According to a fortune cookie from three months ago, good things are in store for me today. While I have no doubt this is true for small values of “good things”, I hope it’s true for large values also.
February 2008
Monthly Archive
Mon 25 Feb 2008
Fri 22 Feb 2008
Yesterday was an odd, long, and mostly pleasant day. After being out sick for two days I had several things to occupy my morning. I headed off to dance class to find that my instructor was also not feeling well and instead of a vigorous dance class we had a 45-minute stretching class. It felt quite good, and left me relaxed and sleepy for the early afternoon. After work I headed off to dinner, and encountered several other people from the community chorus (all concert choir folks, but I certainly don’t hold that against them). and had dinner with them. This was followed by a trip to a candy store in the mall before heading back to campus. Choir was a bit different because Dr. Keating was out of town. We had a good rehearsal nonetheless. All-in-all, the entire day just seemed slightly off-kilter. It wasn’t a bad thing, just odd.
Tue 19 Feb 2008
I first woke up at around 4:30 this morning with a headache and clogged sinuses. By 5:30 (after punching my snooze button three times) I decided that I wasn’t appreciably better, and that staying home was prudent. I sent the appropriate messages and climbed back into bed. What followed were some of the more vivid dreams I have had in recent memory. I wandered through rooms that don’t exist on the UALR campus, and interacted with numerous people I don’t know. The most striking thing about the entire sequence was flirtatious women (and nothing more than flirtation. It wasn’t that sort of dream). It would be very nice to have that happen in real life.
The downside of staying home is both being bored and missing dance class. It would be in my best interests to at least do the warm-up exercises, but I really don’t feel well.
Sat 16 Feb 2008
Girl Scouts: Are they evil, or am I over-reacting?
I came out of Kroger last night, and there they were, waiting to attack me. A quartet of fresh-faced, innocent-looking girls in green uniforms. They were right outside the door, selling their addictive sweets. Yes, that’s right, Girl Scout Cookies! How am I supposed to resist their calorie-laden goodness. In the grocery store, I can keep myself from going down the cookie aisle, but how do I just walk past a table filled with Thin Mints, Trefoils, Do-si-dos, Tagalongs, and their kin. I succumbed to their siren song, and purchased two boxes each of Trefoils and Thin Mints. These cookies are evil. Evil, I tell you! Let’s take a glance at the side panel of a box of Trefoils:
Not so bad, only 150 calories per serving. But wait– That serving is only 5 (five) cookies. Now let’s be realistic. How many people stop after eating five Trefoils. Being a lonely man, I came home last night and ate 3/4 of a box while watching Voyager. Let’s call that 35 cookies. That would then be 1,050 calories. From cookies! That’s fully half of what I should be consuming for the entire day!
Are the Girl Scouts secretly funded by health spas, liposuction clinics, and diet pill manufacturers? Are thay planning to take over the country by making all the adults too fat to fight back? Is it fair that this is just on the heels of Valentine’s day chocolate? Am I sounding paranoid yet? Yes, I think I am, so I shall stop now.
Sat 16 Feb 2008
Oddly enough, I didn’t get depressed on Valentine’s day. That is quite an accomplishment for me. I did discover that most of the interesting women in my dance class have either husbands or boyfriends. That’s not at all unexpected, but at least now I know.
Choir Thursday night was very nice, even with a low turnout. We are making great progress with the Chichester Psalms, and I particularly like “Somewhere”. Of course, the highlight of the evening was talking to beautiful women.
I think I slept through most of Friday, even though I was at the office. I was just so sleepy that I didn’t pay much attention. The one thing I did manage to accomplish was putting new backgrounds on Cisco 7961 phones.
Thu 14 Feb 2008
Welcome to another “Hallmark Holiday” (should be trademarked). This one is specifically designed to make those of us who are involuntarily single feel even worse about our lives.
Wed 13 Feb 2008
The latest in a long line of time-wasting web sites. If you read this, please go visit http://dalevania.myminicity.com/
Tue 12 Feb 2008
I learned my way around Oracle before I ever touched MySql. The problem with this is that Oracle has spoiled me. One of the features I miss is “rownum”. Although MySql doesn’t have rownum, I have found a method to (nearly) reproduce the result.
| Oracle | MySql |
|---|---|
| SQL> select rownum,foo from bar where rownum<5;ROWNUM BAR ———- —— 1 stuff 2 stuff 3 stuff 4 stuff4 rows selected. SQL> |
mysql> set @n=0; mysql> select @n:=@n+1,foo from bar where @N<5; +———-+——+ | @n:=@n+1 | foo | +———-+——+ | 1 | stuff | | 2 | stuff | | 3 | stuff | | 4 | stuff | | 5 | stuff | +———-+——+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> |
So the effect is similar, but the test is done before increment, so is off by one. That’s a simple enough correction, so I am far happier with that aspect of MySql. Now if I had a few more functions…
Tue 12 Feb 2008
Normally I like the sound of a thunderstorm while I’m going to sleep. Since I still don’t have my roof repaired, last night was an exception. I kept waking up, hearing rain, and worrying. Even my dreams all seemed to have rain in the background. Frotunately, the tarp I put on seems to be doing its job. The spot on the ceiling that showed water damage is still dry. It’s still raining, so I’ll keep worrying.
The roofer that I had called (twice) never came out, so he is off my list, and I will be calling others today. I really don’t want more water damage. I can’t afford it.
Sun 10 Feb 2008
Sometimes I come across a comic that contains essential truths.
