Hamster Wheel Gone Wrong

Don't run too quickly....

Tractor Square Dancing

So this morning, Sitting with my Beautiful Wife and we saw something that just cracked me up, Tractor Square Dancing. It was simply amazing to see a series of John Deeres, moving in sync with each other and the music, a ballet of music and machinery. It's something that is a perfect example of americana.

Working on Something New

So by now if you are visiting this site you know that I am working on getting it up and running. This morning, I've downloaded DasBlog and am working at configuring it. I plan to convert all of my blogger post to dasBlog. We'll have to see how it goes. I think it's going to take a little time but be worth it in the end. Also I am going to work on some "templates" for dasBlog. You can check out what I have up so far. After I get that done, I plan on converting my photoblog over as well. I plan to use OneReaction for that. Anyhow, this is what I am up to.

Toilet of Tomorrow

So I am under a deadline, and I still had to stop and post this. The Toliet of Tomorrow Basically it is a High-Tech toilet with a ton of sensors. Infact it will sense of you are standing infront of it, and assume that you are male and raise the toliet seat for you. I know some of you women out there have husbands that are a little slack in the lifting the seat department. Maybe spending five thousand dollars on a toliet could be just the ticket to a happy marriage.

Changing of the Seasons

It has come to my attention that some people are under the misconception that we do not have four seasons here in Southern California. However nothing could be further from the truth. While I do submit that we don’t have the traditional four seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter. We do have four seasons none the less.  In fact this week is the turning of one season to the next. While I know most of you are thing it is change from summer to fall. It is actually changing from summer to fire season. Currently a good portion of the San Fernando valley is ablaze as well as it’s little brother burbank. 

Maybe I should explain our seasons. Unlike typical seasons, ours are not dictated by time but conditions. We have the rainy/flooding season, summer, fire season and earthquake season. Interestingly enough we can have several of the seasons going at the same time. If you have the latter two occurring at the same time, we call that shake and bake.

One of the factors about living in LA exciting is because of the “seasons” we have, we can’t get insurance for any of them. If you live in a fire area, you can’t get fire insurance, and because a fire will surely come and burn away the vegetation you can’t get flood insurance, because in the next rainy/flood season the water and mud will take out the house the the firefighters just months ago worked so hard to save. Of course if the house survives the fires and the floods their is always the earthquakes. And so continues the Southern Californian circle of Life and Inflated Real Estate Prices.

With that being said, I would take a rainy/fire/earthquake over a hurricane or tornado any day. My heart really goes out to those people in New Orleans, and Mississippi, who haven’t been able to go back to there homes, or even worst have no homes to go back too.

Something I’ve always found interesting about Southern California is new years day. Somehow it always works out that it is sunny and beautiful, even if it is a bit on the cool side (50 degrees or so). So when people in states that have winter are watching the rose parade on TV, it looks like the ideal place to live. An so the seasons continue.

Where is the Rainbow

My beautiful Wife sent me a photo that does a pretty good job of summarizing my day so far.  

A blog to Laugh and a Blog to Cry

So my brother J started a blog. I had to mention it, because he is just darn funny, and is jumping in to this "being online thing" with both feet. He's using Yahoo 360 which seems to be a very nice service. Check out his blog, it is sure to crack you up.

Yesterday I blogged about the weekend, and there was quite a little bit about the "Mighty Hunter" well, My Sis posted a "copious amout of pictures" of the old boy. I sure miss him.

Last Week

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. Last week I was on vacation and this week, I was overwhelmed getting back in to work mode. Not only that but my trusty Dell D800 laptop decided that I had been working it to hard and it took a vacation as well.

So last week was my first vacation in a while. I took time off to get a break from work and to spend some time with my Cousins from West Virgina. It was a great time. So here is a Day by Day break down.

Disneyland on Monday (Talk like a pirate day). My Sister, Dad, Mom and Cousin dressed up like pirates of all things. I in my weak attempt to join in the realvery wore my pirates of the Caribbean shirt. Brother J went and looked slick as always. However I did have my camera slung over my neck for that authentic tourist look. We had good time. First ride we hit was the newly redone Space Mountian. It is fast and smooth and has amazing visuals. Being that I had been on the ride before, I knew where the camera was, so without letting anyone know, I snuck my sunglasses back on and smiled big for the camera. Everyone else had either a surprised look, a loving the speed look or a white knuckle look, and there I am with my glasses and a big smile. I'll have to post the picture later. We hopped between Disneyland and California Adventure all day. Funny enough we saved Pirates for the last ride of the day. As we got out of the ride, that is when all of the thunder and lightning started. It was actually quite beautiful. Better then the fireworks if you ask me.

Tuesday, was the "doctors" appointment. Which I found out that sometimes the boys will get an infection from time to time. Of course I didn't know this because most men will talk about sports and women's anatomy with fervor, yet little things like health issues always seem to fall to the way side. After that it was over to my brothers to play video games with him and my cousins. There is nothing like four controllers and artificial engine sounds, and screeching tires to bring you closer to your family.

Wednesday was a little rough. Poor Rufus...well he had pneumonia, and couldn't hardly breath on his own anymore, so we had to put him down. The poor cat survived countless fights with other cats, losing an eye, losing his vision in that eye, and in the end it was pneumonia, that got him. I miss that old Cat. We had him since 1987. He was with me when we heard grunge rock for the first time. I do have to say he called it right, when he said that it was a fad. Dad came home early from work and when with me, which I appreciated. That was really hard to do, and I wore my sunglasses the whole time, so they wouldn't see me tearing up. But I think they did anyhow. Sis has a post with a picture of the old man.

After he lost his eye, we all started calling him the old man. Before that he was know as the mighty hunter. He was an outdoor cat for most of his life, so he really was a mighty hunter. The amount of birds he caught was astounding. Once he sat on the fence between our yard and the neighbors that was covered in Ivy and just sat and waited, then as a piegon flew by he jumped up and took the bird our of the air.

Thursday, well we went to the beach. We went to Will Rogers state beach so that we could pay too much for parking. It was nice, My cousins fed the seagulls bread and they ate it all. Again, I had the camera around my neck for the perfect tourist outfit. We had lunch at some place on the pier. Then the traditional two hours drove home in L.A. traffic.

Friday, well, I finally had to do chores. Change the oil in the car. You know the kind of stuff you have to do. However friday night, we watched Winged Migration. This is a stunning film, I highly recommend renting it.

Saturday was the big BBQ. I think we went though a whole cow. Can't remember much else because of the food coma.

Sunday, While doing some yard work got stung by a wasp, and had my arm swell up. So I road the antihistimine roller coaster of sleep and drowsiness for the rest of the day. I'm planning on using this later to get out of more yard work.

Saturday at the Races

Well, my vacation officially started Friday night. Which also happened to be the same day that my Cousins came into town. So Friday night we got together for a little bit just to say hi. You see I took my vacation to correspond with theirs.

Saturday we went to the races. The Saturday night races at LACR is a great thing to see. You get see the future motorcross starts as well as some of the veterans ride. My favorite part was watching the kids race. These little kids not only have skills but heart. One of my favorite announcements was when the announcer was reading off the name of the rider and their sponsor (Yes, these 8 year olds are sponsored). The one that got my attention was ‘Little Timmy’ being sponsored by “Grandma”.

It was nice to see motorcross being such a family sport. The races started with the youngest and then went to the veteran and then to amateur classes. So the kids would race first, which meant the Dads and Moms would be in the stands cheering for the kids. Then after the kids would race, and then the kids would storm the stands still all decked out in their race gear and would cheer for Mom or Dad as they raced. It was really kind of heartwarming.

The Boys are back in town

Two of my three Cousins from West Virgina are in town this week and I am so excited to see them. I haven’t seen C since I was 17, so it’s been a while, and J it’s been at least three or four years. I’m sorry that D couldn’t make it out, I would of loved to see him too. It amazes me how it works with my Cousins, we can go years without seeing each other, and we just start up where we left off, like we just saw each other last week.  I’ve taken the week off so that I can make sure to make the most of their visit.

In other news, I finally got the results of my manogram. Good news is it isn’t the big C, the bad news is, they don’t know what is going on. So next week, I’ll go back to the doctor.

Capt'n Cranky

It kind of a been stressful weekend. Thursday morning I was having some "Male problems" (I'm not talking about commitment issues either), one of the boys was acting up. So it was worrisome enough to make me go to the doctor. That was a little tough, the doctor poked and prodded and grabbed me in such ways that we are now considered married in 12 states. (no dinner or anything, men are so grabby). After that little ordeal, he orders a ultrasound, or as a friend likes to call it a manogram. Of course they couldn't fit me in until Monday. So the good doctor gives me something for my nerves, because I would have been freaking out all weekend otherwise.

Since The Little Boy’s Disneyland annual pass was going to expire on Monday we took him on Sunday. I don't think I've ever been on so few rides. Turns out, that when you are on "something for your nerves" and hurt, it's a small world is a pretty damn good ride. We also descovered a new character at Disneyland, “Capt’n Cranky”. We’ve even got photographic proof.

Yesterday was the manogram. I think the most interesting thing about all of it is the little rooms they make you wait in. Three of them to be exact. You just wait, they call your name and then you go to another room to wait to be called. Finally Andrew came for me. Andrew was about 6 foot tall, dark hair, and eyes, and sounded as if he was from eastern European descent. Andrew asked that I step behind the current and remove my clothes from the waist down. I involuntarily shouted out where my grandma hides her money. He asked me what I said, and I replied "nothing". Then he had me put the gown on, and lie on my back on table. I complied. Then he dimmed the lights and turned on some smooth jazz. I have to admit this bothered me a bit, but it is only a test I tell myself don't get up and run down the hall, (the gown that was opened in the back was one of the deciding factors.) After twenty minutes of the procedure which felt like two hours, Andrew said I was done, and that my doctor would get the report in two business days. He wished me good luck. Which I took to mean, there wasn't going to be that awkward moment when he asks for my phone number, and I’d have to explain that I am already married to the doctor.

So I am back at work today, trying not to think about the test results. And hoping the doctor will call me in a couple of days and just say it's some sort of infection caused from sitting on my butt too much and not the dreaded "C" word.

Falling Asleep to documentaries.

It’s cheating I know, but a couple of years ago I learned that when the Boy is having trouble falling asleep, nothing works as good as a documentary. Tonight he was very tired, but too tired to fall right to sleep. 20 minutes of a documentary about red tailed hawks living in New York City and he was out. Truth be told he didn’t stand a chance. I wish I could say the same for me. I have to go and have a test done tomorrow that I am really not looking forward too. This is one test that I am hoping will go well. And by go well I mean they don’t find anything.

Kids say the darnest things.

Kids say the darnest things, an old but very true saying. My Beautiful wife experienced that today. After The Little Boys second day of Kiderngarten (how come that is so much harder to spell then first grade) she took him to McDonald's for lunch. Anyhow apparently they have some special marketing going on with Disney about the Disneyland 50th anniversary, so kids are getting Disneyland toys in there happy meals. Well, the Little Boy got “Tinkerbell”. He was so excited he ripped the package open, and figure it all out, put her together and put her stand together, set her on it. Then he thought a moment, picked her up by the feet and shook her. Then with a very disappointed little voice said, “She’s broke, there’s no pixie dust”.

I told this story to one of my buddies here at work and he told me of a couple of great little things his daughter had said. The first one, she was playing with a plastic “magic wand” and noticed that it was working like it does in the movies, she then said “Mama, the magic isn’t working, it must need new batteries.” The second one was his wife had just bought six live crabs for a dinner they were having. With all of the crabs in the sink, his little girl watched them all and noticed that one wasn’t moving any more. She looked up at her Mom and said in a matter of fact tone. “That ones batteries ran out”.

Skeater On the Loose

So I was glad to hear that Cousin Jewels started blogging a couple of months back. She's got a lot of fun posts on her blog. Check it out I've also added her to my blogroll.

AJAX means we are using Javascript more now than ever

Google has made my life a little more difficult, but in a good way. Now that google has their Gmail and Google Suggest sites up and people are using them and loving them. They’ve become the new standard/model for user interfaces on the web. Till these interfaces things like web mail haven’t advanced very far since 1999–2000 as far as the user interface goes. However with Google proving that application that use AJAX are a very viable method of enhancing a web interface without the use of plug-ins like Flash or Shockwave. The browser support for these applications are wide reaching as is the kind of applications that they can use it.

 For example, we have an employee directory application at work. It’s built the way that you would expect. ASP.NET  for our presentation layer, SQL Database for the data layer and  a business logic middle tier that acts as a transaction broker between the presentation layer and the data layer. Well being a database driven application, you have to have input data, right. So we have a page for inputting employee data. So of these fields are information about the employee. There are of course some fields that while not, duplicates are related to each other. For example, as with most places email addresses and network logins are derived from the users first name and last name. So using some logic on the server side, and the AJAX.NET component, I fill the earlier fields from the later ones. Now we’ve saved people steps, and saved steps are saved mistakes. However you have to know how javascript works to connect these things together.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with javascript, some of the things I don’t like about javascript, just isn’t it’s fault and goes back to my netscape 4.7 days. The fact that the DOM (Document Object Model) is just a little different for each browser is sometimes very hard to deal with. It requires hours of testing on different browsers and different operation systems. Another thing I have a really tough time is with debugging. I wish there was a tool that acted like Visual Studio and would at least give me a hint that something is awry in the code before I try to use it. 

Javascript is a good tool though and something that we are going to use more and more. In web development there use to be more of a line between the front-end logic and the back-end logic. They were written in different languages and didn’t communicate. Well AJAX and the demand for more dynamic user interfaces will demand, that they do communicate, they may not have to be written in the same language, but they are going to have to work together. Which brings me to my next point, I’ve gotten use to writing applications in reusable classes. Javascript doesn’t really work that way, you can create structures that mimic a class, but not very closely. This is going to need to improve, especially if you are going to have more logic in the front-end. 

The brings us to another point, now that the logic is in both the middle tier and the front-end the three-tier architecture gets a little muddy. The dividing lines are harder to see, and for a time like mine, there is more overlap that can be hard to communicate. If I ask my back-end guy to write javascript, he’ll think, that is the front-end guy’s job, if I ask the front-end guy to write a function in C# to handle some front-end process, he will look at me and say C#, that is the back-end guy’s job.

Security is another aspect that has to be considered. There are some real risks having logic in the front-end. Especially with search engines scouring every web page on the Internet. If your a financial institution you have to worry about phish, in fact you have to assume you will be phished. So with those things in mind, having a calculation that is important to your business in a .js file for anyone to find in a browser is like hiding the house keys in the mailbox. Sure it’s out of sight but most people can guess where they are. So anything really and truly important like that needs to be done on the back-end.  This is where AJAX over just javascript definely has an advantage. However it still must be smart enough to be session/context sensitive. AJAX.NET does a good job of this.

In short, I think that AJAX applications are only going to grow in popularity and complexity. Popularity because it provides a user experience closer to a native application. Complexity because the developer is going to be knowing where and where not to use these methods.  With a little forethought by application developer and architects web applications can be dynamic, easy to use and secure, but only if we user AJAX, where it makes sense, not just to use it.

The correct Way to Backup a Truck.

I grew up driving trucks. Being that my family is in construction, and trucks and construction go to hand and hand it make sense that I learned to drive, trucks. In fact the first six months I had my license I would drive a D-50 dodge flatbed through downtown LA every day to pickup one of the guys we worked with and then would drive to Santa Monica. Also being in construction, you are always backing up to drop off or pick up materials. As if that wasn’t enough, my first driving lesson my Dad ever gave me was backing up. He said, if you can back a car up, the rest is easy. So needless to say, I thought I knew how to back a vehicle up till last night.

We are doing some concrete work in the back yard and need to go pick up some more concrete. Of course I can’t put 20 bags of 90lb concrete in the back of the camry, so I borrow brother K’s truck, which use to be Papa’s Truck. So we are at the big orange home store, buying concrete. And as you may know, I can’t borrow a truck without the Little Boy going with me. What can I say the Boy Loves trucks. Anyhow, so I have to back up to get the concrete in the back of the truck. I had to back up around a corner and miss shopping carts, building materials and other vehicles. So I start to back up, and the Little Boy jumps in the back seat of the truck, (its a club cab) and presses his nose right against the glass, and starts saying, “Okay, go left a little bit, right a little bit, stop, go forward Al right you got it, good job, keep going, keep going, you did it!”It was so darn cute. So next time I back up a truck, I’ll need the assistance of our back seat drivin’ Little Boy.

Sis' trip to Indy

Well, Sis is off to Indy for Gencon. It's one of the biggest gaming conventions there is. These people like to dress up for the occasion, which is where she fits in. My Sister makes some of the most beautiful costumes you've ever seen. She is flying over there for the conventions and being the nervous geek I am I had to track her flight. Of course I didn't want to have to hit refresh each time to see how her flight was going so I wrote something to do that for me.

A Few Changes in the Line Up

Okay, well as you can see the blog is looking a little different. I had to revert back to a standard template, because my friends web server that was hosting the images and the style sheets went down for a little bit. So I am using a "standard" template which I have changed to have most of the features I had on the previous version. So I guess this is version 1.52.

Also this morning I added a new link to the link section call "Where are you from?". This is a pretty cool service that tells you where people that visit this blog are coming from. You'll see the first one is from Burbank, CA, which is where I work. It uses google maps API and some geo-coding information form the ISPs to do this.

Hybrid Supercar Build My Highschoolers

This story is definitely refreshing. Instead of youth gone wild, we have youth gone engineering. So innercity high schools students team up with some engineering students and the results are stunning. The results are a Hybrid Supercar can do 0-60 in the low 4-seconds and can get 50mpg. The car is call "The Attack" and looks just as good as it performs. This is a solution better than the big three could come up with. The fueled engine it uses, runs on biodesiel. How brilliant is that!

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Shredding ukulele

You have to see Jake Shimabukuro play to believe your ears. This artist can play things on a ukulele that most guitarist would like to be able to play with 6 strings, and Jake is playing it on 4. You have to see Jake play “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.