The Confused Daoist

The Maintenance Club Goes Live!

2009-06-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

The Maintenance Club is a Preventative Maintenance system for the rest of us!

The Maintenance Club, live today, is a free Preventative Maintenance System that allows for the management of equipment maintenance, parts inventories, and corrective maintenance history. With a simple to use wizard to help users get started new users are just a few steps away from creating their first PM and improving the reliability of their equipment.

Join now and reduce the chances of a breakdown!

Credit Card companies resist regulation

2008-12-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry... WHAT??????

CitiBank is Rate-Jacking again!

I had no idea that regulated industries had a say in the matter when regulation was pending, to help prevent things like S&L meltdowns, or Banking collapses, or Credit Card Client Raping!!!

It has become painfully obvious that Banks and Wallstreet can not self regulate. They've proven this time and again! Hello Madoff????

Now we find out that: oh, well there is pushback in the credit industry to regulation to prevent Epic Client Screwing... What the HELL does that have to do with anything???? There's pushback from taxes but average Joe Blows like you and me still dole out our taxes every year like lemings!!!

I am REALLY starting to feel like I'm being duped here...

And it really sounds like it's time to go Cash only. Of course I guess that means I don't get to buy any more houses or cars.

Damn... It's really starting to suck being a tax payer...

Open Letter to Congress

2008-12-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

This is the text of a letter that I sent to each of my national representatives:

Dear Senator,

I am writing you to provide feedback on some of the short term results of efforts made by congress and the federal government to deal with the current economic struggle our country faces. Some of the efforts made so far that I am aware of include spending up to $700,000,000,000, of which I believe half has already been spent, repeated reductions in interest rates, potential bailout of some American automakers and rumors of some sort of housing or mortgage bailout. Two companies I have confirmed that have received at least $25,000,000,000 each in “Bailout” funds are JP Morgan Chase and CitiBank. Additionally, American Express has requested at least $3,500,000,000 from the “Bailout” fund. I have accounts with all of these institutions.

Last week, I received a letter regarding my Chase Mastercard that stated they were lowering my credit limit due to various reasons. The letter stated these reasons were found by reviewing my credit report with Experian. Note that I have neither been late in any payment in years nor have I recently increased any balances on any credit cards by more than a few hundred dollars, and that only due to Christmas. I reviewed my Experian credit report within hours of reading this letter from Chase. I noticed two things: first, that all accounts stated either Current or Paid Satisfied; second, I reviewed all inquiries on my credit report to see what companies have queried my report and when. I noticed that the last review by any Chase related company was in January 2007 and that wasn’t even a Credit Card related inquiry. To me, it would then appear that whatever prompted the reduction in my credit limit was not related to any information in my credit report since they did not even look at it.

The only extenuating circumstance to this issue is that two months ago I chose to exercise the insurance that every credit card company tries to push on their customers, which protects against things such as job loss or disability. I did this due to the recent birth of my second child which has put my wife out of work for several months.

Yesterday, I received a letter from my CitiBank MasterCard stating they were increasing my interest rate. They gave an option of opting out of this increase; however, it stated that my account would be closed and the balance would have to be paid in full when my current card expires if I did so.

Additionally, several weeks ago my wife received a letter from American Express stating that the limit on her card would also be reduced. We just assumed the reason was because we don’t use this card much. We’re starting to wonder now…

I am not asking for personal intervention in my situation. I only wish to share my first hand experience with the results of some of the economic bailout efforts. It is my opinion that the results hoped for are not being achieved.

Respectfully yours,
Ramon S. Ebert

Yet one more .NET photo album online

2008-10-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

So we've all seen a million different picture albums online. Outside of the pro's like Snapfish and Picasa nearly every website out there has picture albums with thumbnails that you click to view a larger image. Been there done that.

I've had these on my website since it's inception in 1995 or so... I've used various methods over the years to create these. I've tried Photoshop web photo albums, Picasa web photo albums, Frontpage photo albums etc. I kept running into issues that bothered me when I used someone else's solution so I started coding my own albums in straight HTML using tables etc. This worked perfectly because I had complete control of the code but it sure was tedious!

As my digital photography sophistication increased, at least that's my perception anyway, so did the number of pictures I shot and the size of my picture albums. My Yellowstone road trip album has over 300 images in it. Yeah, that's a lot of friggin pictures! It's even more HTML coding and <TD> tags!!! As any developer knows the more code you hand type the more potential you have for typos...

So I've spent too much time trying to find a better solution for me that met the exacting, and some might say odd or anal, requirements that I had for creating picture albums. Here are my requirements:
- Needs to be a grid of thumbnails that when clicked opens a larger version of the image.
- Needs to load relatively fast.
- Would be fun if you could have a next and previous feature so as to act like a slideshow.
- Some interesting animation would be neat!
- Would like to display the image name, when it was shot and the camera used.
- Would like to be able to easily add comments to any picture.
- Would like the images sorted by the date they were taken.
- Would NOT like to code HTML for any picture album!
- Would NOT like to create thumbnails manually!
- Would like to be able to add comments or change them after the images are uploaded so that I can at least create the album, post it, then update comments later.
- Would like to be able to add a header and body text without having to create a new page for the album.
- Bonus points if I can dynamically decide which style sheet to use.
- Will be developed in .NET 2.0/3.5 and Visual Basic.

Those are the main requirements. There may be other things that I don't remember right now. So here is the strategy I came up with:

There should be a thumbnail creator that will automatically generate thumbnails, and save them to disc, in the correct format, landscape or portrait, from a set of source images. The thumbnailer should also read the meta-data of the images for date taken, camera type, and also file name. It should be robust enough that if the meta-data is missing it should use alternate data. The thumbnailer should finally take this data and store it in an XML file saved to the same folder as the images.

The next step would then be to create a slideshow engine that uses the generated XML document to display the thumbnails sorted by date taken and link to the larger version of each image. The slideshow engine should have the facility to decide which stylesheet to apply based on a querystring value. It should also decide if there are header and body text files that it can insert into the page to give content.

Simple yes? Well yes and no. I ran into a few roadblocks along the way. Don't worry, I'll supply code below... Originally I created the entire thumbnailer/slideshow engine as one super dooper photo album engine. Worked great on my local server too! Problem was when I uploaded it to godaddy.com it could no longer read the meta-data on the images. I also ran into permissions issues with creating the XML file and with saving the thumbnails.

So my solution then became the two part process mentioned above. Actually there are the preceding steps of picking the images and then resizing them for the web, but I'll leave that for another topic perhaps...

So the Thumbnailer:
You'll need these imports:

Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Drawing.Image
Imports System.Windows.Media
Imports System.Windows.Media.Imaging
Imports System.Xml

I have a predefined image folder where all images will be stored in subfolders. When I call the thumbnailer from the browser I need to include the folder I want processed. I decided to go ahead and enumerate these folders to make it easier to go through them. I just dump this to a label on the page as list of links.

Dim oFileSystem = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Dim oFolder = oFileSystem.GetFolder(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder))
Dim oSubFolders = oFolder.subFolders
Trace.Warn("Page_load", "Folder Count: " + CStr(oSubFolders.count))
If oSubFolders.Count > 0 Then
lblFolderList.Visible = True
lblFolderList.Text = ""
Dim oSingleFolder = oFolder.subFolders
For Each oSingleFolder In oSubFolders
lblFolderList.Text += "<a href=pictionator.aspx?s=" + _
Server.UrlPathEncode(oSingleFolder.Name) + ">" + oSingleFolder.Name + _
"</a><br>"
Next
oSingleFolder = Nothing
End If
oFileSystem = Nothing
oFolder = Nothing
oSubFolders = Nothing

Now I have a list of links that I can just click on to process any subfolder in my images folder.

First step is to generate thumbnails:

Dim sSubFolder As String = ""
Dim sfullPath As String = "imges/"
If Len(Request("s")) > 0 Then
sSubFolder = Request("s") + "/"
End If
Dim oDir As System.IO.DirectoryInfo
oDir = New System.IO.DirectoryInfo(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder))
If oDir.Exists() Then
Dim oFileSystem = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Dim oFolder = oFileSystem.GetFolder(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder))
Dim oFiles = oFolder.Files
Response.Write("File Count: " + CStr(oFiles.Count))
If oFiles.Count > 0 Then
Dim oFile = oFolder.Files
Dim fileNameLink, fileNameExt As String
Dim i As Int32 = 0
Dim thW As Integer = 0
Dim thH As Integer = 0
Dim imgFile As String
Dim myimg As System.Drawing.Image
For Each oFile In oFiles
'Basically on process JPG's that do not have a thumbnail already
If Not File.Exists(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder) + "\" + _
fileNameLink + "_sm." + fileNameExt) And Right(fileNameLink, 3) <>_
"_sm" And fileNameExt.ToLower = "jpg" Then
imgFile = (Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder) + "\" + _
fileNameLink + "." + fileNameExt)
myimg = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(imgFile)
'decide format of the image
If myimg.Width > myimg.Height Then
thH = 120
thW = 150
Else
thH = 150
thW = 120
End If
myimg = myimg.GetThumbnailImage(thW, thH, Nothing, IntPtr.Zero)
myimg.Save(Replace(imgFile, "." + fileNameExt, "_sm." + _
fileNameExt), myimg.RawFormat)
End If
Next
End If
End If

The next step is to build the XML document:

Protected Sub buildXMLDoc()
If Request.QueryString("s") Is Nothing Then
lblMessage.Text = "Sorry that folder does not seem to exist."
Else
Try
Dim sSubFolder As String
Dim sfullPath As String = "images/"
sSubFolder = Request.QueryString("s")
Dim dir As New IO.DirectoryInfo(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder))
'Get a list of only .jpg files. Others can expand this to different
'file types.
Dim fileSet As IO.FileInfo() = dir.GetFiles("*.jpg")
Dim afile As IO.FileInfo
Dim imageXMLWriter As XmlTextWriter = New _
XmlTextWriter(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/picXML.xml"), _
Encoding.UTF8)
imageXMLWriter.Formatting = Formatting.Indented
'Beginning of the XML Doc.
imageXMLWriter.WriteStartDocument()
imageXMLWriter.WriteStartElement("imageList")

'list the names of all files in the specified directory
For Each afile In fileSet
If InStr(afile.Name.ToString, "_sm") = 0 Then
'Add node for each image.
addImageNode(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/" + afile.Name.ToString,_
afile.Name.ToString, imageXMLWriter)
End If
Next

'End and close the writer
imageXMLWriter.WriteEndElement()
imageXMLWriter.WriteEndDocument()
imageXMLWriter.Close()

dir = Nothing
fileSet = Nothing
afile = Nothing

Catch ex As Exception
End Try
End If
End Sub

We need to create the nodes:

Private Sub addImageNode(ByVal fileNamePath As String, ByVal fileName As String, ByRef theXMLDoc As XmlWriter)
Dim thumbExt As String = ""
theXMLDoc.WriteStartElement("image")
Try
'I've used several different identifiers for thumbnails over the years.
If File.Exists(Server.MapPath(Replace(fileNamePath.ToLower, ".jpg", _
"_sm.jpg"))) Then
thumbExt = "_sm.jpg"
ElseIf File.Exists(Server.MapPath(Replace(fileNamePath.ToLower, ".jpg", _
"_small.jpg"))) Then
thumbExt = "_small.jpg"
ElseIf File.Exists(Server.MapPath(Replace(fileNamePath.ToLower, ".jpg", _
"_th.jpg"))) Then
thumbExt = "_th.jpg"
End If

Dim img As BitmapSource = BitmapFrame.Create(New _
Uri(Server.MapPath(fileNamePath)))
Dim meta As BitmapMetadata = img.Metadata
'create the data elements for the image
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("thumbnail", Replace(fileNamePath.ToLower, _
".jpg", thumbExt))
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("filename", fileNamePath)
Try
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("Comment", _
FormatDateTime(meta.DateTaken.ToString, DateFormat.ShortDate) + " - " + _
fileName.ToString + " - " + meta.CameraModel.ToString)
Catch ex1 As Exception
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("Comment", fileName.ToString)
End Try
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("ImageName", fileName.ToString)
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("CameraModel", meta.CameraModel)
Try
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("datetaken", FormatDateTime(meta.DateTaken,_
DateFormat.GeneralDate))
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("sortnode", _
DateTime.Parse(meta.DateTaken).Ticks)
Catch ex2 As Exception
Dim oFile As FileInfo = New FileInfo(Server.MapPath(fileNamePath))
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("datetaken", _
FormatDateTime(oFile.CreationTime(), DateFormat.ShortDate))
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("sortnode", _
DateTime.Parse(oFile.CreationTime().Ticks))
oFile = Nothing
End Try
theXMLDoc.WriteElementString("rel", "lightbox[images]")

meta = Nothing
img = Nothing
Catch ex As Exception
End Try
theXMLDoc.WriteEndElement()
End Sub

The final step that I do is to create a header.txt and a body.txt in each image subfolder that contains the text content of the page. I put as little HTML in my content as possible, however this allows me to tell a story about the images below and I still don't have to edit the slideshow page!

The reason this is now a two step process is because all of the stuff above has to run on my local server where I have complete control of permissions and stuff. Your hosting service may allow you to run all this stuff on their server. Mine wouldn't...

Now we have the Slideshow engine itself. After I post all my image subfolders and all the content to my hosting server this is the part that creates the slideshow for the user:

The ASPX page looks like this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Ebertworld Slideshow Engine</title>
<asp:Literal ID="litStyleSheet" runat="server"></asp:Literal>
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/scriptaculous.js?load=effects"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/lightwindow.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/lightwindow.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
</head>
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="../websiteicon.ico" />
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div style="width:800px;">

<br />
<asp:Label ID="lblMessage" runat="server"></asp:Label><br />
<asp:Label ID="lblHeader" runat="server" Visible="false"></asp:Label><br />
<p>
<asp:LinkButton id="lnkShowStoryTop" runat="server" Visible="False">More of
the story...</asp:LinkButton>
<asp:label id="lblBody" runat="server" Visible="false"></asp:label>
<asp:Label id="lblBodyTeaser" runat="server"></asp:Label>
<asp:LinkButton id="lnkShowStory" runat="server"><br />More of the
story...</asp:LinkButton>
</p>
<div>
<asp:DataList ID="dlImageList" runat="server" RepeatColumns="4"
RepeatDirection="Horizontal" HorizontalAlign="Center">
<ItemTemplate>
<div style="text-align:center;">
<asp:HyperLink ID="hprLink" runat="server" NavigateUrl='<%#
eval("filename") %>' class="lightwindow" rel='<%# eval("rel") %>'
title='<%# eval("Comment") %>'>
<asp:Image ID="thumbnail" runat="server" AlternateText='<%#
eval("Comment") %>' ImageUrl='<%# eval("thumbnail") %>' ToolTip='<%#
eval("Comment") %>' />
</asp:HyperLink><br />
<asp:Label ID="lblTitle" runat="server" Text='<%# eval("ImageName") %>'
Font-Size="6pt" ForeColor="#FFFF66"></asp:Label>
</div>
</ItemTemplate>

</asp:DataList>
</div>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

You might notice some references to prototype, scriptaculous and lightwindow. I'm using these awesome javascript libraries for the image display features. You could skip that or use something else like Mootools, that's up to you. The other thing to notice here is that I'm using a literal in the header for placement of a stylesheet link...

Here is the slideshow engine in all it's glory:

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
If Request.QueryString("s") Is Nothing Then
lblMessage.Text = "Sorry that folder does not seem to exist."
lblBodyTeaser.Visible = False
lnkShowStory.Visible = False
Else
Try
If Request.QueryString("p") Is Nothing Then
litStyleSheet.Text = "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='../Style.css' />"
Else
Select Case Request.QueryString("p")
Case "1"
litStyleSheet.Text = "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='css/1/style.css' />"
Case "2"
litStyleSheet.Text = "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='../2/Style.css' />"
Case "3"
litStyleSheet.Text = "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='../3/Style.css' />"
Case Else
litStyleSheet.Text = "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='../Style.css' />"
End Select
End If
Dim sSubFolder As String
Dim sfullPath As String = "images/"
sSubFolder = Request.QueryString("s")
Dim myFileText As String
Dim sr As StreamReader

If File.Exists(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/header.txt")) Then
sr = New StreamReader(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/header.txt"))
myFileText = sr.ReadToEnd()
sr.Close()
lblHeader.Text = myFileText
lblHeader.Visible = True
End If

If File.Exists(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/body.txt")) Then
sr = New StreamReader(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/body.txt"))
myFileText = sr.ReadToEnd()
sr.Close()
lblBody.Text = myFileText
lblBodyTeaser.Text = Left(myFileText, 120) + "..."
lblBodyTeaser.Visible = True
End If
sr = Nothing
If File.Exists(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/imageXML.xml")) Then

Dim xmlRdr As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(New IO.StreamReader(Server.MapPath(sfullPath + sSubFolder + "/imageXML.xml")))

Dim ds As DataSet = New DataSet
ds.ReadXml(xmlRdr)
Dim dv As DataView
dv = ds.Tables(0).DefaultView
dv.Sort = "sortnode"

dlImageList.DataSource = dv
dlImageList.DataBind()
xmlRdr.Close()
xmlRdr = Nothing
Else
lblMessage.Text = "Sorry didn't find an image list..."
End If
Catch ex As Exception
End Try
End If
End Sub

You can see that I'm also processing the header.txt and body.txt files if they exist. Pretty simple huh? I used a text hiding feature for the body text so that people who only want to look at the pictures can, while those that want to read the story have that option too. The mechanisms for hiding and showing that text is here:

Private Sub lnkShowStoryTop_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles lnkShowStoryTop.Click
If lblBody.Visible = True Then
lblBody.Visible = False
lblBodyTeaser.Visible = True
lnkShowStory.Text = "More of the story..."
lnkShowStory.ToolTip = "Click to view the entire event narrative"
lnkShowStoryTop.Text = "More of the story..."
lnkShowStoryTop.Visible = False
lnkShowStoryTop.ToolTip = "Click to view the entire event narrative"
Else
lblBodyTeaser.Visible = False
lblBody.Visible = True
lnkShowStory.Text = "Hide..."
lnkShowStory.ToolTip = "Click to hide the event narrative"
lnkShowStoryTop.Text = "Hide..."
lnkShowStoryTop.Visible = True
lnkShowStoryTop.ToolTip = "Click to hide the event narrative"
End If
End Sub
Private Sub lnkShowStory_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles lnkShowStory.Click
If lblBodY.Visible = True Then
lblBodY.Visible = False
lblBodyTeaser.Visible = True
lnkShowStory.Text = "More of the story..."
lnkShowStory.ToolTip = "Click to view the entire event narrative"
lnkShowStoryTop.Text = "More of the story..."
lnkShowStoryTop.Visible = False
lnkShowStoryTop.ToolTip = "Click to view the entire event narrative"
Else
lblBodyTeaser.Visible = False
lblBodY.Visible = True
lnkShowStory.Text = "Hide..."
lnkShowStory.ToolTip = "Click to hide the event narrative"
lnkShowStoryTop.Text = "Hide..."
lnkShowStoryTop.Visible = True
lnkShowStoryTop.ToolTip = "Click to hide the event narrative"
End If
End Sub

One final comment.

You may have noticed an extra node in my XML document that I didn't really mention. The "sortNode". I kept running into the problem of when sorting my pictures by the dateTaken they would sort as if the date was a text string not a date. So a picture taken on 12/3/07 would show up before a picture taken on 3/3/07. I went down the path of trying to use either an XSD or an XSLT to help me sort the nodes but the solution did not prosent itself in a timely manner and I can have a short attention span from time to time. I call it the Shiny Object Syndrome...

Anyway, I decided that I just needed a way for the gridview to natively sort on an element in my XML document properly. I knew that it could handle strings and numbers pretty well. Then it dawned on me. Dates on a computer are stored as ticks, 100 millisecond segments of time since a given point in the past. This value is a big int! Perfect! So I just added the sort node and formatted the dateTaken value in ticks and I had my perfect sort value.

The Shrimp

2008-08-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

Well, lets tell the whole back story...

I worked the game last night. Which among other things means I had to go up to the press box and eat in the dining area there. Okay, I guess I didn't have to... I ordered a yummy shrimp, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, angel hair pasta and red sauce topped with a little cheese and oregano. Like I said... Yummy!

I take my concoction to the press level desks above home plate and sit down with a notebook to watch the game, eat, and write some notes down for a meeting the next day.

With my second bite a shrimp jumped to the back of my throat. No shit! It went directly from the fork to the back of my throat! I'm sitting in an open area with dozens of reporters, all of the Padres PR staff, several security folks, Local TV Personalities and ironically the CEO of the Padres. My first thought is to try to cough up this shrimp, but it's not in my airway it's in my esophagus. So coughing does nothing. My only two options are to try to throw up in front of all these people or swallow. Guess what I did?

So for the next three hours I tried to clear this shrimp from my esophagus. I had thought being a slimy shrimp that it might just pass right on through, but that was not my luck. I went through 4 bottles of water, a cookie, and a diet coke in my efforts. Nothing went down and all of that stuff came back up. Of course I was doing this in the bathroom during game time so I would try to time my puking to coincide with the bathroom being empty.... By 9PM I had some work to do and as long as I did not try to eat or drink anything I wasn't all that uncomfortable. I finished my game day duties, waited for traffic to die down and went home. In case you were wondering the Pads won!

Once home I tried again to clear this miserable crustacean to no avail.

This morning I tried again several times. Now I had some pain due to the repeated hard swallowing and puking. Still that little fucker was stuck in there!

So I called the doc. Went to urgent care at 9AM. By 10AM they sent me to Scripps hospital in La Jolla. By noon I was on a gurney with an IV of sugar water chilling me and electrodes attached to me at various points. Endoscopy here I come!

They knocked me out with something that literally took seconds from the moment they put it into my IV to my head swimming and my vision going all wacky. Of course that experience lasted all of 10 seconds...

An hour later I was waking up. Somehow I was dressed. I have no idea how this happened. Most of this time is pretty fuzzy so I got the replay from Mandi. Plus they gave me pictures as a souvenir! I'd be happy to scan them and email them to you if you like. Surprisingly NONE of the nurses laughed at ANY of my jokes! Bitches! Actually they took very good care of me and laughed at me only a little.

The doc found a whole shrimp at the bottom of my esophagus. He pushed it down into my stomach, after taking a picture of it. He then took a few biopsies and shot another picture of what appears to be scar tissue that is causing food to be impacted in my esophagus. I have to go back in one month to get a repeat of today except this time they'll try to stretch my esophagus and remove or deal with the scar tissue.

I think next time I'll just hit the salad bar...

Lunchtime Confessions

2008-07-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was in a bad mood at lunch today so I decided to take a walk and try to clear my head. As both of my readers know I work in Downtown San Diego. So I went for a walk on a beautiful day. I did clear my head of some things and filled it with others...

As I walked up 7th towards the book store I passed a couple talking. I overheard the man say he didn't have money to buy an all day bus pass to be going all over San Diego today. He asked his companion if she had any money. Her response was "I told you I have $5..." My problems became less weighty...

As I continued my walk on market then up on 6th I ended up behind a group of girls walking along. I didn't put much effort into looking away as the skirt of the one on the left would blow up in the wind... What problem was I thinking about again?

I shopped a bit in the book store. I noticed a lady with a stroller apparently filled with all her worldly possessions. She was thumbing through a picture book. I asked to use their restroom. You need a token and dude gave me one. As I was coming out a guy came running at me. I figured quickly to gain access to the head without a token. I didn't put any effort into holding the door for him. He made it.

I headed south on 6th again then over on Market to 7th and headed for Subway. Along the way was a girl sitting in the middle of the sidewalk reading the classifieds. She didn't appear homeless and I don't know what she was looking for. It struck me though that I wish I could be more helpful to folks. The man and woman I'd passed earlier only seemed to need bus fare. This girl I'm going to guess was looking for an apartment or a job. Not sure what help could be provided, but still, I hope she does not need to spend a night on the street tonight.

I see things like this most days I go walking around and it makes me wish I could do more, something... Then the cynic in me might say "you can't change the world..." and liberal in me would even agree. It would just be nice to change someone's day...

It's a Grind doesn't make the cut

2008-06-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Wanted a nice Americano this morning. Headed over to the "It's a Grind" at 10th and J street near Petco Park. I've been to this place a few times and the vibe is real funky here. Usually there's a homeless guy out front. Service is usually slow so it's not a place I'd try to pop in to get a quick cup of coffee. But if you want an espresso your choices are limited within a five minute walk of the ball park.

Nice girl took my order though she seemed a bit distracted which is common in this place. Then I walk over near the pick up counter to await my coffee. The three people in front of me eventually got their coffee. Then the three people behind me got their orders. And note - these weren't just coffee orders from the pre-brewed pots they were espresso and latte and iced coffee orders.

Now I'm watching this dumbass try to figure out the difference between the medium and large cups. This literally took 2 or 3 minutes. He can see me standing there watching him. I spend my time reading a ridiculous petition to make Petco Park's Park at the Park a Leash Free park, but I won't get into that idiotic nonsense...

20 minutes after placing my order and watching numerous people behind me get their orders dipshit calls my name. He asks if I want hot or cold water in my Americano. This inept mentally stunted fool works in a coffee house and he does not know what a fucking Americano is??? I pointedly tell him Hot! Three minutes later he finally hands me my coffee and proceeds to spill boiling fucking coffee all over my hand. However he couldn't be bothered with that triviality because he needed to keep on his conversation with some girl in the place.

I turned to him and said: Hey spanky I know your job is very complicated but perhaps if you could focus for just three minutes you could make an espresso without burning your customer...

I understand that people's job opportunities are limited to their own physical and mental capacities. This guy has exceeded his...

So now we need to find Ray a new coffee house within a five minute walk of Petco Park or Ray is going to get Grumpy...

The Toe Nail

2008-06-24T10:33:00.001-07:00

Cutting my pinky toe nail this morning.

I Clipped.

Toe nail shrapnel ablated directly from my left pinky toe to my left eye.

I am now suing God for my faulty left toe and I'm suing Revlon for marketing a dangerous toe nail clipper without a toe nail deflection device! Additionally there is not warning label on my toe nail clipper warning of the potential for toe nail shrapnel to fly directly into ones ocular pod region!

This is just a blatant disregard for the well being of our fellow man based on our capitalistic anti-individualistic government! If ever there was a time for a call to the concepts of antidisestablishmentarianism that time is NOW!

I am Padre

2008-05-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

So lets see here......

Gonna be Daddy 2.0 come September. Madison Marie seems to be developing just super dooper!

Ho hum... Started working at the Padres this Tuesday. I was presented with an amazing opportunity and jumped at it. So I've left Adventos and started full time as a Padre. I'm a Business Systems Analyst whatever that is. But I'm still just Ray the Programmer man. It's rough... I work at Petco Park...

Yesterday is a good example. I came in late because we had a Preggy Appointment so I had to work late. This coincided with being able to meet a guy who's written a lot of the programs for the Padres. I got a good primer for his stuff. Around 8PM my boss says "Wanna get something to eat?" I jump at it because I haven't eaten real food since breakfast.

So we go up to the Press Box dining room. Our "All Access" badges let us in... So we pop in there and take a look around. Hmmm, looks like our options are a Gumbo or the Pasta bar. There's also a full salad bar. We choose the pasta bar, I have a Penne with chicken, sun dried tomatoes in olive oil and some marinara.... Thankee Sai! I pick up a soda on the way to the dining area. After dinner I went back to choose from the fresh baked cookies, cake, brownies, or soft serve ice cream machine. I had a cookie...

Then Boss Man took me around for a bit of a tour and showed me some of our network closets. We poked around in the press booths then went over behind the TV Booths... Then down stairs to the Service tunnel that goes around the entire park. We eyeballed things like the clubhouse, weight room, uniform room, player parking area, Pad Squad room, and other stuff like that...

Yeah, my new job is pretty tough. But I'm going to hang in there for a while...

Tootles,
Go Pads!

Starbucks

2008-02-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

Worst cups and lids on the planet.

The Amazing Race

2007-11-20T20:26:00.000-08:00

Today Mandi took our application package to the post office...

Lets tell the whole story:

Several weeks ago the Amazing Race announced the next application period for the show was open. I have been checking their website for nearly a year waiting for the next chance to apply for the show. Finally, here was our shot.

I made all kinds of plans on how we would shoot our application video, a three minute video submitted along with your applications and pictures and whatnot... I had planned on shooting part the video on a backpacking trip we were supposed to do in September but work got in the way of that and we didn't go. I had hoped to get a permit to day-hike Mt. Whitney and do some video up there but couldn't get a permit. I had hoped to shoot some video on Mt. Baldy a few weeks ago but then Southern California caught on fire and we couldn't get up there...

So with the November 27th due date looming we finally had to just shoot where we could, when we could, and go with whatever material we could come up with.

I had read the application for the previous season months ago so I had an idea what was required for the process. When the new season opened up I immediate printed out the application and rules and poured over them then put them away. I just concentrated on the video.

All the while I'm working through this stuff in my head I'm preparing for my Ecuador trip departing November 27th, just after the applications are due.

For a few weeks I found dozens of application videos on YouTube. I watched those trying to get ideas. While I watched numerous videos I really didn't get a feel for what I wanted to do. I ran a bunch of ideas through my head and either the concept was goofy or logistics got in my way.

Finally last weekend I pulled the video camera out and shot some test footage of Mandi and I. Just some simple stuff of us around the house answering some questions. Some of it was actually pretty good. I put that on the mac and played with it a little bit.

Then we had the whole weekend and I didn't do anything else. We went for a hike Sunday morning, came home and showered, then watched a pathetic Chargers game. I got fed up with the game and said Lets Go! We headed off to REI for their winter sale, then came home and played with our new things.

I then realized it had to be now and it had to be whatever we could come up with!

I filmed Mandi on the floor and filmed various things, then I got the tripod out and positioned Mandi on the LuvSac. I hit record and hopped on the LuvSac with her. We, mostly me, talked for about 10 minutes then I shut it down. I imported it to the Mac and started to try to cut it up. I created an intro title and dropped a little music track on it. I then went to bed.

The next day at work, Monday, I was feeling sick. Really sick. I went home and laid down for a couple hours. I slept pretty good actually. I was feeling better so I got up and started playing with the video some more. I quickly realized I did not want our entire video just us on the LuvSac talking, mostly me talking.

I positioned two chairs in front of a white wall, and our copper turtle, and set the camera up pointed at that. Then I wrote a quick script for us to use and we shot a little more video in a setting similar to the interviews done in the show.

I cut that video into my movie and things were looking pretty good. I edited the video from my HI8 camera at 720P HiDef. I burned that HiDef video onto a DVD. Now unfortunately The Amazing Race requires their videos to be submitted on VHS. Uh, I haven't owned a VHS machine in years. So the hunt was on to find one. It was late and the museums were closed.

While thinking about this I re-read the rules and found that we needed to submit our applications with a passport picture of each of us and one picture of us together. The together picture was easy but I didn't have a passport picture of me. Mandi happened to have one of her.

So we headed out, it was 6PM... First we went to Ritz Camera to get passport photos. While we were there we saw that they had a DVD to VHS transfer machine. I asked about it and found out it does not go the other way. Damn Heteros...

So off to Costco we went. It was at Costco, with their friendly return policy, that we hoped to find a VCR (VHS??? Are you kidding me???). We found a Sony unit that was a DVD/VCR Combo unit. To me this was a blessing and a curse. A curse because I so dislike most any Sony product anymore. A blessing because with this machine it looked like it was be a simple task to copy from the ONBOARD dvd player to the ONBOARD vhs recorder.

Home we went where I carefully unpacked this Sony device. I connected it to the TV so I could confirm what was happening and I peeked at the user manual (yes, I really did.) I didn't find the section that talked about how to copy from the DVD player to the VCR but that didn't discourage me too quickly... I tried to perform this task anyway. Guess what. Couldn't.

I re-read the instructions and found that the ONLY way to record on this piece of shit machine was to connect a video input to one of the inputs on the VCR from an external device such as another DVD player or something. I'm sorry but what's the friggin point of putting a DVD PLAYER ON THIS MACHINE?????????? Sony! You suck sweaty swollen hairy Zebra balls!

Off to the garage I go to get a spare dvd player I happen to have down there. Connect that to the POS Sony and record my HiDef video onto VfrigginHS. I gotta say, my beautiful video really looked like crap. But the hour was late and nothing could be done. We had to live with what we had. I put the tape away and repackaged the POS Sony to get it the hell outta my house!

Then Mandi and I looked at our applications and the rules again. I went and found a picture of us that we liked and printed it out on the Photo Printer. I really didn't like the penmanship of my application so I decided to re-write it. During that same time I paged through Mandi's application and found it was about 1/2 filled in. Mandi said she wanted my help finishing hers but I needed to redo mine. So she took hers into the bedroom and I redid mine in the kitchen.

We decided to try to finish hers in the morning and I confirmed that we had everything else that we needed.

This morning we got up and started talking about the unanswered questions she had. We quickly came up with several good ideas for her questions and then I had to go to work. We chatted a bit more while I was at work and came up with good stuff for the rest of her questions. She made copies of our passports, packaged everything up and headed off to UPS. She sent it off around 3PM and now we wait... Like ten thousand other couples/pairs... Plus the people who have previously sent in applications. Ugh.

Well, the whole process has been fun and exciting so far. We really do hope to at least get a call back but if not I don't think we'll be too disappointed. So many people submit to get on this show, and we really would liked to have done our video better.

No regrets, we did what we could do with the time we had. Fun fun.

Here's to waiting.
Ciao
R

Art

2007-07-23T20:34:00.001-07:00

I've had some interesting things happen lately that has caused me to consider art and what makes art.

I've never considered myself very artistic. I have long been interested in various standard forms of art; Music, Painting, Sculpture and Photography, perhaps others.

I have enjoyed music on several levels for most of my life. I can remember my first few albums (yes, I'm talking about vinyl...) One was the Bay City Rollers (I won't make excuses about my early musical influences...) another was The Best of the Beach Boys (Little deuce coupe...) and still another was the score of Star Wars by John Williams. The feelings I got from listening to these were as intense and genuine as they were diverse. The point is that I have usually felt music as much as heard it.

I can remember seeing the earliest examples of paintings and sculpture. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Davinci's Mona Lisa, and ancient works such as the Colossus at Rhodes and the Pyramids of Giza. Again each of these evoked emotion as varied as the pieces.

Now I don't think anyone would argue that each of the disciplines I mentioned are truly art of some nature.

In High School I got a lot of knowledge and enjoyment from the four years I took metal shop. These classes seemed as creative to me as any painting. Perhaps forming a metal box or machining some steel to very precise dimensions doesn't seem artistic until one does it.

After I got through college, I had at this point participated in various bands, recitals, and orchestra's with various instruments. Yet I still felt myself to be limited artistically. I think in part because I was the kid that put everything in a straight line or row. When organizing furniture in my home everything was parallel or square to a wall. When making any sort of drawing generally a ruler was used and if my lines weren't necessarily at right angles they were at least straight...

After college I got my first job as a programmer and I found a new hobby, building Combat Robots competing in Battlebots. Neither of these activities seemed very artistic to me - one being the building of something that was to be destroyed and the other something based on very discrete processes and numerical structures - but I could see creativity in these things.

Because of the methods of building robots I started to feel I may have some artistic bones in me somewhere. As I got more experience in programming and became a better programmer I started to see the building of an elegant solution to a complex problem as artistic. I think my thought here was that you could take 5 programmers and give them the same problem to solve and you would likely get 5 different solutions, and quite possibly very different solutions... Consider the difference between a tedious term paper in high school or college and Homer's The Odyssey. I may be waxing dramatic but I think you get the idea.

After all these years I have finally come to the conclusion that I am an artistic person. I may not be particularly good in any discipline but I have a strong desire to create things with a pleasing aesthetic. I have given in to this realization recently and, with Mandi, bought a new camera. This camera is a Digital SLR, the Nikon D40x, you may have seen the Nikon commercials recently. Our camera is similar to the one in the commercials.

Yesterday Mandi and I went to Balboa Park with the primary goal of taking pictures. While there we walked through the Museum of Photographic Art, but we were really there to look at things in a different way than we had in past. Trying to find things to take a picture of. I have usually taken pictures of people (usually from too far away) or taken pictures of some landscape or building (again, from such a wide angle that any detail or drama was lost)

At Balboa Park we were making an effort to look for things to shoot, but it wasn't a tedious or relentless assignment. It was shear joy for me. Looking at things that I thought might look neat in a picture. We took hundreds of up close pictures of flowers and leaves. We took pictures or doors and windows and hallways. We took a few pictures of people but neither of us felt comfortable with that. We also took pictures of each other. And we took pictures of a turtle, a dog, and a fire hydrant.

I doubt anyone would want to put any of our photo's in a gallery but we had such fun shooting them. Then again when we got home and got to look at them all on the computer, we had some of the same emotion we felt when we took the shot initially. I thought it interesting that some photo's evoked a completely different feeling afterwards.

Shooting and looking at our pictures certainly made us feel things, and I think that's what art is.

Irony or Contradiction?

2007-07-02T10:09:00.001-07:00

Driving to work this morning I ended up behind a couple of young girls in a Rav4. I noticed on the back of the car numerous stickers that said: "Peaceaholic", OB (this is a local community, Ocean Beach, that's known for its hippy/laid back residents), "Save Something", Two turtles, and a couple of other environmentally related messages. Not that big a deal, there are many people in San Diego, and California in general, who are environmentally conscious and who like to promote activism.

Then I noticed both these girls were smoking. Okay, environmentalists can smoke, it's allowed by their creed I believe. I did notice the flicking of ash out the window though and this started my curiosity about irony or contradiction. Then I saw the butt come out the passenger window.

My guess is if anyone follows the news of the southwest, and by that I mean from Utah west to the Ocean and south to Mexico, then you may have heard of a few fires going on. Fires are pretty common in this area because it is basically a desert and we're in a multi-year drought. It was only a few years ago that I watched a hill burn from my front yard, having already packed to evacuate if that call came. This is no small issue in San Diego county and we even had three new fires spark up over the weekend. It's a topic that i'm pretty certain every San Diegan knows about.

So here was the car of a self-stated environmentally conscious person throwing cigarette butts out the window in a desert known for wildfires started by human thoughtlessness.

Irony or Contradiction?

Okay, I give...

2007-06-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed writing my own blog engine and dealing with the various security issues an app like that deals with.

I looked for canned solutions and didn't really like anything I found.

So I wrote my own engine. I really liked the features I was creating, and was working on some new features that I liked and that didn't quite exist elsewhere. These features were done and tested on my development server. When I went to push them onto my hosting service, GoDaddy, I found that their SQL Server doesn't seem to support the really nice XML Features that SQL Server has. After a mild pissing match with GoDaddy support, the result of which was this statement: "We're sorry we do not have an exhaustive list of functions supported by our shared SQL Server instances..." Without XML support that dumped a large pile of poo on my fancy schmancy Blogging Engine...

The search begins for alternatives:

I then found the publicly available API for Blogger that Google has created for developers. I played around with that quite a bit and got it working. But as I worked through implementing that API on my server I realized that I was spending a lot of time trying to replicate the functionality that was already in Blogspot (Google's public face for their Blogger application) all just to have the blog on my website.

Acquiescence...
So here we are. Below I've copied my blogs to Blogspot and will start updating this one. Also I'll be removing the Blog from www.ebertworld.com :(

This came down to having time to play with this kind of thing. I've got a lot of other project in mind that I need time for, plus family, plus there's always training for Ecuador too...

No time, No time, No time

2007-06-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted: 6/14/2007]

Ugh, I don't have enough time to form coherent and cohesive thoughts. So here's what you get. Random, incoherent, cohesive thoughts thrown about like so much Crystal by wannabe rap starts...

New York City friggin rocks! Those people are cool living in a cool city. I don't wanna move there or anything but it's a cool place.
People in New York don't run into you walking on the sidewalk, they make an effort not to!
their seeminly chaotic methods work. The subway works, the street number system works, Their government works, their philanthropy works, their civic pride works!
Jet Blue is okay...
Friends disappoint. Absolute friends disappoint absolutely.
People in San Diego are either stupid, staggeringly self involved, or obscenely unaware that there are others on the planet.
San Diego city government is paralyzed.
I got a new camera, we got a new camera! A Nikon D40x. Man it's sweet! Yes, for the price it really does take better pictures.
I'm sitting here sweating with the fan on at 10pm. Weird.
I have too many interests. Photography, music, computers, cars, robots, woodworking, travel, hiking, mountaineering, cycling, camping, RV Travel etc etc etc...
Mandi changed her own oil and helped rotate her tires this weekend, with minor supervision. And she liked it. Looking for our next Auto project.

oops, that's all the time I have for this installment.

Random Thoughts Monday...

2007-06-27T14:02:00.001-07:00

[Originally posted: 5/14/2007]

Lessee...

Uh, shopping at outdoor malls on sunny days is nice.........
People who drive 65 in the fast lane then give me a dirty look when I pass them are stupid.
I don't like stupid people.
People who pounce on a new check out lane when it opens even though you are in front of them in line then when the checker points to you and says you were in front of them and then mumble under their breath that 'well they should pay attention' are fucking assholes.
I hate fucking assholes.
Making your own ringtones is cool.
I want a Mac.
I'm going to the driving range today.
The survivor finale was predictable and kinda boring even though this was one of the BEST suvivor season ever.
When my office mate leaves next week I'm going to steal his monitor and have 2 on my machine and that makes me cool.
That is all for now.

Driving... Again....

2007-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

[Originally Posted: 5/10/2007]

Is it really so hard to just drive while driving?

Is driving not complex enough for people that they absolutely MUST find something else to do with their spare time while driving? Makeup, phones, reading, getting high, yelling at kids, futzing around the car are all things I've seen people do while trying to kill me on the roads this week.

I just don't get it.

Horse Races

2007-06-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 8/10/2005]

Went to the horse races yesterday. I picked 7 of 9 winners. But I only won on two bets because I was playing exclusively exactas and trifectas and a couple of doubles. The only time I didn't pick the winner of the race was the two times I played doubles.

Stupid horses! :P

Nose Hair

2007-06-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 8/7/2005]

Sometimes I have a nose hair grow out of my nose and tickle me on the edge of my nostril. That really bugs me and I have to pull that nose hair out. Sometimes if don't pull fast enough it can really make my eyes water.

I hate that.

Mt. Whitney tried to kick my ass.... Pfftttttttt

2007-06-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 8/4/2005]

So no shit, there I was, hurtling down the eastern flanks of a frozen Mt. Whitney in the southern Sierra Range. Possibly exceeding 10, perhaps even 20, miles per hour ever urged onward and downward by Newton himself. The bowels of mother earth rumbling her unforgiving and unrelenting guffaws and smite. The very thing I came to conquer was turning this obliquely tilted table against me and she was preparing to call out check mate. I parried with my feet, I countered with my elbows, and I gave a Herculean effort to dig the hilt of my axe into this bulletproof ice. It was having none of it. The acceleration wasn’t lessened by any measure and my slide had more than a thousand vertical feet left with a disastrous ending in the offing if not curbed in some manner. It was at this moment that I chose to intervene in my fate and become a factor in this wholly terrifying event. I ended the efforts to punch the hilt of my axe into this impenetrable material. Slowly I brought the head of my tool to the opposite shoulder from the hand that grasped it. I began a controlled roll to my right. As I faced my nemesis I thrust the business end of my tool into it. Glancing blows at first, parried away by the ice like so much flotsam. But three or four good thrusts finally resulted in penetration. A full, deep, and satisfying penetration that instantly began to slow my descent from the crescendo it was nearing. I grasped my tool with all the strength left in my weakening hands and ever so slowly did I finally come to a stop. I was lying there breathing deep and hard, light headed from my efforts. Satisfaction filled me. I was alive and I was winning! I was beating this ice bitch at her own game! She attempted to flick me off of her skirts and I held fast to her frozen undergarments. This day was not my day to die, and the mountain came to realize that. So she did the only thing left to her. In my fight to stop my fall into the abyss, she had struck me several times hard on the hand that was trying to slow me. Struck me with her evil and frozen solid talons. She struck me with the only weapon she wielded that day. Stone hard, bulletproof ice. I absorbed her blows but not without a structural failure of my own. The fourth metacarpal in my right hand was fractured. But if this is the best she can do then I say HA! Double HA! In fact! A broken hand couldn’t stop me from using my tool to foil her plans and I was victorious!

All hail me! Mighty conqueror of frozen dihydrogen oxide!

80's Music

2007-06-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 8/3/2005]

The worst thing about listening to Dave, Shelley and Chainsaw is you have to listen to the music sometimes.

Journey? Sorry, no can do.

Cube Mates

2007-06-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted: 8/2/2005]

Ah shit... The guy on the other side of my cube wall is using his speaker phone to check his voice mail again.

God that pisses me off.

STOP IT!!!

My first post.

2007-06-26T18:20:00.001-07:00

This will probably get thrown away...