A day well spent?

I've spent the day sitting in front of my computer today. Though I did get several site designs either completely finished (McConnell Center China Journal) or at least something up and/or changed (Laurie & Kevin's website and this very site), I still have too much to do.

I'm even more disgusted with the whole Java language than I was a few weeks ago when I wrote this post. It turns out the person Kumar has hired to help us when we have trouble hasn't done any programming with servlets, EJB, or pretty much half the stuff we need to do for the last couple of assignments. And it's equally frustrating that things like EJB's, which are suppose to make programming easier, do nothing of the sort. I'll probably end up spending half my weekend working on this type of stuff. I'm sure I'd end up spending the whole time on my CECS 640 assignments if it wasn't for the fact that Sarah and Christina are coming into town tomorrow. At least I'll be forced to relax a bit then.

A note on advertisements

As you may have noticed I've started placing advertisements on the site. This is in an effort to at least offset some of my costs in maintaining this server. Except for the ads that pop up in the Google Ads, I will only place ads on this site for services that I have used and know either work (eHarmony, it's how Sarah and I found each other) or are well worth it (WSJ subscriptions - I read it nearly every day).

In addition to the ads, I do provide virtual hosting for a nominal fee. If you're interested, email me.

The Long Weekend

I finally got around to posting images from this past weekend to the website tonight. I ended up going to Lexington last Thursday and spent the next two days doing yard work and the like around Sarah's place. To the right is the pile of tree limbs, brush, and at least one whole tree. The backyard had even more cut down. Kevin was there and quite a bit of the time it was just the two of us guys out in the yard working. Shows how much devotion we have to these girls I guess, and it prompted a joke from their dad when he showed up Sunday.

The primary reason that we did all this work was to get the place in order for a brunch for their mom's birthday on Sunday. The brunch turned out really well and the whole thing really surprised her. In the afternoon, we went to Keeneland and bet a little on the horse races. It was the first time I had been to Keeneland for anything other than a family reunion. And that's been so long that I don't really even remember it. I ended up doing a little better than breaking even at the track and figure it was a good way for me to warm up for Derby next weekend (assuming I have the cash to pay the $40 cost of a ticket).

As far as the work we did, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. It was nice to have some work to do that didn't involve staring at a computer screen for eight or more hours. Even if I managed to hit my thumb with a hammer while putting up lattice work, I think I'd rather do that on average then spend mind-numbing hours on end programming. It was just nice to be doing something outside. Not something I get to do enough anymore. But maybe that will change after next week.

Strange

I acquired a new camera recently through eBay. I was looking for something really small that I could carry with me at all times and ended up finding a Canon S200 Digital ELPH for a really good price. Since I received the camera, I've been noticing more things to of which I can take pictures. This prompted this photo.

Behind the main building of the newly renamed Speed School of Engineering, they've constructed this strange piece of "artwork." Made of steel beams and placed in front of the soon to be former Kersey Library, it simply seems out of place. As "art," I don't believe it really adds anything to the environment. It doesn't really inspire any thought or emotions other than one of wondering who would choose to construct such an ugly thing and place it on a university campus. But, the fact that it's on a campus probably answers that question. Most of the "art" on campus are nothing more than globs of metal that in some cases are actually meant to represent something. Minus the dancer in front of Ekstrom Library, there's nothing of any form or substance to speak of IMO on this campus. Now, a visit to the Speed Art Museum is another story. But that's another post entirely.

UPDATE: Dodd reminded me of the Rodin sculpture "The Thinker" that is in front of the administration building. If I remember correctly, it's one of the original castings done by Rodin himself. That is definately a piece of art.

God & Bush

Well, looking through all the new links to/from my site, I came across a question by Bryan over at Spare Change. He was wondering how many people are both members of the Blogdom of God and Blogs 4 Bush. Having just joined both myself, and in the mood to avoid other work, I decided to see what I could find.

As it stands there are 15 blogs on both when I include my own. They are, alphabetically:

Aaron's Rantblog
Army Of One
Blue Goldfish/Surface
Broken Masterpieces
Coffee Swirls
Earthly Passions
La Shawn Barber's Corner
Mr. Pete's Journal
News from the Great Beyond
Parablemania
Patriot Paradox
ShortDaddy
Sophoristically Speaking
Spare Change
TruePravda
Uncle Sam's Cabin
Vessel of Honour

This is out of 130 Blogdom of God sites and 452 Blogs4Bush sites (via blogrolls). If I missed anyone, please let me know.

TLLB EcoSystem

Just noticed I went up to Flappy Bird.

UPDATE: And within two days I went up another notch. Must be the Blogdom of God links.

A day just full of events

For most people, when they think of April 15th, they think of it as "Tax Day." However, since I always have my taxes done before mid-March and my refund usually before April even starts, that's never the first thing in my mind.

Today is the day to celebrate a couple of things.

1. Triangle Fraternity Founders' Day - 97 years ago today Triangle was founded by 16 engineering students at Illinois.
2. Buy a Gun Day - Started last year, because it's tax day in part to my understanding, this is a day to at least do something related to exercising your second amendment rights.

So, for all my fraternity brothers out there, Happy Founders' Day. And for all of you, it's time to go spend some time at the range.

The Dude abides.

Me, the Dude? Well, I don't enjoy getting high and I'll let me friends decide if I'm laid back or not (though I know I'm a lot more laid back than I use to be).

Also, I'd like to remind some of you of the Lebowski Fest in June.

(via Ipse Dixit)

Blogdom of God

Well, after little thinking I've joined the Blogdom of God and added the blogroll for the group to the site. It's rather long, so I'm going to have to figure out how I'm incorporating it into the new site design that should be up in the coming weeks. (School/work/other sites are the priority)

I've linked to several of the sites in the Blogdom already and will keep those links on the site as well due to the fact that the Blogdom blogroll doesn't notify of updates to the sites.

Not getting it back

Well, it turns out the grills recovered in the search of residence of the morons that stole my grill didn't turn up my grill or my neighbors. So it looks like I'll be getting a payment from them for the lost grill (hopefully). The police aren't even sure who the rightful owners of the grills they recover are at this point. Also found out their court date is 9am on the 18th of May and that they're charged with three Class D felonies (1-5 years a piece).

Buy A Gun Day

Tommorrow is the second annual Buy a Gun day. Started last year as the Buy a Gun for (to spite) Michael Moore Day, it's been expand to another general day to support the 2nd amendment. Go out tomorrow and take the time to exercise your 2nd amendment rights by buying a gun or take someone to a range for some target practice. For the computer people out there, I suggest something like this for a target.

Everything belongs to someone else

Michael Williams has one of the best round ups of the Bible's view on money and giving that I've read in some time. This is definately an appropriate topic as many of us are receiving our tax refunds. We should all ask ourselves if we're going to use it to only simply satisfy our own desires or do something else with the money.

Democrats are hurting Boston's economy

A new report out has the Democratic Convention yielding a net loss for the Boston area economy.

The convention, scheduled for the week of July 25, was hailed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino's office as a boon to Boston, reaping millions of dollars in economic gains. But the Beacon Hill Institute determined that transportation and other costs will outweigh the benefits of 35,000 convention delegates and visitors who will converge on Boston's hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

Major portals into the city -- the North Station commuter rail and subway stop and the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge -- will be closed for all or part of the convention for security reasons. And Sail Boston and the US Olympic gymnastics trials, two major summer events slated for Boston, were moved elsewhere due to logistical problems posed by the convention, planners said. Taking into account these losses, totaling $134.4 million, Boston's economy will lose $12.8 million by staging the convention, an updated study by the institute said.

This shouldn't be a big shock to anyone. They're shutting down a large portion of the public transportation system in Boston. However, in New York they won't shut down the subways or any of the rails for the Republican Convention. Nor should they, even though security should be higher at it considering a sitting President will be there. In the end, this is just another example of the Dems lack of practical knowledge in economics.

Win Now!

Larry Miller offers an interesting viewpoint and slogan concerning the ongoing war.

Happy Easter!

Do you need insurance?

I went to Frankfort and passed the exams required to get an insurance license this morning. So, now I guess I can start selling soon. Don't worry, I'm not going to be calling everyone I know asking if they need more insurance.

And just because, here's a little joke to liven up your day.

Q. What's the difference between an insurance company actuary and a mafia actuary?
A. An insurance company actuary can tell you how many people will die this year, a mafia actuary can name them.

Got 'em

Three weeks ago some morons stole my grill. Just had a chat with my neighbors, who also had their grill stolen, and found out that they've been caught. They've evidently been hitting all around the city, even taking a grill that was worth over $3000 from a house in the Highlands.

Hopefully I'll at least get the money to buy a new grill from these morons and after the amount they've stolen, they're definately looking at some jail time. Even my grill was a felony in this state.

The trouble with cable

As I've posted in the past, the local cable company, Insight, has less than stellar service. This has caused me numerous headaches in the past and today was another fine example of it.

Recently, my roommate and I decided to cancel our cable TV service. She's hardly ever here to watch it and for me it's nothing but a time/money sink. Well, today happened to be the day that the cable service scheduled a tech to come out and shut off the service. For those of you that have had the opportunity to experience Insight's customer service, you know what happened. They shut it all down, cable modem included.

The problem with this is I was connected into my server at home from school at the time trying to work out somethings for class. So I had to run home to finish the project and spend a good chunk of time explaining to two seperate customer support techs (the first one hung up on me as she attempted to transfer me, of course she was useless to begin with) and a couple hours of downtime waiting for a tech to come back out and reconnect my service.

All of this would probably change if there was a little competition in the area for cable services, but that's not going to happen anytime soon as Insight has sued the competition. (Briefs on behave of the city are here and here)

Of course, as I'm moving to Lexington this summer, the likelihood of gettting away from Insight is pretty much nil and after talking to Sarah about her experiences with Insight in Lexington, they're actually worse there. Hopefully, competition will be introduced into the mix soon, but I'm not holding my breath.

Louisville Satire

A new satire site has popped up focusing on the Louisville, KY area. The Louisville Star seems to be interesting so far. We'll see how far it goes though.

(via furtive explorations)

Happy news and work to do

This past weekend my girlfriend's sister, Laurie, got engaged. Laurie and her fiancé, Kevin, got engaged in front of both their families on Friday. As an engagement gift I've taken on a new project, with the help of Sarah, to make them a wedding site. And they both seem eager to help make it.

Check out the progress at: www.laurieandkevin.com

I couldn't wait any longer

Man is the only creature that uses fire to cook his food and has done so for hundreds of thousands of years by some estimates. Having recently been deprived of this ability, I broke down and bought a new grill today to get me through until I move to better accomodations in a few months. The grill (TrueValue:: 18-In. Folding Grill (Grills & Barbecues)) is a far cry from what I'm use to. But it only cost me $10 and it allows me to grill steaks again. So, I guess I'll be satisfied until June/July when I start shopping (or for some kind soul that would purchase one for me (Internet Grilling Superstore - BBQGuys.com)) for a new grill.

Site Changes

As I've been waiting for a response to a question about the assignment that prompted the post on Java, I've started making some changes around the site. I've changed the archiving scheme to go to a date, entry title based system. I've left the old archives in place as they don't take up too much space so it doesn't mess with what's already been indexed.

Also, for those of you using Netscape/Mozilla or some other browser than IE, you'll probably notice the new icons associated with the site. I'll be changing the entire site design hopefully within the next few weeks as I merge sites and reorganize my content on various sites. The site hasn't had a major design change in nearly a year and a half, so I felt it's time for a change. However, unlike some of the MT Blogs on the web, I have a testing server and the changes will be done there first. I had enough things break on this site the last time I upgraded the server.

Waffles

Jimmy "Miserable Failure" Carter has had it happen. They tried it and were beaten back with George W. Bush. So now, it's John "Waffles" Kerry's turn. Let's see how long this googlebomb takes.

(via Ipse Dixit )

Death to Java

I never really had an opinion one way or another until this semester about the programming language Java. It was something I never used and didn't ever plan on using again after taking the course overed on it while an undergrad student. However, my opinion of Java has definately taken form over the past few weeks. To put it mildly, it's a piece of crap.

Never have I dealt with a programming language that makes it so difficult to do simple things. Even the parts of Java that's suppose to simplify programming (JDBC, Swing Forms, etc) don't work right 99% of the time. And the oh so glorified portability of Java doesn't exist. I've got code on a linux box and a couple different Windows machines with the exact same version of the JDK and tools and if it works on one, it sure as hell doesn't work on the other.

My fraternity brother, Andy, just happened to make a list of the merits of java and I happen to agree with him on them 100%.

UPDATE: (4/7/04) An interesting list of Java quotes we'd all like to see over at furtive exploration

Comments Policy

Due to a recent string of comments, which have been removed, I'm implementing a comment policy on this website.

The rules:

1. On topic - if you don't have a comment about something related to the post, don't leave a comment. If you just want to leave a comment for me, I suggest email.
2. No foul language - This is my site. I can say whatever I want to here. If you want to swear about something, start your own site.
3. No personal attacks - This type of thing is simply juvenile.

That's about it. I reserve the right to delete any comment that doesn't follow the above rules, and definately will if it violates #2, and probably ban your IP. I, however, don't promise that anyone leaving a comment to this site won't post something rude, libelous, defamatory or just plain dumb.