digitalBush

Brandon and I have been testing out our painting skills (or lack of at times) on one of his old guitars.  Overall I think it turned out okay.  I laid the flames out, but unfortunately I didn't have the right tape to make the extremely tight radius curves that flames deserve.  I now own the correct tape for the next time.  At any rate, I think it looks damn good for a first try. 

One of my goals for 2008 is to read more, and tonight I just finished up book number one: The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas.  I really enjoyed this book because it enforces the view that software development is a trade.  Instead of perceiving myself as a blue collar code slave, the book makes me see myself as a craftsman.  The book has a ton of solid advice and I think it's a must read for any software developer. 

Photo courtesy of err_r

Attention all users of systems across the world: Note fields in applications are not a good place to put things that need to be indexed and parsed.  For whatever reason, the users at my company seem to love their note fields.  They love them so much that they begin to believe that just by the very nature of them sticking something in there that the server (a magic natural language processor, of course)  will make things happen just as they typed it. Damn, and to think: I spent 4 years in college and years later I'm still learning programming languages when all I had to do was just tell the freaking computer what I wanted to do in broken English.  Here, let me give this a go:

1. Open notepad
2. Type "Make a data export of our stuff and send it to these people via ftp with encryption.  Do this every month and call me before you send it out."
3. Save
4. ???
5. WTF?  Why isn't this freaking computer working!  POS!

Some of them also seem to think that I actually read the crap they type in there too.  It seems that my brain is somehow physically connected to all things technology at my company.  By that very nature, it seems that anything that is typed into any application anywhere is immediately known to me.  Sweet.

I recently had a nice situation come up where some data was loaded with a note that said those records were part of a larger group.  Forget that we have tags for this type of thing or heaven forbid the group name field.  I get the call "Josh, when we're giving this data out to XYZ company, they need to know about these records that I marked with a specially crafted note field.  They need to know that they are members of ABC group."  It seems no one understands that notes are for evaluation by humans after one has already pulled that particular record up.  Crap, here I go creating a massive temporary index on this text field so that I can make this happen in under a year.

Once I identify these records and create data in the places they were supposed to be based upon these magical identifiers in the note field then I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I think that I'm done.  Wrong again.  I get the next call: "Josh, some of the records are not being identified correctly.  I'm emailing them to you so you can see why."  Oh great, how did I mess this up?  I used the magic identifier you told me: "Strategic Hospitals Incorporated of Tulsa" (FYI: This is made up for the sole purpose of comedic value) .  Once I get the email and start checking the notes of the records in question, it becomes obvious what happened.  I forgot to check all possible combinations of that magic phrase.  Apparently, it would have been too hard to use the same identifier, instead  they chose to shorten it to: "Strategic Hosp. Inc. of Tulsa", "Str. Hosp. Inc. of Tulsa", and even "S.H.I.T."!  "S.H.I.T.", can you believe that?  How in the hell am I supposed to know about this "S.H.I.T."?  Seriously.

What's the moral of the story?  Note fields are a necessary evil.  People want to store things that we (the developers) don't need to know about.  The only way to do that is to provide them a free form field where they can type anything in.  Some people (usually the same ones every time) will continue to put important pieces of data here that belong elsewhere.  I think it's just a fact of life.

Today I overcame one of my fears and man does it feel good.  I've always been afraid of getting on the roof. A year or so ago, we had some roof damage from strong winds.  I tried to get up there myself, but I was in work boots and was slipping around so much that I quickly scurried back onto the ladder.  My father-in-law had to come fix the shingles for me while I stood on the ground watching.  That was a horrible feeling for me.  I mean, if this 50 year old man can do it, why can't I?  I felt like a sissy.

We had some storms come through earlier in the week and inflict some damage to a few shingles. Crap, what do I do?  Should I call my father-in-law to come help? Hell no, this time I decide to just "man up" and do it.  I wore sneakers which made the experience so much better.  I was able to walk around on my 6/12 pitch roof without much trouble.  Coming down the roof slope was the worst part of the whole thing.  30 minutes later, and I had managed to patch up 5 shingles and a vent pipe seal.  Sweet!  Just like that, it was over and I am triumphant.

January has come and gone, so it's time to update the world on the status of my weight loss.  If you'll recall, my main 2008 resolution is to finish off the weight loss resolution of 2007.  Up to this point, I've never posted weights, just the weight loss.  Somehow, that feels like I'm not holding myself accountable, so here are the stats:

• Beginning of 2007: 306 lbs
• Beginning of 2008: 296 lbs
• February 1, 2008: 290 lbs

I've managed to shed 6 pounds this month which is slow enough that I feel like I'm doing this in a healthy manner.  I know that the rate of weight loss is going to go down as I get into this.  So far, my lifestyle changes have minimal to achieve this. 

• I'm eating smaller portions of the same stuff I ate before.  I never really ate bad foods, I just ate way too much of it.
• I'm jumping rope(120-160 revs/min) for exercise while it's cold. I've been doing 10 minutes 3 nights a week.  I'd like to be able to do the 10 minutes straight, but man does it burn.  I end up having to do it in 1-2 minute intervals, but anything is better than nothing.  I just couldn't commit to the high cost of a treadmill just for cold weather. 
• I've managed to cut out all carbonated beverages.  I've been drinking a ton of water.  I've had a cup of juice, but everything else has been water.

So, that January in a nutshell.  I'm shooting to lose 5 pounds in February.  I'll post my results in a month.