DOAB Week of December 18, 2000

Oh, sure. Last night, after getting updates, downloading e-mail, and doing a hundred other things, I went to bed. And all those times I couldn't maintain a connection more than three minutes consecutively? Yup, logged in 20 straight hours. Sheesh. When you don't need it, no problem. When you need it, the CND (Critical Need Detector) kicks in and blows you away.

Today was a day of epiphanies, duh moments, and "whazzat again?" Worked, again, through replication on SQL server, and then, the light came on. I understand it. Then I sat through the first development meeting. I've got a long way to go to even get to the "duh" stage at the table, there. And then, I tried, again and again and again to get a PC Card modem to work in a Dell laptop. Not our laptop, but our modem card. Could have called the client and asked "say, you got that missing dongle?" but never occurred until about 4:30 pm. Sheesh, number two.

And speaking of "Number Two" you're going to ask how my drive home was, aren't you? Well, speaking of Number Two, our Esteemed State Senator Richard (long for "Dick") Day, the fellow who decided our ramp meters needed to be "fixed," did it to us again.

Actually, the snowstorm we had, with four inches on Saturday, four more inches last night, and another three during the day today, slowed things down. As in it was from 4:30 pm until after 6 pm for me to go twelve miles from Edina to Burnsville.

Why is this Dick's fault? Well, on the way in this morning, I went through the Highway 13 Ramp to 35W North (those of you non-locals will be interested to know that Highway 13 is a very highly traveled road intersecting Interstate 35W (for West), and is in the middle of three entrance ramps in less than a mile and a half northbound). And why, pray tell, were the lights blinking yellow at 7:00 am, at the beginning of rush hour? The freeway traffic was at a crawl (less than 5 mph, as low as my trusty speedometer would register), but it was letting any and all comers onto the parking lot - er, freeway.

On the way home? Well, I got on at 94th Street, going south. Funny thing, that - 94th is in the middle of the southbound triumvirate I've been using for nearly ten years (90th Street, 94th, and 98th), all within a mile. And you got it - flashing yellow at 4:45 pm.

Senator Day, if you're reading (assuming you CAN read, that is), I'd just like to thank you for the opportunity to sit in traffic, burning expensive gas, sucking the fumes of the tailpipe in front of me, getting cramps in my legs holding the brake and the gas down so the car doesn't stall from extended periods (try two hours, this evening) of idling and little else, and really improving our frustration levels on the freeway from merely postal to absolutely manically, pathologically motivated to do harm to something, anything, just to get off the freeway. Thanks for that, bud. I appreciate it. </RANT>

The worst part of all this? Well, a friend of ours offered to pick up the kids. They've got a young man in their house that Jack just idolizes. This young man's had a bit of a rough time the last couple of weeks and months, and I've been terribly impressed by how well he handles it. Moreso, I'm impressed by how he handles my son.

I remember being a twelve-year-old, with a four-year-old sister. Those were miserable times. You couldn't go anywhere without someone following you, asking questions, wanting to play. And you were far too old and mature to be bothered with that sort of stuff.

This kid's different. If my son grows up to be half the young man his friend is, I'll be very fortunate.

Anyway, our friend picks the kids up from daycare, long about 4-4:30 ish. We finally get over to their house nearly 6:30ish. From a half-block away, I see a short, fire-plug-sized bundle moving around in a multi-colored jacket. Yup, my son. Up to mid-thigh in snow. I pull into the driveway, open the door, and the first thing I hear is the anguished howl "oh, NO!"

The kids had so much fun they wanted to stay. And of course, the bad man and lady show up to take them away. Figures. We're always the bad guys. And some day, we'll get to spoil their kids. Ah, to be a grandparent. Sugar them up and send them home. I can't wait. Hopefully I won't be the one drooling and in diapers by then.

And one of the frustrating things I had to deal with was the radio. I listened to a report, about three times through, about female attorneys. Now, at the risk of baiting attorneys, women, and pregnant women, I'd like to get something off my chest. Some of the local law firms are less than exemplary in promoting women, and that's somewhat reprehensible to me - I think they should be promoting the best individual doing the job, not necessarily the best individual with a dangler or not.

But this particular story really pissed me off. There were a number of women who decided to take some time off and have children. Now, they're complaining that they're not given the same raises, consideration, and partner opportunities.

Now, She Who Must Be Obeyed has worked with, and for, attorneys in the past. These people work damned hard. Forget the lawyer jokes... The basic truth about the legal profession, especially those that work in corporate law, is that the legal department is an expense. Unless you're in a law firm, attorneys cost you money. At best, they will prevent you from losing more money, but you end up comparing that with the amount they've cost.

A concrete example - you are producing a product. The corporate attorney
A) Tells you that you need at least eleven different warning labels, stickers, or documents to prevent you from being sued.
B) Tells you that you're likely to get sued if you don't change this particular feature, as it's too close to another product's, and
C) lets you know that you've settled a patent infringement case where you've paid a single individual over half a million dollars for the rights to use their left-handed wing-nut-variation patent on your product, so you've got the rights.

That's the type of thing that has executives adding up the numbers and saying "and you're here why?"

Since most corporate attorneys are salaried, most tend to get worked like dogs. Frankly, rewarding them with small things like partnerships, named partners, and big raises is pretty small stuff by comparison. They work seventy or more hours in a week.

Now, what blows my stack is the people who complain that they should be rewarded, not because they've worked those long hours, not because they've brought in billable clients, but because they've got children. Sorry, folks.

Parenting is a responsibility (see "Personal Responsibility" a few weeks back). If you're going to be a mother or father, you've got to realize that it's not a 24x7 job. It's much, much more than that. It continues to be a challenge even after the kids move out. It's a stress, a drain, and a constant headache. It's also the most fun you can have, anywhere, anyway, any time.

But you CANNOT claim that you've been passed over at work because you've chosen to have children. It's a matter of priorities, folks. If you're willing to bust your butt, have no life, and happy with that life, then you should be rewarded with partnerships and so forth. If you're willing to be a parent, then BE A PARENT.

I get so frustrated with people who "warehouse" their children. When we were in an in-home daycare, some years ago, there was one little girl who went from the in-home to a drop-in center, a daycare at the local health club, or a baby-sitter's place four nights out of five. Half the time, the kid was being dropped off by someone who wasn't the girl's parents. How is that little girl going to grow up?

This whole thing about "I'm a parent but I still want it all" really irritates me. You've got to make compromises, and spend time with your children. When you tell a five year old "next month" that's over 1.5% of their lifetime. If you compare it to their "concious" lifetime, you're looking at, in some cases, 10% or more. Tell the same thing to a thirty-five year old, and it's a lousy quarter of a percent. Not too long to wait. But kids, they're still learning patience, and that takes a lot of help. That's where the parents come in. </RANT>

Enough. I've got to get off that topic, and put away laundry yet tonight. And improve my attitude. But before I go...

Of course, if you really want a laugh, you need to subscribe to Dr. Keyboard's mailing list. The unintentional funny of the week (yes, it's early, but I laughed out loud again) was when someone wrote to the good Doctor asking for help on a Pentium II 450 they bought at Toys "R" Us. Been There, Done That, Still Have The RMA Number... Just kidding. I actually had relied on a local manufacturer - good people, good support, crappy, really crappy products. But I've never purchased a computer at Toys R Us. Occasionally at "WTF Manufacturing" but that's another story entirely.

Now, how much do you want to bet that I won't be able to dial into the server, because the phone company line quality will be lousy? Yah, me too. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't live here. Sheesh. Seven attempts, and disconnected each time. Good grief.

Though you people think I've got too much free time on my hands, you'd better stop by here. I make no editorial comments on this site, other than I've found it educational, enlightening, and occasionally... embarrassing. At least I didn't make it or do the research.

Oh, hell. Before I go, another reminder to send Kaycee a card. Or two. She needs them. And, if you're the praying type, that could also go a long way. She's in mine, but I'd appreciate your help, too, and I'm fairly certain she and her mom could use yours, as well. Please? Thanks! G'nite.

Well, this is fun. Heard on the news this morning that if we get the 3-5" of snow they're talking about tonight, we'll be just barely over double the normal snow amount for December. Whoo hoo. My kids love it. As you can tell. Ain't they cute?

I guess I should have made a bet with Dan Seto about the voter turnout. Minnesota topped the nation in voter turnout, with something over 68% of the eligible people casting votes. Hawai'i? About 40.48%. Ouch.

Though I heard on NPR this morning a report where they analyzed the various methods people have proposed for improving the elections. Nebraska was one of the two states in the US that apportion their Electoral College votes (Oh, trust me, I'm not going to explain all of that garbage - if you folks don't know by now, e-mail me and I'll promise to confuse you with the details), and if that method was used nationwide, Bush would have still won.

Not that I'm complaining, but I think we should adopt a modified French voting system - Polls open at let's say 8 PM on the east coast, 7 PM Central time, 6 PM Mountain, 5 PM West Coast, and 3-4 PM in Hawai'i - All open at the same instant, and then... you get 24 hours to vote, and the polls ALL CLOSE AT THE SAME TIME. None of this "exit" polling or "calling a state" bullcrap that affects the left-coast (and further) turnouts.

That way, no one has to sit on the edge of the couch saying "well, I guess we don't need to vote, they've already called the election."

I'd wax on far more poetically, but I'm just not in the mood. Today started well, then in a meeting at work, I learned that a young fellow, only fifty, who'd spent much of his life preparing for "the rest of his life" and had set himself up well - wealth, free time, and all the rest; he up and died from a heart attack yesterday morning. And this was someone who was in excellent physical health. Just went like that.

And then I came home, read e-mail, and after over fifty messages in my inbox were filtered, organized, sorted, read, re-read, digested, thought about, and prayed over, and I'm just wiped. I've been bounced up and down so much in the last few months that one more slap to the head doesn't much matter.

Of course, one slap to the face is our governor. We've been "fortunate" enough to hire ourselves a governor who apparently doesn't work for the state, isn't employed by the state, isn't covered by the ethics rules that every single other government employee is required to follow. This moron has the gall to claim that his new job as a "color commentator" for the XFL came from his experience as a radio talk show host and experience as a professional wrestler.

Yeah, right. Like any two-bit radio call-in host in this town's going to get a lead color commentator role from a national network and sporting company and be the marquee face for the whole enterprise. I don't buy that one.

The stupid part is that I voted for an egomaniacal lunatic who was running for King, instead of Governor. I admit it, I blew it. Along with plenty of others.

All right, off to get a little cleaning done, and then get thee to bed. I've got big doings starting tomorrow at work. We're going to rebuild a server - for some reason we want to make the machine multi-bootable, on different drives we can swap out. I'm pretty sure that's not the best direction to go, but I'm not sure yet if I've got enough information to push it in another direction. I'm thinking multi-boot on the server (we need NT and Win2K on the same box, BUT we're also woefully short on disk space there. I can see Pooh now. "Think think think think think" as he tapped his skull. Mine's supposed to be filled with much better quality fluff, but still, I think I smell something less than fragrant coming from the home of the Danes... If you catch my drift). But I'm going to think some more on this one.

Recently there've been a couple of daynoters and others who have chose to discuss the habit of smoking.

What started me thinking of saying something was yesterday's trip home. Mr. Red Buick, going down Penn Avenue from 80th street to at least 90th, between 4:45 and 5:15 pm last evening? If you're shoving something that looks like a turd into your mouth, and you've got to have all four windows rolled all the way down because of the smell, don't you think that might be the reason you're ostracized socially? I mean, really now.

My father smoked a pipe for a number of years; in fact, up until his heart attack in 1980. He managed to quit smoking after six weeks in the hospital. My mother smoked cigarettes for nearly fifty years; she quit after a kidney cancer scare two years ago.

Our house stunk of smoke for many years growing up, and these days I can smell cigarette smoke in very small amounts. Cigarette smoke doesn't bother me. But cigars? If it looks like a turd, why would you put it in your mouth? If it smells like a burning turd when you light it, why on earth would you suck on it?

Cigars went out of favor for many years. Now they're back. You know what? They still stink. And so do you when you smoke them.

Not much else going on today that I care to write about. We started to attempt a "Thompson Deep Clean" around here and have managed to reduce it to a "Dominik Shuffle" - stuff we need or want but haven't got a place for goes into a closet, bag on the balcony, or whatever, and we bring it back in (or out) when TMOSWMBO leaves town next week.

And now, I'm going to eat some of Herself's special meatloaf. Many men whine - I look forward to it. It's one of my favorites... More later, if I can manage.

And SWMBO requested that I put together a couple of her favorite pictures for her windows backgrounds. So here you are, dear...

And THAT'S from this summer - it was ninety-plus degrees and high humidity (which explains why I look like I've tossed down literally a half-bucket of Sam Adams), and we'd been out running like bandits. Though I have to admit, Joe's Crab Shack is a pretty fun place. Especially the dancing crabs.

The first day of winter around here, and happy solstice to you all. Me, I'm plenty bummed about it, personally.

I know it's the shortest day of the year, and, we can hope, the coldest - but this morning my car wouldn't start - again. So, after about 45 minutes in direct fifteen-below weather (not, of course, factoring in the gusting winds up on the hill where I live that dropped the temp to the minus-forty or fifty range), I bagged even trying to push the vehicle into the garage. It's outside, still, in the bloody cold - twelve to fifteen, raw air temperature, below zero, tonight. All I can say is "brrrrrrrrr". Through partially frozen lips.

One benefit, though, about facial hair - it does tend to provide some insulation for the face. Thank goodness.

Well, anyway. I know what I'm getting for Christmas. Actually the day after... A tuneup. Yup.

And so I'm sitting at work, preparing for YANTI (and the first at the new place, which is a little intimidating - don't know what I've got, what I need, or where I'll find it, but the boss says, so...). Then, on lunch, SWMBO calls. Someone of her acquaintance, regrettably not she, is seeking to surprise someone they know with a digital camera. And since I'm known far and wide as an opinionated old fart, and a techno-weenie to boot, they conference-call me.

I provide a brief overview of megapixels, storage, batteries, and resolution, and then do some additional poking around. Then, when I complete my YANTI later, and prepare to connect to the network, the fine folks who manage the entire world-wide network for our parent organization have determined that I, lowly bastard systems admin from a cold place, should lack even the lowest form of administrative access to the network - I can't even add a blasted computer to the network. Sheesh.

So, respectful e-mail goes to my boss, who fires up the help desk with a patented "slap-o-gram" which, in business-speak, says "hey, let our network admin admin, would ya?" Given that tomorrow's the last day before the Christmas Holiday weekend, I suspect most of our admins back east will be preparing for the annual Men's Shopping Club meetings come Sunday (now, wait a minute - who scheduled the Men's Shopping Club meetings on the last regular-season Football Sunday? Oh, yeah, probably a Vikings fan).

Speaking of Vikings, might I point out to many of you who doubted me that our favorite team is, as ever, consistent as hell? Yup, roared out of the blocks, sucked us all in, and then broke wind down the stretch.

At one point the team was 7-0. Then 7-2. Then 11-2. All they needed was one more win to get the division, and maybe two to guarantee home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Now they're 11-4. If the right combination of circumstances occur, the Vikings could end up playing NEXT weekend as a wild-card team, while Tampa Bay enjoys the week off with a bye as the reward for being Central Division champions. Sheesh, again. Someone smack me, hard.

Anyway, we got off track a bit. We finished, for the most part, the Dominik Shuffle around here, and are desperately working on getting the "tree" up so it can be decorated tomorrow evening. You note that I have "Tree" in quotes.

As previously discussed in or near this space, I do not believe that anything decorated deserves the name "Christmas Tree" unless the thing's at least ten feet high and bushy to boot. My grocery-store knock-off barely overtops the seven-year-old (I think, but I'm not getting her out of bed to check), but that's all going to change next year...

We're moving, in March or April, we hope, to a townhouse near here. As it's a whopping $300 a month LESS than the place we looked at LAST Weekend, and we're also looking at nearly double the space (not counting the two-car tuck-under insulated garage, there), we're going to be very happy. One thing I'm fairly sure of is that they also allow REAL trees. Oh, for the smell of pine when the tree goes up. Soon, my nostrils, soon.

Before I wobble off to bed, though, there are three things I wanted to share with you just in case you missed them. The first is on Wendy Ward-Johnson's page (scroll down to Wednesday), and had me laughing out loud to read the Twelve Days Of Christmas, Cajun Style. I just had to post this one, which I saw for the first time about two years ago. It still brings tears to my eyes.

And finally, today, we have a little trick for you all. First, check out this site. Now, if you haven't yet figured it out, I've hidden how he does it below. If you click and drag your mouse over the box you'll be able to read what's going on. If you want to believe in this sort of "magic," then continue on.

It's actually pretty simple. He puts up six cards, then removes one. However, none of the cards that appear in the second batch were in the first. Compare - he's got a red king, a red jack, a black jack, a red queen, and a black queen. In the second screen, he leaves out the red jack, but all the others are there. The only difference is that they're all a different suit. Sneaky, eh? I wouldn't have found it except I cheated and picked three cards at once. I'm so mean.

And that's MY magic for the day. Enjoy, stay warm, and if you're the praying, or even the good thoughts type, send a few to Al or Kaycee. They could both use the help right about now.

And wish me luck. The Mother Of She Who Must Be Obeyed flies out tomorrow afternoon, arriving here some time after launch, we hope, as she's flying NorthWurst, which will either stuff her like a knockwurst, bobble her like a package, lose her somewhere in the upper midwest, or just plain forget about her. We can hope this one doesn't go horribly wrong... Have fun...

Of course, last night, sitting down to blather on about life, the universe, and everything, I forget, completely, to mention What Mr. Thompson found...

Seems those "Fine Folks Who Make Your Hard Drives (FFWMYHD)</Sarcasm>" have decided to incorporate a copy-protection scheme for their hard drives. Oh, please, before we go further, let me note that they do not call it copy protection - just a unique ID for each drive out there. Which gets incorporated in the software installed on it... I'll let the Register's article speak for me for the most part, but this section is worth repeating...

Think about it. You crash a hard drive (I do note no one's mentioning anything about improved survival rates for HDs), and then you can't restore to that machine with a new drive because the serial number doesn't match.

I'm not usually an alarmist. However, Mr. Thompson AND Dr. Pournelle both noted this disturbing evolution yesterday, and frankly, I'm scared. I don't think this is right, good, or beneficial to anyone at all except those people who are looking to make a big profit.

Yes, it may well help with cutting down on piracy. And I'm all for that. But I'm not at all in favor of rebuilding a computer, only to find I cannot restore from tape, or can't reinstall applications/tools as they're registered to another hard drive using the on-line registration tools.

Now, I thought, rather foolishly, that this would be a semi-good thing - if the IDE drives were tagged in such a manner, wouldn't smart people, and eventually everyone, end up heading to SCSI-ville? Nope, not so lucky after all. This plan would also get stuffed into the SCSI drives as well. Thank you SO much for that one, guys.

And if you don't believe me, or think I'm an alarmist, and discount Dr. Pournelle and Mr. Thompson, who've been in this industry and written the book (many times over) on this sort of thing, then consider this - Microsoft doesn't like it either.

Certainly that will push some of the Linuxen to a point in favor of it, before they consider carefully what they're doing - that's ok, we'll wait. But don't sit back and take this one. I'm fairly certain that Mr. Thompson, Dr. Pournelle, and Dr. Keyboard, among others, will make known contacts where you can vent your displeasure. And then, we'll have someone to talk to - don't blast them and call them thieving b*st*rds - that tends to get the whole discussion off to a bad start. Be reasonable, but firm. Sort of like potty training.

The next thing that scares me is yet another blasted virus... Again, Mr. Thompson did the work on this one...

The latest updates to Network Associates' McAfee VirusScan/Netshield 4.0.2 apparently destroys the boot record of NT 4.0 machines, according to a story on The Register. Any of you running server farms out there should be real careful, unless you fancy a Christmas in the office away fromthe family rebuilding all your machines...

So, mom, if you go no where else on the internet today, you've been warned, eh? Folks, let's be careful out there, shall we?

All right. Last night after I collapsed into the chair to try and restart my brain (cleaning, late bedtimes, early rising, and blasted cold really saps the systems), SWMBO determined that nothing less than a full "Thompson Deep Clean" would do for her kitchen. She was down on hands and knees, scrubbing the thing. I doubt her mother will even notice - though I'm sure she would have if that ketchup stain in the middle of the floor hadn't been removed with an axe... ;-)

So, I collapse into bed last night sometime after 11:30, after assembling the damned tree again (please understand, any tree that requires assembly from ME rather than an agent who uses sunlight, rain, fertile soil, and a lot of time is, in my opinion, fit for little more than ridicule. Sadly, however, my apartment complex believes that "live trees" {which aren't, since they're cut off from their root systems, but I lost that round, too} are dangerous. Yeah, like metal trees covered with cheap lights and exposed electrical wires are safe?), and it STILL overtops the eldest. Won't next year. Yet another reason to move.

And this morning, when the local weatherboy starts into his schpiel about the cooling trend we're suffering from (we've had average or below average temperatures every day since November 8), he mentions as a sly aside that it's colder here than in the arctic circle. "huh? howzat?" I mumble, assuming the fellow had tumbled his gyros and was looking at the underside of the globe. Nope - above the arctic circle this morning most of the readings were in the single digits above zero. We were stuck with double-digits below. Ouch. If anyone finds those two marbles in the parking lot, they'd be mine. They're pretty useless now, but they've got a lot of sentimental and family value for me. Ach, well (or ouch - and if you don't get that one, just e-mail me, and I'll explain).

So then Northwest gets back at me. . . Yesterday's flight 3241 from Dubuque to Minneapolis/St. Paul was delayed six hours - for a two-hour trip, one if you count air time (and it's cheaper than a bus ticket, get that one), and today's shows every sign of going the same way...

So I rely on their web site, and even after the flight landed, they were still showing it as delayed. Oy, vey. Technology isn't there yet.

But we get TMOSWMBO from the airport, to my office (sure, they close the office at 3:30 and I'm there 'til 6:30 - what a suckup ;-), and then to the bread store, drug store, grocery store, back to the drug store, and then home, to "finish" the tree...

But before I do, I check e-mail. I've finally had it with Techies.com. Great idea, lousy implementation, worse service. I tried to get my e-mail disconnected from these... people several times. Last night I found a "just get me out of here" button, clicked that, and today? Five more messages from Techies.com. So, fed up, I decided to use the scorched-earth policy. Every e-mail from Techies.com is forwarded to webmaster@techies.com. If that gets me nowwhere, I'll start spamming their customer service accounts, and if that doesn't work, well, they're local. I can get the name of someone over there, and just start sending to any old warm body to get them to remove me from the list.

Oh, yes, the messages are polite - "Hi - I hope you can help me - I've tried to remove my name and e-mail address from your web site, but I keep getting this mail - could you please remove my address? Thanks!" That might get a response, but hey, if not, I've got a rule set up. I can keep this up longer than they can. I'm stubborn.0

Can I get a raincheck on all this? I'm a bit beat. Though it doesn't help any that I spent some time this evening in non-work pursuits, catching up on Bob and Lynne Walder's vacation... I couldn't help it... I burst out laughing, out loud, when Bob used the phrase "Talk about dickhead tourist standing out like the dog's bollocks..." Thanks, for that mental picture.

I'll be honest - these fellows (Bob and Chris, especially) can make food I'd never eat sound delicious... Though I'm quite happy with typical American fare - greasy, fried foods. Even some of our regional favorites, like deep-fried cheese curds... Nothing so bad that we can't turn it into deadly foods by deep-frying them... ;-) But I'm about to go nuts... I mean, I finally found out what nems are, but tapas? A little help here?

Ah, well. Off to string the lights.... I'd post pictures, but the flash is just too bright to allow you to see the lights. The good news is that my lovely bride agrees with me - if you can't read by the lights on the tree, you just haven't got enough lights on it yet. Our five-footer's got roughly a hundred lights per foot. I'd prefer the 2-300 range, personally, but some people around here want decorations too. Infidels.

Oh, all right. I was going to decorate, or go to bed, or something, but... Well, I started messing with my portal page, which I use for getting around. I've also been experimenting with CSS, and I finally got that page tightened up. Yes, you know you're anal when you preview it in three different browser windows, and you still end up tweaking it by a pixel or two at a time. Good grief, I need help - but it looks ALMOST EXACTLY like I want it. So what?

Oh, hell. I forgot. SWMBO is producing home-made "Bailey's Irish Creme" (No, you CANNOT have the recipe, but we'll make you a batch if you ask nice... and, of course, the various governmental agencies can let us transport various things from here to where ever). And I, as usual, have to crank out the damned labels. Sheesh. I should have quit when I was ahead. I think I was about four at the time...

First off, remember the old Buck Hill shots? I've got a couple new ones here - I didn't want to putz this page up with too many images today, so I've dumped most of the pictures from today in this page for your perusal. Warning - (wow, "perusal" is spelt write, and recognized by the spell chequer. Odd, that. Amazing what sorts of English one can get away with when one relies on a spell chequer. hmmm) - the page will be a slow loader for those of you on dial-up lines (sorry, dad). One does what one must - and I'm on a dialup too (hopefully that will change after we move).

Ach, well. Nuff about that. Got the labels for the homemade "Irish Creme" done this morning. It's amazing how creative you can get when you're flat out of time - tossed white text onto a picture of pine needles, and everyone was almost as much in awe of the label as they were of the contents. Ok, so I flatter myself. Gotta try somehow, right?

We've survived yet another Christmas to remember at my parent's house in St. Cloud. After a mostly uneventful trip (though there are some of you clowns in the Twin Cities Chapter of The Men's Shopping Club who didn't get the memo - TOMORROW is the shopping day. Those of you who brought traffic to a complete and total stop on interstate 94 north of Rogers this morning about 12:30 or so will be getting your bad conduct papers next week. You were warned... ;-), we returned home to the beginnings of some nasty cold. The worst part is that MY car ALMOST started today. Actually, when we were at the 10-above mark earlier today (nearly went back in and put on my shorts, balmy weather being anything above zero these days), the car DID start, and ran for perhaps a second. Then died. Damnit. Oh well. Tomorrow, we're getting the heavy reinforcements - a friend with a good old Chevy Blazer, tricked out for off-roading - if that doesn't get us into the garage, nothing will.

We actually went out and ran around a bit, as well... I'm not exactly sure why we did it except that Jack came prepared (Rhiannon had everything but her boots, and her dress shoes just wouldn't cut it... Though Jack and his uncle BOTH made snow angels. Cute.

One nice thing, if you want to call it that, about driving about an hour and a half one way without a book to read is that you get to do some thinking... (<WARNING - Jarring seque ahead - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED>).

I've been working for a while now on an inventory database for our computers. My first whack at it was to put together something in Microsoft Access. Easy, straightforward, and they've already got a solution in one of their templates.

But part of my job is to learn SQL Server... And you can likely see where this one's going. I've been trying to figure out what's the best way to design the database so that I can make the whole thing work well. And I think I'm finally getting down the line towards building databases.

Before you chuckle, snort, giggle, and point fingers, I've always liked playing with data. I've enjoyed tracking it, looking for trends, and using it to predict what's possible in the future. When I was at the previous employer, after about a month, I sat down and built a Filemaker Pro database which grabbed the Retrospect backup logs off our backup server. They detailed who got backed up, how long it took to back them up, what was backed up, and the whole process went into one database, which was extracted into a second database for department reporting, another for reporting by machine, and a fourth for reporting by OS - why five databases? Well, FM Pro isn't relational, it's mostly a flat-file data manager.

I figured out, in the car, that perhaps the best method of organization would be to have small, focused tables, linked together. These small tables would be things like the vendor information, manufacturer information, employee information, and equipment. Then I'd have a Real_Vendor table, and a field in it - if the manufacturer is also the vendor, then I just check a yes/no box, and the address from manufacturer is copied into real vendor. If no check is in the box, then it uses the address from the vendor table. Simple, straightforward (I hope), and easy to put together.

The one thing that SQL lacks is reporting capabilities with it. Certainly I can build my own, but I'd rather have something a little fancier... so we'll look at tools in the next couple weeks.

I'm going to talk to my boss Tuesday or Wednesday about my shopping list - Visio 2000, Fabric softener (we can put that in a spray bottle, and mix it 1-3 with water, and that will kill the static problem we've got), and of course, a spray bottle. Then we start looking for a DAT autoloader to back up all of the servers we have. I'd like DLT, but we've got two computers with DDS-3 DATs in them right now, and I'm a firm believer in multiple ways to access your backups - nothing worse than finding out your autoloader needs servicing, and then needing a file from a tape.

So, off to wrap presents, but of course, the damned TV again - this time they've run Mr. Holland's Opus again. I tell you, between the country-music songs I've been listening to lately which seem designed to rip your heard out, stomp on it, and return it to your chest cavity still warm, and Mr. Holland's Opus, which is another one designed to gut you, I'm pretty wiped, physically and emotionally...

But first, we've got to wrap presents. Seems Santa here stops by while we're at Church (we usually hit the 5 pm mass), and so we're flat out of evenings to procrastinate. Last year, we managed to delay to the point where I had to come down with some illness of sorts to avoid church so I could get the presents wrapped and under the tree. I'm not doing that this year.

Oh, no. Victor Borge is dead. The man who managed to make punctuation audible, if messy. I'm going to miss him.

In those days, Caesar Augustus published a decree ordering a census of the whole world. This first census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to register, each to his own town. And so it came to pass that Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to David's town of Bethlehem - because he was of the line of David - to register with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child.

While they were there her days of confinement were completed. She gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

There were in the fields, shepherds, watching their flocks by night. The angel of the Lord appeard to them as the glory of the Lord Sshone about them, and they were sore afraid. The Angel said to them "Fear not, for I bring to you tidings of great joy, for today, unto you in the city of David a savior has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord.

"Let this be a sign to you; in a manger you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes."

Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying "Glory to God in the Highest, and Peace on earth to those on whom his favor rests.

Well, we had a lot to do today. It seems like only a few weeks ago I was complaining about running around in 90/90 weather (90 degrees F, 90% humidity). Today, I don't believe we broke zero, and on the way home from Church this evening we ran into thirteen below zero. Yee-ouch.

We started the day with a nice "tradition" I'd like to establish... Breakfast at the Radisson in downtown St. Paul. We'd gotten a nice letter back from the manager of the restaurant when we complained about the lousy time we had last time we went there for dinner; today, we went there for breakfast. I've added more pictures to the Christmas Pictures page for those of you who want to look...

They have a wonderful breakfast brunch, but frankly, my kids would have eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the view. In fact, I saw more of Jack's back than his front. Not that I blame him, of course. The view is pretty spectacular.

So, after that, we stopped at the grocery store for the usual fixin's for this evening's snacking, and then we headed for home. Mom and Grandma took my place today at the Men's Shopping Club meeting, and they were successful in getting what they needed.

We went to Christmas Eve Mass (the good news is that they no longer call it "Midnight Mass" if it's not at Midnight), and the kids were pretty much demonic. Which was fine, at least my kids were better behaved than some. But it's nothing worth ruining Christmas for.

Now, however, I'm exhausted, wiped completely, and all I want to do is sit down and read my new Peanuts treasury and "The Making Of A Charlie Brown Christmas." Not too many of you know my uncle hired Charles Schulz to be a staff cartoonist at the St. Paul Press-Dispatch many many years ago. Uncle Roman and Mr. Schulz exchanged visits a number of times over the years, and when my uncle died, I consoled myself with the fact that Mr. Schulz was still alive. But then, he died too.

That's OK, we'll always have Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, and most of all, Charlie Brown.

Merry Christmas, everyone, enjoy the holiday with family and friends, and for crying out loud, behave and stay warm, OK?

And before I go - Jonathon corrects me on a major gaffe - FileMaker Pro IS relational - a fact which I intended to correct above, but spaced off in the dead-tiredness of the moment. Having worked in dBase II, III, IV, Paradox, Access, FileMaker Pro, and SQL Server, I infinitely prefer FileMaker Pro. However it's not the one paying my bills right now... And I wish it was.

And I swear to you, this one came in just as I was about to get off-line. I don't know what to do with it either.

Daynotes on a budget

The weekly Diary of a PC Geek

Updated: Sunday, December 24, 2000 11:31 PM -0600