All Blog Posts

4 - 1.94 = 2.06

and

4 / 1.94 = 2.06

February 10, 2008 and April 10, 2008

As 2007-2008 is coming to a conclusion I look back at another decent season, though the money was pretty lousy. I did have my sixth 300 game, though I only finished with a 685 series. This year I bowled in two leagues, one at the Palace Lanes and one at Capri Lanes. My final averages should be around 219 and 216 plus or minus 1. Thus I said a decent season that was sort of fun, sort of long, sort of tiring, but coming to a conclusion. I am just sick of bowling, but in a few weeks I will miss it and will be at a local bowling alley again next fall trying to throw another 300 and maybe a 900!

You can view my stats, or anyone else's at Bowl.com.

I liked your site.

Your mother and sister are looking at your website right now!! we miss you, congrats on the new house and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year<3

Thanks for Joe great help!

She's been retired!

87' Chevy Silverado 10, 219,986 miles
Retired: 11/12/2007

I figured out the fix, though I probably did not invent it. To validate form data in ASP.Net 1.1 for a Firefox browser you need to do is trip the Validation Controls to the server, or behind the code, to force the Validation controls to be posted, yet not post if Not Page.IsValid. In ASP.Net Not Page.IsValid works, but does not in 1.1; thus the code below should replace the Not Page.IsValid!

Sub SubmitForm() 
If txtFirstName.Text <> "" And txtLastName.Text <> "" Then
	SaveDate() 'or any other tasks
	Response.Redirect("ThankYou.aspx") 'the page is submitted then redirected
Else
	litMessage.Text("Please fill in all the Values")
	ExitSub
End If

The page is submitted, but exits the procedure if the fields are not filled. To test if the field has anything in it on the client, use the RequiredFieldValidator; to validate it as only a string, you may also use the CompareValidator or the RegularExpressionValidator.

Feel free if you have any questions to send me an email or post the question on this Blog.

Wow nice truck!

About done with rewrite, but still need to update this 4 year old markup! I was adding stuff to my resume this morning and noticed cla** callouts for every list tag; silly of me!

Anyways, all that is left is chop up about 60 images for the "NEW" header which will work with or without JavaScript based upon the day and hour of the user's locale, as well as, really need to create a new template for this site; it has gotten out of control!

I noticed after I left OEMA that my custom JavaScript that I wrote for one of the online applications had my comments cut out. I always try to comment on my work so others who maintain the software understand it and can contact me if they either don't understand it or are having difficulties with it. Thus, it irked me to see that; then you wonder why I had no problems leaving there! I have been at my new position for about 8 months now and thought I'd put in for a higher level here. Of course I though it would be nice to include some previous works, yet when I visited the OEMA sites on the public network, to my surprised they have been TRASHED! I basically automated several sites and explained thoroughly how it worked. Even a static site for the public, which composed of some 500 pages and many more doucments can be changed in one place, not 500! But naturally, it has been ripped up. Besides the automation, I compacted much of the client code and scripting code to make the job easier and less redundant. Server processing was lessened, network bandwidth was tramatically reduced (from compaction and page.caching), and web accessibility was developed so everyone could use the sites. Yet those people much higher than me don't understand, now have trashed it so they have job security and little other responcibilities. What was a 5 minute job a week is now a fulltime position. I am not into critisizing others, but that is a waste of my time and tax payer money. I don't even feel comfortable acknowledging that work anymore. Not all is bad, my new position isn't too bad; challenging at first, now becoming easier and much more productive.

Just Added some AJAX to the Stock Page. I am starting to like AJAX after working with it in a college course because the whole page does not postback; thus no page flicker, just a cute image displaying a command is processing.

The fuel pump went out about 2 weeks ago; $130. A wek later the fuel tube which is attached to the Delphi fuel filter came off leaving me with the truck another day! The pa**enger side window quit functioning because of all the flithe that had fallen into the center console switch. It's remedy was a quick vacuuming-up. I am starting to question my Saab purchase, but the MY08 93 Aero is beyond sweet and the MY10 91, based off the 2007 Aero X concept should have the Solstice direct-injection 2.0 Ecotec petrol engine with a jump in HP from 260 to 300! So this thing had better last or its back to the Silverado!

Just finishing up my 6th cla** and this is what we do, or what I have done: ECT583.

Actually, I have enjoyed this cla** a ton, because I get to do what I like, where at work I do everything, but what I like!

Finally, it is over. I am not a second place man, but last year we were. I don't really care a whole lot about what place I finish in bowling because it is not one of my top priorities, yet I will never finish in last place. I think this season we finished in 9th out of 10 places all 3 rounds. It was almost my last season, even with 2 300's and an 845; I have other things to concentrate on than bowling.

Though the season has been such a drag, an early retirement seemed all but solidified. But on this cool early spring night, things sure did change!

I can’t even say I was lucky or fortunate; I was in such a zone that I was basically unbeatable; no one was going to affect me on this night. But even as I was practicing, I couldn’t even hit the head pin, something that would change once the real bowling begun.

To make a short story bearable, I started off the first game with 11 in a row and on the last ball came in a little weak, but kicked out the 10-pin for a perfect game. Not bad, I figured I was do, it had been a year since my last and the fourth of my career.

The second game started off really weird, had a pocket 7-8 split in the first frame. It was a decent shot, a little inside, but the ball missed the 8-pin and the 5 went in front of the 7; if I’d barely touched the 8, it would had probably taken out the 7 as well, though bowling can be funny sometimes. I then threw the next 7 in a row then came a smidgen high on the ball in the ninth. It was a good shot, just that the lanes were starting to hook early and it was a little late in the game to make any changes. Then in the tenth, I gave it a little more gas and left a weak 10-pin, picked it up, and then went high on the fill frame by leaving the 6-10 for a 245. All in all, a 245 isn’t too bad, never complained about it before.

The problem going in at 545 into the last game is that a 255+ game is not the easiest thing to do, means you’d better get good carry and better pick up your two spares. But I started out with the first 6 in a row and was thinking, this is so easy that I’m just going to throw it up there and it’ll probably strike. Through 8 frames, I had pretty much ramped up an 800 series, which to me is a bigger deal than 300, but going into the ninth I really wasn’t thinking much. I then struck in the ninth and sat down and thought, “damn, I just shot 800 and didn’t even realize it!” In the tenth and eleven frames I just threw it like I had all night, no biggy. Then in the twelfth and last frame, I was a bit nervous and my legs were a little rubbery, but I threw it true and ended up with games of: 300, 245, 300 for an 845 series.

Yep, just hit 126,000 miles and got 26mpg going up to 95 miles an hour, not bad! But will admit that I am having some problems with the tranny, there is a bearing which needs replacing which sits in front of it; $18, but need to take out the transmission.

She's still breathing!

87' Chevy Silverado 10, 219,000 miles

Yea, I have posted some new stuff because I am sick of looking at this. But firstly I have added SPAM blocker so no more garbage can be posted unless you type in the numbers in the yellow box!

I will be doing more enhancements soon, I have a whole list, but need some sleep because it is Daylight Savings Time weekend.

A rough day indeed; tempature at 260F (red zone) and 0, not a good way to drive to work. But that is what happens when your vehicle has less than a week until it turns 20 years old.

So I put in 3.5 quarts of oil, it holds 5 quarts, and 3/4 gallon of 50/50 antifreeze mix. But that is fine with me, it was supposed to get me through my last degree which I completed about 3 years ago; I hoped for nothing more. I am at about 218,700 miles and don't know if she'll get to 219,000 miles or not but I didn't have to waste a bunch of money on new cars, instead on a foreclosed home that the previous owner lost because him and his wife couldn't afford the payments, yet could afford payments on his Benz E-class wagon.

So whatever happens, happens, though I had better get my 200k sticker on it before it is too late!

I like would like to hear from you and like your website.

place looks great, where is the the owner before you buried in the basement?

Yep, I am doing a transfer to the Ohio Department of Public Safety from the Ohio Emergency Management Agency. Pretty excited, should be able to learn a lot and move up the ladder until it is time to turn in.

Oh, yea, I did the entire OEMA website, except for the first or portal page and some others in the back; nice to get back to some real programming for a change.

It was time to grow-up and take some responcibility, but c'mon, I only have $45 left in checking; $15 after my gym membership comes out next week. But it is pretty exciting, just 360 more payments and it's all mine!

Where am I? I am here!

Yes, I need a new design PRONTO! I have been getting SPAMMED by robots that leave stupid advertisments on my site, up to 50 per day for the past week or so. The problem is that my hard drive died about a month ago, hence I lost everything. I lost everything, much of my college work, a ton of pictures from my past, and of course my blog software. Though I have needed to redo this for quite sometime, I just can not write a quick patch to stop them. The source to the domain are gone, just client and datastores remain. Hopefully, once this class is over, I will have a little time to get some stuff done; oh wait, I am buying a house - we'll have to see if I have the time!

Coming Soon: a 3rd motor mount, clutch, and redone hood.

Two of the motor mounts have been changed, the one of the right was completely broken in half following the tow I received from the clutch cable breaking. The clutch cable was pretty cheap, but the costs incurred by that mishap are going to be around a grand.

Long time reader and first time poster. You explained your spelling mistakes but how come you don't know when to use "too" instead of "to"?

"I am now a member of the Silverado 200,000-Mile Club. It was presented to me through the mail from Ed Peper, General manager, Chevrolet Motor Division. Next step is to put it on, along with my tags!

87' Chevy Silverado 10, 216,918 miles

I am now a member of the Silverado 200,000-Mile Club. It was presented to me through the mail from Ed Peper, General manager, Chevrolet Motor Division. Next step is to put it on, along with my tags!

87' Chevy Silverado 10, 216,918 miles

I like your website. Simple, easy to navigate, and informational. You must be familiar with Nielsen's web userability theory. Impressive job!

Yep, got pulled over from coming from doing something I probably should not had been doing. I was driving home late last Thursday, July 20, 2006 and noticed a Tahoe squad truck do a U-turn about 6 houses from my home. Then his lights came on, so I turned on my turn signal and ignored them. I then pulled into my drive way and grabbed my partially drank 12-pack and got out and said, "What's wrong." He looked at my 10-pack of Diet Coke and said, "Sorry but your license plate lights are out." I told him thanks for the notification and I would replace them this weekend. Well I replaced them yesterday, Monday, cost me $3.18 for two lights.

Took only three weeks to blowout the clutch.

I think it is just a cable, so she maybe back in commission by the weekend; otherwise I will just be stuck with washing her and admireing her.

Yep, it was time. I gonna keep the Truck, but I had been looking for this model for awhile. I am so damn giddy about this thing; all I have to say is that I got a very good deal on it and can't wait til the weekend! I'll talk about this more when it's not so late.

97' Saab 900 2.0T

97' Saab 900 2.0T

97' Saab 900 2.0T

97' Saab 900 2.0T

97' Saab 900 2.0T

97' Saab 900 2.0T

97' Saab 900 2.0T

Yea, we had a really fun season this year, we took second place in the NewsCenter 6 All Star Trio League over at Palace Lanes.

I was bowling with a couple of new team members this season, we got along pretty good, made a little bit of money, and had some success.

I had to write a little string function to take the first character of one of these form fields and check for a <; then after that wasn't enough I had to check if any of the form fields were empty or not.

These SPAMMERS will use spiders which ignore .Net, because 1.1 uses only JScript, not JavaScript, plus those spiders don't always acknowledge .js to begin with, hence I keep getting slammed with garbage. But now I think I have got them, though they are forcing me to use more server, the end result should be the elimination of SPAM.

Another milestone and even filthier!

My little blog here was getting SPAMMED really bad for the last couple of weeks, so I finally got the time to rectify it. Used the String Class to sniff out their posts.

Hopefully my schedule will let up a bit so I can redo this site in .Net 2005 and C#. Probably will get to it this summer, once my spring course is complete.

To lazy to start another blog, plus I'm at work, but threw my 3rd 300 game last night. And just like my others, I caught at least one lucky shot last night.

The rule is that if I make it through the winter without any problems then I drive it for at least another year. So 13 days left for this winter, if I make it were going for 20 years.

Yeah i own one but the rust on mine is so minor, but it has had $3000 dollars worth of work done on it so far and im not done yet

Almost had a problem, everthing has been going good for 3 months, until last night's ice storm.

I couldn't get the door open this morning, so I went through the passenger side; everything seemed OK until lunch. At lunch I was able to open the driver's side door, problem was the mechanism inside was frozen, so I drove home for lunch holding the door shut on left turns. Luckily, the tempature warmed up enough during my lunch hour to thaw the door mechanism enough so it would shut. That would have a pain to hold the door closed with my left hand to the spring!

213,000 miles

212,000 miles

Congrats, yea it's luck, but if you hit the corner pin just off center to the inside enough times, eventually it will go. The sad thing is that it happens so fast that you can't believe it when it happens!

You'll do it again, with the way some of these alleys are loading up oil right in front of the pins, you'll get plenty of oportunities as long as your continue to bowl.

Good Luck.

WOW TONITE (11-17-05 ) I PICKED UP THE 7-10 I'VE ONLY BEEN BOWLING IN LEAGUES FOR THE LAST 2 1/2 YRS, IT WAS PURE LUCK BECAUSE I WAS PISSED OFF THAT AFTER A CLEAN GAME I LEFT IT IN THE 10TH ON MY 1ST BALL. I HAD 183 IN THE 7TH WITH 2 STRIKES GOING INTO THE 10TH AND LEFT IT! I WAS PISSED AND THREW THE BALL AS HARD AS I COULD AT THE 7 AND IT CAME OFF THE CURTAIN AND TRIPPED THE 10 ! ONLY FINISHED WITH A 220 BUT WHAT THE HELL I'LL PROBABLY NEVER DO IT AGAIN. LOL ROB

Yea, picked the 4-6-7 up this past Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005. I just through the ball hard at the 4-7 and knocked one of them out to jump the 6. Not a biggy, thought I had a pretty good chance after I through the ball; must really be bored at work today!

211,000 miles

Yea, this software is sweat, those 4 areas I can drag and resize however I wish. The top right is where the video plays, decent quality, but can drag and stretch across the screen, if interested. Below that is the projection screen, so I can folllow what it going on with the lecture. On the top right is the white board, whenever the Prof writes anything on the board, it shows up on my screen; super cool. Down of the bottom left is a tool for pausing and playing, eceterra; If I want I can add another white board if necessary. This runs on a combination of Java and .Net web services, so it is really cool; maybe I will learn enough to write something like this on my own; right!

Yea, one cool ride, too bad she started rusting through after one winter. It was pretty sad, such a good looking car with rust cancer all over. I tried and tried to keep it away, but by the time she was 7, the whole tailgate area behind the bumper was just dust.

Thank you Ms. Cam, actually I spent my Columbus Day (Oct. 10) at Ohio State, just studying and frolicing, you know; was actually a really great day. So I guess I still bleed a little 'Scarlet and Gray' but deep down I am a Blue Demon.

The rear brakes are leaking a ton of fluid. Go home to lunch today I heard a pop, which means that the inevitable maybe approaching.

But I am not sure if this is another clumsy, intentional, or just old age that is the cause of this. My problem last week was because either someone forgot to tighten the lug nuts or because someone wanted to be cute; not a fault of the vehicle. My rule is that 3 consecutive months with problems normally means it is time to move on; but I will only count this as one if it checks out as a non human problem, otherwise were still at zero and I watch out the window to attack the culprits that have been screwing with me!

Third time in 5 years this has happened, I am down to 2 wheel studs and lug nuts. I am lucky I caught it or I could be in real big trouble, if that tire comes off while I am on the highway I'm history.

I guess I am going to have to tighten the nuts so tight that only I can take them off. Don't know if it is the kids in the neighborhood playing games, or what; just know those nuts don't come off by themselves. Other than that it was a good day, though not as good as the day before.

http://image28.webshots.com/28/5/93/1/234359301SeVnuE_fs.jpg

Way to go, you should proud of yourself, yes, never give up:)

its a cute story, i like it alot Cam:)

Well actually, the last class of my first class; though about 6 weeks late since I am bored, thought I would post it.

But this is what college is becoming(another), though this is a terrible shot you can see where education is going. Truthfully speaking, I got so much more out of this course than I have with other courses. See, there weren't any pretty girls to look at, or even not so pretty girls to wonder about and I could view it all at once or pause it when I got tired. I decided the breaks and I decided when to watch them, so no more showing up to class after a rough day at work, or when I was younger getting up at 6:30 to get to class at 8:00 working on 3 or 4 hours of sleep.

The comradery that happens when attending class on campus is gone, but I rarely talk to any students that I went to school with from my last degree and that concluded about 16 months ago.

Six months have come and gone and I still feel like a new employee. But I have enjoyed my position so far and excited about the future. My feeling is that it was a good decision to ground my career with the state rather than do consulting positions that aren't so stable.

It is nice to have health insurance and tuition reimbursement, and very nice to get a raise for being me rather than having to save burning babies out of buildings or some or super natural feat. So I am now an advocate of unions, I work in one and know that I don't have to be scared of losing my job and know they will take care of me; unlike most private companies. So I guess I can forget about working at McDonald's or Walmart when I am a senior, I'm retiring in 24 years and 6 months and don't have to worry anymore about it!

Then last week it was the damn radiator. I think this is the third one, heck they're only supposed to last 8 years to begin with. But hopefully I can go a month or two before the next one, though can't complain, not much has happened in the last 4 or 5 years, plus I haven't even had the oil changed since last fall!

Then two weeks ago I was trekking across town, to find a pharmacy that takes the States Insurance, so being cute I was driving like a race car driver and slashed the side wall of my front right tire pulling into a pharmacy. Well it turns out that they don't take my insurnace, so I decided to change the tire to make it home.

When you drive an 18 year old bucket, things don't always go as planned. Firstly, the tire jack didn't work and worstly the rim was rusted on to the truck. We got it off the next day, but I had to get a tow and nearly as humiliating, I had to walk to work the next day.

She started leaking antifreeze, so of course I figured it was the radiator, but it turned out to be the waterpump.

At the time I was at the gym, so I figured I would finish my work then try to scury home as quickly and gently as possible. So on the way home, I got a brilliant idea, that was to take the Wilson Bridge Road hill with the engine turned off, so I would keep the engine cool; for about another 30 seconds. The consequences of that were that the water from the water pump spewed all over the battery, so I ended up coasting down the road with no electrical power; and yes that means lights too! So I came to a stop then eventually got another battery, cause I hitched a ride, then we got it started and made it home with a newer battery, no water pump, the hood blown up, and my head sticking out the window looking around the hood!

Yep, heard a little on yesterday and scared off the Mom today. The Mom is getting pretty pig, I would suggest she is about 40+ pounds.

I have to agree that NS8 is trash. It's total bloatware and it's not based on 1.0.4 but an early nightly build of the 1.8 gecko engine as it seems to have some of it's fixes. It was a good idea to use IE and Gecko together but the toolbars are totally trashed, hard to put some stuff back or impossible, spyware is packed in to it, and as if people's computers weren't slow enough from lack of more then 128 mbs of ram NS8 has to suck down resources like your VM was on a 15K scsi drive (but it's on something .3 the speed IF that).

Highlighting text with everything except Internet Explorer (IE) is a breeze, all you need to do is: a:hover{color: red;}.

But for (IE, things get a little tougher. See (IE tries to make their Web Development tools (i.e. Visual Studio, FrontPage) work with previous versions of (IE as well as deprecated HTML.

So instead of using an a tag, we have to use a .htc file, which means HTML Component. Component, well not really, just some JavaScript to do the dynamic text instead of CSS. So some typical code looks like this.

<component>
<attach for=element event=onmouseover handler=hig_lite />
<attach for=element event=onmouseout handler=low_lite />
<script type=text/javascript>
function hig_lite()
{
	element.style.color = #369
}
function low_lite()
{
	element.style.color = silver
}
</script>
</component>

Then to call the JavaScript code, you do a: p{behavior: url(../stylesheets/hover.htc);}. Interested in a live demo other than this page, check this out and go ahead and view the code, that's why it's there.

Amaya is the W3's web browser/text editor. It is more of a text viewer than anything else. Little JavaScript support, no CSS support; so I guess it is a browser for handicapped people. I can't see any reason why anyone would want to use it, it is so far behind in the times.

I just got in the mood to download some new browsers. Opera is one of them and it is junk. I thought that it would be a real browser, but it has no where near full JavaScript support and is a little buggy with CSS. And to make things worse it is not fast as advertised; slow as molasses.

Just added a Content Rater, similar to Microsoft's which they have at the end of articles on MSDN.

It was a pain to make; I got the idea from Scott Mitchell of 4guysfromrolla, but as usual, it not only needed extreme modification, but almost an entire recode; all except for the chart!

That's it, now it is time to study PL/SQL and get ready to start the degree.

Because I just paid $2229.00 in tuition, that sucks!

What's neat is that you can you can switch back and forth between FireFox and IE. Which even tells me that it is more of a development tool and build, rather than a full blown robust browser.

But then it has all sorts of strong security settings and what not, so I came away confused; maybe a build for AOL. Like I said, it is a decent browser, works perfectly fine, but I prefer the gizmos left behind and give me the speed and simplicity of Firefox. And IE, they are still validating web documents with HTML 3.2, so FrontPage and VS.Net will still work. Though they do have full XML support, they have only partial CSS 2 support. And their new browser do out sometime in summer or fall still will not support full CSS 2; what a joke.

Seriosly, if you get the chance, view my site with FireFox or any of the other Time Warner web browsers (NS, AOL, Moz) and you'll see the difference. I, as well as a lot of other developers have moved their skill set past what IE supports, which is not good for technological advancement.

Signed up for a class that starts on June 13th, wow a graduate student. But really, it's no biggy, today you have to go the extra mile to get anywhere, plus learning is a heck of a lot better than watching TV, filthe, or drinking beer.

Everyone says that online work is nonsense and that it is easier and doesn't really count. Well I have already decided that if I lived in central to northern Illinois I would go there, not anywhere else; would prefer Champaigne-Urbana, but I'm not that good. But they have some 8 technical degrees and a student web site that is beyond what I expected. Being at Franklin was like a Mom 'n Pop business compared to DePaul. What is really neat, is that I expected that the online courses would be a bunch of chat sessions online, and a ton of homework; which stinks because I took a couple of class like that in the past and that is a joke. What they do is they have a teacher in front of a black board teaching a class (ghost or not) with video cameras on him or her; then at the end of the day that video is made available for download from the course web site. Neat Huh!

Well I sort of feel bad because I never got to go back to Ohio State. Being from Columbus, OSU is the cathedral of central Ohio, but to be truthful I don't miss sitting in an auditorium listening to some professor give a lecture. I once counted over 1500 students in Independence Hall during a Macro Economics class. I mean really, there was some 70+ rows and at least 30 seats in each, if 2/3 of the seats are taken up: you figure it out. Then you get to meet with a TA whom can't speak English and cares only about their own academic endeavours.

So now I should be able to see the professor as well as not getting caught up in rush hour traffic 4 days a week(because at OSU they want you there at 8am and stay all day), and even get to work full-time in the process and save some money and qualify for a pension. Nah, I don't feel bad.

Microsoft didn't bother creating the Validation Controls to work with anything but IE. I can't figure what is wrong with them, no wonder people hack their stuff so. But that doesn't mean you should do it to me! As you can see, I code for all browsers at least Mozilla and IE, so be nice.

I have been thinking about creating some Custome Web Controls or most likely some Server-Side Validation Classes that I can use it there place. I like the idea the MS has with the Validation Controls, but they only work with IE.

Why? Hmmm, well it was time for me to push my problem solving and educational background farther, plus I have been yearning to learn a few new things. And you never know, the way the economy is and the way people of this country have such a hard time in buying products from this country and supporting the local proprietors I feel I almost need to be a guru to have any long-term job security; plus, just imagine how fat I'd get if I was forced to work at Taco Bell! But I really enjoy learning and feel this is the best thing for me and it can take me to the level that I really want to get to. As in the letter I wrote to DePaul, "I think of this opportunity as a mentor in my career."

It was around last August that I was getting real scared, I had changed, as well as devoted my career to programming in the IT world and well the economy was still in the dumper. Luckily I put together some projects then eventually got my current job with the State of Ohio. But I have come to enjoy programming very much and felt that maybe I needed a graduate degree to get a menial paying job. So I had been scoping out graduate programs throughout the state, just now which is basically relegated because I work full-time. My options now are to get another degree from Franklin or go online. After looking and looking I narrowed my choices to Drexel University in Philadelphia, Boston University, and DePaul University.

I could not attend Boston University because tuition was around $2800 a course (and I only get $3500 from the state) and most importantly I hate the ball team there more than anything else. I really like Drexel, but Drexel's degree was very narrow, plus they wanted you to take Accounting, so I really took a strong look at DePaul.

Depaul’s program is very customizable, I can take all sorts of stuff, from HCI, Databases, Security, Java; you name it. They have some 8 techological Masters programs so the decision came pretty easy. DePaul is a tier three school, where the others are top 100 and very famous. But for my place in life and not able to attend day classes, this is definitely the best opportunity and am lucky as well as excited to get the opportunity.

So now I am a Blue Demon!

Yep, had my highest average ever at 224, so I was quite pleased with that. I was particularly proud of the fact that I am super busy and no longer can disappear during the middle of the day and practice, as well as the fact that I only have time or the patience for one league per season; so bowling 3 games a week with little practice is a fairly big deal.

I did feel that my spare shooting regressed quite a bit, especially corner pins. Last year (2003-2004) I only missed 4 10 pins all season. Which means that if I left 100 I converted 96%, pro tour good. This year I missed probably 15 (quite counting), plus I was leaving less 10 pins than in previous years, so I would guess that I was somewhere around 80%; which to me is unacceptable. I figured last year I left probably a good 150 10 pins, so a drop of 18% is a big deal.

I was very pleased with the fact that I surrounded my game mentally instead of physically. Bowling is not an extremely physical game, bowling at a high level is comparable to baseball, rather than a sport like golf. But by encompassing my game around problem solving rather than my strong body, I made more good shots and consequently ended the season above 600 every week; that's 34 consecutive weeks and not counting last year.

So I have been trying to get my scores from the previous season so I can see when the last time I shot under 600 was; I would guess early 2004 or late 2003. In any regards, I maybe be staring a national record around Christmas next year if things go well.

Since they never came back, it would be safe to say that Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott would say, "I transported the whole kit and kaboodle into their engine room where they'll be no tribble at all!"

The site should be much faster than before, seems to take only a second or two to get to the desired page; instead of 7 to 10 seconds, initially, and then 4 to 7 seconds, lately.

Still need to spend more time on the security aspect of this site, but have streamlined and speed things up significantly. It may seem to be a waste of time, but techologies and code I write for this site I use professionally.

The family room is beginning to stink as well as there are flies in the house. I have killed 4 flies in the last 3 days; great big flies, the size of bees. I normally don't draw flies until mid summer, so I am guessing that there is something not so sweet in the fireplace. But I am not sure that the smell is from fecal material, it doesn't have that strong amonia smell, but that of an old package of ground beef. So it may be the little one, or some left over feces, but a little surprised that it has taken about 2 ½ weeks since the last time I heard the ruckass.

Though we can co-exist with animals, this has been a prime example why we should not enter their world. Sure we want to be friendly, but just like us not understanding their rules, they don't understand ours.

May good luck with those little cuties. They might come back next winter. So get ready for more pups. :D

I like the changing text color when I move the mouth to the text. It's very neat. When I finished my exam, I might try to get you to help me in putting some fancy stuff on my website

The raccoons are no wear to be found, though they did leave some souvenirs which will need to be cleaned up. Hopefully everything is alright with them, but I have not heard anything from the little one after the first week. I was expecting them to hang around for upwards of 6 weeks, but my guess is that the little one passed away. Unfortunately, wild animals don't have the luxuries as us humans and since many of them eat other animals, my guess is that the other one became anothers' meal.

Yep, got my award tonight for picking up the 7-10 Split! This is what you get when you pick up the 7-10 Split.

I also received a patch for picking up the Big Four Split. I picked that split up last year, but told the bowling guy at the desk that I never received it, so wala.

The 7-10 split, as well as the Big Four are regarded as a couple of the hardest tasks to accomplish in the sporting world. As you can see by the chart below the 7-10 Split are the right and left back pins (7 and 10 pin); only. And the Big Four are the pins: 4, 6, 7, and 10. So I do have a few bowling rings, as well as plaques, but these two were the biggies that I wondered were ever going to happen for me.

 

A big pile of turds.

I believe that the Software Development community they call it Phase 3; or maybe not! But I am really sick of basically going through a new blog and having to copy and paste a bunch of code out of a previous one just to post something. And to make matters worst if I want to make a change, I have to go through each and every page as well as code behind; sounds like it is time try out some of these patterns I've been reading about.

Not only making this site more object oriented, but it is time to tackle the security problem. Since I know how the site is constructed, hacking it is not too difficult. I was at work a few days ago (during my lunch break) and noticed that I needed to make a quick change. Well it took me a total of 2 minutes to hack my site and to upload, FTP and FrontPage Extensions free, the needed changes. Even spending a little more time with the validation, currenlty I am using .Net's stuff, which only works in IE; maybe develop some classes on the server to do the job. So reworking it, focusing on Streamlining, Speed, and Security is now being designed. Notice the 3 S's, I invented that!

Imagine that the Phase 4 will be a hard coded C# migration, I need that job security as well as it wouldn't hurt to getting back to more C type languages. Considering that Phase 1 was basically a weekend job I put together as I was starting a new Consulting jig at the time.

Well, 1 week has passed and noticed that yesterday (Sunday) I did not hear a peep; I did hear and see Mom, but nothing from the little ones. Unfortuantely, the mortality rate for wild animals is extremely high, I guess that is why they have litters so hopefully one or two will survive. But that is how things go, no reason to be upset if things didn't work out, Mom will have a chance to breed again; raccoons tend to live 4 to 6 years leaving at least 3 breeding seasons for them.

Eighth week is gone with the wind. Not bad so far, I do have some work to do this weekend; off the clock. They have a very important Windows program written in VB 3.0, yes that's VB 3 ☻. I am supposed to make some layout changes to print in landscape format; unfortunately the deprecated VB 3.0 printer.orientation is not comprehended my the printer drivers. See back in the stone age, 12 years ago when the VB 3.0 was still going and when the program was printed the OS talked to the printer, not the driver talking to the printer; consequently creating a no win circumstance for me. And the nice thing is that I am going on 4 years of Web Development, mostly in VBS 5.0, VB.Net and a very minute amount of VB6 with a smaller amount of WinApps, so this should be fun!

So this weekend I will install VB6 and then VB3 so I can port the VB3 prog to VB6, then hopefully get it to VB7, also know as VB.Net so I can utilize its robust language.

Since I have spring fever as well as grad school fever I guess it's time to reinstall Java and brush up on that so I'll be ready if I can find someone who'll teach me. I think I'll be able to, have a couple in mind and will probably put together a letter and application very soon to get the ball rolling.

A quick summation of day concludes that no much went on. Mom has been going out and getting food, so it sounds, but they're so stealthy that it's hard to tell; and I'm not gonna stick my head in there to find out. After about 10:30 or so the little ones are very loud, almost blocking out the TV, but other than that not much.

I was thinking that there were 2 or 3 little ones but I tend to hear only one at a time, so it is possible that there was only one to begin with, or maybe only one is left, and hopefully they sound the same and don't interrupt each other!