naq:dia=2:aic -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=2:q=5:aq=0:vol=2:mode=1 -ofps 10 -of lavf -lavfopts format=flv:i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames dvd:// -o test.flv

Finally, I got a decent quality encode, with a decent file size, and not too ridiculous of an encode time... about 45 seconds encoding time for 1 minute of video. This was, however, on an already-busy 1.6GHz Pentium Mobile with 1gb RAM.

Now all I need to do is find another switch or perhaps another command to detect the video resolution and automatically maintain the proper aspect ratio when downscaling it... with that command, I scaled 720x480 down to 216x144 (0.3 times the size), but I had to pull out a calculator and figure out those numbers by myself... that doesn't work with an automated process. Oh well, one step closer at least!

Hell, I could make my own YouTube or Google Videos equivalent with this.... nice!

UPDATE:
Okay so, a couple frustrating hours later, I've finally got this down pat. I was getting some very nasty distortion on parts of the video... turns out that was due to the "tcpl_mask" option... according to the mencoder manpage:

Temporal complexity masking (default: 0.0 (disabled)). Imagine a scene with a bird flying across the whole scene; tcplx_mask will raise the quantizers of the bird’s macroblocks (thus decreasing their quality), as the human eye usually does not have time to see all the bird’s details. Be warned that if the masked object stops (e.g. the bird lands) it is likely to look horrible for a short period of time, until the encoder figures out that the object is not moving and needs refined blocks. The saved bits will be spent on other parts of the video, which may increase subjective quality, provided that tcplx_mask is carefully chosen.

In theory, it sounds like a great option. It could potentially add a lot of compression.... in reality, it barely effected the file size at all, and it cause all kinds of headaches. Along the way to finding this, however, I did find some other useful video filters, and I learned a bit more about encoding videos. (I thought for some time that it was possibly interlacing or interleaving that was causing the problems... so I ended up reading up on them, learning exactly how they work and what they do... only to realize there was no way they were guilty). I also managed to find that magic switch to automagically scale the video. I just have to specify one dimension now and it figures out the matching dimension... I love it! So, finally, here is the fully functional, heavily optimized version of that command:

mencoder -vf pp=h1/v1/dr,scale=216:-3,harddup -af resample=44100:0:2 -hr-edl-seek -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=flv:vqmin=3:v4mv:vmax_b_frames=0:vme=4:vqblur=0.0:mbcmp=6:trell:cbp:naq:dia=2:aic -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=2:q=5:aq=0:vol=2:mode=1 -ofps 10 -of lavf -lavfopts format=flv:i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames dvd:// -o test.flv

Yay! My work is done here.

Self.

2007-03-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

I've recently been reading another novel by my favorite author, Robert Heinlein. This one, titled "To Sail Beyond The Sunset," is rather interesting. It's the account of one Maureen Smith's life. At least, that's what it has been so far. Considering that I'm about 2/3 through the book, I think it may well continue along this line. Anyhow, it's quite interesting to me as I've already read several of his other books, and this is giving me quite a bit of background and insight into some of the past of his worlds, his timelines and his characters.

But none of that is really the point I'm getting at here. In reading this book, I found a very interesting quote. I had to read it over at least three times before I really got it. And it really made sense.

"Gratitude": An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary behavior, "altruism." Both imaginaries are false faces for selfishness, which is a real and honest emotion. Long ago Mr. Clemens demonstrated in his essay "What Is Man?" that every one of us acts at all times in his own interest. Once you understand this, it offers a way to negotiate with an antagonist in order to find means to cooperate with him for mutual benefit. But if you are convinced of your own "altruism" and you try to shame him out of his horrid selfishness, you will get nowhere.

Damn, he's right. I've never been terribly interested in reading Mr. Clemens' works in the past... but the more references I pick up from Robert Heinlein's works (and they are plentiful,) the more I'm intrigued. He sounds like as much of a cynical bastard as myself. Perhaps more... that's a scary thought. Either way, I think I may need to get ahold of some of his writings. Especially this particular essay, "What Is Man?"

Selective Racism

2007-02-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

If "racist" terms offend you, I would recommend tuning out now.

Alright, now that the warning is out of the way, I can get on with my rant. This is another of my "why I hate people" rants. See, it started out yesterday when I went to see a movie. It was "The Departed", a movie about corrupt cops in Irish Boston. Original, I know. Pretty good movie anyways. So, being set in Irish Boston, dealing with organized crime, they start off right away talking about "guineas". For those of you who may not know, guinea is a derogatory term for an Italian. I laugh the first time I hear the term, and not a single other person in the audience seems to even notice it. Now at this point, I should mention the people sitting in front of me. In the row directly ahead of me is a black woman, and in the row ahead of her are two more black women. Nothing against them, it's just vital to the story. Alright so after a couple minutes of Jack Nicholson talking about guineas, he also uses the word "nigger". And oh boy was there a reaction to that one! The woman directly ahead of me said "I don't like this so much already," or something along those lines. A bit of hooting at the screen, general disgust at the use of the word. The movie goes on, lots more talk of guineas, he had to have used that term at least 20+ times throughout the movie. At one point, he also used the terms "mick" (Irish) and "chink" (Chinese); again, inciting laughter from me and no reaction from the rest of the audience. Then he says "nigger" again. More disgust and hooting from the rows ahead of me. Oh and did I mention the vacuum that was created by every white asshole in the theatre puckering each time that word was mentioned?

So let me get this straight. You can say "guinea", you can say "mick", you can say "chink" and nobody cares. They could have probably even gotten away with dago, wop and goombah without a hint of notice from the crowd. But as soon as you say "nigger", everybody is up in arms. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Honestly, I don't really understand "racial slurs". They're only offensive if you take offense. I'm Irish, I call myself a mick and laugh about it. I'm white, I call myself cracker, whitebread, honkey and again I laugh about it. One of my best friends in high school was Chinese and Vietnamese. He got called to the principal's office one day because he was walking through the halls, chanting "I chink I can, I chink I can..." When he was in there, the principal told him that he couldn't use racial slurs. His reaction? "How can it be a racial slur? I AM a chink! A slanty-eye! A gook!" And he's right. It's not a slur, because he takes no offense.

Our society has turned into a bunch of coddled pussies. Hasn't anybody ever heard the old saying "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Get over it, people.

I fought the law...

2007-02-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

...and I won? Irrefutable proof that The Dead Kennedys had it right with their version of the song.

I love the intarweb.

The terrorists have won.

2007-02-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/boston.bombscare/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/01/boston.bombscare/index.html

I give up. I used to have some glimmer of hope for humanity. That's all gone. My absolute favorite quote, from this additional article, reads:

"It is unconscionable that in this post-9/11 environment that Turner Broadcasting would do something like this in an urban setting," Boston Police Superintendent Ed Davis said.

Wait wait wait .... "post-9/11" environment?!?!?
Hold on, let me think for a second, do a bit of math here... They're talking about September 11, 2001... today is February 1, 2007... that makes it 5 years, 4 months, 20 days. Nearly 65 months. 1969 days. You get the point. A LONG FUCKING TIME! By the same right, this is a "post-WW2 environment", a "post-Great War environment"... hell a "post-Civil War environment!"

I don't really know where I'm going with this... but this crap makes me both very angry and very sad at the same time. It's just pathetic.

An interesting perspective

2007-01-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

I just found this article on the brand new Windows Vista, and although the article has a lot of words without saying a whole lot, I like how this guy put it into perspective. It seems similar to how I might evaluate it.

I'm a bit anxious myself to get a look at Vista... but I don't know that I really want to make the switch yet. I'm also not sure I want to fork over that kind of cash right now, when I can still be perfectly happy on a free Fedora Core installation.

New website!

2007-01-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've finally made my new website design live! Yay!

It's all new content, very much trimmed down from what I had before. I've removed my "news" page, as I just post here on my blog now. The programming section isn't up yet, as I'm working on some fancy new ways of displaying the code... but everything else was ready, so I decided to go ahead and turn it on!

Oh and I have a much better URL now, too: http://www.tarken.net/

Let me know what you think!

Happiness is...

2007-01-21T01:51:00.000-07:00

...warm, freshly washed sheets, straight out of the dryer. I could just lay here smelling them all night. Mmmmm :)

Concert ticket bullshit

2007-01-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm rather annoyed right now.

I just went online to buy tickets for a Flogging Molly concert. That, in itself, is totally awesome. I'm Irish. They're Irish. It's on St. Patty's day. All good! Or, well, so it would seem.

So I go to the concert ticket page and proceed to order tickets for myself and my good buddy Don. $29 per ticket. Not too bad, considering it's Flogging Molly on St. Patty's day. Okay, I'm cool with that.

Then I get to the checkout page, and the charges begin to add up. Here is a breakdown of the costs, PER TICKET.
Ticket price: $29.00
Building Facility Charge: $3.00
Convenience Charge: $5.00
(What the HELL is so "convenient" about that?)
That adds up to $37.00 per ticket. A bit more ouch.

Then on top of all THAT, I have to pay an additional $2.50 to have the tickets delivered via "TicketFast". What is TicketFast, you might ask? Well, let me explain. It emails the tickets to you. So that you can print them out. It's an AUTOMATED SYSTEM to email the tickets to you. It costs them nothing to do. And yet, it costs $2.50.

Hahaha, and get this. As if all of that weren't enough, I get to the final page where I put in my credit card info, and there's a $3.35 "Order Processing Charge".

This all adds up to a grand total of $79.85, for 2 tickets to a concert. Tickets which started out at $29.00 each. That's $58.00 total. What the hell is this crap about?

The final crowning achievement of this horrible website is that they have time limits on each page. You find the tickets you want, you have 2 minutes to claim them. Creating an account on the site so that you can buy the tickets, you've got 1 minutes. Putting in all of your credit card information, you've got 3 minutes. What about people who type slow? What if you have to get up and take a piss? What if you get distracted in the middle of the order process? You have to start all over. From the beginning. That's what I call a piss poor user experience.

I definitely won't be using TicketMaster again.

Piercing... so far

2007-01-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

As a few people have mentioned, and as I've come to agree with myself, I've become a monster. See, let me explain that a bit.

On December 2nd, I got my ears pierced at 10 gauge.
On December 24th, I stretched my ears to 8 gauge.
On January 13th, I stretched them again to 6 gauge.
Now it's January 19th, and I want to stretch them to 4.
I don't know if my ears are ready for it yet, but dammit, I want them stretched more.
I would say I should get another piercing to take my attention off of these, but I think that might backfire. I would then just have more piercings to obsess over. sigh. What a vicious cycle. Well, not to say that I won't get other piercings. There are a few others I want to get. Most likely the next will be a septum piercing.

I've gone from being scared to death of needles, to being obsessed with piercings. How weird is that.

...I can only imagine how bad I'm going to be once I start getting tattoos...

Free stuff

2007-01-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would have so much difficulty giving things away... for free.

I put up a post on Craigslist yesterday for an extra bed that I've got sitting around at home, that I just need to get rid of. Sure it's used but it would be great for a starving college student or something along those lines. It's not a bad bed or anything like that. It's full size... matress, box spring, frame... all free.

But so far, I've had 2 people back out and a third not responding. What's the deal!? It should NOT be THIS difficult to give things away... seriously!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, somebody finally came and got the bed that night! Yay! I got an email asking me, "Do you still have it? I can come get it right now!" ... and suddenly, it was gone!

Trypanophobia

2007-01-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

Anybody who knows me knows that I've got this issue with needles. I can't stand the sight, or even thought, of needles. I just freak out. And it pisses me off every time that I do. I really want to get past this, because it's absolutely ridiculous and unfounded. It's not the pain that bothers me; the needles don't hurt. It's not the blood that bothers me; I've certainly seen worse. It's just something about the needle itself.

Well, I decided to do a bit of research on it finally... and I found that I'm far from alone. This article on Wikipedia was extremely informative. According to this, I'm even on the right path to getting past it. What I've been working on is a form of desensitization... although I didn't know the fancy word for it. On December 2, I got my ears pierced. I nearly passed out as soon as the first needle passed through. I wasn't freaking out or breathing abnormally. The piercing didn't hurt. My body just reacted instantly and went into its own state of shock. Pissed me right off. I had to lay down and recoup for a while to let my body calm down. Then came the second piercing. But lo and behold, I didn't react nearly as bad to this one! I remained sitting up... I shook a bit... I probably went a bit pale again... but I felt better. Obviously an improvement.

This was definitely not enough though. I'm still having quite a reaction, which is simply not acceptable. So on the evening of December 24, I decided to stretch my ears. Granted, I wasn't using a needle, but it was something at least similar. I was using something like this to stretch them:
Not too friendly looking... but not a needle. And not creating a new hole in my skin, so it shouldn't cause any problems... right? Wrong. I hooked these things into my ears, and almost instantly started to feel slightly light headed. I didn't react nearly as bad as I did to either of the piercings, but it was certainly not good. So I laid down for a while, drank some water... and got over it. Not an entirely pleasant experience, and a very odd one.

So I want to try this again. See if I still get the same results. These talons go up to a 6 gauge piercing, and I only stretched up to 8 so far. Out of curiosity, tonight, I pushed one of the talons into my right ear, just to see how easily it would take to the wider end of the talon. Surprisingly, it pushed about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way through before I started to feel a slight pinching. I didn't get light headed though.... which is a big win. I felt almost like I had gotten a small jolt of adrenaline, but that may have been just from excitement. This is the first time I haven't reacted adversely to things piercing my skin. Then again, I've also been removing and replacing my piercings daily now to clean them. Perhaps this is helping in some way. I certainly hope so. I guess I'll see how I do when I actually stretch them up to 6 gauge. Unfortunately, I have to wait a little bit... I need to let my ears heal up some, build up at least a little scar tissue, before I go torturing them more.

Next test: Tattoos.

Strength of Character(s)

2007-01-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

When did it come to be that you need a degree in cryptography and computer science in order to build a simple form on a webpage?

I'm running into some issues lately upgrading our web software so that it can be used on international sites, and hence with international languages and character sets. It sounds easy enough, really. Translate the sites and they should be good, right? Well, not quite. As it turns out, there are some major conflicts with the character sets that get thrown around on the web. By default, things use the "latin-1" or "ISO-8859-1" character encoding. It uses one byte per character, giving you a possibility of 256 different characters. This is all well and good, for languages based on latin characters. This isn't so good, however, when you get into other language with special characters... like, say, accented characters.

"But wait!" you might say, "Spanish uses accented characters!" Yes, that is correct. That's actually what got me started on this whole train of research today. A Spanish speaking user input an accented character on a form, which apparently we weren't set up to expect, it got put into an XML document as an "unknown character", the XML ended up failing validation because of this one little accent and things blew up.

So I start reading a bit. I know that there are a number of different character sets that can be used... and I know that "UTF-8" is the one that should be used for things of this nature... it uses multiple bytes per character, allowing for a much wider range of characters to be displayed. Perfect. Surely PHP will support this natively, right? PHP is matured enough that strings should just automagically be UTF-8 and it should just work. Right? Wrong. To quote PHP's strings page:

In PHP, a character is the same as a byte, that is, there are exactly 256 different characters possible. This also implies that PHP has no native support of Unicode. See utf8_encode() and utf8_decode() for some Unicode support.

Lovely. Apparently this isn't so easy. Now I'm stuck reading an entire treatise on character sets in web forms. What the hell? What makes this all so ridiculously difficult? It's obviously something that every web developer is going to have to deal with. My not just make it WORK, out of the box, no effort? What is so bloody difficult about that? Well apparently this document I've found is the one that should help me figure all of it out, from what I've been reading. Then I'll need to read up on the UTF-8 support in PHP, as well as their multibyte string functions... at least I think I'll need those.

This is just stupid.

Shocking!

2007-01-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

I guess complaining can sometimes do some good, after all! This just appeared in our office:

Tussin

2007-01-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

I swear, taking a dose of tussin is like taking a shot... you pour it, plug your nose, toss it down as quickly as possible and hope it doesn't even touch your tongue.

Come to think of it, "Tussin" might be a good name for a shot in a bar... one of those that just makes you shudder after you take it... like the 3 Wisemen and 4 Horsemen.

Last straw

2007-01-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

I just got asked to make a basic mundane tech support call. The kind of thing that would be handled by level 1 support, if we had such things. These are things that used to be handled by our admin, who is no longer with the company. This makes me a not happy boy.

Update: sigh. I think I was talking to a level 1 support monkey. He had no idea what he was talking about.

Earrings + touch screen phone = bad news

2006-12-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yea, title says it all. I just placed my phone on my shoulder, held it with my head as I've done many times before .... and suddenly it went quiet. I glance quickly at my phone, only to realize that it's put my current call on hold and started dialing another number! Nooooo! Luckily I didn't miss anything important. Still not good though. I'm going to have to be very careful with these things.

Moral dilemmas

2006-12-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

These are the most difficult decisions to face in your life, but also probably the most important. Perhaps the situation they relate to isn't all that important, but the choices you make set a precedent for future choices. If you make a choice now that hangs on your conscience, it will make it much easier to do the next time. If, however, you make a choice to keep your conscience clear, it can also make these choices easier. The difference here, I suppose, is how you wish to lead your life. It may not seem like it with the individual choices you make, but they do add up over time. The accumulation of these choices is what ends up being known as a person, you. Each individual choice helps to mold that person.

I'm facing one such dilemma currently. On one hand, I can clear my conscience and provide a bit of a warning and openness to a friend... but at the same time, risk trouble for myself at work. On the other hand, I can keep my mouth shut, have that blemish on my conscience, and risk losing the trust of my friend. As cold as it may sound, friends come and go. But at the same time, so do jobs. The question is which one I would rather risk, and which has less chance of failing. The more important question, however, is whether I want that blemish on my conscience.

"Forever"

2006-12-25T22:34:00.000-07:00

DROPKICK MURPHYS - FOREVER

"Never take your loved ones for granted: they could be gone tomorrow"
all of my dreams seem to fall by the side like a discarded thought or the day's fading light
but I know that if I could just see you tonight forever at times we may fall,
like we all tend to do but I'll reach out and find that I've run into you
your strength is the power that carried me through forever

Your kindness for weakness I never mistook I worried you often,
yet you understood that life is so fleeting,
these troubles won't last forever inspired me truly you did from the start to not be afraid
and to follow my heart there's a piece of you with me they can't tear apart forever

Forever I'll find you, forever we'll be
Forever your power and strength stays with me

Branching Out

2006-12-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm working on branching out some lately, expanding my horizons as it were. I've complained a fair bit that I don't get out enough, don't meet new people... so I'm doing something about it now.

Last night, I went to the grand opening of a local club, "The Cherry Lounge & Pit". It was a VIP only event, free drinks until 11pm, and I was offered a ticket... so hell yea! The place actually turned out to be very nice. The crowd was definitely a mixture that I wasn't expecting. The sign on the door claimed "strict dress code".. but the clientele didn't quite show evidence of that. Perhaps this was simply because of the nature of the event, but I was very happy with the diversity. While there, I met several new people, found a good new club, and perhaps somewhere I may try to spin in the future.

Today for lunch, I also decided to try something new. I had to run an errand at lunch, so I decided to stop somewhere near there for lunch: Teakwood Tavern & Grill. This place surprised me, I like it. My first impression when I walked in was that it was a total dive... albeit a bit bigger than your typical dive. Not that this is a bad thing, I've haunted my share of dives. The staff was very friendly; perhaps a bit slow, but it was a busy lunch time so that's excusable. I took my seat at the bar, got a glass of Kilt Lifter (bonus!) and ordered some kind of... honey mustard chicken sandwich. This thing comes out, and holy hell it was big. Tasty too! I couldn't taste too much of the honey mustard, probably not enough with the huge chunk of chicken on there. It also came with a small cup of "fresh" fruit.. well, mostly fresh anyhow. I may have just gotten a bad part of a pineapple, who knows. Overall though, I was pleasantly surprised. I can definitely see going back there again.

I gotta keep this up, I like this whole "new" thing. It suits me.

Action

2006-12-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

...at the wrong time, or too late, can have disastrous consequences.

But in every change, there is good. It just depends how you handle the change and how you adapt to the results.

Self awareness

2006-12-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

Whether or not I've said it, admitted it, whatever.. I've been on a journey of self awareness for a while now. Strange that L and I should be doing this at the same time... but it works.

Obviously, according to my last post, I'm changing. I have been changing. Hell, I've made that pretty obvious in many of my previous posts. Some of this I've done on my own... some I've done through the help of teachers, some through friends like L, and also through the Landmark Education Center. (Thank you Sonia!) (Yes, there is one in Portland also. Yes, you are going.. some day. You know who you are.)

All this has made for the most challenging.. emotional rollercoaster period of my life so far. But it's also the most rewarding. The lows may be low, but the highs are in the clouds. Where am I going to end up from all this? I'm not really sure... but I like that idea. The future is open, a canvas yet to be drawn on. I know that I'm becoming much more aware of the world, the environment, my personal impact on it.. and the impact of our people as a whole. I would like to think that eventually I will make some kind of impact as far as that is concerned. Do my part to make things better. Perhaps I already am, simply by talking and helping educate others. I want to be able to reach more people though, a broader audience.

Coming up in February, I'm going to be attending a Landmark Forum... this is going to be something very big. I've seen the impact that it has had on Sonia, and I can see that she is a completely new person since attending... a much happier, more open person. I'm actually a bit scared of attending, because I don't really know what I'll discover about myself there. Even just attending the Introduction opened many doors in my mind, and incited many breakthroughs for myself. Attending a 3-day forum... who knows what may happen.

The search for a better life

2006-12-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

"The grass is always greener on the other side." Right?

No, not always.

But that doesn't mean you should just stop and settle down once you've found a decently green patch of life. See, that's what I've got right now. I've got a pretty decent life. I make a decent salary, working a decent job. I live in a decent house in a decent city. I own lots of decent things. This should all make me a happy person.

But it doesn't.

The one thing I'm still searching for is the life that I actually want to stick with. The life where I'm no longer discontented with my situation; where I don't feel the need to improve my situation, because I'm certain I could be happier living differently. My greatest problem in this regard is, in fact, perhaps my greatest strength. I am constantly growing and improving as a person; and as a result, I need my surroundings to grow as well. I need my situation to change along with me. I've outgrown this city. I've outgrown this house. Though I've only been there for just over 6 months, I have more than outgrown my job. In essence, I've outgrown all of my surroundings... and yet, I still find myself in them. This is a constant point of frustration for me. I have, in fact, been looking for a new place to live for some time now. Currently, Portland is a very strong contender. I don't know that I could stay in Portland, however. It's a wonderful city, full of wonderful people, and I believe that it would be a good fit for me at this point in my life. I fear though that even Portland may not allow me to keep up my momentum of personal growth.

Guaranteed, as soon as it's a viable option, I will be dropping off the radar completely and living out my days on some remote island with nary a care aside from whether or not I want to get up from my chair for another drink.

Being Irish

2006-12-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

So today I went out to lunch with the guys here at work. We had this little joke running about "Oh, you like that? Well that's just cause you're Irish." Oddly enough, it fits for a lot of things. Some of the things named were:

Dropkick Murphys. Irish punk music.
The Corrs. Irish pop-folk music.
Drinking. Go figure. This also fits with the German in me.
Guinness. Goes along with the drinking, but it's really in a class all its own.
Boondock Saints. A movie about Irish Boston.
Meat & potatoes. I grew up on them. What do you expect in an Irish family?

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more, but yea... those really do seem to fit.

Twitch

2006-12-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

My eyelid won't stop twitching. It's really starting to irk me.

I want to stab it.
That might suck though, since I'd end up stabbing myself in the eye.

Code Restructuring

2006-12-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

Recently it was decided that I need to go into a documentation/maintenance phase at work, which I'm totally cool with. There was next to no documentation for me to work with when I came into this position, and I've had to figure everything out from the ground up. Some things I'm still not fully sure of... but that's what this period of time is for.

I've decided to take this to the next level though. Notice I said "documentation/maintenance", not just documentation. I'm taking the opportunity to rewrite and refactor a lot of the core functionality of our code. Build it the way it should have been done to begin with. Reorganize things, make things more readable and understandable, and document the whole process as I go, of course.

This is really turning into quite the project... one of those ones where I'm not really sure how it's ever going to end. Right now, I'm working on rewriting all of our database connection code... which is a large undertaking in itself. I think overall, this is going to be a very worthy project though. I'm building a more solid base for our code to run on, trimming a lot of fat in the code, getting it all figured out for myself and any future developers... plus I'm increasing my own understanding of PHP's object oriented programming, and in fact object oriented programming in general. This whole thing will definitely be good for my resume and my future experiences in programming.

I just hope I can actually give this project a finite timeline...

Movies != Real Life.

2006-12-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.drivl.com/pages/code

Yea.. that guy is awesome. He's my hero of the day.

My (lack of) style

2006-12-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

So my webpage right now is pretty ugly.

At least I think it is.

I've been wanting for quite some time to update the style, make it not so sucky. The problem has been that I just can't come up with a design that DOESN'T suck. Technically, I'm very good with XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, whatever... I can make web pages do lots of fancy things. What I can't do, however, is create a site design to fancy up. I've had a couple of failed attempts at new designs... both with different concepts, different layouts, different colors, all that. Those were definite failures though.

However, this time, I think I've got it! I got a wild hair up my ass and managed to throw together a layout that I'm actually happy with! Of course, I did have some helpful advice this time, from an excellent designer. I'm sure I'll be getting more advice before this is finished as well.

Anyhow, this means my site is actually going to get the rewrite it greatly deserves! I'll be trimming the fat, pulling off all the bs pages that are never really used (Including my guestbook... all it gets is spam these days) and sprucing up the pages that really need it. I will have a real programming section now, with full code samples, and lots of them! In fact, I even have one I just wrote up to aggregate the contents of this blog and display them on my page. OoooOoOoh, fancy!

So now, for your previewing and critiquing pleasure, here is the new design: http://tarken.lyrical.net/testsite/test3.htm

Song of the day

2006-12-06T15:56:00.000-07:00

Dropkick Murphys - Bastards On Parade

I've lost all the time that I have in this world
I spent it unwisely, unwisely you see
And I can't get it back and I can't move forward
I'm broken and I'm empty, it's over for me
If I could undo all the wrongs that I've caused
Fall to my knees, pray for swiftness and just
For I'm just a fool, a fool driven to dust
And the world ain't gonna change for me

So give me one more chance to prove these problems and frustrations
Aren't just manifest in memories we're destined to repeat
A second chance to prove I know right from wrong
I swear I'll do things different but can't promise to be strong

CHORUS:
So come on all you losers, you bastards and cheats
Vagrants and barflies down on the street
Follow this path to salvation, vindication awaits
We're marching on East Broadway street tonight

If you could look into this old face and try to see the young man
I swear I once was pretty, not the monster you now see
But I squandered all my chances, lost my faith and took for granted
This life and precious one chance, the whirlwind I'll reap

If I could undo all the wrongs that I've caused
Fall to my knees, pray for swiftness and just
For I'm just a fool, a fool driven to dust
And the world ain't gonna change for me

CHORUS: X3

Element Shift

2006-12-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

When I started out 2 years ago, my life was ruled primarily by the element of earth, with an underlying tone of water. Earth is about docility, receptiveness, acceptance. I let people trample all over me, never stood up for myself. Water is about danger, change... water is always adjusting, compensating... I would roll with the punches. I would accept the shit that people would throw at me, and I would adapt to it.

Earlier this year, I changed. Those two elements switched, and my life was ruled more by water. Everything about me has been changing. I'm a totally different person from who I was before. But I've still been taking people's shit with no retribution. I'm constantly changing and rising to new challenges... but I'm still not standing up as much as I should. I've been on the path to the person I should be, but I haven't arrived.

Now is the time to be. This period of change is coming to a close. It's time for my life to be ruled by two completely new elements, wood and sky. Wood is about penetration, following. It's about strength and power. Sky is strength, creativity and pure will. Sky is being the person I've been working towards. It's time to stop dreaming and start living in what I've been working towards. I have no reason not to. My own doubts and fears are all that's been holding me back, I realize that now. It's time to shed those and live the way I'm meant to.

You think I've changed?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

The First Agreement.

2006-12-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Impeccable \Im*pec"ca*ble\, a. [L. impeccabilis; pref. im- not +

   peccare to err, to sin: cf. F. impeccable.]
  Not liable to sin; exempt from the possibility of doing
  wrong. -- n. One who is impeccable; esp., one of a sect of
  Gnostic heretics who asserted their sinlessness.

Of all the four agreements, this is possibly the most difficult. This means not only to be honest, to be truthful... but to speak whole truths, hide nothing. It's like they say in court, "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God."

That is the gist of this agreement.

And breaking this agreement can have incredibly dire consequences.

Sustainability; aka, Living The Way It Was Meant

2006-12-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

Having just read the story of Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, I can't help but think that we have it all wrong. The way we live is at odds with nature. The way we go about our every day routines is not the way it was meant to be.

In the grand scheme of things, we believe ourselves to be not only the heirs of the world, but the divinely appointed monarchical rulers of the world. We are the end all, be all of evolution. But this is obviously not so. If this were so, then we would not be destroying the world as we are. If we were meant to rule the world, then we would know how to rule the world, we would have a way to obtain this knowledge. There is, however, no way to obtain this knowledge, as there is in fact no such knowledge.

Actually, let me rephrase that. The way to rule the world.. the way to conquer the world.. is to be at peace with the world, to allow others around us to grow as we have. We must become benevolent, helpful leaders, rather than the tyrannical, dominating, power hungry beasts we are now.

This is the way it was meant to be.

And if this is not the way that comes to be, then we will come to realize the end... not only of mankind, of our own species, but of everything around us. What we do in our culture, in our lives, effects not only us but everything in our environs. Everybody sees this, but nobody accepts this fact. It stares us in the face through deforestation, holes in the ozone layer, extinction of countless species... and yet people still don't realize that we are causing this, and at an ever accelerating rate. More importantly, people don't realize that we can change this. People don't realize that we can stop being this way, live at peace with the world.

Am I trying to say that we should live like aborigines, or like American Indians, or perhaps like a cannibal tribe in the Amazon? Certainly not. They all have their own ways, and those ways work wonderfully for them, but they would not work for our people as a whole. No, the way we can accomplish this is through a move forward. We can accomplish this by ceasing to destroy the environment with harmful chemicals. We can accomplish this through discontinuing the destruction of natural habitats, killing off everything that gets in our way. We can do this by realizing that our culture itself needs to evolve.

Of course, perhaps an evolution isn't enough. We've been progressing towards our destruction at a steadily growing rate of speed for centuries now. Who's to say that this speed won't grow so intensely that we seal our own doomed fate within the next ten years? Perhaps the next five? Hell why stop there, what if we perfect our destruction of our environs so absolutely that we end our very existence in the next year? Is that so inconceivable? Not to this mind. So then what needs to take place, if an evolution is not enough? The only other option... a revolution. All people... society as a whole, needs to be brought into the realization of what is happening in the world... what they, themselves, are doing to the world. They need to learn, and quickly. That is the only way to prevent our untimely demise, and that of the world itself.

Pierced!

2006-12-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

Woo!
Sweet.
If anybody is ever in Portland, Oregon wanting to get pierced.. go to Captain Jack's Tattoo and Piercing Studio, and ask for Fara Te. She is the best. She rules. I hope to be in Portland when I get my next piercing(s) so that I can have her do them as well.

And if you do go there, be sure to give her a hug and tell her she's awesome!

Shoes rule.

2006-11-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Okay so in some ways I'm almost as bad as a woman.
I have 2 pairs of dress shoes, a pair of running shoes, and a pair of sandals .... and I just ordered a new pair of shoes yesterday, from Zappos. They're totally awesome though.

I'll definitely be wearing the black laces with these. The white would just be too much white. I totally love em though. And they're Vans, so you can't go wrong.

Hopefully these will arrive here at work tomorrow. UPS says they are on time... and I keep refreshing every few minutes to check. Yay!

I see stupid people....

2006-11-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

And they make me want to cry.
I've probably spent as much time at this job fixing and covering for stupid stupid stupid things that were done before I was here, as I have spent on new development.

Then, there's the users .... don't even get me started.

Microwaves suck!

2006-11-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Why the hell can't all microwaves just be a standard power and all that? I just put a bag of popcorn in for the recommended time... 2 minutes, 30 seconds... and even before I opened the door, I could smell that it was burned. So I pull the bag out, open it up, and find out that probably half the bag is burned. Hell, there's a chunk of BLACK popcorn. It's like freaking charcoal! And now the entire office reeks of burnt popcorn.

Dammit.

Database Relief

2006-11-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

So, I've been battling with a database problem for a while now. I have this table that records all the traffic to every website we host at work. Needless to say, this grows. Quickly. At a rate averaging about.. ehhh... 35k hits/day.

Now, thanks to the wonderfully forward thinking engineers in this position before me, we have run into a built-in limitation of MySQL. By default, when you create a table, it's built with the ability to grow up to a size of 4gb. Well with as much traffic as we get here, that 4gb point has quite obviously come and gone. In just over a year worth of traffic. Brilliant.

I have finally found a solution to get us by for now though, as opposed to deleting old traffic records for inactive accounts. (I hate deleting archived data. Always bad.) One little query has made my world all better:
ALTER TABLE traffic MAX_ROWS=1000000000;

Yes, that is 1,000,000,000. One billion. We're at around 12.4 million records in that table right now. I figure if we get to a billion, I'll be retired on a tropical island, sipping on drinks with little umbrellas in them. Now, in the process of rebuilding this table with the greatly increased row limit, MySQL went ahead and recalculated the maximum amount of disk space the table could take up. The new number it came up with is 281474976710655 bytes. That comes out to exactly 256tb. Two hundred and fifty six TERABYTES. Yeah. Drinks with little umbrellas. Definitely.

I complain a lot.

2006-11-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

I'm realizing that I really do. I feel sorry for anybody who has to listen to me.

Body modding

2006-11-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking very seriously lately about getting into body modding.

I already know that I'm going to do tattoos over a large part of my torso. I have a back piece planned, as well as something for my left shoulder. I would like to get pieces figured out for other parts of me as well... and I know already how I'm going to link them together. That way it's not just a bunch of random patches of ink across my skin... they will actually flow together in a way.

More recently though I've been thinking about piercings as well. Partially because these are much cheaper than tattoos... and partially because I've always liked piercings. Once it was suggested that some piercings might look good on me.. well, it was all over.

So far, I'm thinking I would like to get (eventually) ears, septum, labret and bridge... all nice and symmetrical. The bridge might be a bit awkward, with the way my glasses sit... since I've got such a narrow bridge, my glasses sit right exactly where the piercing would go.

I still have a huge fear of needles... and I would definitely have to give my standard disclaimer of me + needles = passing out when I got pierced.. but I think this would also help me overcome that fear. Maybe.. somehow.

My other problem is, I don't know how these piercings will be viewed at work. I'm not even sure about ear piercings simply because of my job. Granted, this is a business casual environment... but some of these people are also very straight laced. Plus the fact that I actually have to meet with clients on occasion... which I hate (see my previous post about that.) I really want to start doing this stuff.. it just really interests me. I guess I'll have to ask if there's any kind of policy here about that. It just somewhat bugs me that work might actually restrict me from doing things like this, when really, it doesn't change at all who I am or how I perform my job. It just changes how I look... which really, they shouldn't give a damn about, as long as I'm presentable.

Management

2006-11-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

So I posted here previously that I will soon have somebody working under me, and the stress and doubts associated with that. I think I can safely say that I'm over those fears. I'm certain that I will be a strong leader and also a good teacher. I have no doubts there anymore. The problem is, now I'm doubting if I want to be in that type of position. It may be that I was born to be in a leadership role of sorts... I have always somewhat fallen into that role in most situations in my life. I'm just not sure if I want that to be my job. I like obscurity... I like being the man behind the curtain, making things work from the shadows. I like having the freedom to actually work, without constraints, without distractions. Most of all though, I hate dealing with political bullshit. And to me, that's what comes with a management role. You have to deal with customers and other managers all the time, and you have to play political footsie with them. That's not something I enjoy, that's not something I want. Sure, I can bullshit with the best of em when I have to, but I couldn't live with myself if that's what I did for a job. I would start to hate my job, and I just got myself out of a position where I couldn't stand waking up in the morning, because it meant I had to drag myself in for another day of worthless time at my job.

Then again, who knows, maybe it won't be that way at all. I may be over analyzing. Being in a management position here might be just what I need. I suppose only time will tell.

Rust 'n Bass

2006-11-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

So I was listening to a drum 'n bass mix that I recorded last night... just about a half hour worth. And I realized, that I sound like CRAP. I am way rusty with that stuff. I can't believe how incredibly out of practice I am now... so yeah, I need a lot more practice with that stuff. And probably more records. Definitely more records. Or I could just stick with tech house & breakbeats. Both of which I'm at least decent at mixing. Grr, decisions decisions!

I <3 RedHat.

2006-11-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061116-8240.html
http://www.redhat.com/promo/believe/
http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/

RedHat rules. Plain and simple. Microsoft pushes, and they shove back. They won't take guff from anybody. That is awesome. More people should follow their example.

Organization

2006-11-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

I really need to start getting things organized. I keep finding myself forgetting to do things, or ending up doing them several days later than I really should. It's not that I have too many things to do... well okay maybe I do, but all of this really should be manageable if I just put my mind to it. At least I've started to get my dates and appointments organized, thanks to my wonderifical new phone.
I love my phone. I really do.
I just need to figure out what to do to organize everything else.... my white board is filled with chicken scratch, and I've got sticky notes every freaking where.

Drum 'n Bass +10

2006-11-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

I've learned a very valuable lesson tonight.

Spinning drum 'n bass with all the tracks at or near +10% pitch is very difficult.
And it sounds like crap.

Note to self: Never do that again.

Fortune of the day

2006-11-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Slous' Contention:
If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it.

Yeah. Yup. That's very true. I now realize, that's what's happened to me. But I like it... dammit.

Decisions

2006-11-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

I tend to be a pretty indecisive person. Okay, at times, that's a massive understatement. But when it comes to important, potentially life changing decisions, I tend to put my mind to them and figure out an answer. Especially when it affects other people's lives. Why can't other people have this same courtesy? It really bugs me, the fact that my entire future could hinge on the decisions of another person, and they refuse to make up their mind.

Responsibility

2006-11-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

When did this happen? When did I suddenly become responsible for so much? I've had to take on far more in this month than I ever imagined I would have to. And now, I'm finding that I'm going to have a new employee under me at work. I'm going to be a boss. I'm going to be totally accountable for this person.

How did this happen?

Am I ready for this?

Will I be able to handle all of this new weight, or will I collapse?

Mental Exercise

2006-11-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

Given the circumstances that I'm currently in, and the state that my mom has come to be in, I can't help but sit here and think that the most important exercise we can get in our lives is mental. You can work your body as much as you want, and even extend your life through these physical pursuits. Unless you constantly exercise your mind, however, who can say how many of these extended years will be happy, harmonious years? How many of them will be spent in misery, wishing that you were no more for this world? How many years will you spend in regression, not really knowing the current or what is going on around you?

I'm not trying to downplay the importance of physical exercise here, not at all. Our country is obese, that is a fact. More people need to get off their lazy asses and work out. But just as many people, and probably even more, need to work their minds a lot more than they currently do. It's nothing terribly difficult. In fact, mental exercise is even easier than physical. You can remain seated on your lazy ass while you do it!

There are any number of things you can do to exercise your brain. Pick up a book, a magazine, or a newspaper and start reading. Do what I'm doing right now and write down your thoughts. Grab a deck of cards and play a game of solitaire. Work on a crossword puzzle or a sudoku puzzle. Troubleshoot a problem in something; a car, a computer, even in your fridge. Any of these activities and thousands more will work your brain and keep it fresh. All you need to do is think, keep thinking... be creative, solve problems, learn new things. This is how you exercise your brain. This is how you keep your brain young. And most importantly, this is how you ensure that your brain will stay fresh through your life, and your final years will be happy ones, not years spent wishing it would all end.

Sennheiser

2006-11-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

...makes totally awesome headphones. I've got great headphones for all of my mixing and listening needs, that cost only $60. I would totally recommend these headphones to anybody at all. They sound incredible, they've got excellent noise cancellation, and they're extremely comfortable.

Problem is, the cables they sell with them are CHEAP ASS PIECES OF CRAP!

I've now had 2 cables die on me, just through regular use. Yeah, they get tugged on a bit. They're going to. It's a good thing these cables are detachable and replaceable. Of course, you have to order them directly from Sennheiser. The cables aren't too terribly expensive... $7.62 each (Which is better than last I checked, I swear they were $12.)

Overall, I'm happy with these headphones. I'm just pissed off right now that I can't use either of my pairs, because both of the cables are broken.

I'm ordering 2 new cables as I write this.

Pure, raw stupidity.

2006-11-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

You know how it's called a "flash flood" when there's a sudden downpour and areas become flooded nearly instantly? Well, I've just gotten what I like to call a "flash migraine". Except, these aren't caused by sudden downpours of rain. They're caused by sudden downpours of stupid.

I just ran into one of the most ridiculous bugs I've seen since I started at this job. On the locator website for one of our clients, I could add a space (yes, " ") to the end of a zip code in which I wanted to find a location.... and somehow, this managed to make all locations display as being over 5,000 miles away. Even ones that were.. oh, say, 18 miles away.

How do you not notice things like this in development? How do you not CHECK for things like this in testing? Hell... how do you manage to maintain a job in the IT industry, making totally stupid mistakes like this, on major corporate websites!?

I just don't get it .... but I praise the inventor of Excederin migraine.

Home again, home again

2006-11-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Oh, to be home again.

I can't express how glad I am to be back.

I was in Spokane for 10 days, and I'll be glad if I don't have to go back for another long while. While I was there, I experienced below freezing temperatures... in fact, I experienced temperatures near 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Several nights while I was there got down to 9 degrees. Do you realize how cold that is? I saw SNOW! I haven't seen snow in over 5 years! No thanks, not for me.

So glad to be back. I came back to 80 degree weather. In November. Awesome. I want this year round. Actually, maybe a bit warmer... like, upper 80s, low 90s.. that would be perfect. Plus rain. Yeah, I need tropical.

Anyhow, I've wandered and I must work. Just sayin'. It's good to be home.

"Among the lucky, you are the chosen one."

2006-10-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

That's what my fortune cookie read yesterday at lunch. This was after the owner told me that my lunch was on him. Seems pretty lucky to me!

Then again, he only said that because I found a moth in my soup. Must have fallen off the wall or something, but still, that doesn't seem very lucky to me.

"You will be advanced professionally without any special effort on your part." -- this is another one that I got a few weeks ago. It's a nice idea... but a pipe dream. I've had to fight hard and work even harder to get to where I am, and I still have a long ways to go in my career. Hell, I'm 24 and I haven't even started a retirement fund yet!

Who the hell writes these fortune cookies anyways? I want to see some that have sayings like they were shouting in Fight Club. "You are not special.", "You are no better than anybody else." -- those would be awesome. Those would actually make me laugh and smile.

But maybe that's just me.

I've sold out again

2006-08-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Not only am I now maintaining a blog (Well.. sorta.. I've been slacking lately, I know.) I just signed up for last.fm as well. Yes, that's right. You can now see what music I've been listening to. Exciting huh?

Well, if it does interest you, then you can see my page in all its lackluster glory here: http://www.last.fm/user/Tarkatronic

Enjoy!

Passionfruit Starburst

2006-08-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

So I was having a bit of a debate about my Jesus Juice, with one of the servers at Kobe. She kept insisting that it tasted just like a Passionfruit Starburst... I'm not entirely sure, and I'm deferring to her knowledge of them, as it's been a very long time since I've had that particular kind of candy. However, when I went and had another Jesus Juice last night (yes, I'm there too much,) it was made by accident with pineapple juice instead of the orange juice. The bartender obviously offered to remake it... but I was curious, so I tried it. And holy crap! I'm not sure which way I like better... they're both very tasty! But with this one.... I was actually thinking about Tropical Starburst when I was drinking it. I think the other one may have been close, but this nailed it on the head. So I think I have now, with the assistance of the staff at Kobe, created 2 new drinks with just a minor variation.

First, Jesus Juice, with the orange juice. Second, Tropical Starburst, with the pineapple juice.

I love it. I need to come up with more drink recipes.

Jesus Juice

2006-08-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is the name of my new drink I made up last night. I believe I've made it once before at my house, but it was never officially christened, nor did it make its public debut, until last night. It was a slow night in the bar, I didn't really have anything particular in mind to drink, and the Bartender's Handbook produced nothing useful... so I had the bartender, Sariah, mix this one up for me. After trying a little bit, her reaction was something along the lines of "Jesus, that's good. I can't wait to have one!" ... after which she was quick to name it, "Jesus Juice".

Here's how we made this wondrous wonder of a drink:

Mix equal parts of the following, over ice, in a tall glass:

Vanilla Vodka (I generally use Stoli, but Skyy was used last night and it turned out quite well)
Malibu Rum
Midori Melon Liquer
Orange Juice

I like mine shaken, but in general the ingredients will blend pretty well on their own. Either way, sit back and enjoy! If made properly, you shouldn't taste a damn bit of alcohol, but you'll definitely feel it!

Rock Climbing

2006-07-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

So I've been talking lately, amongst myself and with a few other people as well, about wanting to start doing some kind of physical activity on a regular basis again. I miss it. One of the more prevelant ideas I've had has been indoor rock climbing. It's been years since I've done it, and I loved it when I did.

Today, for work, I'm going to be going way the hell up into north Phoenix, way far away... so I pull up a map of where I'm going... look carefully.... look again... scratch my head, and say "Hey.. I recognize that area. I've seen a map talking about this location...", then it hits me like a donkey punch! That's right up there next to one of the rock gyms I used to go to! I think it's time for me to start making up excuses to go up to our co-location facility. Now I just need to find somebody to go climbing with me.

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

SSL woes

2006-07-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you non technical types, feel free to tune out now. I won't be offended. Honest. This is going to be quite a rant.

So I've got this job, right. And at this job, we do a lot of website hosting, some of these on "secure" (https) servers. For these servers and their hosted pages to work properly, I need an SSL certificate. Easy enough, right? Haha, I wish.

A couple weeks ago, it comes time that we need to order a new SSL certificate, for a new secure website. We go to Thawte, where we've ordered all of our certificates from before, place an order for a new one, and give them all the information they need. After numerous correspondences and far too much time wasted, it becomes glaringly obvious that we're not going to get a certificate from Thawte anytime soon. Alright, screw them, we'll go with the new trusted name on the internet, GoDaddy. They know what they're doing.

Don't they?

We place the order with GoDaddy and receive our new certificate almost immediately. Wonderful! I'm liking this already. Follow their instructions to install the certificate, all goes smoothly... but just to be safe, before I restart the web server, I run a "configtest", to make sure it likes it.

$ sudo apache-sslctl configtest
Syntax error on line 1213 of /etc/apache-ssl/httpd.conf:
Invalid command 'SSLCertificateChainFile', perhaps mis-spelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

Wonderful. Doesn't work. Hmm well, what if I just comment that line out? Can't hurt too much, right? So I comment the line out.... run a configtest... it's okay! Groovy! Restart apache, and we're up and running! So I open up Firefox, go to the website, it's secured... no problems! Oh wait, just to be safe, I better check it in IE also. Open up IE... bring up the site... what? Can't verify the certificate? What the hell is this? Oh crap. That line that didn't work. GoDaddy provides an "intermediate" certificate for ... whatever stupid reason. That's great. Well, we can't have IE users always getting an error. This just will not do.

Time to call up GoDaddy support, see if they can help out. I talk to the general tech support girl .... she has no idea what I'm talking about, says she has to pass me on to SSL support. Alright, cool. They've got good hold music anyways. A whole bunch of swing/ska music.... I could stay on hold here all day! (And I nearly do....) Several songs and a good while later, I'm talking to an SSL support guy. I describe the problem to him... he thinks for a minute... asks a few basic questions.... and then decides that I need to re-generate the key.

Woah. Hold on. What?

I tell him the problem again. Still he insists that I should regenerate the key. Okay, I'll try a different approach. I ask him if GoDaddy can possibly create a key WITHOUT the intermediate key. Apparently this thought is blasphemous in his world, and quite an impossible feat. Lovely. I ask for his recommendation on the stipulation that our web server, for some reason, doesn't support using an intermediate key. "Uh.. well.. you should regenerate .... " oh wow, I can see this is getting nowhere fast. Okay okay, another approach.. quick. I ask him if he thinks I might need to upgrade OpenSSL. We've got a 0.9.7 version... that sounds relatively up to date, but I'm not sure how recent. Maybe this is just something not supported there. At which point he lays this whopper on me: Apparently, the GoDaddy servers, are running OpenSSL 1.3. Ahem. coughcough.

The current version is available from http://www.openssl.org. OpenSSL 0.9.8b was released on May 4th, 2006.

Well hello Mr. Future Man! What's it like to be in the year 2025? I'm done with this fool. GoDaddy's support is USELESS. I guess I'll have to do some more creative Googling. Eventually, I come across this site. Exactly what I've been needing from the beginning. This confirms my suspicions that GoDaddy's documentation and tech support is lacking. We're using another (apparently widely used) ssl package. And what it all comes down to is changing the directive for that line. So instead of having "SSLCertificateChainFile", I use "SSLCACertificateFile" .... and then it works perfectly! Shiny!

*sigh* The trials of working in an undocumented environment.

Crazy times...

2006-07-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, the joys of drinking with old punks. Good times.

I'm so surprised they still let us come back to this place. I'm also quite surprised he made it to work today.

FIRE!

2006-07-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

That's what I did with my 4th of July.
How about you?

Best. Gimmick. Ever.

2006-06-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

So I decided, by some random chance, to stop at Starbucks this morning on the way to work. I needed something in my stomach, I wanted some coffee, and I didn't want cheap quickie mart coffee. So I end up in the drive thru. It's a few minutes' wait -- they're usually pretty busy in the morning. As I pull up and order my drink, I see the girl at the window talking more than usual to the lady ahead of me, and making a few hand gestures. I also overhear something about "It's been going on all morning". At this point I'm thinking maybe they are having some issues with debit card purchases. I hope not. But then the girl takes the lady's debit card, swipes it, hands her a receipt. Okay, cool. My turn.

I pull up, to a happy, smiling girl at the window. Kinda cute too.
She leans out and strikes up a bit of a conversation. Here's what I remember of it:
Her: Hi! Are you having a good morning?
Me: Why yes, I am!
Her: Well, I think your morning is about to get a lot better. The lady ahead of you just paid for your drink!
Me: (head spinning with confusion) Really!?
Her: Yeah, one person started it earlier today and it's been going on like that all morning! (*click* gears grinding in my head with realization of what's going on)
Her: So what you can do now is, you can take your drink for free, or you can pay for the person behind you and keep this going!

Now, at this point I'm thinking... hmmm, well, mine was $7.95 for a quad venti white mocha and coffee crumb cake. The lady ahead of me had what looked like a venti drink of some kind and a small one for her daughter in the seat beside her. Probably about the same price as mine, possible a dollar or so less. There are 2 girls in an SUV behind me. I wonder what they ordered. Well, probably just 2 light drinks. Why the hell not. It's a gamble, but sure, I'm game.

Me: Sure, I'll keep this going, why not.
Her: Great! Just let me swipe your card .... here's your receipt ... ($10.95 -- not bad) ... and here's your coffee crumb cake and mocha.
Her: Also, I've been giving these cards out to people for doing such a good job. With this, you can get any size free of our new drink. (*click* again)
Her: Thank you very much! Have a wonderful day!
Me: Thank you, you too!

After which I proceed to drive off. Then I pull out, and wait at a stop light to drive off. As I'm sitting there, I decide to read the card she gave me. It reads:

Spread Summer Sunshine

Somebody's going to do something nice for you today. Maybe they'll
let you go first in the register line. Maybe they'll give you some
change so you don't have to break a twenty. Or maybe they'll just hold the door for you when your hands are full.

Whatever the nice thing turns out to be, return the favor by giving that anonymous benefactor this card. You'll both find a little karma
goes a long way.

This card is good for a Banana Coconut
or Bananas & Creme Frappuccino blended beverage.

*DING DING DING!*
So that's what this is all about. A fancy gimmick to advertise their new drink. But damn, what a hell of a gimmick. Seriously! It makes the person happier because the person ahead of them paid for their drink, and it makes them feel better about themselves and like they did a good deed by paying for the person behind them. Plus they promote the drink by handing out the card, and encourage you to promote it by what's written inside. And the great part is, you actually feel compelled to hand it to somebody else because of the way it was given to you! I can't believe this... whoever came up with this idea is a GENIUS!

But the one big question that's been nagging at me is this: What about those people who drop 40 or 50 dollars, buying coffee for the people at the office? Do they sucker some poor sap buying a $4 coffee into paying that bill? How the hell do they handle that situation? Surely the person with the $50 bill would never believe that the person ahead paid their whole bill. How would they pass off that it was a continuing chain in that case?

Oh well, either way it's a great idea. Kudos, Starbucks! You definitely made my morning better!

Tarken, the cynic

2006-06-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

cynic
 n : someone who is critical of the motives of others

Cynic \Cyn"ic\, n. (Gr. Philos)
...
2. One who holds views resembling those of the Cynics; a
  snarler; a misanthrope; particularly, a person who
  believes that human conduct is directed, either
  consciously or unconsciously, wholly by self-interest or
  self-indulgence, and that appearances to the contrary are
  superficial and untrustworthy.

        He could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion
        it was impossible to despise, scarcely any not
        acidulated with scorn.                --Macaulay.

This, unfortunately, describes all too well what I have come to be. It is how I have come to view the world. I keep trying to change for the better, and through these changes I keep finding that I can rely less and less on other people. I am finding one ultimate truth: "Take care of yourself, cause ain't nobody else going to."

I hate being like this. I have very little, if any, faith left in humanity. I wish it wasn't that way. Maybe some day, but not today.

There was nothing specific leading me to post this. It's just something that needs to be said. Some people have noticed that I seem more bitter, or that I'm less trusting. They're right.

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was this: "I am the Mac truck. Get out of the way, or get run over."

I got a toy!

2006-06-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

So I got paid yesterday, and I decided that, in honor or my new job... and due to the fact that I need some way to entertain myself on the flight back to Spokane at the end of this month, I was going to buy myself an MP3 player.

After much frantic, quick research.... well okay maybe only like a half hour of looking at a bunch of random websites, I came upon the iRiver T10 1GB.

I've always been a fan of iRiver, in large part due to the fact that they support OGG Vorbis audio. Which makes them totally awesome in my book. So this is my newest toy... and so far, I love it! People's only complaints really have been that the USB port cover doesn't actually close (It does), and it looks a little weird (I think it's cute!) so I'm all good! It sounds awesome, it holds a gig of music, it's even got an FM tuner! And I can even access it in Linux, via gPhoto2.

Happy!

Databases.... grr.

2006-06-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted up another blog here. I've been bad, I know. In my defense, however, I've been very busy. Right now though, I'm sitting .... waiting .... watching my machine grind .... because of a stupid, slow, database.

Now, I can respect the fact that restoring 750mb of data into a database might take a little bit of time. That's a lot of data. What I really don't get is how it would take well over 2 hours. That is so not cool. This is one of the many, many, MANY reasons ... I no longer use MySQL. Granted, this is an ancient version of MySQL. 3.23 has been long since antiquated, deprecated and dropped like the bad habit it is. But at the same time that this was out, PostgreSQL had a far superior product which would have taken nowhere NEAR as long to accomplish this same task. Since then, PostgreSQL too, has come out with newer, better versions. In my opinion, it still stomps the living crap out of MySQL, in any application, in any environment.

Then again, maybe this ridiculous amount of time has to do with the fact that I only have 256mb of RAM allocated to that virtual machine. Hmm. I need to get more memory in this system.

It is done!

2006-06-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

YAY!

I'm finally gone from that job! WOOHOO! I'm so glad to be done with that place finally. I will still talk to a couple of the people I worked with, but that's the closest I'm going to come to "visiting" that place again. I hope.

Now bring on the drinking! Tonight is a party night for sure!

Cleaning day

2006-06-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well, today's the day I'm cleaning out my desk and preparing to leave this job. It's definitely a finalizing.. and sobering moment. Everybody here is pretty wound up today, because two of us will be leaving tomorrow. I've become pretty mellow at present though. It's dawning on me just how much of a change this is. How much I'm leaving behind. How much I've accomplished here. I wish I could take some of these pieces of code with me.. but I'm sure I'll reconstruct some of the bits later, and do it better the next time.

My desk is now cleared, save for a few wires.. a couple books.. and some dust. It's pretty strange. My desk hasn't been this clear since we moved into this building. It's always had papers scattered over it, or even stacked neatly. Either way, it's been covered in information, covered in work. The signs of a busy person. I really have kept busy through most of my time here, and I really have done a lot. In a way, I'm sad to leave some of this behind. But then again, I'm glad to be furthering myself. I'm glad to be picking up and moving along on my own, without assistance. This new job will actually be the first job where I am completely on my own... in more ways than one. Every job I've had to date, I knew somebody on the inside. I had somebody with whom I was already acquainted, that I could easily talk to. And I've always worked in a team also. This new job, I don't know anybody there, save for meeting them at my interview. At this new job, the only "team" is the company. There is no IT department. I *am* the IT department.

Right now, I'm cleaning files off my laptop. Talk about a long process. You can store a lot of crap on an 80 gig hard drive. I already took care of the biggest part, which was the music. 4 dvds worth. Still a lot of other crap to get rid of.

Yet another hectic day. I really need that happy hour tomorrow.

Change

2006-05-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well I said before that I'm seeking change in my life... and I'm definitely finding it. This year has probably had more changes in it than any other year so far in my life... and it's not even halfway through yet!

Last year ended with the closing of the martial arts school that I had basically spent the entire year at. Was I happy to see it close? No, definitely not... I invested a lot of time and money in it? Was I sad to see it close? Again, no. I needed a break. But a break, I have not gotten.

Off the top of my head, I can't think what changed in the earlier part of the year... except that I know that life has been different. It's just not the same, somehow. This past month is where the majority of the changes have been though. I'm starting a new job next week. I'm helping my mom move at the end of this coming month. My sister is going back to school (again).. I know, not a change directly effecting me, but it may well have some effect. Now a large portion of my close friends are moving out of town, so I'm finding myself grasping at straws for where I'm heading. But with my new outlook, I just figure I'll roll with the punches and I'll just make new friends. I don't expect to replace the friends I have now... but I've been wanting to meet new people anyways!

Do I have a point to this post? Not really. Just wanted to say all that. It's funny how life works.

Here's to change! *sips wine*

Grok

2006-05-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

What a day.

I was originally going to post on here about the wonders of Robert A Heinlein. And I still am going to. He is easily one of the best authors *ever*. But now so many other things are happening today, it's hard to keep my brain organized. Wow, and it's not even 10:30 yet.

First big thing is... well see, I gave my 2 weeks' notice here on Friday. So I've now got until next Friday before my job here is over... technically. Not that they've really got me doing much here at the moment. Obviously, since I've got enough time to sit here and blog. But now, my new job that I've got... well once I accepted the position, they let go the guy who was there. Which means they're VERY anxious to see me start working, asap! Not that I'm not chomping at the bit to start working there either, don't get me wrong... I'm giddy as a school girl at the thought of getting out of here and going to work at my new job! But I did give two weeks' notice here... so I do have that whole moral obligation tying me here for that period. I asked if they can let me go early from that though, and let me head over to the new job. I think they may be talking about it now... I hope. If all goes well, this Friday will be my last day here, and I'll be working at the new job on Monday! *crossing fingers*

Alright, now on to other things.

Oh yes! My sister has like... published artwork, for sale 'n stuff! Check it out! http://www.deviantart.com/print/327721/
It's pretty good... she's getting to be an awesome photographer :-D (They need to add smilies here on Blogger.. especially automagical ones that replace as you type. Woot. That'd be cool.)

Now that all of that is out of the way, I can get back to the original topic here. Heinlein. He really is an incredible author. Unlike any I've read before.

The first of his books that I read was "Stranger in a Strange Land". Since then, I've read "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" and "Friday", and I am currently digesting "JOB: A Comedy of Justice".

...we now interrupt this blog for an important announcement...
WOOHOO!
They have decided. I just have to write up a new letter saying that this Friday is my last day and it's all done, no hard feelings!
...we now return you to our randomly scheduled blog...

I've also read a few bits of short stories from a collection of his, called "The Past Through Tomorrow". Very good stuff. Next, after I'm finished with JOB, I'm going to be moving on to "I Will Fear No Evil"... after which I will need to go hunt down more of his works. I really am quite enamored with his writing. The worst part of all of it is going to be when I reach the end of his works. I'm not looking forward to that day, for sure.

Alright, that's it for now. I'm off to write another resignation letter! (Isn't that bizarre... two resignation letters from one job...)

Adieu!