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| Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | | 2:28 am |
Getting out of your own way.
A few months ago I had a realization that "things are good." It's such a small realization, but it was one of those strange revelations. "Money is not a problem, as long as I have a place to live, my family, and a steady job, everything is good." My wife takes care of the money, and pretty much everything else in the house. I'm affording the luxury of just going to work and doing some light helping out around the house. Even then, most of the time my help involves me just hanging out and talking while she does the laundry or cooks. My life has been rather blessed. That small little thought of "Things are good," has compounded and it's just made me a lot happier in general. I have my family, and no matter what else, I'll be fine. So, I've discovered the happiest year of my life involved me just getting out of my own way and allowing myself to be happy has in turn caused me to talk more to my family, spend more time with them. In turn, that's made them more happy. I could say "I wish I would have discovered this sooner" ... but you know what, I did discover it, and hey, things are great. So, if my wife should read this: Happy Mother's day, my wonderful lady, and thank you for your patience and tolerance for the past few moody years. And let's see if next year can even surpass this one. | | Saturday, March 14th, 2009 | | 10:15 pm |
[LJ2ME] What's up I could do one long update about all that has happened in the past decade or so that I haven't posted. I could also do one of my usual "this happened" hit and run posts and talk about, oh, maybe the hit and run that took out the car's back window. But really, I am just avoiding work while in the U of M law library keeping my wife company and messing around on the blackberry with this LJ client I found. I should really spend some time learning about the blackberry development environment. It's basically Java, which I think is cool. Honestly, though, I kind of miss entering text on the palm through graffiti. Maybe that is just lack of familiarity. Well, I have this guy (the blackberry) for a while, so I should learn it better, and it is growing on me. The screen is nice and they pay attention to a lot of nice little things. But my hand does cramp on long text entry. Which it has now, so I will leave this at this. Device: RIM Wireless Handheld | | Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 | | 2:25 pm |
As an additional note:
If you have a facebook account, log in and check it out. A bunch of pictures were posted from my high school years, of the various drama geeks that I spent all my time with. Somewhat amusing to see these old pictures. | | 2:24 pm |
Strange week
Without going into a lot of detail. Last few weeks have been rather stressful. Lots of family related worried, but everything is back to mostly normal. (There's still some things going on, but not quite as bad as we had feared.) Today, the project that has been haunting me (and the other developers) just got canceled and replaced with another tactic. The new tactic should be a lot easier to support, but it's mostly back to the drawing board. That should be interesting. Right now, reading boring documentation in preparation for that. Perhaps I will update more frequently, but somehow I doubt that. Current Mood:  relieved | | Thursday, January 24th, 2008 | | 6:40 pm |
In the interests of updating with nothing to say, I post a meme which I've seen for a while. This is one of those "How Priveleged Were You" growing up sorts of things. ( meme ) | | Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 | | 12:24 pm |
No updates implies pasting a meme
Yes, I know, a meme is a poor substitute for an actual update... but you knew what you were getting into when you got here. Behind the cut is a meme I got from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wickedthought (John Wick)'s blog about "Hobby Games" (card games and RPGs), where you pick which ones you own and have played. ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, May 10th, 2007 | | 12:41 pm |
Adventures in Yesterday
So, today started out pretty oddly. ( So I had a car accident ... ) ... but once I sit down, agent00groovey points out, "Did you know there's a hole in your pants?" "So THAT'S why I had these in the 'do not wear pile.' Shoot shoot shoot." Some paper clips as thread in sewing the seam shut in the bathroom fixed it, but a great way to end that whole ordeal. (Good news was, they got my IBM email working, so I finally got to submit my expense report for my Atlanta trip and also to sign up for health benefits, so it wasn't all bad yesterday.) | | Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 | | 11:22 am |
Bad camera phone pictures
These are some bad pictures from my camera phone while I was on my trip in Atlanta. I'm not much of a photographer and my camera phone is pretty bad, but every now and then I would snap a picture for later. These are the only ones which turned out worthwhile. (The ones of the skyline and a few buildings did not turn out well at all.) Surprisingly, they turned out much better when uploaded to the computer than they do on my crappy little display. So, maybe some of the pictures I deleted would have been salvageable. Anyhow, click on the photos for a larger view of them.
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Waterfall and Cafe Area
This is the courtyard of the cafe of the ISS Building in Atlanta. There's a little waterfall from a stream that geos between the buildings. |
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Trees in Courtyard
These are some of the trees in the courtyard of the ISS building in atlanta. |
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Mama Sani's Cab
This is Mama Sani's cab. He was the cab driver who took me everywhere I went in Atlanta. Whenever he dropped me off, he was nice enough to ask me when he could come get me and scheduled it. Very nice guy from Cameroon. If you need a taxi in Atlanta, make sure to call Style Taxi and ask for Mama Sani. |
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Altanta Underground
While I was waiting for my plane, I took a walk through the Atlanta Underground area. I never actually went into the "underground" though because it was so nice, but I did get yet another picture of manmade fountains/waterfall. |
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Dinosaur Skeleton and Atrium in Atlanta Airport
This large dinosaur skeleton sits in the atrium of the Atlanta airport. I was stuck in a long, long line for the security check, so I stood in the middle of this atrium and was pretty impressed. This open area is about 3 stories tall. |
| | Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 | | 7:49 pm |
Updates will come, eventually.
I'll have to post a bit of what happened to me last week at the ISS / IBM orientation. For now, though, I figured I should put up a picture of me in a suit, since this is a rather unusual thing to see.  | | Monday, April 9th, 2007 | | 5:16 pm |
My farewell letter
Yes, sorry for dumping that on you all without much introduction. That was my farewell letter for my current company. I'm leaving to go work for ISS/IBM with agent00groovey and specialagentm. In all honesty, I had written it via google documents and hit the "publish to my blog" button to show a friend, but figured "Hey, this is not anything I should worry about sharing." It is also a bit of an update about what is going on here. I'm pretty excited. | | 3:56 pm |
I would like to let you know that I have decided to leave Medstat. My last day will be April 20th. I have enjoyed the last eleven years that I've worked here, and I've learned a lot since I started back in my early twenties. I am excited about my new position, but I will miss working with all of the people that I've met over the years. I will also miss the projects that I've worked on. One of the things that I've done on previous projects was gone through the header comments which have been made in all of the various source code I've worked on, from the fortran programs that I've worked on when I first started, then on Illumina and Modeler, and next on Panorama, and then Decision Analyst and NetEffect, finally in the Rules Engine project. So, it's kind of comforting to know that things that I've worked on will still be used in the years to come (and that people will look through the comments and say "That dec2221 guy was a weird one, wasn't he?"). I also know that I'll be a bit jealous of the new projects that will come out, "Oh, that sounds like it would have been a nifty thing to work on." The projects I'll be working on for the new company sound exciting, though, so I am definitely looking forward to them. It's going to be a stretch for me to live up to what they'll be expecting, as well as the challenge of meeting a whole new group of people, but I think I am up to it. So, wish me luck! You'll still be able to contact me at my home email address of [my email here] , feel free to drop a line. | | Thursday, April 5th, 2007 | | 10:23 am |
Do you have any other questions?
Yes, and no, I do have other questions for you, but the thing is, the answers to the questions wouldn't affect my decision either way. Some of the questions I'm burning with curiosity to know, but the reason that you asked me if I had any questions in the first place was to learn more about me. And well, the ones that pop into my head, those reveal too much. Probably nothing harmful, but the goal of this session is to present an image. So, I'm kind of stumped. What questions do I want to be seen asking? Of course, that creates a log jam of ideas in my head. It's just safer to say "Lots, but nothing specific." Please, don't take this as an insult or anything, I'm just reasonably confident that I've gotten all the information that I need to make a decision, whatever else I want to know I am sure I can find out in good time. | | Friday, December 8th, 2006 | | 7:34 pm |
This is a test
This is a test of the IM posting ability. Not sure why we need yet another way to post stuff, but I need to play with stuff like this. | | Thursday, December 7th, 2006 | | 2:03 pm |
Yet another meme
Yes, I haven't posted as I said I will. Instead I present another meme. Because, memes are like that. | | Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 | | 7:48 pm |
Standard meme junk: Accents
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. | | The West | | | Boston | | | North Central | | | The South | | | The Inland North | | | Philadelphia | | | The Northeast | | What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes |
| | Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 | | 11:46 am |
| | Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 | | 11:55 am |
Lawn set on fire
This entry is backdated, but I felt that I should post something about it. I was setting off fireworks with my daughter and one of her friends and a bunch of rowdy teenage boys (about 8-12) were walking down the street and on the sidewalk. This was right before midnight, I was telling them to start finishing up because we were going to be done before midnight. One of the boys walks right up to me, which made me nervous. I did a quick check and the girls were inside of the fence and it was just me on the sidewalk with them. One of them walked up to me and asked me for some fireworks, I ignored him. I was trying to think of how to say, "Sorry, no, I don't want to be responsible for anything that happens" or "They're cheap fireworks, you could buy them at the store" but figured it was just easier to not say anything. So, he gets a little angry and says, "Oh, just go right on staring at us." Well, sorry sir, but you're on my lawn. I'm waiting to see what you are going to do. They make comments about race, but honestly even if they were all a bunch of white boys, it would be intimidating to be surrounded by rowdy kids. The fact that they were black was less alarming than the fact that they recognized that I was not. So, when they cross the corner I had the kids go back to setting off the fireworks. They laugh about the relatively pathetic firework, but hey, the box was $20 and some were big and some were not. ... at which point they set my lawn waste on fire and yell "Black power." What idiots. I had to be an idiot too, and I took out my cell phone, held it over my head and said "I've got a phone here, I can call the cops" while running towards them. They had already ran away full speed, so it was pointless. I told the girls to go inside and call 911 and handed them my phone, but J wanted to use the home phone. I told her, "Whatever, just call" since I was nervous. I didn't want a big grass fire to spread and the fire had already gotten to the size of a large bonfire. Then I told my daughter's friend to go inside, get my keys, and then go into the garage and get one of the blankets that was on the shelf in there. We keep a bunch of dirty old blankets there, and that might help with the fire. They aren't able to get into the garage, so I just tell them to clean up the fireworks in the back of the house since we're done for the night. In the mean time, I looked to see if we had a faucet in the front, then I went out back and unhooked the hose, then I went into the back and tried to get enough water pressure to be of any use. I eventually managed to get the fire out with a pathetic stream of water, which luckily just made everything wet enough that the fire did not spread, and then put it out when I got a bit more pressure. (I had the hose in the back since I was keeping it ready in case the grass caught fire in the back due to the fireworks, little did I know that I would need it in the front.) Eventually, I heard a firetruck coming around. I got a bit nervous and asked the kid, "What did you tell them?" She said, "I just said some kids set our leaves on fire." Apparently, she didn't tell them anything outrageous, but I was still nervous about it all. What happens when you call the fire department but you manage to put the fire out yourself? They first stopped down the street at another house that was setting fireworks, since there was no obvious fire on our street. When they came down the street to us, a guy in a car asked if I had reported a fire. I'm telling him, "Oh, I am really sorry, I got the fire out but I just wanted to make sure" and I pointed at the charred husks of three bags of leaves, with two or three other bags still there. Well, the fire department nodded, smiled, told me "That's why you pay taxes" and "We were already out for all the fireworks" as I'm apologizing. I thank them for coming. I go back inside, still a little irritated with how racist that makes me sound "A bunch of black teenage boys set my lawn on fire, but I couldn't identify any of them, because I didn't get a look at them." But, honestly, I couldn't identify a gang of white boys either. I can generally tell you hair color, approximate height, skin color, clothing. When it's a group of 8-12 teenagers with all of those characteristics matching, well, not much I can do to tell you "Him, but not him." | | Monday, April 10th, 2006 | | 1:30 pm |
Dream that amused the kid
Ok, so I had this dream and it amused the family greatly, so I will share it. It didn't strike me as particularly out of place, but it did cause the kid to break into hysterical laughter. I was on my way to work, running a bit tight on time when I realized that I had left the car at home. At this point, I was a bit worried since it takes quite a bit more time to get to work when walking than by driving, but I was close enough that I wouldn't be more than half an hour late or so, since I was just off the exit to work. As I started to walk up the exit ramp, a guy stopped to give me a ride when I realized that I was still wearing jeans and a t-shirt, which is what I usually toss on when I drop the kid off at school. So, I asked the guy to drop me off at the mall. When we get near the mall, he drops me off outside of some houses. I go to jump on the fence to walk to the mall and the guy says I should get some new shoes, my current ones are pretty ragged and have holes. I tell him that it's ok, my pants have holes in them too, so he starts laughing. I jump onto the fence, walk across it and come upon a back yard that has two stuffed and talking ravens in it that I ask to borrow a change of pants and shoes from but I must do it in the form of a song, like some children's show. I wake up in the midst of that song. So, yes. a.) I was driving to work and suddenly no longer was driving a car. b.) there are no houses outside of the mall whose yards that I can walk across. and c.) Nothing in the dream struck me as odd during the dream. Honestly, that dream isn't that out of place with others. Current Music: Death Cab For Cutie - Different Names For The Same Thing | | 11:36 am |
Online Social Networks
Poll #707586 Online Social Networks
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4 How many OTHER social networks do you belong to? | | Monday, March 27th, 2006 | | 7:31 pm |
Decent Day
Today was a pretty decent day. Had an all day meeting with a vendor we're considering purchasing some software from, in order to incorporate it with a new product. The morning started at 8:30, which for me is miserably early. I know there are those of you for whom this is a late start, but for me that's an hour early. I managed to skate in about 2-3 minutes late due to traffic, but no eyebrows were raised. (And only accomplished this by skipping the shower, which I avoided feeling like a stinkdog by luckily having showered the previous day in the evening.) Did introductions, I said something which I felt was suitably "What I do and who I am" but my boss added a bit about "Dan is a guy we like to have on new projects because he's able to come up to speed real quick, even if he doesn't know the subject or if he doesn't even know the language." That's rather high praise from a boss that I've had a poor review from in the past. (Add to that a previous comment, where he was giving me my review and fighting for the promotion. I tried to thank him, and he kept telling me, "No, thank you. You've done an amazing job." And so on.) Definitely feeling a lot better about the work situation in regards to the boss. The new project sounds exciting. I never know how much I can or cannot talk about concerning our products, but I imagine I can tell you that it's an application to rate and score providers of medical treatments on how well they follow a set of guidelines from health care agencies. That's something we've always done in the past, the new bit is the rules logic will now be in a third party vendor's software engine, which will allow people with clinical experience to make the rules instead of us geeky programmers. It does actually sound pretty exciting, and I think I have a good handle on it. Feeling very "on top of things" in that entire meeting. Amusingly, since I was adding details about how it would all fit together, everyone started to refer to the software that Medstat would write by my name. "And then Dan will take the data here." Eventually I had to make a comment about that, but I imagine that's how it will be referred to during this brainstorm/vendor/meeting/thing. Definitely are going to be some difficult parts of this process, seems like everyone involved recognizes them, and it does seem like we can conquer them. I feel rather confident. Just one of those days where I enjoy my job immensely. On a side note: Not done one bit of studying for my MCAD or thought about taking it recently. Heh. Drats! Gotta do that soon before my brain leaks all that info out. Amusingly, this new bit of code will be all Java code. We have to write it on UNIX and Windows, so .NET would not be a good fit. (And we've tried using MONO and it was wayyyy too slow to use for our production code.) Hey, Rennie. If you've actually managed to read this far down, how hard are the Java certification programs? It never hurts to get another piece of paper to PROVE you know the language, but ... My java is shakier than it should be. And I still have not yet discovered the joys of Eclipse. We're still on JBuilder 7.0, but it might be time to move to Eclipse since so few of us are Java programmers, so it's a bit more difficult to get the company to commit to upgrading our IDE whenever Borland decides it would like a little more money. Current Mood:  accomplished |
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