Beautiful Weather!

It's gorgeous outside (68° C with a light breeze and lots of sunshine) and I've trapped myself indoors with no consideration of playing outside, taking the kids outside or the dog to the dog park, and the mountains are simply these hills on the horizon. Days like this should be celebrated in outdoor activity and I've squandered mine.

FireFox/Avast agony

I'm using the free antivirus Avast! on this computer and recently suddenly started receiving a lot of strange error messages. It comes up in red and reads:

The page cannot be displayed
There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

Please try the following:

    * Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
    * Open the Web site home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
    * Check your firewall settings. The Web Shield process (ashWebSv.exe) must be allowed to access the Internet.
    * If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please contact the Web site administrator by using the e-mail address or phone number listed on the Web site home page.

HTTP 502 - Gateway timeout
avast! Web Proxy

The proxy server did not receive a correct response from the upstream server specified by URI or the response was not understood by proxy.

Winsock: (997) Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.
GET {this is the url at the time}
Winsock: (997) Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.

I have yet to find any useful information toward resolving this issue. Seems like it goes away if I go to "On-Access Protection Control" and disable Web Shield. I didn't even know I was using a "web proxy" on this machine. Could explain some of the sluggishness.

The Zone

There is a definite zone. If you've ever done anything that you truly enjoy and requires intense concentration then you've been there. Might be mountain biking when you are rushing down the single track just a little faster than you know you should and everything is blurred in your peripheral vision and it seems like you can anticipate every rut, obsticle and jump on the trail as if you had esp. You know the ride is going to be perfect and the adrenaline rush helps make you more invincible than you already know you are. But if you slip out of The Zone you're a smear on the trail. Just a taco'd wheel, bent fork, smashed helmet, and a bloodied road rash carrying your bike out of the woods.

Computer programming can be the same. If I can get into The Zone then I can pound out elegant computer code that reads like Pulitzer Prize winning poetry. Like anything else, finding the zone takes effort. Maintaining the zone takes concentration. I love being in The Zone. It's frustrating when I can't find it. Sometimes you can find it, but something pulls you out of it for just a moment, then it's lost.

Don't want to kill people? Pretend to kill people!

In the past to get out of being in the Army you simply had to "be gay." That's always the case now-a-days. This blog is full of crap points out to us that there is a more creative avenue for escaping enlistment.

Army frowns on Dungeons and Dragons
IDF says players are detached from reality and automatically given a low security clearance.

• They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence
• Simply detached from reality
• The game indicates a weak personality
• These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment

Tonight Tommy and I head over to a friend of his for a fun game of Dungeons and Dragons. There goes my Q clearance!

Protector or Provider

In sticking with my plan to "pound code" I awoke at 2am. Cathy lay on the left side of the bed, Molly the puppy was curled up on the foot of the bed, Amy was in the middle asleep but squirming, and I was on the right side of the bed doing a balancing act to keep from falling off. The room had a chill last night but our bed spread would keep us all warm, well, except for me because I could only cover part of my right leg as the rest of the covers had disappeared into some blackhole in the middle of the bed. Or perhaps they shrink in the night because I learned in the morning that Cathy neither had covers. I pondered over and over moving to the computer to be able to get work done. 4 hours of programming in the middle of the night is equivalent to 12 hours of coding during the day!

When it came down to making the decision I could not risk having Amy roll off the bed and I didn't think she would stay asleep for the transfer to her own bed so I stayed in bed until the morning came and Molly had the desire to go outside (and outside she went!).

Obsessive Compulsive Toddler

My OCD 2 year old wrote on her hands yesterday with marker. This morning she looked at me and begged "wash it." So we washed her hand the best we could but the marker wouldn't come off. She stared at it a second and said "wash it again." Her short, focused, serious comments make me want to laugh.

Featured Blog

Thanks to Boing Boing I've added Drawn! to my blog roll.

Progress!

I've been a good little programmer today and pounded many keys. I need a brief break and think it is well deserved although I do not want to styme this momentum.

Get your very own Cease and Desist Order

According to BK Delong at Brainstream if you link to Bill O'Reilly's article in the Gazette-Times titled How did Buster get mixed up in this mess? I guess I'm soon to get my very first Cease and Desist! How exciting!

Of course, this could be a huge publicity stunt for the Gazette-Times as our links are nothing more than free advertising for them.

Of Grasshoppers

Student: Why do they keep beating me up?
Master: You are paying your Karmic debt. Now choose to get depressed or get motivated. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Do you?

71 is a magic number

I know the f%^king rules. How come I can't play the game?

Seems like the minute you start to get back on your feet in our society some bastard has to come knock you down harder.

Wow! That's deep!

It's 2am. I should have been in construction...I dig such nice holes for myself.

On a positive note, it's really nice to be programming in ColdFusion again!

10 Wrongful Movie Deaths

Jo Blo brings us his top 10 Wrongful Movie Deaths: 10-6 5-1 The reasons for each must be read. My favorite is Quint (#3).
10. Achilles - Troy (2004)
9. Blain - Predator (1987)
8. Hooch - Turner and Hooch (1989)
7. Mani - Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
6. Randy Meeks - Scream 2 (1997)
5. Tommy DeVito, Nicky Santoro - Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995)
4. Leon - Leon (1994)
3. Quint - Jaws (1975)
2. Pvt. Hudson - Aliens (1986)
1. Boba Fett - Return of the Jedi (1983)

Woot!

Today's Woot! won't last. It's a Microsoft Wireless Optical Elite Keyboard and Mouse.

It’s not your Grandpa’s wireless. Because that was a radio.

I'd grab one up if I wasn't budgeted for other things like..uh..mmm..a child!

Unbelievable! It's such a sad day when a keyboard has such requirements!

Hard Disk: 60 MB of available hard-disk space

I recall desperately wanting to buy a 20MB harddrive in the early 80s and commenting that "I'd never be able to fill it up!"

Frustrated Game Addict?

Has Tetris beat you down? Do you get infuriated with no having enough time to decide where to place the shape? If so, then Tetris 1D is for you! (warning: you could find yourself playing for days on end!)

Beautiful Night!

It's one of those crisp, clear nights that makes you want to bundle up a little, sit on the porch and just listen to the wonderful "silence."

I'm being productive this morning and pounding away at code; code which somehow I've fallen absurdly behind on and am quite disappointed in myself for doing so.

I wish I had the stamina to get up at this time every morning and work. I could knock out most of my client obligations whilst everyone sleeps then use the day primarily for family needs. Perhaps I could take a 4 hour nap in the evening and grab a nap during the day to keep my body rested.

Progress!

Wahoo! Programming milestone achieved! Had a wierd moment when it became suddenly bright outside and the glare on the monitor gave me snow blindness. Truly freaky! I promised myself a break at this milestone so I'm going to do some brief yardwork then return to making miracles happen.

Excrement!

Wouldn't society be funny if people ran around shouting "excrement!" instead of "s$%t!" when things didn't go their way?

The puppy chose to poop outside this morning! She even used the spot that we'd marked for her! Please. Please! Let this be the beginning of the end of the accidents on the floor (at least for 10 weeks).

Amazon sells everything! Order your fake poop now!

Random Quote from the Bookshelf

I've randomly drawn Rebel Cornbread and Yankee Coffee: Authentic Civil War Cooking and Camaraderie by Garry Fisher from my bookshelf. From page 29:

---

When in camp, Federal company cooks generally preferred boiling food to frying or broiling it, since boiling was the easiest and fastest way to prepare large quantities of food. ... Just as it suffered from food and other shortages, the Confederate army also lacked an adequate supply of cooking equipment and eating utensils. The shortage became so dire that Colonel Robert V. Richardson, commanding the Twelfth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, was moved to submit the following plea to his brigade commander in October 1863

I have not a single vessle to cook one morsel of bread. My cooking has to be done as we can beg the citizens to do it. This practice is exceedingly deleterious. It leads to straggling and demoralization. For God and country's sake, make your fair-promising but never-complying quartermaster send me skillets, ovens, pots or anything that will bake bread or fry meat.... Send me skillets 255 in number. I cannot fight any more until I get something to cook in.

So highly valued were skillets that the men, rather than risk losing a skillet from a company wagon while on the march, assigned it to an individual, who marched with the panhandle slipped down the barrel of his rifle.

---

Civil war stories captivate me. Just yesterday on the way to the bank to turn Noah's loose change into dollar bills he commented on the Baker-Peter House so we stopped at the gas station and together read Abner Baker's marker and the historic sign. For the 17 years that I've been in Knoxville I've never bothered to read that sign. Turns out Doctor Baker was possibly a Confederate but more likely neutral however his son Abner was a Confederate soldier. Doctor Baker was attending to some wounded Confederate soldiers when some Union soldier's raided the house and shot through the barricaded bedroom door and killed Baker. His son shot the postmaster to avenge his father's death and friends of the postmaster ambushed Abner and killed him at 22 years old.

I know the Baker-Peter House is supposedly haunted. I've never read about the ghost. I wonder if it's related to the story. The sign does not mention the ghost but it does mention Hawk-eye's Too.

Featured Blog

She's back! Say hi to Whoa Mama! and let her know she was missed!