Inside The Perimeter

I’m back, but really busy…

I Guess The Joke Was On Us
A little more than two weeks ago MC Hasher insisted that we needed to get together again to play Team Trivia at Raging Burrito. I told her that I couldn’t do it last week because I was attending a hockey game, but I’d be free on January 28th and would add it to my calendar.

MC went onto Facebook and created an Event to which she, Bill, Vandy Beth, and I all responded to as “attending.” Guess which one of the four of us never showed up last night?

Vandy Beth text messaged MC, but she never responded. MC never mentioned anything on Facebook about not making it to trivia either. I guess the joke was on us.

Another joke played on us was the farce that was last night’s Team Trivia event. Either the questions were either way too simple (except for us who missed to popular current culture questions) or there was rampant cheating. Going into the final questions we were five points out of first place and six other teams were two points away from first place with near-perfect scores. When the final question, which was tough, was proposed as a multiple-choice question (WTF?) I knew the night was over for us. Seriously, when that many teams are bunched together why the hell would you make the final question multiple-choice? Naturally a handful of teams, us not included, were forced to answer a tie-breaking question. Disgustedly I left the restaurant before hearing the final outcome.

How’d the East Point trivia go?

ITP Flickr Pic
One more from last Saturday’s High Museum outing.

Atlanta, Be Ready To Be Underwhelmed By The Weather
Oh Mother Nature, what a fickle bitch you are. For the past few days we(even those of us who’ve been northwest South Carolina) have been teased with cold mornings and beautiful afternoons. Now that the weekend is nearly upon us the weather is to turn shitty and cold. Ugh.

To Hash Or Not To Hash, That Is The Question
This Sunday is another Black Sheep Hash Sunday. While I’ve been trying to be a regular attendee to the hash I’m contemplating skipping this Sunday’s hash for a collection of reasons:

• I’ve just returned home from two days away
• This week’s start is in Cartersville
• It’s supposed to be really cold this Sunday
• I have to do laundry at a laundromat this weekend
• Next week will be an incredibly busy week consisting of more travel to a neighboring state for college recruiting

If I weren’t the holder of the hash stats, and didn’t already know that I’ll be missing the hash in two weeks as well I’d have no problem skipping this Sunday’s hash.

Decisions. Decisions.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fair, not great but fair
Current Music – listening to last week’s “News from Lake Wobegon” podcast
Website Of The Day – I can’t give you a hug, but I can introduce you to Treehugger.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 199 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 10 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 4, Carnivorous Days – 24
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’ll be spending most of my day interviewing prospective coworkers at Clemson University today. I was hoping to skip town early and go on a free-standing hearth hunt, but alas my day is fairly full.

Barb, How Ya Doin’?
I’m leaving my health speculations in the shadows for a little while, at least until I can consult with medical professionals.

I Love College Towns
As college towns go Clemson is tiny, which is good since I failed to bring well-fitting, comfortable shoes (I can mentally picture the ones I’d planned to bring along sitting in front of the closet waiting to be picked up) so walking was not much of an option for me last night.

My colleague and I headed out for a pizza dinner, and to my pleasure it was $1 slice night at the local pizzeria. As you can imaging the place was jammed many a cash-strapped college student. Big Spender Paulie got two cheese slices and a $3 Yeungling, even though the popular beer of the night was the Miller High Life at $1 a bottle. I would have thought my care-free “Splenda Daddy” ways would have had the college lasses flocking to me, but alas they seemed happy to remain at their original tables.

From the pizza joint I hobbled over to a coffee and ice cream shop where I had a wonderful mint-chocolate ice cream and a cup of mediocre joe. While there I saw one of the most oddly-photogenic young ladies I’ve see in some time. Given that she was:

• young enough to be my daughter
• with a group of people
• female

I only could sit and glance her way a few times wondering what it would be like to have the inter-personal skills necessary to get people like her to pose for photographs — only the tasteful type, what do you think I am??? Ah, the life of the dreamer…..

ITP Flickr Pic
Table 1280 is the swank restaurant which is sandwiched by the Woodruff Arts Center and the High Museum

I love the painterly effect that I was able to milk from my photo.

iBuying
I’m in. Is the iPad everything I’ve ever wanted from a table device? No, but I understand the iPad’s limitations and I don’t care. My only decision is whether to pony up the $130, plus $14.99-$29.99 monthly cost for the AT&T 3G cell plan for it. Am I an Apple fanboy? You betcha! And don’t forget that I’m also still an Apple stockholder. Do I have too much disposable income? Perhaps (six years of dateless-ness provides such monetary freedom).

Oh, and please no iPad name jokes here. I’ve seen and heard far too many, none of which have been funny or original. Thanks.

I May Have Given Up on Social Media
After being inundated with lousy “iPad” jokes and many personal opinions on last night’s State of the Union address I’ve made a decision to banish Twitter and Facebook from my iPhone. This is the first step in breaking my habit of using these sites since they seem to provide more time wasting than informative data. We’ll see how long this lasts. Feel free to make your own guesses in the comments.

In Case You Missed It
Last night I fired off a brief rant about a partially-self-inflicted data-loss that occurred the other night.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood –
Current Music – none at the moment
Website Of The Day – iPad.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 198 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 9** (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 4, Carnivorous Days – 23
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed
** – and holding since I’m not at home

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’ll start my rant off by absolving Adobe’s Lightroom from some of the blame related to this problem. For those of you who do not know, Adobe’s Lightroom application helps a photographer catalog and make edits to his/her photographs. The original photos along with all of the non-destructive edits to those photos are stored in a Lightroom catalog. I’ve started each of the past three/four years with a new Lightroom catalog. It just makes sense to me to start a fresh year with a fresh catalog, so 2010 was no different.

If Only The Default Setting Were Different
When creating a new catalog in Lightroom the user is asked where he/she wishes to store the catalog. Since I keep all of my photography-related material on an external hard drive (called “Media”) which is backed up nightly I naturally selected a path to “/Volumes/Media/2010″ and Lightroom obliged by creating a catalog file there.

However, for some inane reason when importing photographs into a Lightroom catalog the default path into which they are stored is not the same path as the one defined for the catalog. Instead, the default path for photo import is “/Users/USERNAME/Pictures” and because I’d just rebuilt the machine on which I’m editing photos I’d yet to set up the proper backup procedures for this path.

Last night I noticed that the recent photos that I had imported and edited were not in the proper place and set out to correct this.

A Little Knowledge And A Little Bravado Make For A Big Error
A week or two ago I watched a video about correcting Lightroom Import errors. I vaguely remembered the solution dealt with moving the directory while in Lightroom. So, when I incorrectly renamed the directory instead of moving it I made a bad decision to delete the directory and start again.

When I cranked up Lightroom the next time it corrected the catalog and when I imported all of the files once again, all of my edits were lost. Undaunted I recovered the catalog file from my nightly backup drive to try again.

Workflow, Sometimes It’s Best To Leave Well-Enough Alone
Sometime last year I followed the “bright” idea posed to me at a workshop, that is to rename the files imported to reflect the date and sequence number in which they were imported. I’d suggest NEVER doing this!

When I imported the photos I’d saved off earlier into the catalog which contained all of the edit information, the import process renamed the files again. Now the photo files no longer had names that matched the names in the catalog which contained all of the editing information. DANGEN!

After Much Consternation, A Solution Was Found
So there I was.
I had a catalog containing all of the edits I spent hours making the other night.
I had a compact flash card containing the unedited versions of those photos, all named with the names originally given to them by the camera.

If I attempted to re-import the photos the sequence numbers would be incorrect, so I decided to attempt manual correction.

I imported the photos into the Lightroom catalog without altering their names. And, for those photos I tagged as “keepers” I determined which original photo corresponded to the final edit name that my now-former workflow had assigned to it and changed manually changed its name on the hard drive. Miraculously this worked.

Thankfully I only felt compelled to recover the five photos that I’d tagged as “keepers” as the process of changing the names on the hard drive was frustratingly slow.

The Future And Beyond
I’ve learned two valuable lessons from this fiasco:

1. Pay attention to where your photos get placed when importing them into Lightroom!
2. Do not attempt to be clever by assigning imported photos with new names, let them keep those assigned by the camera in case you need to re-import them.

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Me and my deteriorating body have made the trek up I-85 to Clemson, South Carolina to partake in Clemson University’s career fair.

I’m Starting To Think…
That I’ve done everything, well mostly everything, wrong. I know much of my genetic history and should have continued to take the precautionary measures I started nearly twenty years ago. I’m six days away from being poked and prodded inside a doctor’s office and have a feeling that this trip will lead to more and increasingly expensive, trips to “specialists.”

Any blame I can lay can be lain only upon myself.

I Wish I Had Remembered
I’ve once again forgotten that Clemson does not offer breakfast to the employers at its career fair. I’m already starting to get hungry. How am I supposed to be judgmental on an empty stomach? Anyone know if there is campus food delivery at Clemson?

ITP Flickr Pic
This is the prototypical candidate that I’m seeking today.

Of course she’ll also have to have an engineering degree.

What’s funny is that, though I find her attractive, I can hear those of you who know me well calling out “bullshit.”

Expect A “Stuck On The Connector” Entry Tomorrow
What was supposed to have been time reading, coding, and preparing for today was spent correcting a series of failures with Adobe’s Lightroom. My saga will be completely detailed as I have a night in a hotel room to write tonight.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – extremely mortal
Current Music – none, I’m waiting for the career fair to start
Website Of The Day – sorry, I’ve got nothing for you this morning.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – didn’t check
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 9 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 4, Carnivorous Days – 22
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

One of the things I love most about writing software is that I sit and code and time passes without notice. One of the dangerous things for me about writing software is that I sit and code and time passes without notice — which is why I didn’t leave the office until about 8:30pm last night. So much for skipping the Roswell Photographic Society critique meeting so that I could go home and be productive.

Cleaning Up My Act
About the only other “accomplishment” for which I can take credit is that I’ve finally started to consolidate a lot of my data so that I can be assured that one drive (and the many backups of said drive) contain all of my vital information — encrypted of course since there is no guarantee that my house will not be burgled again.

Years’ worth of data scattering and silly backup solutions have led to many smaller drives and USB sticks which may contain duplications, or may contain the only remaining version of files.

ITP Flickr Pic
From a High Museum trip I took on Saturday morning.

It’s nice to have photos to dump into the blog again.

A Little Bit Of Manchester Orchestra Related Stuff
I heard through the internets the other day that the drummer for one of my favorite local bands, Manchester Orchestra, is losing its drummer. All parties state that the parting was amicable, but I’m bummed by the news. I hope the band can continue to crank out some quality music and have a live date scheduled for Atlanta sometime soon.

Through some other Manchester Orchestra news I also found, and have been subsequently addicted to, a new (to me) podcast called The Interface from Spinner. I’ve pretty much downloaded about half of the three years of podcasts that they’ve produced, which is a lot of data since they started producing video podcasts about a year ago. If you like college/indie music I suggest that you check this podcast out.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, still concerned about my health though
Current Music – listening to a “The Interface” podcast, this one featuring Silversun Pickups
Website Of The Day – You like quality food products? Let Foodzie help you get some.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 198 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 8 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 4, Carnivorous Days – 21
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Within thirty minutes of football time my hopes of seeing the NY Jets in the Super Bowl were dashed yesterday. No condolences are needed, no retorts to Colt-fan comments will be provided.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are two thousand and change for you.

ITP Flickr Pics
The da Vinci horse a seen from up high:

A pretty model:

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – disappointed; still not 100% health-wise and have to wait eight more days before my physical.
Current Music – listening to an old Evernote podcast
Website Of The Day – If you know for what FML stands you know that you may not want to follow today’s link at work as it may not be “safe.” Eff My Life.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 198 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 7 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 4, Carnivorous Days – 20
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’ve never been much of a half-birthday person, but seeing how today does mark my 44.5th birthday and I’m seeking any reason to celebrate I’ll make an exception for this year.

I Have To Make It To February 2nd
Yesterday I scheduled a physical with my doctor. Of course like everything else in my life things haven’t worked out quite as I’d hoped.

Apparently my doctor performs physicals on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, so since I called on a Thursday the earliest appointment I could possibly get would be next Tuesday. However there are no appointments available for next Tuesday. And since I’ll be traveling for work next Wednesday and Thursday, my earliest availability will be Tuesday February 2nd. And because I’ll be traveling for work later that day, and that it makes no sense for me to drive all the way to the Perimeter Mall area for a couple of hours of work before driving to the airport it appears that I’ll have to take a day off from work in order to get the physical.

Did I mention that the physical will cost $360? That means my 80% will cost me $288, and I’ll lose this credit toward my annual deductible when my plan rolls over in March.

Good Time At The Hockey Game
Though I left after two periods of the Niners/Cyclones game-after-the-game I had enough hockey love for one night. Even though not many hashers “sidegraded” their seats from Section 310 to Section 311, which is dead center ice, I had a fun time chatting with ITP-Reader Steve and our friend Kevin.

ITP Flickr Pic
Oh, I wish. The spirit hasn’t moved me this week and I’m dangerously close to missing the submission deadline for this month’s Roswell Photographic Society critique.

Is My Soap Losing Weight?
I opened a new bar of Dial soap the other morning and noticed a more-pronounced curvature to its shape. I’m not saying that Proctor & Gamble Dial (I really thought that Dial was a P&G brand) has reduced the size of the bar of soap without reducing the bar’s footprint nor the price of soap, no wait, that’s exactly what I am saying.

Has anyone else noticed this? I really wish that I had an older bar of soap around the house so that I could compare the two and be certain.

Okay, Have To Go
I need to take a “survey” at work which will take me about two hours to complete. Yipppppeeeeee!

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fair
Current Music – listening to a live recording of Cold War Kids on a KCRW podcast
Website Of The Day – Thanks to Open Office’s spreadsheet app I’m able to easily update my Black Sheep stats on my Mac. Sadly Apple’s Numbers spreadsheet app failed mightily with this task.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 199 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 4 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 20
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

There isn’t enough time in the day for me to accomplish all that I desire, especially with my current inability to stay up past 10pm. I managed to get an hour’s walk (three miles for me) in just before the rain arrived, which in turn forced me to leave the office a little later than I normally would.

I Am Captain Forgetful
On my drive home I swung by Lowe’s on Peachtree Industrial (no whining about women stories to report) in order to purchase a new light switch (I’m contemplating replacing that before calling for help). From there I decided to get some food before heading home.

Because of a hankering for “healthy” string beans the port of call for dinner turned out to be the Chinese Food Court on New Peachtree Road where I ordered some from Chong Qing Hot Pot. I had forgotten what makes this version of string beans taste so great is their addition of spicy ground pork, even though the dish is listed under the header “Vegetable.” Healthy? Nope. Low Calorie? Nope. Fucking awesomely delicious? You betcha!

Also at the food court last night was the hasher “Hung and Hairy.”

With my green bean craving satiated I drove home. Along the way I saw my friend Bill pulling out of his driveway on Moreland Avenue when it struck me… “Crap, it’s Wednesday! I was going to play team trivia tonight! And I’ve already eaten and have soooo much to do. I guess I’m going to have to skip.” Bugger.

Captain Forgetful, reporting for duty.

Why Aren’t All Geek Books On E-Readers?
While I’ve yet to give in and treat myself to an e-book reader, you know Apple has a “big” announcement next week, I’m still contemplating it.

One thing that would help me pull the trigger on a purchase of a Kindle, Nook, whatever, would be the existence of technical books on them. Think of it, computer language, computer technology books rarely contain photos and are the perfect fodder for the buying segment that would adopt a new technology quickly. Not only that, but corrections to errors could be continually published, and I’d certainly enjoy not having to tote 500-700 page books every where I go.

C’mon publishers! You’re leaving money on the table! Get on the e-ball already!

ITP Flickr Pic
No time.

I’m Thinking Of Going To A Doctor
I have a healthy disrespect for doctors visits, perhaps it’s the only healthy thing I still have. I believe my consternation toward doctors visits (note, I hold no grudge toward the doctors themselves) is a genetic disposition pass from my mother.

Things were bad enough when I was sent to a cardiologist ten years ago after going for a “routine” checkup — I was thirty-five years old and in awesome shape — or so I thought. When I went for my first post-forty checkup and doctors went where no man should go, hell, I’m not so sure I want women to explore that region either, my parting words of “See you next year.” held as much truth as “I’ll call you.” after a really bad date.

But, it’s been over a year since I’ve been in for a “yearly” visit, and even though I feel like I’m pissing away my 80% of the “preapproved charge for medical services” I think it might be high-time to be, um, examined if for no other reasons than to find out if I’m due to die of natural genetically inherited causes any time soon.

Hockey Night In Atlanta
Tonight I’ll be headed down to Blueland (aka Philips Arena) for the Atlanta Thrashers hockey game. I’m debating fighting what will no doubt be gruesome traffic thanks to predicted thunderstorms, or to Marta it down to the arena and suffer an over-hour-long train ride to car / drive home from an arena that is no further than five miles from my house.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – a little better
Current Music – listening to the “This Week In Google” “Image Doctors” “Coverville” podcast
Website Of The Day – Bookeen is another of the new e-book players on the market.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – walking, 3 miles; pushups, 10; situps, 25
Morning Weigh-In – 199 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 48

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 9 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 75
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 3 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 19
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I left the office at 5pm, headed to the (thankfully empty) laundromat, ate a grilled pork Banh Mi at Lee’s Bakery while laundry was washing, listened to an hour’s worth of Stephen King’s “On Writing” while laundry dried, got home and put laundry away, then almost immediately fell asleep. If all else was right in my world it would have been an incredible night.

Bring On The PHP
Last night I also started reading the book Web Database Applications With PHP And MySQL with the intent of writing the much-overdue Black Sheep Hash stats application.

Admittedly I was so tired that I didn’t get very far, but I’m glad that this process has started; it’s all part of my “Grand Plan.”

ITP Flickr Pic
For many years I’ve wanted to start relearning how to draw. At least two years ago I saw this Figure Drawing kit in a book store (it might have had something to do with the wee little mannequin) and bought it.

This will be the year that I actually open this and start to relearn. Now all I have to do is find the time…

From this shot I see that I should also spend some time learning about lighting, Photoshop, and making the time to take quality photos.

Revisionist Historian
I just spent a couple of minutes cleaning up my stats for the past few days. While I don’t consider myself to be a perfectionist I do like to present the facts correctly.

Do You Have A Transit Savings Plan?
Yesterday it was hinted that one of the new benefits that will be offered at my office is a Government (oooh, which reminds me that I need to get stuff done for my Income Taxes) approved Transit Savings Plan. Essentially this works just like a Health Savings Plan in that you store away pre-tax dollars to be used for a specific application — in this case paying for mass-transit or parking.

While I’m contemplating starting one, who knows it may reignite my Marta riding, I don’t really believe that this will be a financial boon. The most one can set aside is $230 per month, much more than the $60 per month fee for a Marta Breeze Card. Assuming that I put away $60 per month that means I’d put away $720 for the entire year, which won’t save me all that much in taxes…

Does anyone else have (and use) a Transit Savings Plan?

Speaking Of Health Care
I don’t get into politics much in this here blog, mostly because I’m completely ignorant on the matter. What I would like to express is that I’d like a Health Care plan that wouldn’t have me considering waiting until March to get a physical because that’s when my annual deductible rolls over and feel like I’m pissing away money if I get one now instead of waiting. If I can’t have that then I’d rather we have no Health Care plans, bring medical/drug costs down to realistic realms, and pay for everything out of our pockets instead of relying on insurance.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, wish the pressure in my chest would go away
Current Music – listening to the “This Week In Computer Hardware” podcast
Website Of The Day – TV Game Show fans unite! Go check out Game Show Utopia.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 199 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 41

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 6 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 20, Situps – 50
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 3 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 18
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Rarely do I see the light as salvation, most times I see it as a train headed directly toward me.

How Many People Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb In My House?
When I mused yesterday about replacing the garbage disposal I made an off-handed remark about how things in my house are always more difficult to replace than they should be. Little did I know just how prescient I was.

When I arrived home last night I set out to perform the simple task of replacing the dead compact fluorescent bulb in my kitchen which died the other day. I grabbed a new CF bulb from my collection but quickly realized that this one was too large for the fixture. From there I recovered a known-working bulb from another fixture, placed the glass enclosure over it, flipped the switch and was dejected to not see it illuminate. Only slightly daunted I went and fetched a seemingly-new incandescent bulb from my collection and placed it into this fixture. This time I chose to wait for success before affixing the glass enclosure, and was completely dejected when this bulb didn’t illuminate either.

Could this problem be related to the garbage disposal problem? I believe they are on the same circuit, though the light over the sink is as well and it works without difficulty.

I forced myself into the attic to make sure that there wasn’t a glaring wire problem which may have been caused by one of my previous rodent residents but did not see and signs of major disturbance.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

ITP Flickr Pic
This is how my bookcase looked at the end of the wine drinking night also known as the W(h)ine and Regift party.

I love my poseable mannequins. Tomorrow you just might see something related to another of my 2010 projects.

Walk This Way
Yesterday I did something that I hope to do more often. With the weather being almost perfect and me needing a break from my cubicle I went for a walk. After all was said and done I’d covered a little more than two miles at a leisurely pace. Even though I was strolling around the traffic / pollution nightmare known as Perimeter Mall I had my iPod and was loving the walk.

Oh, I and realized that I forgot to credit myself for the four miles of hashing that I did on Sunday.

Socket To Me
WARNING! : Nerd-Speak Ahead

Today I’ll be spending my day digging into Linux sockets in order to correct a problem I’m having with my code. It seems that my mini server code is crapping out on asynchronous SOAP calls after forking a new process.

I warned you that this would be nerdy….

So today I’m going to figure out the reason for this and attempt to replace the forking process with a ThreadPool implementation that comes along with the UPnP library that I’m using.

If that made even a hint of sense to you and have any tips please leave them in a comment.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – flummoxed
Current Music – listening to the “Sound Opinions” podcast
Website Of The Day – Unfortunately Slice The Pie has nothing to do with dessert; fortunately it looks like an interesting site for musical artists.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – walking, 2 miles
Morning Weigh-In – 197.4 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 37

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 6 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 20, Situps – 50
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 2 (12*)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 17
Marta Rides – 0
* – because I stripped the bed instead of making the bed

January Goals
- Not get fired from my job

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]