I've gotten some really good support from DataDynamics about ActiveReports. It's making up for the landmines I've stepped on so far. I like that as a company they're very serious about taking care of their company.
That makes me feel good.
And they just released an update that fixes several of the bugs were were butting up against previously. Bonus!
Another blogger, Atrios, is getting sued by a national columnist for libel.
This all seems very stupid and pointless. Honestly, has society become so litigious that we're going to jump down the throats of anyone that submits an opinion and firmly plant the foot of our lawyers in their anus?
What happened to people having thick skins?
I am guessing that in response to the many many many people who have stated the truth again and again that 'Gator is spyware', the company formerly known as Gator will now be known as Claria.
I'd like the be first to introduce you to Claria, a new breed of spyware.
So...
Claria is spyware.
Claria is spyware.
Claria is spyware.
Claria is spyware.
Thank you.
-- Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Heather and I are both suffering from lack of sleep.
McKenna's not sleeping well, barely at all it feels, because she wakes up screaming all the time. I wonder if it's anxiety from the move, or having another baby in the house, or because she's teething, or if something else is wrong. It's heartbreaking when I stand in front of her crib at 2am holding her to keep her calm, her arms and legs wrapped around me, sobs wracking her little body, and hot tears running down my back. She's usually sweaty and damp from crying and fussing, and I stand there half-asleep singing to her in the dark, trying to keep her calm.
"Wise men say...only fools rush in...but I can't help falling in love with you" doing my silliest impression of Elvis, but it calms her down. We sway back and forth in the darkness "Like a river flows...surely to the sea...darling so it goes...some things...are meant to be"
Eventually she falls asleep, gently snoring in her crib, under her favorite blanket, but then it takes me a little while to fall asleep again, and two hours, the process starts again.
We've tried letting her sleep with us, but she's not any less restless, and when she finally does wake up, she slaps us in the head and yells in our ears, trying to get us to wake up.
Add on top of that, Owen's waking every 3-4 hours for food and comfort and we're both down to a couple of hours of sleep a night each, hardly ever at the same time. It's hard. I wish I had more time for just Heather, and we had time to spend time holding each other.
The story of the foster parents in Camden, NJ starving their 4 boys ignites such violent rage in me. I have an urge for retribution, something like caning the parents in public, or some other form of public torture and humiliation.
I cannot fathom that any two people would willingly and knowingly LOCK their adopted children out of the kitchen, while letting their 3 girls have access to food. Apparently these boys survived on uncooked pancake batter, uncooked oatmeal, and occasional peanut butter & jelly sandwich, and eating plaster.
To think that not only were the parents doing this, but that these girls knew, and said nothing, that the neighbors knew, and said nothing, and the state sent case workers sent in, and they SAW and said or did nothing screams such criminal negligence that I want to punch someone.
I know how dearly precious my children are, and I know that there are people out there that would practically kill to have a child of there own, in fact there have been people who have killed, just to have a child to love, and these dumb motherfuckers have 7 kids and willfully starve 4 of them.
I hope they go to prison and die. I hope they go to prison and die painful embarassing deaths.
I'm just now able to write about McKenna's birthday party. What a blast!
It was a lot of fun to get to throw a party for McKenna and have other kids over to play with her. I feel bad a lot of the time because she sits at home with mommy, and we don't know any other families with kids her age, so it's often like she doesn't have any playmates aside from me, mommy, and grandma.
So she ran around and squealed at everyone, and giggled, and ate things off of everyone's plate and had a grand time. She made out like crazy with the gifts too. There is a huge raft of people that love this child, and that makes me feel really good.
Owen was also the star of the weekend. Everyone wanted to hold him and love him, and tickle him.
On Sunday we went to the birthday party of a little girl that was born one week after McKenna, but by that point, McKenna was so burnt out on people and parties that she got really cranky.
Other highlights for the evening were we got to spend a lot of time with our good friend Laura, and go with her to Hersheypark in the Dark. I'm still a tad too overweight to ride the rides, but that will change. Laura's always fun to hang out with.
It was also really good to see Mike and Sujata. Since I've moved I don't fee like I get enough time with any of my friends. We wanted to see Brian and Charlotte, but by the time we got done with visiting everyone else and travelling around, there was really only half an hour for them. :( I felt really bad.
And just think, in another 10 months, we'll be doing this all over for Owen's first birthday!!!!
;)
I love political compass tests like this one, though I'm not pleased with the results....
Most political pundits want to slap you in some flat-line left vs. right paradigm, not recognizing or admitting that that classification is merely an economic one and it fails to describe your view on personal liberties. A political compass test plots you not only on the left right, but an up/down axis that gives you a clearer idea of where you sit.
So, I picked up this test from Chris Heilman's blog, and I took it, and I feel it got me alright with personal liberties, down near the bottom, but not all the way, and towards the far right economically, which isn't quite true either.
My problem is that I don't know what level to answer the questions at. I'm always looking at a couple of different interpretations: literally, personally, or for society as a whole.
Because I was an English major, a writer, and now a computer programmer, I look to literally deconstruct sentences to find their true meaning. And I hold my personal life to a different standard than for the rest of society. For example, one of the questions was "Mother's can work, but their primary job should be homemaker". Literally, I think the statement's okay. Personally, I want Heather to stay home and take care of the kids, at least until I'm writing full-time and then she can go work. So do I agree with the statement? That's the dilema I work through. Yes I think that a parent should be home with the kids, but it doesn't have to be the mother. So I have to end up picking 'Disagree' on the quiz, though I really would like to see more people staying home with their kids, the statement being limited to one gender makes me not want to agree.
Oh well.
We're off to my mom's house for McKenna's birthday party today. We're going to drive back home and see all the families. It should be fun, though I'm not going to be loving sleeping on my mom's couch with my wife and two babies. She needs a genuine guest room.
In his recent article, John Dvorak, PC World columnist at large went hog wild with the bad assumptions and wrote a codger piece about the computer industry. What's a codger piece? That's where some aging pundit starts saying "Back in my day..."
Gator, the spyware company is suing to have sites that call Gator spyware remove anything that says "Gator is spyware".
The last time I checked, Gator installs itself on your machine, watches what you do (like spyware does), and serves content, without your permission. It's only a smidge above a trojan horse, which is patently illegal, so doesn't that mean that Gator is spyware?
So, for the record:
Gator is spyware
Gator is spyware
Gator is spyware
Gator is spyware
Gator is spyware
Now, come sue me. I can use the publicity!
You all have no doubt heard of the heartbreaking case of Terri Schiavo.
13 years ago Terri had a heart attack that kept her brain without oxygen long enough that once they were able to resucitate her, she was permanently brain-damaged.
Since that horrific day, her husband Michael has been taking care of her while coming to grips with the reality of losing a loved one. For the first few years, he fought to have her kept on life-support, and to try rehabilitation, but has since asked to have her feeding tube removed, and to let her die. He contends that his wife's wish was to not be on life-support, that they had a discussion about it one night after watching a movie, but neither thought it important enough to create a living will. Her parents say otherwise, and want her kept alive.
Unable to resolve this monumental difference between themselves, they went to the courts. The media picked up the story from there and this has quickly blown into a full-fledged circus. People around the world are now in such an uproar about this that the Florida legislature passed a bill giving the governor, Jeb Bush, the ability to order her feeding tube restored, which it was, which brings us back to debating the ethics of the dilema before anything is done, instead of after the fact.
So we found two more quirks with ActiveReports:
ActiveReports will continue to make my life easier, but I'm going to have to build so many damn tools to make it easy to work with that I just want to curse.
I dreamt last night that one of my co-workers was trying to kill me. He had snapped and gotten a gun, and was in a warehouse making plans to kill me. In the process of coming after me he had killed many other people and he was pinned down in the warehouse by the police.
I was recently introduced to the notion of source code escrow. The short definition is this:
A company that you partner with provides you with the source code for their products in escrow, meaning you have access to it provided one of a couple of things happens, for example, the company goes out of business, or they fail to provide an adequate level of support, or stop supporting a produc that you're still using.
And this got me wondering, why doesn't Microsoft provide their code in Escrow?
Active Reports Best Practices
Version 1
This is a collection of best practices I've come up with for Data Dynamics Active Reports.NET so far.
Example: Fields.Add(“LoanName”)
Example: Fields(“LoanName”).Value =Table.Rows(0)(“LoanName”)
First the Cubs lose, and now the Red Sox. This has been a playoff season of heartbreak!
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| What we should have been seeing, the Red Sox winning and celebrating. |
*sigh*
I heard on NPR that ratings for baseball jumped 40% this year because the Cubs and the Sox stood a chance to make it, but now it just feels like the same old same old.
And you can't really blame the players themselves. I instead blame Grady Little, who should have pulled Pedro Martinez from the game in the 6th or 7th inning and put in Ethan Embree for the remainder of the game. Instead, Little let Pedro play into the 8th inning, where he got tired, and his balls got easier to hit, allowing the Yanks the win.
At least there's football to watch...
I read Wil Wheaton's blog about reporting for the BBC on the California recall. What a lucky bastard he is.
I'm completely jealous. I've realized ove the last couple of months, that in addition to all of the other things I'd like to do (architect, writer, cowboy, actor, film producer, cook, etc) I want to be a journalist.
Ken Krawchuk hit that right on the head when I interviewed him 2 weeks ago. I'm still working on the transcription, and getting it ready to post here. I'm hoping to do more interviews as the days go on and build a reputation for tough but fair and interesting interviews.
We'll see.
Congrats Wil on a job well done with BBC, and maybe something will come up soon with NPR so that we can hear you here too.
I've been thinking about attending some Zen Buddhist meditations and classes.
I'm not unhappy with Christianity, or being a Lutheran, and I haven't stopped believing in Jesus.
I'm just looking for something more.
I've always believed in a prankster God, a joking God that laughs and winks, and has a hearty chuckle with us. Zen seems in tune with that, so much more so than other religions. Modern fundamentalist Christians are turning Jesus and Christianity in general into such a dour, unforgiving lot.
So maybe it's not Christ I'm unhappy with. It's his followers.
Once I feel comfortable with Hindi, I'm going to try and learn Bengali, and then Tamil. Those 3 should be enough for me to get by with most everyone I meet.
Plus, if they eventually outsource all of the IT jobs to India, maybe I can work as a liason or manager...just a thought...
We're still in the process of throwing things away that we never should have moved, things that really should have stayed in the dumpsters in Mechanicsburg, but I'm determined to learn from that lesson, and that month or so before we move out of here will be spent taking things apart and throwing away the things we don't want of need.
The kids are fine and dandy, and adjusting to being here. Owen really never knew the difference, but McKenna is finally calming down. She enjoys climbing up the stairs and laughing while she does it, showing off her new climbing skills.
Heather's still overwhelmed and worn-out, and feeling very unsure about living in this new place with kids. Add on top of that, trying to take care of the kids, trying to unpack, trying to organize the house, and me being extra-busy at work, and there's suddenly been a measurable distance between us. She and I are both aware of it, and we've talked about it, but it feels like something neither of us can address until we have the other things taken care of.
I'm not worried about it. I think Heather and both deal with problems by pulling back and thinking about them (I on the Meyers-Briggs), and right now there are a lot of things to worry about and deal with in the house.
Carl Weathers Announces Candidacy For Louisiana Gov.
Sat Oct. 11, 2003 11:24 AM ET
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former professional football player and movie star Carl Weathers has announced that he will start campaigning for the role of Louisiana Governor, hoping to oust current governor M.J. Foster Jr.
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| Carl Weathers with friend and campaign manager Irvin Winkler |
On hand for the announcement was Candidate Weather’s good friends Irvin Winkler and Sly Stallone. Mr. Stallone had only good things to say about his friend, and his chances for governor. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he’s very inspiring, like his character in ‘Happy Gilmore’”.
The current governor of Louisiana could not be reached for comment.
I was in the country-side north of Harrisburg with a group of co-workers at a dinky bazaar and flea market. I challenged my co-workers to a race from the bazaar to Mechanicsburg. We define the route, and determine that some of it will be driving, and some of it will be a foot race.
I think the dream I had last night is related to the project I'm working on at work now. At work I'm trying to remake a critical report function that we hand-built using ActiveReports from Data Dynamics. ActiveReports is a pretty nice product ala Crystal Reports, and other reporting tools, though it does have it's shortcomings. I'm coming up against the deadline to have the demo done soon, and I'm feeling pressure to make it look really sharp.
The Dream:
A bunch of us at work took the Meyers-Briggs test for fun at work. I came out as usual: INFP, though only the I is strong, at 60%. All the rest fell at about 11%.
It's especially bad with the E/I split. I'm such a sucker for a conversation, and if there's one going on, I'll want to switch to E mode and start talking to everyone. This makes for a difficult time at work, because people will chat, and I'll want to take part. This is why most of the time, I'm listening to music in my cube with my headphones on. I've got to drown out distractions, to focus. Well, alright, part of that can be ADD, but I'm not sure I really believe that 'disease' exists. Maybe there is a condition where some people's brains work differently, and they're more prone to jump around, but instead of trying to make them 'normal', I'd be inclined to try and find an activity that plays to their uniqueness and skills and let them learn how to turn their brain to something enjoyable and profitable.
Normalcy is overrated.
But anyway, I'm the lone INFP in the office, surrounded by ENTJ's and ISTJ's. Career guides say I'm good in information design, teaching, psychology, and writing. w00t!
As an aside, speaking of ADD, ISTJs and computer programmers, heres a joke for you:
So the Red Sox pulled it off last night and go to face the Yankees for the AL Championship.
I'm personally hoping for a Rex Sox/Cubs World Series, which would of course be a sign of impending apocalypse. They'd get to the 7th game tied, tie it all the way through to the 9th inning, and then Nomar Garciaperra will belt the ball all the way into the stands where it will hit the Four Horsemen in the head, angering Pestilence, who will then wipe out civilization as we know it. The Four Horsemen being in Fenway because of course hell had already froze over.
Word is, Cubs are drafting Jesus to play centerfield in game 7, since the odds of him being on Earth at that point, are about the same as both the Cubs and the Red Sox both being in the World Series at the same time.
We're finally back online!!!!!!!
Comcast didn't seem to understand that we wanted internet when we moved in, and since each line into each room is it's own line, it has to be turned on individually, so they couldn't do that until today.
But I'm back online!!!!
hooray.
*does a little dance*
Owen is home with us now, and has been for a little while. He's doing very well, and we're now trying to adjust to having two babies at home. McKenna's still not sure what to make of Owen, but whenever he cries, she'll start crying too, I suppose out of sympathy.
I feel like the time is just flying by already though. He's already able to keep his eyes open and focus on people when he's feeding. It's amazing. He's amazing.
