Battles

I was killing time looking through music blogs and came across a band called Battles. I watch the video for Atlas, and the drums really drew me in. Surprisingly the drummer is John Stanier from Helmet, which I have always loved. So now I can't get enough of the band. It took me a while to let the vocals pass through me. But the continuing driving repetitious aspect of the song is so intriguing to my preference. There has only been two other songs that I could describe as a similar feeling.
David Crowder Band on their Illuminate album track number 13 called Coming Toward. Put in on repeat and let yourself go. Also Porno for Pyros song called "Thick Of It All" on Good God's Urge.

It will definitely go on my running mix this weekend.

Let the running resume

I feel that my ankle is good enough for more torture. I ran a mile on Thursday and my ankle held, though I did baby it a bit. So tomorrow after work I'm testing it on my 3.3 mile jaunt. I uploaded some new music to my iRiver, so that will throw me a bit. I'm the type of person that likes to listen to the same thing day in and day out. I had a Dave Matthews mix which I had memorize where I was suppose to be in my run depending on the song. I could tell if I was ahead or behind if a certain lyrics was playing at the moment I passed a certain tree. (Crazy I know.) Now I threw in all kinds of crazy songs to spicing up my life.

• Nick Lachey - Resolution


• Coldplay - Clocks


• My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Okay
  
• Black Eye Peas - Let's Get Retarded


• Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive


• Kelly Clarkson - Because of You


• Bush - Everything is Zen


• Coldplay - Speed of Sound


• Stone Temple Pilots - Wicked Garden


• Cake - Going the Distance


• Vietnam - Priest, Poet, and the Pig


• Coldplay - The Scientist

Other than Coldplay, STP, Cake, and Vietnam, I typically don't listen to that music. But have Dave sing to me every run was getting old. So I might come back after the run and rip most of that Pop40 crap off. Before Dave it was old Metallica, Danzig, and Queens of the Stone Ages. Which by the way Queens has a new album, might need to go pick that up.

Pictures from Apple Orchard Falls

Here are some pics I took while at Apple Orchard Falls on Sunday.

Running injury

Well I have off today, so I decided to go running on a trail to break up the routine a bit. I ran on Black Water Creek Trail (Beaver Trail), I am thinking I ran just over 4 miles. Since I was able to push myself 3 songs pass what I typically run when I run my route of 3.3 miles. But since I was on a trail and not the road I twisted my ankle twice, I was still able to run through it. But later when I was at the pool I noticed it twinged a bit when I rotated my ankle around. Then this afternoon I was dumping some corn on the compost pile and I twisted my ankle again (just standing there) and that really hurt. So now I'm hobbling around the house with a bum ankle. I hope it heals soon, I don't think it is bad. We shall see tomorrow when I wake up.

Got SharePoint Installed

Alright I was at the point of getting ready to punt again. I was actually looking on Google for instructions on a step by step guide to install for SharePoint in x64 OS, when I came across a note from someone stating that you need to run your IIS in 32-bit emulation mode. So I googled that to figure out how to do that. When I found a whole another article with Microsoft about installing SharePoint Services on Windows 2003 R2 x64. Followed the instructions and boom, I'm done. Now I need to figure out how to configure it. So more reading for me.

Had to punt today

Had to restart the whole process over with installing SharePoint. I couldn't get the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to connect to the other server running SQL. I made so many minor changes that I was afraid that even if I figured it what to do, that SharePoint would be quirky. So I punted. Started over, and I'm glad I did. I found this great step by step article (with pictures) for installing MOSS 2007 on a Vitrual PC. So now I'm on step 7 of 20 and waiting for SQL SP2 to finished before I move on. Well it is done, gotta go.

Playing with big boys

Well got in two new servers this week. I'm really stoke about setting them up. They are both HP ProLiant DL380 G5, but are slightly configured differently.

Server 1: Obiwan (Web Front End)
Quad Core 2.3Ghz with 4 GB of RAM, RAID 5 of 136GB.

Server 2: Kenobi (SQL Back End)
Dual Quad Core 2.3Ghz with 10 GB of RAM, RAID 5 of 956GB.
(Considered RAID 6 for brief moment, but stuck with tradition until I get burned otherwise.)

There are few first for me this week. Setting up a server with 1TB of storage and 10Gigs of RAM, using Windows server x64, and installing Sharepoint as a farm (instead of stand alone).

Well back to work

Web Conference

Went to my first web conference today. Drove 4 hours north and met with people that do what I do around the area. Finally had someone explained to me why Microformats is cool thing. It was neat to see how web developers come from all kinda of backgrounds. Some where not IT "alpha geeks" at all, background in Communications and had difficultly working with the IT group. Just so foreign to me to think that Web Development would be done outside of IT.
All in all the conference was nice and I would like to do it again next year. Now I need some sleep.

The route

1. Starting walking warm up
2. Start running down Sandusky
3. Cross road at top of hill, watch for speeders
4. Get off Sandusky (0.8 miles thus far)
5. Turn on Hayes
6. Top slight hill, starting to get tired
Run down Mohawk...my poor knees
7. Rhonda Dr. - One big stinking hill
8. Turn on Chinook (recovering from last hill)
9. Cut through school parking lot
10. Turn on to Pawnee Dr, gotta watch for speeders
11. Cross pass Long Meadows
12. Home stretch, walk up hill for cool down. (3.3 miles)

Ran a new distance

Well I have been continuing my running to keep in shape. Typically run on Mondays and Wednesdays if it isn't raining. The distance of the running part was just over two miles, which I was doing okay. I wanted to step up the distance up enough where I could run 5k without stopping. So I had been planning a route through my neighborhood that would give me 3.1 miles.

Well yesterday I ran that new route and ran the whole thing. (minus the top of the hill of Rhonda St., if you saw the hill you would stop too!). The new route is 3.3 miles so I'm really excited that I ran the whole thing and my body isn't sore today. I'll run the old route on Monday to keep my shins from hurting but will try it again on the following Wednesday.

I'll post a running map soon.

Excel Tip - Removing characters from a cell

Since I have remove characters off cells every so often in Excel, I always forget. I always have to Google my answer.

In Excel my cell contains data like this in cell A1
marker lat="37.5002273543" lng="-79.1252303123" found="-79.12523031234741" left="37.500227354254726"

But I don't need the duplicate longitude and latitude coordinates. So I write a formula that can do this.
=LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-48)
That will chop off the last 48 characters. You can also do the right side and chop off the first set of characters. And I'm sure some can write a formula that can count from the left and chop off anything after that. But that is my method (madness I tell ya)

Google API done

Well I finally finished putting out code to make our attendance zones work. You can see my efforts www.amherst.k12.va.us and click on Attendance Zones. The code is sloppy and mainly borrowed from here and Greybox, but it took me a good two days to make everything work the way I wanted it. Now it time to rethink the design of the county's website. Inspiration coming from this site, [http://www.quatuor.be/]

Google API

Spent most of the week creating a polygon overlay to a Google map using their API. Most of my time was spent trying to get Internet Explorer to work. You can see my first attempt here. The purpose of this page is to have the ability for people to search our Google map to see which school their child should go to. It is a really neat idea that is practical. Once I get the finish product up I'll shoot a post. As for now must learn Sharepoint 2007.

Back Posting

I'm back posting. I'm sure your all glad. Anyway Jan/Feb/Mar time was a busy time this year. With my son walking and becoming more attention demanded type of person, I must put down the laptop and play with him. (Don't read as complaining). I also just finished building my garden boxes for this year. Constructed out of 2x10's with wire mess on the bottoms, (damn the voles).
I'm planning on planting the follow

• 4 types of loose leaf lettuce
• carrots
• onions
• spinach
• 2 types of potatoes
• broccoli
• cowpeas (black eye peas)
• beans (stringless & lima)
• herbs

So I have been planning what needs to be down and when for the garden.

Work has been busy and rewarding. We just finished physically moving our server room. Had to move the fiber lines 20 feet through ceiling trestles about 17 feet in the air. Stuck ends in a small Gatoraid bottle and taped a cable running pole to them. Also we just started playing with SharePoint to see if can do what we want for the future of ACPS. (Might post that later)

But anyway I have been neglecting my blog long enough. So I'm back and working on some new topics to discuss.

Dirt, Wood, and Vietnam

I have been figuring out how to get dirt for my garden this spring. I have built three of my six garden boxes to grow additional vegetables, but I need to get dirt to put in them. I was wanting to mix in 2 cubits of Peat Moss, 2 cubits of organic compost, and 4 cubits of organic topsoil per box. Unfortunately that will cost 23 dollars per box (126 total for all). I don't have that kind of money laying around. So I'm kinda bum about altering my plan for good dirt. I might be able to save some money if I can get a truck load of dirt, just need to borrow a truck.

I have spent most of my free (daylight time) after work chopping wood that I got. I only have a hatchet right now so splitting the wood is not quick work. And I heard a great song today from a group called Vietnam. Their song Priest, Poet and the Pig is awesome, reminds me of Pink Floyd, but builds of some punk aggression.

What I have been doing lately?

Well I have been splitting my time between work and family mainly. At work I have been working on developing a couple of web base systems to enhance they way we use the web in house. A few months ago I started re-vamping our company's website as I learned PHP with MySQL. Now that I have a better grasp of the coding. Hopefully by spring I'll have that website redone again to modernize how people interact with it. (Web 2.0 and all that jazz) I am also re-working our Intranet to be more useful to our staff and students. My boss and I worked on a contacting system for people to sign up their email or cell phone to receive notifications when school is closed or delayed. It works great, just working the bugs out now, and then we might dump it on Source Forge to others to have. You see our current efforts here.

As for home I have been cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning. I took a bunch of clothes over to a hip consignment shop and they told me they didn't want any of my clothes since they wouldn't sell. Guess I'm too old for Plato's Closet. I ended up dropping the clothes off at the D.A.V. thrift store. I have built my second garden box (out of six) and clean the yard of leaves. If it stays warm next week, I'll build my compost bin out of wooden pallets and try to knock out some more garden boxes. Anyway that is what I have been doing and will be doing until something else comes along and distracts me.

Wal-Mart took a hit

There are reports (and here) that Wal-Mart sales have dropped 1% in their stores, with expectation that this holiday season will under perform. Other major retailers like Target reported sales to be steady. So it just people not buying at good old Wal-Mart. So it is a small victory for me since I have been boycotting Wal-Mart for the last two years. If you think Wal-Mart helps the local economy then dig around the web. Good starting places are Wal-Mart Movie, NPR story from 2003, Snapper says No to WallyWorld, etc.

"However, if you know that half of the containers flowing into China are empty and nearly all of the containers leaving China are loaded with goods," quoted from here.

Why is America so determine to becoming a nation of consumers instead of producers? We once made things you know, that was a time when we could stand up in the world and voice our opinions and the countries would listen. Now that we are just a customer to the world trying voice our opinion and the world is asking us to leave the store. Companies overseas are putting money into discovering new ideas, products, methods, etc while we continue to buy cheap DVD players and complain why gas cost so much. While Brazil is now totally independent of foreign oil and Iceland soon to follow. Sorry for the rabbit trail.

Go boo Wal-Mart, go Mom & Pop shops.

Grocery Store Experiment

I need to eat better (more fruits & vegetables) and the grocery store is one way that I can help myself do that. I read some info on shopping the grocery store that we should "Shop the perimeter of your typical supermarket and ignore the middle." (Green Living p12) I know when I get to the isle of ingredients and seasoning that I just skip it. My wife helps a lot with buying good meals to prepare, but I want to save more money on food, eat healthier, and not spend a ton time preparing the food. Also this morning on NPR Timothy Jones reported that we waste a lot of food. He said that people typically buy food on Saturday or Sunday and decide they want to eat healthier (sounds like me), so they buy fruits & veggies. During the week they don't take time to prepare those meals and on the next Saturday when they do have time the food has started to spoil. So they just throw it away. He suggested buy groceries on Thursday night instead. But I had a further thought. What if I bought what I needed for breakfast & lunch on the weekends, but every night swing by the store and bought something for dinner. Would that save money? Maybe if something was on sale like meat that is getting near the end of it sale life. If I shopped the perimeter real quick then it would be healthier, but I would have to still prepare the meal when I got home.
So starting next week I'm going to convince my wife to let me try this little experiment on buying food at the store and see what happens.

Casino Royale

Well I saw the movie last night at 9:50 p.m. and got home at 1:00 a.m., so I didn't feel like writing the review for Casino Royale. I'll try not to spoil the plot or give away any details in my post.
First off Daniel Craig did a good job playing the role of 007, but I was confused while watching the movie. (More on confusing in a second). I believe the movie is centered around when Bond starts his career as a secret agent, yet the movie is modern day. So I guess the Bond time line over the last thirty years don't exist for this movie plot. You could tell that this Bond is more physical and rough around the edges than the last Bond [Pierce Brosnan], so that makes a little bit of sense on why they axed Mr. Brosnan. In all, the movie wants to take Bond in a new direction that he could not go. I would not be surprise if Hollywood remakes all the Bond movies since their obsession of remakes.

The open action sequence was great, very fast, very OMG did he just do that. Thumbs up for the first 15 minutes. But after that the movie slows down with little bits of excitement. Now the title of the movie is Casino Royale and the major climax for the movie is a poker tournament. So for like 30 minutes they are playing poker with action happening in between the breaks of the game. I guess the producers wanted to cash in on all the craze of poker on TV. You know there are like 10 channels that show Poker Tournaments every day. I typically flip past them, so I was getting really bored during this part of the movie. Of course the winning hand is between good guy and bad guy alone. And both have excellent hands but one is better, neither likely to happen at the same time. Too cliche for me. Then some more action and then a very slow part near the end where you like why are you showing this to me.

Now for the bad, the sexy banter that Bond is known for is absent from the movie, unless they want you to see Bond before he gets all smooth. So this a prequel for the Bond series yet it is modern day. (Sorry for repeating that.) The transition from scene to scene is poorly done. The gadgets are gone and replaced with his fist. He freaking runs everywhere through the movie. Everyone has a cell phone in the movie and answers every 15 minutes, I bet the movie was sponsored from a cell phone company. The last 30 minutes of the movie should have been redone. There were only two girls in the movie, only one was a "Bond" girl.

Now for the good. Action was great, the realism was much better than previous movies. If he got beat up in the movie, he still had the bruises in the next scene. The Bond girl reaction to seeing death was better than "Hey you kill him, want to do it?" mentality from the previous movies is gone.

Over all. If you are a Bond fan, go see it, if you are a movie fan, rent it. That's my report.

Casino Royale Review (preview)

My friend Sam and I are headed off to see Casino Royale tonight, the trailer looked really good (at least for action). I haven't made up my mind about the new Bond guy Daniel Craig. I am not a fanboy for the 007 series, so I can give him a fair shot. But check out the pictures on Wikipedia - James Bond I think that Daniel Craig looks a lot closer to Sean Connery then any of the other actors that played James Bond before. I'm pretty excited to just to see a movie, this is the first movie I've seen since Pirates 2 and nothing before that since January. (Having a kid limits time/money for entertainment.)

So hopefully after it is over and I come home I'll put together a little review, unless I'm bone tired.
Getting tires put on my car at 7:30 a.m. (early for a Saturday)