Travel Tip

I traveled on business last week to Baltimore. It started out as a bad trip, since I got a much later start than I had intended. I knew it was going to be bad when the helpful person at the ticket counter said that it was too late to check my bag. I always check my back, despite what some folks say. (Note: he could have saved me lots of hassle if he had just booked me on the next flight right then and there!) Since I had planned on checking my bag, I hadn't taken the time to make sure that I only have 1 quart-sized plastic bag full of 3oz containers of liquid. In fact, I didn't even have a quart-sized plastic bag. So several of my items were confiscated out of my suitcase. Now here's the kicker, any my travel tip: They didn't look through my laptop bag at all, and I had a few more items in there which technically should have been in plastic bags. I'm not advocating trying to smuggle things onto the plane that you're not supposed to smuggle on to a plane, but I thought it was interesting that my suitcase filled with clothes and toiletries was most definitely targeted over my laptop bag which had two computers, several cables, toothpaste, toothbrush, hand lotion, and so on. In fact, I think the items in my laptop bag were more "dangerous" than anything I had in my suitcase! Go figure. Damn Islamic terrorists!

Out of the Mouths of Two-year-olds

"Boys have peanuts." -Ella, when describing the difference between boys and girls.

Half-Marathon Man

I did it. I completed the Alpharetta Half-Marathon in record time! At least that's record time for me: 2:08:34. It was cold and windy and they weren't handing out Gu along the way like they said they were going to, but I had a good running partner and good conversation along the way, so I didn't mind so much.

Place No. Name Age S City St Cou Finish Pace ===== ===== =================== === = =============== == === ======= ===== 215 1529 Steve Jackson 37 M Alpharetta GA USA 2:08:34 9:49

I had never run over 9 miles before, so this was an accomplishment for me! I felt great after the race, but the next day my right foot started hurting along the outside bottom edge. I guess the pounding was a bit much for it, or I didn't stretch enough, or maybe it was something else. It's starting to feel better now, but it's still sore when I walk on it.

Spot the Fake Smile

Here's something I happened across today. I got 15 out of 20 correct. Tell me how you fared: BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - Spot The Fake Smile. At the end of the quiz there are tips for how to spot a fake smile, in case you need help.

Another Office Building Sign

The office building I work in isn't anything out of the ordinary. There's one thing I like about it, and that is the fact that the stairs are not locked. I'm working on the 6th floor, but some of the people I need to talk to during the course of the day work on the 5th floor. It is very easy for me (and usually faster, too) to take the stairs.

Have you ever wondered, though, what the singular form of "stairs" is? Well, here is the answer:

Yes, this is a sign indicating where the "stair" is. I don't use this stair, though. Instead, I use the stairs that go all the way from one floor to the next.

I Switched

Today I finally started using my new Dell D820 laptop. I've had it since September but I have not had the time to install everything I need to do work on it. It's still not 100% there, yet (I'm missing Visual Studio, for example), but I've got what I need for the project I'm on at the minute. Basically that means I have the latest Office (2007 version) and not much else...

I also loaded Internet Explorer 7, and I'm getting used to it. So far it just seems like the Microsoft version of Firefox.

I'm planning on keeping my 3-year-old Dell D800 around for a while to use as my personal machine, database server, and second monitor (using MaxiVista).

Duh!

Hmmm...I'm trying to think of something witty to add, but I think the picture says it all!

This was taken in the stairwell of an office building and is on the cover of what I presume is an Emergency Telephone. I didn't feel that it was an emergency to figure out whether there was an actual telephone inside or not, so I didn't open the cover. That would be pretty funny, though, if an emergency happened and there was no phone inside.

I wonder if inspectors actually inspect the phone on occasion, or if an inspection isn't considered an emergency, in which case the case would always remain closed.

Until an emergency happened, of course.

Recovered the Dining Room Chairs

Last week, maybe the week before, I finished recovering our dining room chairs. Here's what one looks like now:

Part of the fun was figuring out how they were put together in the first place, but that's something I've been curious about most of my life (I used to take stuff apart and then put them back together just for fun--I guess in a way I still do, like when I took Melissa's laptop apart to see if I could figure out why the sound wasn't working).

The seats were the easy part--only one piece of fabric plus some piping or cording (the round part around the edge which gives it that "finished" look). I sewed the piping myself, reusing the piping that came off the original covering so it was all the correct length already. I just cut a new piece of fabric the same size as the piece I took off, and then stapled it to the underside of the seat, being sure to stretch the fabric as much as I could in order to give the final seat a nice smooth finish. After that, I just stapled on the piping and then put the seat back on the chair, fastened with four screws on the bottom of the seat.

The backs were much more difficult. There were two pieces of fabric, one for the front of the chair where the padding is, and one for the back. I put the front piece on first, then the piping, then the back. The back of the back was the most difficult, especially with all the folding of the fabric to give the chair a smooth look (instead of ragged material where the cut was made).

The best part of the whole project, though, was that I got to buy a new tool. I got a Rigid stapler, which I have pictured here on the left. It was an invaluable investment! I started this project using my Black and Decker PowerShot stapler, but it just wouldn't cut it.

This stapler has many nice features, like the swivel connector where the air hose connects, and the trigger which is selectable between single shot and multiple shots. My only complaint is that sometimes it is difficult to see when you're out of staples--there is a small area that shows the last 5 or 7 staples, but I was working in an area that didn't have a lot of light and it wasn't always obvious that I was out...until the staples didn't come out any more!

I'm not sure that I'll have a need for the Rigid stapler any time soon, but I have it if I need it, or if my friends need to borrow it!

(NOTE: I tried looking for the PowerShot stapler on the Black and Decker website, but I couldn't find it.)

New Look

I decided to update the look of the blog. Let me know what you think.

Dealing with Death

I was going to title this post, "Preparing for Death", but Granny died early this morning--about 2:15 am according to Melissa's parents. We knew that her days with us were few, but we didn't know how few. We last visited her on her birthday a couple months ago, and Melissa was planning on going back again tomorrow, but now we'll just head to Statesboro or Metter for the funeral later this week. What follows is a speech that Melissa's dad asked her to prepare in order to deliver it at the funeral. I am posting this entirely without her consent, but she sent it to me so I could give her an impression of it, and I think it is beautiful. Candid and beautiful. Let us know what you think:

I’ve thought about this day for quite some time. I knew it was coming, but you’re never really quite prepared. I think about Granny all the time. Especially these last 7 or 8 years. My mind always goes back in time to when Mark and I were little. I always remember certain things about Granny and they always comfort me. I so wish I could go back and relive some of these times. I remember she made the absolute best pancakes in the entire world. I remember the smell of her kitchen. The pancakes cooking and coffee perculating in that old perculator she had. I loved the smells and sounds of her kitchen. She made an endless stack of pancakes whenever we spent the night and I would eat as many as possible. She never complained about cooking more. I remember making endless trips to the laundry mat in her blue dodge. I can remember how that blue dodge smelled…it smelled like Granny , Papa, White Shoulders and her endless supply of trident gum. In the summer, there was also a slight scent of Skin So Soft. We couldn’t go through a visit to Granny without her coating with Skin So Soft. I remember how I loved playing house on the back porch of her trailer. I would sweep that porch all day waiting for Papa to come home. Granny and I would greet him with a big glass of iced tea in those dented glass ice tea mugs they had and he would drink his tea and smoke his Camel cigarettes. I loved his smell. He smelled like sawdust and Camels. I always remember that smell. I remember how I loved when Granny started cooking dinner. It smelled like heaven in that small trailer kitchen. I’d eat whatever she made. Until the day she tried making my mom’s german potato pancakes. Potato pancakes are shredded raw potatoes cooked in a skillet of hot oil. I knew that much. I knew there was going to be trouble that evening when I saw her mixing the pancake mix with potato flakes. I’m quite sure I ate those as well though. You never insult your grandmother’s cooking if you can help it! I remember going through her medicine cabinet and getting into her endless supply of Avon perfumes, lotions and other beauty products that were too tempting for a 10 year old to stay away from. I always remember thinking what does she do with all of this stuff. I think she had the same collection when she lived in The Summit. I was in high school then and remember thinking…what does she do with all of this stuff. I do remember thinking how good she smelled and how put together she always looked. It was my granny that really taught me the important of prayer. I didn’t realize at the time what she was trying to instill in me. She’d visit in Atlanta and that is where I was introduced to devotion. I don’t think as a 10 year old I realized that spending 30 mins on my knees in devotion while my friends were at the door wanting to play was going to influence my adult life. I just thought she was talking to Jesus and forgot were she was and kept starting over. Later on in life, when my Dad traveled for weeks and months, I would pray endlessly at night that he would be safe and come home soon. Sometimes, I would pray until I feel asleep. It wasn’t until several years ago that it occurred to me that Granny is the reason I do pray so much. It was also Granny’s influence that made me love the old hymns. I remember how she loved to hear me play Sweet Hour of Prayer, Rock of Ages and Amazing Grace on the piano. Fortunately, for you, I’m not playing them today. I’m quite out of practice. She sang these songs as long as I can remember and always knew the words. I’m quite sure even though her eyes may have been closed her last days here with us, she was still singing those sweet old hymns in her head and talking to Jesus. She had such a strong faith. I know in my heart that she left this earth knowing she was going home to Jesus. I feel quite sure that he had her wrapped in his arms these last few days and she was beaming on the inside. Her mind and body wouldn’t let her share this wonderful experience with us, but I know she was being comforted. She is where she has always talked about going. Her soul is at home where she belongs and has been yearning to go. She is finally at peace in her heart and her memory has been restored. Granny and Papa have touched all of her lives. I can’t mention one without the other. Now they are both together again. These are my memories of Granny and of Papa that comfort me. I know you all have your own and I hope they offer you comfort as well.

Catching Up...

There have been so many posts that I have thought about doing, but haven't made the time to do. Work has been crazy busy lately--I even worked 8 hours yesterday (a Sunday). Yikes! But my days on this project are numbered, so hopefully I'll get back to a normal routine soon. Melissa and I had an awesome weekend! Friday night was the John Mayer concert at Chastain Park, an amphitheater in Atlanta. Now I don't have any of his albums, but I've enjoyed what I've heard on the radio. We have some friends who thought it would be a good idea to go to the concert, get a table to sit at (that's one of the attractions of Chastain), have dinner there and then enjoy the show. So that's what we did. You can't really tell any detail from the picture here, but that's John somewhere in the middle. My camera phone works better with up-close pictures... Then we spent the night at the Homewood Suites in Buckhead, a couple miles from the amphitheater. I used some of my many Hilton Honors points for it--the ones I've been collecting while traveling so much over the past 3 or 4 years. Woke up and had a nice big (free) breakfast, and then picked up the girls and headed up to the North Georgia Mountains for our annual fall getaway. We picnicked at Amicalola Falls, which is where the approach trail is that takes you to Springer Mountain, the southern end of the Appalachian Trail. This is at least the 5th year in a row we've gone. (And since we moved to Alpharetta, the drive hasn't been as long, either, which is nice.) Our visit isn't complete until we go to Burt's Pumpkin Farm. I don't have any of the pictures we took there, yet (they're on Melissa's computer), but take a look at the web site, see the pictures of the pumpkins, and then imagine 1,000 all walking around, kicking up a little dust, and you'll get an idea of what our experience at Burt's was like. Reading the first part of this article sounds a little like our Saturday, only in reverse (Burt's Farm came first in the article). A couple of weeks ago I had heard that it was supposed to be peak leaf weekend this past weekend, but I think it is yet to come. The leaves were still pretty green, and only slightly starting to turn. Anyway, that's all for now. I still need to get some pictures up from Ella's second birthday, which was at the beginning of September. Like I said, I've been too busy lately!

The Youngest is now 2

...and we're that much closer to being a diaper-free family! Ella had her second birthday on Friday, and we celebrated yesterday (Sunday) at the neighborhood pool. The water was freezing, but actually ended up feeling nice after you got used to it. Two out of 4 cousins were in attendance--the Faulkner's couldn't make it due to sickness in the household, and we didn't think it was wise to expose the rest of us to whatever ailment they were sharing over there. Two out of 4 grandparents were in attendance, as well. My parents in Florida are planning a trip up here at the end of the month and so decided to sit this party out. I'll get some pictures online when I get them off the camera.

Spell Checker Poem

[I'm sure you've seen this pass through your e-mail at one point or another, but I like it so I'm preserving it here... If anyone knows who wrote this, please let me know so I can properly attribute it. Thanks!]

ODE TO SPELL CHECK Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It planely marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and tipe a werd And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequer tolled me sew.

.NET 2.0 Website Conversion: AutoEventWireup Fix

[I'm going to take a short break from my family blogging and preserve for posterity my findings after converting a web project from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0. Pictures of adorable kids will return soon...] At work we recently converted a website from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0. This was accomplished by running the conversion wizard which is built in to Visual Studio 2005. After the conversion, however, we noticed that some of our pages were behaving strangely--we would have lists with duplicate items in them. This wasn't the case before the conversion, and it was my task to fix it. What I found out is that in .NET 2.0, the AutoEventWireup page directive is set to true by default. In .NET 1.1 it is set to false. According to the Common ASP.NET 2.0 Conversion Issues and Solutions document, this is a known issue due to events firing twice (Issue 23: Event handlers called multiple times). In this document it explains that the conversion wizard is smart enough to remove the duplicate event wireups, but only if they live in the InitializeComponent() method of your page's codebehind file. In our scenario, we had some event wireups in the OnInit() method (not my fault--it was inherited code!). What I didn't know what how to detect where those duplicate wireups were so I could get rid of them. So I did some more digging. As it turns out, in the online help for Visual Studio.NET 2005 there is a section which explains the AutoEventWireup page directive. (This link will only work if you have VS.NET 2005 help installed on your computer.) It explains that when the AutoEventWireup directive is set to true, ASP.NET performs a lookup using reflection to find the events in your page's codebehind class. The naming convention for the events is "Page_" + event name. So for the "Load" event, ASP.NET looks for the "Page_Load" method in your code, and calls it if it finds it. So this means that only the Page events are automatically wired up, and no others are. That makes sense, since this is a Page directive... Historically, reflection has been considered slow, or at least there's a lot of overhead when loading the assembly and picking out the parts inside of it. However, according to a comment left by Scott Guthrie on this blog:

Event wire-up is done via reflection, but the type-descriptors are cached (so the lookup is one time only).

From a performance measurement perspective, there is no difference between autoeventwireup=true/false. That is one reason we switched to it as the default with VS 2005 Web App Projects.

So now we've got AutoEventWireup set to true by default, and the wizard removed the "Page_*" methods from our InitializeComponent() methods. But we still have events firing twice. The last part of the puzzle is how to remove the remaining page events which are manually wired up. Regular expression searching to the rescue! You can use Visual Studio's "Find in Files" feature (say that 10 time really fast!). Click on Use Regular Expressions in the Find Option section and then paste this in the "Find what" text box:

\+=:b*new:b*System\.EventHandler:b*\(.*\.Page_

This will search for adding a new System.EventHandler for a Page directive, and should take care of most variations in using white space. It will also handle the "this" keyword is in front of the delegate name. I hope this helps someone else out there understand how AutoEventWireups work, and how to fix your web site if you run into the same situation as I did. Please leave a comment if it helped. Thanks! [Update: You'll also want to check to see if the AutoEventWireup @Page attribute is explicitly set to false before you remove the wireup from the InitializeComponent() method, or else the page event won't fire!]

I Rode "Goliath"

Melissa and I took the kids--well, the older two kids--to Six Flags last Sunday. Had a blast! They removed the "Great Gasp", the ride where you go straight up, hoisted by cables suspended from a big tower, and then drop back down to the earth. In its place is the latest roller coaster: Goliath. It was pretty cool, but I was holding my glasses so that they wouldn't be blown off by 70 MPH winds, so I couldn't see very well (everything was very blurry, though even if I were wearing my glasses thing probably would still be blurry), but I sure could feel the ride. Oh, the picture above is a piece of canvas attached to a tree next to the queue line for the Log Jamboree ride. It's just the thing to do at Six Flags: put your gum on a tree for all to see! I joked with Emmie that maybe they would let her take it home with her at the end of the season... In this picture you mostly see the "Georgia Scorcher". Part of Goliath can be seen in the background (teal support beams and orange track). Most of the Goliath ride is outside of the park. You go over the entry/exit road, do some spins and humps, and then go back into the park to finish up. In fact, this picture shows the cul-de-sac where the parking log tram drops folks off at the ticket counters. Where you see Goliath in the background is actually outside the park. I also got to ride the "Batman". Again, I was holding my glasses, just to be safe. The best part of that ride is the queue line as you wait to get on the train (in which you are suspended from the track). It looks like you're walking into Gotham City, or at least the dump. Well done! Madeline's favorite ride was the "Gotham City Crime Wave", a ride where you're suspended in a swing and they spin you around and then tilt the top of the swing. At the end of the first ride they said you could stay in your seat if you wanted to ride again (the lines were very short at this time of the evening--about 7:30 or 8). She rode it about 7 or 8 times in a row! We got Emmie on the Canyon Blaster--her first roller coaster! This was also Madeline's first roller coaster last year. We also rode the Wheelie--but I don't think any of us liked it! The bumper cars were a hit, though, except Emmie complained that it didn't last long enough. We arrived when the park opened and we left when the park closed. That was a long day, but definitely a fun one!

MaxiVista Update

I tried the demo of MaxiVista and liked it, and then it expired. I uninstalled it. I forgot about it.

Recently, however, I have wanted to control the information coming at me a little better, and I remembered MaxiVista. So I bought the Pro version. (This version does everything except mirror your desktop on another computer--I don't foresee the need to do that.) Now I have my e-mail client open on the secondary PC and my main work open on the main screen. I can move windows around from screen to screen if I want to change where they are located.

One thing that this version does that the demo version did not do is control the second PC from the first one. So instead of making your desktop span multiple screens, this allows you to use your primary PC's keyboard and mouse on your primary PC and then drag the mouse to the other monitor and start accessing that PC's files and programs--all while still using your primary PC's keyboard and mouse. Pretty neat, though I'll still probably not use that feature all that much. A side effect of this feature is that you can highlight text on one PC, copy it, and then paste it onto the other PC.

MaxiVista also allows up to 4 PCs to be used--the primary plus 3 others. Right now I only have two laptops in use (which I think is enough for now at least).

Configuration: By default, it is configured for "Maximum Speed". This had a noticeable effect on what the desktop looked like on the second PC, so I changed the setting to "High Picture Quality" and that seemed to take care of it (the maximum setting is "Maximum Picture Quality", but "High Picture Quality" seems to give me the best look/speed tradeoff).

I just wanted to follow up on this since I said that I would.

[Update: After browsing through the documents at the MaxiVista web site, I came across this note in the Version History page:

For experts only: To change the MaxiVista behaviour when locking the Viewer PC, you can alter value "2" to "1" in following registry key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MaxiVista\A2\username]"lock_method"=dword:00000002 (video tutorial)

I much prefer the setting set to "1" than "2". In this mode, the monitor program on the second laptop doesn't close when the primary laptop is locked, so I don't have to reposition all the programs back onto the secondary laptop/display once more after logging back into Windows. Note that "username" in the registry key name should be the name you logged in with, not the literal "username".]

I Saw "Sally Carrera"

My office building also houses the Porsche North American Headquarters. There is always a Porsche on display out front, but the other day there was a slightly different one parked in front of the building. I was coming back from lunch and was walking from the parking deck (shown in the background of the picture) when I saw people looking at the car. One guy was taking a picture of it with his camera phone (or would that be "phone camera"?). I didn't think much of it since, like I mentioned, there's always a Porsche on display. Also, since I was coming up from behind the car it didn't look any different than any other Porsche (except that the roof line looked different--it was bubbled up/more pronounced than other Porsches I've seen). It was only when I got to the front of the car that I noticed what the commotion was about. So I joined the small crowd and took a picture of my own. Here are some links about Sally:

• http://www.porsche.com/usa/sallycarrera/
• http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/cars/main.html?sec=1&car=3

Aerial

I've been a Kate Bush fan for years, though "The Red Shoes" wasn't one of my favorites, I'll admit. Recently, though, she released a new CD called "Aerial". I bought it from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and it just showed up on my doorstep yesterday. It is a two CD release, and it's awesome! It has a little bit of jazz in it, but it is distinctively Kate Bush at its core. This one will get a lot of play time in the near and distant future!

Hammock is Fixed

A while back a friend helped me dig a couple of holes so I could put some 6x6's in them to support our hammock. When we moved into the house 4 years ago, one of the first things we noticed was the lack of trees large enough and appropriately spaced to support our hammock.

Well, as it turned out, the holes were just slightly too close together, and when I first sat in the hammock my posterior touched the ground.

I've been thinking for a while on how to fix this. I've had friends suggest elaborate ways of getting the hammock operational for adults (the kids had no problem with it--Madeline even figured out that if you twist the hammock over and over several times then the ropes get more taught and thus the hammock hangs higher off the ground), but I was pretty sure there was an easy (or at least easier) fix.

Here are the pictures of my simple solution, though with only a 7 1/4" blade on the circular saw I couldn't cut all the way--or even half-way--through the 6x6's. I cut one side, then the other, then finished off with a hand saw (which I discovered was either dull or just couldn't handle pressure-treated wood).

And here is a close-up of the cut I had to make. Note that the hook is now on top of the 6x6 instead of on the side. This has two results: the hooks are further apart so the hammock is more taught, and the hooks are higher off the ground so adults can use it now!

New Paint!

No, not me--the house! :-)

We've lived here for the past 4 years (my how time flies!), and the house still had the original paint that the painters put on. And it showed!

We had originally gotten quotes about a year and a half ago, but didn't have the money at the time to get-er-done. Well, I don't care what people say about tax refunds being an interest-free loan to the government, but I was happy to receive one large enough this year to be able to get the house painted!

So we changed the colors a bit. The stucco on the front is now more brown (I would call the old color "pinkish", but Melissa would disagree with me), and it is the same color as the siding on the back. (The siding on the back was sort of a taupe color.)

The front door used to be black, but Melissa saw some paint combinations in the paint store and decided that she liked this "cherry" color. I like it, too, but we both think that at least one more coat is needed.

We had our old house painted once while we were there--I had forgotten just how much newer a house looks with a fresh coat of paint!