Lunch
Getting tired of the same old thing at work, and too busy/lazy in the morning to usually pack lunch. So today I made, "Grilled Chicken in a Honey Dijon Mustard Sauce."

From the "grill":
Grilled Chicken Breast - ask them to dice it up
Grilled mushrooms
Grilled onions

1 Package of Honey
2 Packages of Dijon Mustard

1 Slice Munster Cheese (from the sandwhich line)

Combine grill ingredients, add the "sauces", stir, microwave for 45 seconds, add the cheese.

Not too bad!

Counter-Googling
Another link from ev.

Interesting stuff. Originally I thought no one read my blog... then a few family/friends. But who knows.

Windows XP: How to get rid of Windows Messenger

From ev, quoted from the source above:

"The fastest and safest way to remove Windows Messenger:

1) Click Start button
2) Click Run
3) Copy and paste this command into the Run dialog
4) RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
5) Reboot and Windows Messenger is removed cleanly"

Something to keep in mind, since we are supposed to be upgrading to XP at work, sometime in the not to distant future

Sigh... wishing for good "old" VMS
I work on Sun boxes. I have a SPARCStation in my cube and the mid-range I work on is also a Sun running Solaris. Yesterday we took a power hit. Kind of typical durning a big thunderstorm. I was in a meeting at the time.

I get back to my desk and my SPARCStation has come down, so I reboot it. I try to log in, but the password file is hosed, because apparently the file gets corrupted if the machine takes a power hit. So I have to get the admin to come over and fix the box and reset my password. This happens EVERY time we take a power hit.

I then notice that the midrange is hosed as well. "Support is working on it." After about an hour, people start going home. "No use hanging out, I'm supposed to leave in 30 more minutes and it obviously won't be back up by then."

I get on this morning (surely it is ok by now), and find that the box is ok. I start working on it, and then my manager comes in and ircs the group. "Hey... we haven't gotten an OK to get on the box. As far as we know the disks are still syncing. Don't whine if you lose your work or cause the machine to take longer to come back up all the way.", so I get off.

I just CANNOT BELIEVE the state of the Sun/Unix world. (Maybe this is just Sun, maybe it is just Unix, I'm not sure which). Unix has its good points. And Sun has its good points. It just drives me nuts though how people claim that it is so much better than Digital and VMS. It is SO much an inferior "lights out, 24 x 7" platform.

Yes, we should have all this equipment on UPS. And then it wouldn't have happend. But still...

How long ago was the last big San Fransisco earthquake? A good 10 years right? At that time there was mail that went out about the computers. There were IBM machines that were taking days to bring back up. The VMS techs went in, pulled the ceiling tiles and junk off the VAXs, stood them up, plugged them in, and they were up and running.

I had a Vax 2000 in my cube. I NEVER had corrupted files because the machine took a power hit.

It just amazes me what garbage people are willing to put up with, when there has been so much better technology out there for so long. Sigh... marketing hype, PR lies.

Open... Yeah, I just love Open systems. I think I'd rather be working on a closed system where I could actually be more productive and do work, then on an Open system.

</whine> Guess I'll go finish my code reviews on paper, since I can't actually get onto the computer. :-(

MathWorld News: There Are No Magic Knight's Tours on the Chessboard
For those that have been pondering the 150 year old question, it has been answered.

Sushi
Jaime and I went to Meg's restaruant after Fuel on Saturday. Meg had to work and wasn't at Fuel, so we went to surprise her and have some sushi. We tried their special roll, which had something like 7 different kinds of fish on it. It had octopus and squid... both of which I'm usually not too thrilled with. But they were sliced very thin. Jaime tried the octopus and she REALLY LIKE IT! So I gave it a try and it was pretty good. It had a good flavor, and wasn't too "rubbery" because it was so thin. So then we both tried the squid, which was pretty much how I remember it.

We had a California Roll, Special Roll, Shrimp Tempura Roll and then an Eel & Avacado roll. It was all really good. Jaime likes the rolls better than the other kind, because it is more of a mixture and not so much just rice with a large piece of raw fish on it!

So... I'll have to take her out for sushi more... especially since she is way more adventurous than I would have thought. "Dad... it's just not Tif that likes sushi!" Octopus... who would have thought?

Me on Google
Hey... I wanted to enter a link for "Impact Christian Center", so I typed it into google and posted the link. But then I started looking at what it turned up for links (phone listing and maps, christian directories), and then as I scrolled down I also found an article in Breakaway and a link to one of my sites. :-) I'm famous. ;-)

Wow... followed the breakaway link. Cool stuff. It is the article on Pastor Rick's D*group purity night. That was an awesome night. And there is a copy of the "Eye Convenant" that they wrote downloadable in PDF!

The Good News
Yesterday's sermon by Pastor Joe was really good. Well they are pretty much always "really good." The main vision of Impact Christian Center is to spread the gospel, or "good news". To much of the church, and the world, the Christian message is not "good news". It is pretty much bad news. God is a mad god. God is bringing His judgement down on the world. Nothing is further from the truth!

God is a good god and He loves us. In fact He loves us so much, He sent his only son to die for us!

Anyway... I'm not going to preach much. He's on the radio, check it out, or come to church, or get a tape.

So my point was on yesterday's sermon. The main point was "Are you in the right church" and "Does it matter." Yes it does. You have to be in a church that God has called you to, if you are going to serve it what He has called you to do. Part of that was reaching the lost and letting them know how much God loves them. Seems like pretty simple stuff... In one way it is, and in another it isn't. Yeah, it is pretty simple to tell people that God loves them... But the point is, not many people know that. As Pastor Joe was speaking about that, I was thinking how right on he is.

I think that was one of the biggest messages we took to Costa Rica on our mission trip this year. Not only did we bring a message of salvation, but we brought a message of hope. Costa Rica is a largely Christian country. They are a churched country... I'd say more so that the US. But they have a lot of people that do not have a personal relationship with God. That have walked away from the church. That believe that God is mad at them for something they have done. Letting them know that God loves them brought them so much hope and joy. And it brought them into a personal relationship with Jesus and plugged them into the local church. And that is what it is all about. Letting people know that God loves them, so they can get into relationship with him, and grow. Its not just about getting to Heaven. Its also very much about how you live your life here on earth... Not in a "good vs bad" way... but in a "life vs death" way... the ability to walk in the healing, prosperity and power that He desires for each of His children.

Its good to be in a church you are called to, doing His work.

Google calculator
Now Google has added a calculator. But it isn't just a normal math calculator, it also does conversions. You can use it just like a normal Google query. "1 smoot in feet", (I don't even know what a smoot is...) or "1 cubit in feet". I had a rough idea how long a cubit was. Google says it is 1.5 feet. So, just in case you have a bible that doesn't list Noah's Ark in feet, but still lists it in cubits, you'd now be able to calculate that it was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. :-)

But in addition to doing calculations of things you may not use everyday (like cubits and smoots), it also does normal type conversion and mathematical calculations:

To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the expression you'd like evaluated in the search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button. The calculator can evaluate mathematical expressions involving basic arithmetic (5+2*2 or 2^20), more complicated math (sine(30 degrees) or e^(i pi)+1), units of measure and conversions (100 miles in kilometers or 160 pounds * 4000 feet in Calories), and physical constants (1 a.u./c or G*mass of earth/radius of earth^2). You can also experiment with other numbering systems, including hexadecimal and binary.

Lunch
Speaking of food (in my last post).

For lunch I had:

• A piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken
  
• A piece of left-over grilled top sirloin
  
• Korean bean sprouts
  
• Korean shredded turnip in a sweet/hot sauce (I LOVE that)
  
• A no-sugar carb chocolate bar

Yeah... quite the collection of tastes. It was good.

Hmm... what for dinner
Jaime is going to a birthday party tonight and so Tina and I are on our own. Unless one (or both of us) is too tired, that usually means going out for dinner. Tina suggested Vietnamese. Yum!

Hmm... that reminds me. I need to give TommyT a call!

Speed, its all relevant
Geek stuff...

When Tim and I were working at DEC, we were working on a DBOS to CHAMP conversion. Or as we affectionately called it, The project from Hell. The goal of that was to get all the obligation data out of one database and migrate it to another database (converting it on the way via a set of complex mapping rules). We had to do this in the middle of the night. I think it was from 1:00 AM to 7:00 AM, or something like that. In any case, we had to process about 6000 records during this time. I can't remember for sure, but I think we had at least 3 hours, and maybe it was up to 6.

I'm now working on a Sheriff Implementation where we are doing something I probably can't talk about and we'll be processing about 6000 records a SECOND.

I guess what is fast all depends upon what you are working on. :-)

Busy, busy
Been pretty busy lately. Not 24 hours a day... but busy enough that I'm not blogging much (as you've noticed). I've got two projects wrapping up at work, so if I'm not busy with one, I'm working on the other. But they are both cool, so that is good.

Jaime just blogged some stuff, which is cool. As she said, Erika is spending the week with us. She's a great "kid" so that will be great.

Other than that... I'm just keeping plenty busy with work, home and church. Some cool youth worship stuff going on, but I'll probably blog that later.

Heather is home! Still haven't seen her, as she has plenty of committments at her home church, but she should be down next weekend (hopefully) or maybe she'll come down and we'll do lunch.

I'm sitting here waiting for a build to finish so I can see if I just fixed a defect or not... Well... it seems to be taking a while so I guess I'll go write some documentation while I'm waiting.

CNN.com: Wild Chihuahuas spared execution
Sitting in my cube, munching on Chicken Strips (cuz nothing else sounded good... and at least they are somewhat filling) and reading MightyGirl, when I followed the link to the above article.

1) Not all that good of reading while eating lunch, but hey, I've watched Animal Precient enough to know what to expect.

2) It still kind of amazes me that with the current social problems: homeless, kids on the street, etc.; we still as a society do things like spend $500K to make sure that 170 wild dogs "live their lives out happily ever after".

In case there was any doubt
In case there was any doubt about my geekyness... On my birthday (I'm sure they planned it that way), the US Patent office granted our 2nd patent on Sheriff. :-)

Long and legal, but hey, my name is there under Inventors. :-)

Friday afternoon
Busy cleaning up some code. Iteratively cleaning/fixing, building, and then regression testing. While doing some of that I'm also updating the Fusion Worship blog. Trying to get code cleaned up with 1/2 my brain, while starting to think about the first Fuel-JV worship team practice with the other half. Kind of unsuccessful and it is all kind of rambling together. But that's ok... That's how I function. :-)

Well... back to it. A little over an hour till I leave work, and I've got code to clean up. Both mine and someone elses...

Costa Rician caffine
Sitting in my cube, reviwing code, and munching on White chocolate covered gourmet coffee beans from Cafe Britt that I picked up in San Jose. Yum!

Costa Rica - a glimpse from a teen
Erika has added an entry to her blog about Costa Rica. As always, very cool. And on my birthday no less! Thank you Erika! And it is so cool to read how you feel about the keys. Like I told you Saturday/Sunday. It is very cool to see you stepping out in that! It adds so much.

Writting
It is weird how writting is kind of like putting a part of your soul down on paper. For me writting just kind of flows out, as I think about something. It can be something like blogging, writting a poem, or even writting a technical document. One weird thing is that I can't repeat it. Writting a particular thing is a unique. I'll never write it the same way twice. I think about this because I don't write on paper, but on a computer. And computers crash.

I've written a document, sometimes hacked a program, or just written a blog entry. If I lose it (didn't save often enough and the program crashes, program gets deleted and I can't restore it), I can recreate the general idea... but not the same words. Not the exact same emotion. It was something I was feeling at that exact time.

I just thought of this because I've written something in blogger before and accidently hit a wrong button and had it just disappear. Forever. Never to be seen again. I can try and recreate it, and again - maybe it has the same feel, but it isn't the same thing. There for a few seconds, when I saved the last post, the screen went blank (like it always does)... and I thought "Oh man... did I hit the right button?", and then it repainted and there was the entry.

Hopefully my whole day won't be like this. I'm thinking 45 is kind of strange. ;-)

Its kind of bizzare
Today I'm 45. Wow.

No big pearls of wisdom or anything like that. That would take too much thought, and it is another normal day, have to get ready for work, go to work, etc.

But one thing I've been thinking of writting lately... for whatever reason. The effect of music. How it can transport you back to a place and time. When I got born again (accepted Jesus as my Lord and became a Christian), I stopped listening to secular music. Not right away, but after a time. Some of the stuff I had been listening to was not real great, and I was also joining a worship team, and I had to kind of get my mind off some stuff. So for about 7 years all I listened to was Christian music. Then a few years ago I started listening to secular music once in a while. Mostly classic rock. The stuff I listened to growing up. As a side note, I can't believe the garbage that comes out of DJs mouths these days... but I try to avoid listening and change stations when I know they are going to talk. Anyway, this isn't so much about any of that... but about how muisc can transport you.

I thought about starting another blog, just about certain songs and where they take me. Maybe I will, but for now I'll just put something here.

Two songs that really transport me, for whatever reason.

The most recent is Let it Rain, which is not a classic rock song, but is a worship song.

Open the floodgates of heaven.
Let it rain, let it rain.

That's it. The entire song. But it is a song we did a lot in Costa Rica. When Michael is singing that song, and Nicole starts echoing him, in her passionate way, it takes me right back to Costa Rica. Standing in the sound booth at the Oasis. Looking over the balcony at the team and a crowd of 2000 people with their hands raised. All worshipping God. And just feeling His presence so strong. And being amazed at the passion and power of her worship as He sings through her... and through the entire team as they join together and just worship Him. It was an awesome time.

And then for something totally different... The Boys Are Back In Town, by Thin Lizzy. I hadn't heard that song much for a long time. This year it started getting a lot of air time on several of the classic rock stations. We used to play this in the band, back when I was a teen. We eventually broke up and went back to leading "normal" lives - which mainly consisted of going back to school. After school I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and so spent one summer in Haver MT. We lived in Big Timber MT (pop: 2500, south-central MT), and Haver was a "city" up north, near Canada. We had some friends up there, a divorced mom with 6 daughters, a hugh house, and an unfinished basement. Some of the guys used to go up there and just hang out in the basement. Looking for odd jobs and just generally hanging out. This was the summer of 1977. Several of the guys had been up to Haver a few times, and on their latest trip I went with them.

So... The Boys Are Back In Town.

Haver MT. Warm summer evening. 17 to 19 year olds. No where to go, nothing to do. Just hanging out. Strutting down the street, walking all abreast. Probably Marv, Mel, Steve and me. Maybe Terry. Ear rings (crosses, daggers, skulls, porcupine quill). Necklaces (eagles, arrow heads, etc.), shirts (flannel or polyester) open 1/2 way down. Hash jeans - whatever was the latest - large star, hash, butterfly. Mostly likely platform shoes. There we are, strutting down the street, first night back in Haver, walking down town to see what we can find. Singing The Boys Are Back In Town.

Its weird. I've talked to Marv twice since I left MT 19 years ago. (I'm not great about keeping in touch). But I can hear that song on the radio... and feel the same way I did then. It all comes back. And in my mind I can look over, and see Marv. That look on his face, not a care in the world. Just out looking to conquer it. Whatever it happened to be.

Its just weird how music and take you back to a time and place. Sometimes far in the past, sometimes just around the corner.