A Whole Bunch of Crap Rolled into One Post

I know I won't get any sympathy from my northern friends but just when I thought spring had sprung the temperature here dropped a lot over the past 5 days:





















The silver maples have started to come alive, always a good sign of spring springing:



I've been trying to figure out where to put the shed I plan on building soon. I marked it out with sticks and leaves and it's 12 x 16. Here's the view from the kitchen window:



And from the upstairs bathroom:



I might rotate it 45 degrees counter clockwise. Don't know yet. I'm sure you care. Not.

I completed #19 on my Home Improvement list and even added a new outlet to the upstairs bathroom. Call it a honey-do list and I'll kill you. My wife couldn't care less about changing outlets and building a shed. My legs are killing me from crawling around in and hoisting myself up into the attic. I should make an Andy Improvement list. Item #1: Get into shape. Item #2: Stop huffing.

I also started #7: Paint the youngest boy's room. Kid was excited. What 3 year old gets excited about having his room painted? Here's the before picture:



Part of the deal is he gets a "big bed" when he is deemed "potty-trained." He's done well at it for the past few weeks, so pretty soon one of my two greatest parental dreams, no more diapers and self-bathing, will come true.

I managed to get one coat of paint on his walls Sunday afternoon, until my wife came home from a walk. A walk in which she got attacked by a dog. A doberweiler or a rottman. Actually, a rottweiler. I'm just making fun of her because she didn't know what it was. Perhaps I shouldn't make fun of her since she had to get 9 stitches and getting attacked is pretty traumatic. Item #3: Be more sensitive.





This was almost a month ago, but I built a cool layout with my son's GeoTrax:



I guess thats it for this bunch of crap. Hmm, it doesn't feel right if I don't complain about work.

Hmm. I hate writing stored procedures. Sorry, thats all I got.

There's a guy at work with the last name Loving. I'm dying to call him McLovin but since that movie came out last summer and I started here last Christmas, I'm sure that ship has sailed. Sad. I like to be on the cutting edge of nicknames. Not some washed up has been.

I Hate Roger Clemens

Yeah, yeah, I know. If you ask my kids, "hate" is a bad word, but this is a blog, and I don't have to be pretend not to hate things.

Here's an article I just discovered, take it with a grain of salt.

My two other favorite anti-Clemens articles ever:

Rocket failure: I love it

Is Clemens the Anti-Christ

I've always considered printing those two articles out and framing them. I think it's time to get off my duff and do it.

Why am I so concerned with Clemens all of a sudden? No reason. It's just a very slow off season.

Fabulous Movie Review®

Shoot 'Em Up
A no holds barred, take no prisoners, unapologetic, completely implausible and thoroughly enjoyable action movie.

Don't even try to believe that the impossible situations Clive Owen finds himself are evenly remotely possible.

Also stars Paul Giamatti, who I always used to get confused with this guy, as the henpecked bad guy.

Gagknee's grade: B

Voltage is like water pressure in a pipe

I'm replacing every outlet and switch in my house for two reasons, one, they are almond and I want white and second, because several of them were in this kind of condition:



This is the outlet that my fridge was plugged into. Its the worst one I've had. Two others looked okay, but disintegrated in my hand as soon as I pulled them out, and then there was the dryer outlet that almost caught on fire.

Here's a tip for all you house flippers out there, free of charge. Spend the extra buck fitty to replace any broken outlets. Heck, spend 20 and replace them ALL.

Snow.

My youngest was very excited to see snow. Too bad it was completely useless for anything you would ever normally use snow for. I didn't have to shovel it, so that's good.

Eerily Creepy or Creepily Eery

Remember this?

Almost a year later, and in a different house, the birds are back.





Here's a video I took and another one. I was indoors so you can't hear the birds squawking, just my kids breaking stuff.

As a sidenote, at least I don't have vultures.

Layoffs at Work

<ramble>

People wonder why employees aren't loyal to their companies anymore, and they especially like to point the finger at IT people, jumping from job to job, going to the highest bidder, but heaven forbid sales number drop during the previous quarter and a handful of "non-essential" people are sent packing. Like we couldn't ride out a few months of slow sales and keep a few people employed.

Yeah. Nothing dulls the new job shine like some timely sackings.

Nobody is loyal anymore and it works both ways. If in a year or two I am bored, loyalty won't even be a second thought in my mind.

I had a job once where the boss had to layoff people in order to stay afloat, he used his own money to cover our paychecks a few times, and come to find out from a third party later on, he wasn't even paying himself for long periods of time. Somehow, I don't think the owner of my current company is sweating anything out.

I'm going to get fired. Better not visit gagknee.com at work and have it get stuck in the internet sniffer.

I still like my job. I just get uber annoyed at the business of being employed. But I don't advocate any other system. Owners of companies are free to do as they please, they just can't complain when their employees leave for greener pastures.

</ramble>

Beards Are Cool

Best. Beard. Ever.

More American Gladiator

How fake is that hair attached to his skull cap?

I Smell Blood, I Smell Fear, and I'm Gonna Eat You

I love American Gladiators.

I've been pining for this staple of my high school years to come back to television, and now it has, maybe I can wean myself off of Ninja Warrior. Nah. Why would I want to do that?

I'd Like to Say....

Haha. But that would be crude.

It was all over the news this morning, that they suspected that this girl was still alive, and that she wasn't really missing.

Here's your link.

That "haha" was meant for the news channels, not for the girl, by the way. Because they took some idiots random speculation and ran with it. Not that anyone will call them on it.

I Am Not Always Angry

I like my new job.

After four weeks, with the new guy smell worn off, I have plenty of work to do, my boss appreciates us and isn't a colossal jerk, the work is interesting, coworkers are all nice, there are plenty of places to which to walk and also to eat, I make a lot more money, the commute is cut in half, and I don't have to do anything in VB6.

Life, at this moment in time, is good.

Now, if only I could wear jeans to work...

Because Baseball Writers Know Best

Whatever.

Why is it the BBWAA 'tards are the only people who get to vote on who gets into the Hall of Fame?

Yes. Jim Rice did not make it in again. He was 16 votes shy of the 75% that he needed.

Oh, check out the BBWAA website. You'll love it. Very cutting edge.

Its Always Sunny in Richmond

The weather was so nice on Sunday, we spent a few hours up at Maymont Park. As a sidenote, the weather was even nicer on Monday. Seventy-three degrees, baby! As a sidenote to my sidenote, a guy at work is from Buffalo, and I was looking at the big weather map on weather.com, and at one point on Monday it was actually warmer in Buffalo, 54, than it was in Los Angeles, 53. As a sidenote to my sidenote's sidenote, the company I work for is owned by a company that is owned by the company that owns the Weather channel.

Back to Maymont Park. The dead of winter isn't the best time of year to visit, it's still nice, but the best part of the place is the gardens. I can't wait until spring.

They have a lot of suggested donation boxes, too. That makes me laugh. I remember a Simpsons episode...

Here's some pictures:









Here's a few that my daughter took with her camera.





There's more here.

Fabulous Movie Review®

I forgot one, Black Snake Moan, can't imagine why. Oh, yes, because I hated it. It was in our home for a week tying up the Netflix queue, because I could not get through it. Four tries it took. Four. It's lucky I didn't send it back unwatched.

I couldn't even tell you why I don't like it. Maybe it was Justin Timberlake. Yeah. It's his fault.

Samuel L. Jackson's acting was superb, however.

Gagknee's grade: D

Fabulous Movie Reviews®

We haven't watched too many movies lately. Been tied up with Veronica Mars Season 3 and Lost Season 3. Have you seen Veronica Mars? You should. It's a Hoover dam good show, though it's been cancelled. Stupid CW Network.

This is an amazing movie. Nuff said.

Gagknee's grade: A








This is a library special. That means it was free. Very slow moving, but it picks up at the end. Let me ask you one question. If a gay man was stalking you what would you do?

Gagknee's grade: C-

Wow. Probably the greatest action movie of all time. All time. Combined with the previous two movies, it is cinema heaven. I'm sad the series has ended. When the Blu Ray/HD DVD format saga has ended Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum will be the first movies that I buy.

One thing I am grateful for is that in this movie Joan Allen wore a few turtlenecks. I've said before that her neck muscles are distracting and they still are. Lady...gain some WEIGHT! You tip the scales at 94 pounds. In what universe is that attractive?

Gagknee's grade: A+


Michael Cera played my favorite character, George Michael, on the greatest television show ever, Arrested Development. I will watch any movie he is in regardless of the reviews.

This movie is fuh uh uh uh ny. Crude, yes. But there's no nudity so it's safe to watch with your kids! Kidding. You will laugh out loud.

Gagknee's grade: A

Beards are COOL

I love Letterman's beard and I was disappointed to find out that he is planning to shave it on air. Conan has a beard too, but a brief search couldn't find a picture.


















Some other great beards sported by Patriots linemen, Matt Light, Logan Mankins, and Dan Koppen. Every man should grow a beard like one of these at least once in his life.

Never Assume Part 2

A while back, I discovered that the light switch in my son's room was not on the same circuit as the outlets.

Last week I was replacing 2 light switches in the kitchen. They were in the same box, and again I assumed that they were on the same circuit. Nope. No harm was done this time either.

But, the weirdest thing is that there are two outlets in the kitchen that I was going to replace at the same time. One of those outlets was on the same circuit as one of those light switches. The other outlet wasn't on either circuit. I flipped a few other breakers, including the breaker for the dishwasher, and I couldn't find the right one. I gave up because it was time for dinner, but I'll get back to that one.

So, my kitchen has 5 circuits feeding it. One, for the stove. One for the dishwasher. One for the majority of the outlets and two overhead lights. That same circuit also feeds the upstairs bathroom and the master bedroom (Yes, we trip that breaker on occasion, when the microwave is running). One, for one outlet and one switch. And one, that controls, from what I can tell, one outlet.

My breaker panel doesn't have a main shut off either. Its a main lug panel. I assume the shut off is in the locked box on my electric meter. That's a pain.

Work

I find it hard to post lately. My life has been pretty angst free the past few weeks. The new job is going well, although its been pretty boring. I've completed a few trivial maintenance items that I could do blindfolded. Yesterday, I had a little enhancement where I had to insert links into a datagrid at runtime. It was the most complicated thing I've had to do since I started working there, but sadly it only took me a half an hour, which meant I had 7 1/2 other hours to kill.

I'm not complaining at all. Knowing full well that things will pick up once everyone is back from vacation and I get discovered, I will enjoy this anonymous work existence. Also, once I get more confident and familiar with the software, I'll just start working on stuff on my own that I think needs improvement.

Fabulous Grilled Cheese Sandwiches®

Fontina. Similar in flavor to Edam, but it was softer and melted a little better. The thing I am discovering trying all of these different cheeses, is that they all kind of taste similar. I need to rock the boat a bit. Goat cheese or some variety of blue cheese. Anyway, fontina is good, not great. Flavor is a 7 and meltability is 9.

You're Some Kind of Wond....

Errrr, ugly

New Favorite Band

The Black Keys. Great blues band. Kind of freakish blues, a phrase coined by Jimi Hendrix, but they sound a little like Cream and a tiny bit Allmanny too. Of course, the comparison to the White Stripes is there, but they aren't that freakish.

I forgot how I found them. Luck I guess. I asked for and got their album Rubber Factory for Christmas. I'm hooked. Now I won't stop until I have all their albums and then I will complain for 6 months that I don't have any new music to listen to.

Yes, in case you are wondering, I still buy CDs. I like having something I can hold in my hand. And lose. Or scratch.

Home Improvement

Don't mind me just jotting down some of the home improvements I would like to do.

1. Ceiling fans in upstairs bedrooms. Currently, no ceiling lights at all


2. Exhaust fan in upstairs bathroom


3. A back door. Preferably french doors


4. Small deck and patio


5. Heat pump/AC


6. Chair rail in daughters room


7. Paint youngest boys room


8. Build a shed


9. Paint kitchen ceiling


10. Tiled backsplash in kitchen


11. Paint living room. Add crown molding. Rope light behind crown molding


12. Add overhead light to living room


13. Wire living room for speakers


14. Plant row of fast growing hedges on edge of property abutting the junk collector


15. Landscape the front of the house


16. Sandbox


17. Insulate crawl space and replace crawl space door


18. New storm doors on front and side doors


19. Weatherstrip front and side doors


20. Replace outlets and switches in living room, kitchen and family room


21. Exhaust microwave to the outside


22. Replace all interior doors (and doorknobs)


23. Install rail fence along property line abutting the junk collector


24. Plant more bushes along fence

Tired of Snow? Need a Job?

My company is looking for a DBA and a .NET Developer. People less smart than me only need apply (kidding). But, seriously, if you are smarter than me, than you have to at least like me, so I don't have to watch my back.

Richmond Restaurants

Just trying to keep track of the restaurants I have been to.

Europa Mediterranean Cafe - Good panini and soup.

Southern Railway Deli - Great sammiches. Make sure they leave you some room to add milk to your coffee.

Jo Jo's Pizza - Really, really, really good pizza.

End of First Week

Phew. One week down. The "stupid new guy" feeling is going away. It's weird not being completely flat out busy all day. Weird but good.

Meet the New Boss

I've been trying to figure out who my new boss reminds me of, it suddenly just came to me.

Todd Packer.















It's gonna be an interesting ride. Hang on.

First Day

So, what's the worst way to start your new job? If you answered waking up nauseous and then upchucking last night's cheetos and this morning's coffee into the bathroom sink whilst brushing your teeth, then you are correct.

Last Day

To me, last days kind of suck. You expend so much energy looking for a job, interviewing for a job, preparing for leaving, and being ecstatic about moving on that you forget until the very end around 4:30 pm when people start wishing you good luck and saying good bye that you are essentially leaving a bunch of semi-good to very good friends behind. Some you might talk to occasionally in the future, most you'll probably never see or hear from again. It seems to be a little worse this time around because I don't know anybody in this area besides the people I've worked with. Now, I have to essentially start over.

It usually takes me at least 6 months to feel comfortable with a bunch of people, and that is the part that I am not looking forward to in my new job. Am I nervous, scared, anxious? No. Well, not about the job, only about making a jackass of myself. That's why, unlike some people, I tend be really reserved for a long time.

Part of my Autumn Resolution this year, and I've stuck to it pretty well, was to get better at maintaining contact with past friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. So I made sure to give at least a half a dozen people my personal email address and resolved to email each of them at least every month. Even if they don't reply. Like one of my old bosses that I contacted a month ago. If you are reading this...you know who you are.

I worked hard for these people and surprisingly I think they appreciated it. I got five cards, one tin of the most amazing cookies that you have ever eaten in your life, craisin white chocolate oatmeal cookies, a 12 pack of Pilsner Urquell, a cake, a $50 gift certificate to Walmart, a coffee mug, 2 free personal days that I will get paid for, and last but not least a big hug from my boss who used to scare the daylights out of me, all 99 lbs 60 inches of her, not but 2 months ago, until I realized she was getting screwed by the merger just as bad as everyone else and cared about her employees more than any boss I have ever had before.

One thing I will miss: Being important. Being The Guy for about a hundred people does kind of feed the ego. But I won't miss being The Guy because I could never ever concentrate on one task and complete it to the level that I desired because somebody was always pulling me in another direction.

A short list of things I won't miss: Visual Basic 6, Belligerent A-hole, screen scraping terminal screens, getting abused by IT.

Anyway, I am really glad to be moving on, I just hope a couple of the friends I made "stick".

Andy Art

Its about that time of year when I start getting geared up for the annual trip to the mountains of West Virginia. Last year around this time I started making a picture of our group from the 2006 trip. I was going to have a t-shirt made, but I decided against that. I might have it printed and framed though.

This is that picture:



















I'm gonna start working on something using our group shot from last years trip:

Missin' You

I miss being able to take pictures. Stupid camera. I don't think I'll buy any more Sony stuff. Everything of theirs that I buy breaks. And those stupid memory cards they use. Ugh.

Jump to Conclusions

There's a new contractor at work that they hired to replace me. Yesterday, he spent the day with the other contractor. Unfortunately, the other contractor was out sick today (not really a good day to take off, what, with me leaving tomorrow), so the new contractor had to spend the day with me.

I got nothing done.

He looks and sounds like the guy in Office Space who invented the Jump to Conclusions mat. Hence, the picture.

His breath smells bad and his BO got progressively worse during the course of the day, but thats not the worst of it. It was his aggressive invasion of my personal space and the way he "suggested" a better way to do just about everything that I was doing.

He sat right behind me with his elbows on my desk, bumping into me, sweating, and breathing hot air on my ear.

I gave up programming after about a half hour. I couldn't think with him jabbering in my ear. Use DateDiff...That won't work there...I built a control that does this...blah blah blah. I decided to fill out forms to get him his access, and fill out a 10 page questionnaire for IT about our ancillary apps.

Things got so bad at one point I actually went over to my old department for a couple hours on two separate occasions and helped them with some stuff that I have been putting off for months. They were happy. I was just happy to get away.

The first time I left I didn't tell him because he was on the phone, and when I came back he was all indignant and said that he "shoulda just gone home because they aren't paying him to surf the net all day." My response was simply, take advantage of it while you can.

The second time I left he was in my office so I said that I had to head over to Corporate Actions. He volunteered to come, but I stopped him by saying that its probably better if they don't know who he is. "Maintain your anonymity."

He finally left at 5:10. I got more done in the next 20 minutes than I had all day. Well, I got stuff done that I wanted to get done.

Get this, he actually interviewed at the company where my new job is. He probably annoyed the crap out of the hiring manager. One of the things they told me when they interviewed me was that they wanted to hire someone who would fit in with the group.

Yeah.

Friends are friends and pals are pals

So Clemens and Pettitte stuck it in each others bums. Steroid needles that is.

Can we let it go now? Moving forward, test and punish the guilty, but going back in time seems like, well, a waste of time.

Turn on the AC

Its amazing how hot 78 degrees feels when it was just 38 degrees a few days ago. I mean, in August when its 98 for 12 days straight, and then it drops to 78 you're digging out the fleece. But today, shorts and a t-shirt are de rigueur. For me anyway.

Pretty Lame. Prreeettyy Laaaame.

Pretty lame error page, Google. I'm digging the late 90s logo. Retro is king.

Honda in the Living Room

I've been dreaming about getting a new stereo receiver and surround speakers. My old receiver died a while back and would only produce sound out of one channel. It lived a good life, but I am dying to get a new one. Unfortunately, certain economic realities prevent me from getting a new receiver right now, but it doesn't hurt to browse. Something just dawned on me while perusing the Best Buy website, how come Honda doesn't make receivers and speakers like Yamaha does? That would be sweet if they did.

HTA Application

Ever heard of it? Me neither until I started my current job.

The "application" part is redundant actually as the "A" in "HTA" stands for "application".

Anyway, I have one I need to fix at work preferably before my last day this Friday.

It's an unholy mix of VBScript and JavaScript in a gelatinous* mass of client and server side code with a healthy dash of classic ASP and PHP (and now I am adding some ASP.NET into the mix). Throw in a lot of XML and you have a recipe for disaster. I guess this type of application predates ASP or AJAX.

It could be kind of cool, but whoever wrote it was lacking in several key areas. Namely a basic grasp of logic. And skill.

I would never have touched it but I kind of have to and I thought it would be fun.

It, along with all of this departments web apps, were moved to a production IT environment and the old web server (a 5 year old Dell sitting in an empty cube) is supposed to be removed from the network. I haven't taken the old one offline yet, for no particular reason other than I like to annoy the IT guys.

Now, for the past month I've been going through all of the department apps and updating them to all use a global config wherein the connection string to the database is stored because IT is kicking us off our current SQL Server and moving us to a production IT environment.

This story is taking way too long.

In the course of updating the programs I discovered that this HTA application has tons of hard coded references to the old web server. Include files, regular links, style sheets, ASP pages that receive database queries and spit back out recordsets in XML. Good stuff. This app is used by everyone. Their bread and butter.

I can only imagine the hell that would have broken loose if the old web server was remediated before this was discovered.

I fixed the hard coded links by using variables to which I assigned certain property values retrieved from JavaScript objects.

The ASP pages that returned XML were funny. They literally built the XML by doing a whole lotta this response.write <record>.

This post is boring. I quit. I had a conclusion but I lost it.


*I edited this post to change the word I used from glutinous to gelatinous because glutinous actually means glue-like or sticky and this thing is anything but.

Fabulous Grilled Cheese Sandwiches®

Edam. As in, "I like to eat'em."

Mmm. It's good cheese. A little bit sharp like cheddar, but it's a bit like Swiss too in texture and aftertaste. Meltability is not as high as Jarlsberg, but still high at 8 on the meltability scale. Flavor is a 7.

I was a little disappointed because I had to buy pre-sliced bread, but it turned out okay, and I got more slices from it than when I slice up a loaf into inch thick slabs. And as an added bonus, each slice has a consistent thickness throughout, instead of being an inch at the top and transparent at the bottom.

This Just In...

I got the job! Yesterday at 4 and it truly was one of the happiest days of my life. Unfortunately, I couldn't give my notice because all of my managers had the day off.

Anyway, here's where I'll be starting December 17. Stop by and visit if you are in the area.


View Larger Map

Fabulous Movie Review®

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
I hate it when Hollywood Better Than Yous attempt to preach in their movies. Adam Sandler is going to teach me how to accept people? Really?

Just make me laugh and spare me the Hollywood life lesson.

Anyway, I did laugh during this movie, but what got me the most was the large number of famous and semi-famous actors in it. Here's a list and the role that is most memorable to me:

Adam Sandler: Well, duh, Little Nicky. The greatest movie ever.

Kevin James: Fat guy on a TV show.

Jessica Biel: The only reason you ever watched 7th Heaven.

Dan Aykroyd: Yep.

Ving Rhames: Not entirely convincing as a gay guy in this film and his man-love for Adam Sandler in the extra features not very convincing either. I got the impression he was duped into this movie and was looking to kick some white ace.

Steve Buscemi: Weird creepy guy in this movie. Imagine that. While researching this post and thinking about Buscemi, off the top of my head I could remember four Adam Sandler movies he has been in, this one (duh), Wedding Singer, Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore.

Nicholas Turturro: Most famous in my mind for being a detective on NYPD Blue, one of my most favorite shows of all time.

Allen Covert: He's had a role in every Adam Sandler movie. Even Airheads, but curiously not Billy Madison.

Richard Chamberlain: 1960s heartthrob. Don't really know him, but I recognize the name.

Blake Clark: Every Adam Sandler movie. My favorite, the coach from Waterboy that you couldn't understand.

Lance Bass: NSYNC

Dave Matthews: Yes, that Dave Matthews

Gary Valentine: Dopey cousin on King of Queens

Jonathan Loughran: Another Sandler movie staple.

Peter Dante: Yet another guy on Sandler's permanent payroll.

Becky & Jessica O'Donohue: I couldn't remember where I had seen these twins before, but Google jogged my memory. They were on an episode of Fear Factor, and also American Idol. Jessica didn't make it to Hollywood but Becky was in the top 24. I remember when they were on American Idol I couldn't remember where I had seen them before. Thanks, Google.

Chandra West: I remember her from NYPD Blue.

Dennis Dugan: From Happy Gilmore, the president of the golf tour, or whatever the golf league is called.

Rob Schneider: Self-explanatory.

Thats it I'm done. Thanks for humoring me.

Gagknee's grade: C

No New Job Yet

I haven't heard back from the company for which I did my oral presentation and written exam yet. Not worried or anxious though. They took two weeks to call me after the phone interview.

I'm not the type to call after an interview. Don't want them to think I'm easy. Or desperate.

If they want me, then they want me and a little gluteolingus won't make a difference. Or maybe I am naive. They could be on the fence and have decided that the first person to call back gets the job.

Dangit.

Fabulous Grilled Cheese Sandwiches®

Dude. Jarlsberg rocks. It might just be the best grilling cheese ever. It scores a 10 on the meltability scale. A nine on flavor. Amazing.

I'm not sure what cheese to try next. Maybe something in the blue family. Or something made from an animal other than cow.

Fabulous Movie Reviews®

Halloween
I had never seen this, so I decided to see this. Halloween is a classic of sorts, launching a new genre of horror, or so I've heard. It's good. I liked it. Wasn't really scary, but I can appreciate it for what it was at the time it came out. There was almost no blood and gore, something that surprised me. Halloween 2 picks up right where this one left off, so I'll watch that next. After that, I won't bother with anything else in the Halloween series.

Gagknee's grade: B

Spiderman 3
A lot of people had a lot of disparaging remarks about this movie. I thought it was alright, better than most comic book movies I have seen, but not up to the quality of the first two Spiderman movies.

In this movie, MJ loses her job in a play because she is a lousy actress/singer. One can only hope that this happens to Kirsten Dunst in real life. Seriously, how did she get the part in these movies?

Gagknee's grade: C

Results of the Written Test

The written test for this job that I'm hoping to get went well. I used the entire two hour period I was allotted. Although I am ashamed to admit that I used half of the time trying to figure out two riddles that they stuck at the end of the test.

One of the riddles I was able to get, the other I couldn't. The answer felt so close, but I couldn't quite get my mind to grasp it. Kinda like feeling around the back of your computer in the dark looking for a USB port.

I'd share what the riddles were but the few people that I did share them with figured them out faster than I answered the first question, "What is ASP.NET?", so I choose not to embarrass myself anymore.

I've never been good at riddles.

Most of the questions I aced, a few I fudged because I couldn't remember the specific method that I would use (that's what Google is for), so I made up something that sounded good, and I only flat out missed three of them. A web service question, but I had already told them I didn't have much experience. Same for the XML question. The third question, the difference between OLAP and OLTP, I still don't know even after Googling it when I got home.

So, Tell Me About Yourself

The time leading up to an interview always causes me shortness of breath and heart palpitations and the time afterwards is sweet, sweet relief.

I did well enough that they called me later in the day and asked me to come back Thursday for a written test.

Written test? Not to sound cocky, but it's always been the oral presentation that I've screwed up. The written part should be cake.

If ever a statement was going to make me eat my words, its that one.

Also, I think this was the first interview I have ever been to where I wasn't asked to name three of my best qualities. Man, do I hate that question. I was prepared to say, "Patient. Really patient. Super patient." Or something like that, just to get a laugh. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't try to "get laughs" during an interview. Something to think about anyway.

Oh yeah, and at my current job I had a conference call with a bunch of holier than thou IT people. Their leader sounded like Brendan Fraser. All I could think about was how underrated Blast from the Past was.

Ugh.

Job interview tomorrow.

Fabulous Movie Reviews®

I've got a bunch so I am going to blow right through them.

The Benchwarmers
Mildly amusing tale of geeks versus jocks. I was impressed with Rob Schneider's ability to throw a ball and swing a bat like a real person and not like your typically Hollywood wuss, a Hollywuss. Jon Heder is funny too.

Gagknee's grade: C




Evan Almighty
Great movie to watch with the kids, the most offensive thing in it is bird poop. The ending involving the ark is pretty cool to watch also.

Gagknee's grade: C+





Knocked Up
Honestly, I don't know what the fuss is all about with this movie. Yeah, it's okay, but funniest movie ever? Hardly.

Gagknee's grade: B-






Fido
You've probably never heard of this movie. I hadn't until I accidentally clicked on a flash advertisement in some website I can't even remember. It looked interesting, so I added it to my Netflix queue. Definitely the most unique, good movie I have ever seen.

Gagknee's grade: B+

Whats that movie where the hero drove a Pinto?

Find it here:

www.imcdb.org

Didja See the Game?

I bought one of these hats for 5 bucks at Walmart about 6 months ago. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I needed a new hat and it was cheap. I like the state of West Virginia and the colors, gold and blue, are cool.

I need to find a new hat. Something not associated with college football or any other sports team.

At least twice a week someone makes a comment about it. From "nice hat!" to "did you go there?" to simply "Mountaineer!". The dénouement occurred yesterday whilst walking on some nature trails with my family. We passed another couple, and before I could even smile and say hi to the male half of the couple, he started immediately talking about the game that day. I was cornered because my wife was lagging behind waiting for my oldest son. Luckily, I HAD watched about 5 minutes of the game so I could almost sound intelligent and not even close to the poser I am.

Guy in woods: "What a great game today, huh? 31 to nothing. Rutgers didn't even make a game of it."

Me: "31?! Man. I had to leave and it was only 7 to zip. Wish I could have seen it all!"

Guy in woods: "Yeah, Rutgers had 7 dropped passes!"

Me: "Jeez. I saw one of them. It was the rain, tough."

Guy in woods agrees emphatically.

Me agree.

Guy in woods: "It was a great win for them."

Me: "It sure was."

I've tried to get to know the school's football team, watch a game here and there, but I can't just get into it. That 5 minutes of the game that I watched yesterday was only luck, because I was amazed out how clear the rain drops were in HD. I couldn't have watched a better game because I saved myself form total embarrassment.

If I see someone in a Red Sox hat and they know nothing of the team or who won the most recent game, well, verbal abuse and probably an arrest are in the cards.

The WVU hat has got to go, in case I meet someone like me someday and go home crying.

Cute

I don't like job postings that try to be cute. If I can't be cute in my cover letter or whilst describing my current job responsibilities, then you shouldn't be allowed to be cute in your job description. Oh, wait, thats right, I need you more than you need me so you have the upper hand. Touché.

Anyway, I miss the humor in this little excerpt:

# Pixels count.

# Has an opinion on what Web 2.0 means (hint: not a pre-cursor to Web 2.01).

# Pixels count (repetition intended).

If anyone would care to explain it to me, please, feel free. In the meantime, I'll pass on this one.

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Why is it when you are not in the market for a house, car or job there seem to be plenty available, but as soon as you make up your mind and start looking the market dries up?

Fabulous Movie Review®

Premonition
Without giving away any of the plot, all I can say is, "Whaa? I don't get it."

Unfortunately, now I have to fill up some space in order to have enough text to wrap around the image. Why is Sandra Bullock called everyone's favorite girl next door? I don't get it. Is it because she has brown hair? Isn't it kind of insulting to be called the girl next door? Implying, perhaps, that you are kinda plain and not pretty?

Phew. Done.

Gagknee's grade: C-

I Love Me Some Crying Indians

Now Batting...JD Drew

Hey, you know what? Any season where you make it to the ALCS should be considered a success. But, man, this team should have been so much better.

We didn't get bounced out of the playoffs by the MFYs.

And we won the division.

I've had a really hard time rooting for this team all year. Not sure why. That's not true, I do know why. The don't have any fire. Listless. Disinterested.

There were many enjoyable moments to the season. None of which I will list now. There's no need. If you care, then you already know what they are, and if you don't then you certainly won't feel like reading them.

Anyway, no matter what happens tonight, it was a good season, and let's hope that JD Drew decides to hang up the cleats for good and Julio Lugo joins the Peace Corps.

Roofie

Burning the roof of your mouth on pizza is probably the most annoying, and surprisingly the most preventable, of all food related accidents.

At Work

The 6 month project to move all of our web apps to an IT supported web server from a Dell GX270 sitting in an empty cube is almost finished.

Today I began testing the two disaster recovery servers. On one of the servers, nothing worked. Twenty apps.

On the other server we had issues with images missing, third party controls and crystal reports not working. All of which we had fixed previously when moving from Dev to QA and from QA to the two production servers.

Did anybody in IT keep any notes? "Oh I need to do this and this and this after I move the applications." Apparently not. Again these are the same people who are going to "help" us point all of our apps to a newer, better SQL Server.

I had a conversation with one of these IT guys today, an Asian guy named Charlie, and he was asking me about some of the apps, specifically, what do you do if any of these things break, do you have someone in IT to help you?

No, Charlie, I avoid that at all costs.

Me and the new guy had a good chuckle about that one.

I'm...

cleaning up my labels, in case you were wondering.

Fabulous Movie Review®

Grindhouse: Death Proof

When Grindhouse was released in the theaters it was originally two full-length films combined to make sort of a double feature. For the DVD release, they've been split into two. Death Proof is the first to be released.

This movie can be separated into two simple parts, first half and second half. Each of those halves can be further subdivided into "Boring Character Development and Irritating Dialog" and "Wrecked Cars".

Let's tackle the first half. Seems logical to me to begin the review at the beginning of the movie. On second thought, lets start with the first half of the second half, the Boring Character Development and Irritating Dialog (BCDID) half. Of course, I am not an enemy of character development and dialog, but I think Quentin Tarantino is. Yes, the man who made dialog cool again in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and even Kill Bill, now hates dialog with a passion usually reserved by Hollywoodians for Republicans. How else can the utter ridiculousness that is the BCDID of the second half of Death Proof be explained? The conversation that the four girls who appear in this portion of film have is awful. Barely watchable. Probably the worst thing I have ever seen put to film. Worse than any Ben Affleck movie, although I've never seen Gigli so I can't say that for sure. Ohhh, I get it. I am missing the whole point of the film. It is supposeda be awful and barely watchable. That's the whole effect Mr. Tarantino was trying to create. His vision. Riiight. How silly of me.

I'm sorry but there is a difference between being cheesy on purpose and being cheesy because you are trying too hard to be cheesy. Frankly, in the BCDID half of the second half of Death Proof, I think the writer, director and actors are trying too hard to be cheesy.

The first half of the movie is cool (Although, I will say, the BCDID half of the first half, runs waaay too long). Its definitely got a 70s vibe to it with poor picture quality, bad sound, cheesy (but not too cheesy) acting and dialog which I truly believe is the reason this movie was made. Put all of that together without going overboard, for the entire movie, and it gets a grade A-, in my book.

Unfortunately, it does not have all that for the entire movie. Tarantino gets lazy. The second half of Death Proof begins in black and white stays that way for a few minutes and then switches over to a perfectly edited and crisply filmed movie with modern cameras. Throw in overreaching dialog and lots of poor acting and it makes for disappointing viewing. It lacks the "1970s bad movie" feel and just screams "straight to DVD bad movie".

Ok, I've ranted incoherently long enough about the BCDIDs, how about some wrecked cars?

The second half of the second half, the Wrecked Car (WC) half, saves the film from the $7.50 rack at Walmart, I think. It'll probably never sink lower than the $9.49 rack. It's long but not too long. Two souped up musclecars + car wreck + three chicks beat up a dude = dyn-o-mite.

The first WC sequence is very good, I particularly liked how the scene is replayed to see the effect of the accident on each character. Well done, albeit too short.

Gagknees Grade: C+ First Half, c- Second Half

Actually lets break it down further:

C ~ BCDID First Half
B ~ WC First Half
D- ~ BCDID Second Half
B+ ~ WC Second Half

As you can see, the mind-numbing atrocity that is the first half of the second half really drags this movie down.

Phone Interview Post-Op

Well, I'm glad it wasn't in person as I forgot to rinse the shampoo out of my hair this morning, reminding me of the Shower Head episode of Seinfeld.

In other news, I kinda blew the interview. Out of practice I guess.

Gotta Phone Interview

Man. Do I hate those.

Face to face. That's the way it should be.

Bullwinkle's Favorite

I was researching cheese for my next grilled cheese sandwich and stumbled upon this. I don't know why it repulses me. Cow is an animal too and I have no problem with that.

Fabulous Movie Review®

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Comic book movies. You either love'em or you hate'em. If you love this particular comic book movie, then you probably have mommy issues. Take down your Jessica Alba in Sin City posters, take a shower, comb your hair, brush your teeth, climb up the basement stairs and GET SOME FRESH AIR! Seriously, it will do you a lot of good.

The only worse adaptation to come out of Hollywood in my recent memory is Daredevil, starring my favorite whipping boy, Ben "Manny, you can have my wife anytime" Affleck. But now, on second thought, Elektra, ironically enough starring said wife, might actually be worse. I can't remember. I hit rock bottom during my first spiral into the twisted world of pork rind addiction around that time.

Rise of the Silver Surfer also featured the stupidest product placement I have ever seen in any film. The ugly scientist guy pulls up in their space rocket plane thing and the Human Torch asks if its got a Hemi. Camera points to the grill. Sure enough. It does. Imagine that.

And finally, let me pose a question for you. You know, Rogue, from X-Men? How she can't, ya know, do it with any guys because she might not be able to control her powers at critical mass? Couldn't the same thing happen to the Human Man-whore, err, Torch?

Gagknee's grade: D+

Coming soon...Grindhouse: Death Proof

Well, I did it

I applied for that job. Mostly out of curiosity. I want to see if it is a job in the sub department of IT that has been torturing me for the past year.

Leave Me Alone

I am working on my resume right now, and I am so sick of Word telling me I have fragments everytime I make a change. Cut it out. I know already!

Edit: I figured out how to turn it off. They don't pay me the small bucks for nothin'

Job

I'm thinking about applying for this job.

It's exactly what I am doing now (well, in a perfect world it would be), it's the same company that the new guy works for which also happens to be my company's "preferred provider", and it was posted just a few days after IT decided it was going to "help" us migrate our apps from and old sql server to a new one. See the connection?

Yeesh

92 degrees today. I had already put all my shorts and t-shirts away in the attic. That's what you do in the fall, right?

My Impressions So Far of Must See TV

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At Work

In my last post about work, I mentioned how IT was no longer adding users to a particular database on a particular server.

I had to relay my concerns to my supervisor*. Those concerns basically being if they remove that database entirely from that server without notifying us or giving us ample time to make the necessary adjustments, then we are hosed. Hosed being a technical term I use often.

She in turn forwarded my email asking the manager of that particular group in IT, if what I said could occur.

As a sidenote, the database that all of the department's applications use is also on this server.

I am getting tired of this post, so I will be brief. He said he wants everything off that server in a couple of weeks.

Riiight.

My supervisor* and now my manager called me into an office and grilled me about this because they really don't have much clue about the ramifications or what would be involved.

Basically, I told them it was impossible to do in a couple of weeks. Maybe in 6 months if I didn't have anything else to do.

Some of the highlights of my emphatic, but controlled, rant:

• Every application would have to be modified, because currently all connection strings are hard coded


• I don't have up to date source code for at least a couple of these applications, so if I recompile them, who knows what I'll get


• Testing? I can't test these programs. I don't even know how to use most of them or know precisely what they do. There will be four levels of testing too. Development, QA, Production, and Disaster Recovery. So, me and a bunch of overworked end users are going to have to test all of these apps at each of these levels all the while keeping the current applications running and happy.


• Responsiveness of the IT team. This is the same group of people who took 3 weeks getting the new guy access to our database. And I trust them with migrating data from 50 or 60 tables to each server? In a timely manner?


• Documentation. If the migration of our rogue web server to an IT controlled environment is any indication, the change management documentation and forms that are required will be a nightmare.


• The department might not even exist anymore before the project is completed, getting shipped off to St. Louis.

There were more but I am tired of typing, and it's hot in here.

*She isn't my supervisor, but just happens to be the one I deal with the most.

Fabulous Grilled Cheese Sandwiches®

My wife told me that her boss was going to make himself grilled cheese sandwiches using Gouda cheese. "What a fabulous idea," I thought to myself. So we stopped at Kroger for a loaf of freshly baked bread and a small block of Gouda.

The end result was fantastic, and once a week or every other week, I'll make grilled cheese sandwiches with a different kind of cheese. Next up, Jarlsberg.

Spooked

I was a little spooked about the idea of walking to the store after dark today. My wife offered to go with me, but what good would that do? I would have to defend her and not be able to run away.

Fabulous Movie Review®

Blades of Glory
What a wonderful film. Uplifting. Chicken soup for the soul. It took my breath away. The feel good movie of the year. I feel the need to apologize once again to Will Ferrell for saying he can't carry a movie, because I know that I hurt his feelings and he has yet to forgive me.

Gagknee's grade: A-




The Messengers
Something my wife added to the queue, and I had never heard of it. A PG-13 rated horror flick? Oh, lordy.

But wait! It was a really decent haunted house story. A nice scary ghost story. Very not bad. To say that I was pleasantly surprised would be not incorrect. The acting wasn't the best and Dylan McDermott's dreamy blue eyes make me want to punch myself repeatedly in the nads, but hey it made me jump a few times, something The Hills Have Eyes 2 didn't do. I don't base my ratings on IMDB ratings, but I am very disappointed in its 5.2 rating there.

Gagknee's grade: B-


Snakes on a Plane
I'll admit I was dying for the scene where Samuel L. Jackon says, "I have had it with these emeffing snakes on this emeffing plane!" Of course, they made me wait until three quarters of the movie had passed, just like the teasers on E! News.

The funny thing about this movie is that I can't really tell how good it was or if I liked it. I didn't not like it, but was I astounded and astonished and riveted to the screen? Nah, not really. Mindless entertainment in its purest form.

Gagknee's grade: C+

Arachnophobia

Another spider incident. I stepped into my bathroom and in my peripheral vision behind me I saw something zip past on the floor.

Turning around, an involuntary sissy shout left my lips, because there in the corner was an even bigger spider than the one who escaped through the underbrush. I would estimate its body size to be about the size of tootsie roll with inch long hairy legs.

What if one of those things crawled on my face whilst sleeping?

Jeez. I really really don't want to get under the house and insulate my crawlspace before winter.

Snakes are one thing, but I don't deal well with spiders. It's probably a good idea to invest in a Tyvek suit.

At Work

New guy didn't show up today. Man, those contractors. What a life!

Requested read-only access to two databases from IT today for a new user in the department. I was informed that they are no longer adding new users to those two databases on that server because they now have those two databases on a new better server.

I asked them if all of the users on the current server had been automagically moved to the new server. You bet, he said. Except me, apparently.

Fill out a form, send it to my boss for approval, she sends it the server owner for approval, who sends it to database access control who assigns it to a dba...Two weeks later, I will find out my request was rejected, but no one will have told me.

You laugh, but its true. This JUST happened last week with the new guy.

If I had to estimate I would say about a third of the applications in our department connect to the databases on the old server. Connection string hard coded of course. Given all of the missing source code I've come across and multiple copies of projects, percentage of converting all of those applications to use the new server without problems, 0.

I don't like those odds. Therefore, I will ignore the problem and I hope I find a new job. Soon.