The State of the Blog- December 31, 2014

I had to start this a few days early. A year in review always needs to be written/filmed/whatever before general release to the public.

Before I get any further into this, I'd like to thank all of you out there, somewhere in cyberspace and colocated somewhere in the real world, who have taken the time to read these blogs... maybe once, maybe as a regular. I hope you'll all come back in 2015, and hopefully share this blog with friends, family, colleagues or the person you don't even know who sits next to you in the library, internet cafe or your own version of the Secret Underground Lair.

Speaking of the SUL, the last of the shredding is done. Hurrah! As mentioned in my previous blog, this was a goal for today. The other two goals- the motherboard replacement and the monitor testing- remain unmet. However, I did get in a great walk today, almost hitting 10K steps, so I've got to consider it a very good day as far as tasks accomplished are concerned. I've since swept up the majority of the shredding- vacuuming can now be performed. 

I think I've just hit upon a goal- a resolution- for 2015: to get the SUL ship-shape once and for all. Earlier this week, Mr. T and I discussed relocating his desk, and I said that it was his desk and space and if he wanted to rearrange it, the relocation was fine with me. After I cleaned up most of the chaff mess shown in the photo above, I took some quick measurements with a tape measure and everything should fit the way he proposes it. We may even have room for the little cat tower that Jennifer has suggested relocating to the SUL. As I was sitting here writing this, I noticed an external HDD connected to this very PC is sitting on the desktop UPSIDEDOWN!  No worries, as it sits on the vertical plane rather than horizontal, but still... it's bloody UPSIDEDOWN! We also have other equipment we need to either rearrange, reconfigure or recycle. I also have an ethernet cabling reorganization that needs to happen. I've already done a preliminary design, but now need to modify it (hint: my cabling is currently hung from the rafters [with care] with paperclips). It is quite functional, but I'm looking for a bit more sturdy design with a bit of the Steampunk, industrial look. We'll see how that goes.

Finally, for the folks who come here for the data, I've got some speeds and feeds for you. I'd also like to give a quick shout out to Dr. Lee Baker of ChiSquared Innovations whose gentle blogging of stats has helped me to remember that the unifying theme of this blog is data. So here we go.

There's still a few days left in the year, but the writing is pretty much on the wall.

As far as fitness goes, I've blogged about the screw-up I had which resulted in the loss of a great deal of pedometer data. While the loss of this data is not huge in the overall scheme of things, it taught me to download data often and to back up whenever the opportunity presented itself. In these areas I have improved but am still far from perfect- the SUL remodel of 2015 will help with this, as one cable I'm missing (and am convinced is in the office) is the pedometer data cable. So how was walking in 2014? Well, I've got a pretty complete dataset for the second half of 2014. The pedometer records data in the following areas: steps, aerobic steps, calories (kcal), distance and fat burned. I'm going to extrapolate a bit, but here's how the year will end up:

Steps- 5800 (goal- 10K)

Aerobic steps-316 (goal- 1K)

Calories- 542 (no goal set)

Distance- 807km (no goal set)

Fat burned- 2125.5g (no goal set)

It should be noted that these numbers represent a six month period. They will be a little higher by the time the New Year rolls around, but I'm willing to say they are representative and call it a day.This is also the area where I'd normally report database stats but that project is currently in the air, so nothing to report.  I hope to be live with some data soonbut that all depends on life.... :)  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to. 

Another look at resolutions

I don't know how things are in your world, but in my world there seem to be a lot of "gotchas". A "gotcha!" is something like, "the other guy blinked" or, "I should've seen that coming". Today's gotcha was the latter. It happened at The Bridge this evening.

I had experienced a fairly fitful sleep Saturday, which was to be expected, I suppose, after being off for two days and then coming to work for one. This time of the year can be something of a sleep challenge for shift workers such as myself. I normally start work around 2000, and am generally done before 0500 the following morning. Our company gives us Dec 24th and 25th, as well as Dec 31st and Jan 1st as holidays. The problem is that this year the 24th fell on Wednesday, and the 25th on Thursday.

As best as I can figure, for the two day holiday, I actually net about a day and a half-after all, I've gotta sleep sometime!

So there I was, short of sleep on Saturday afternoon. I got up, bathed quickly and had a bit of tea. Then I poured a can of Monster into a plastic bottle, we piled into Meerkat, and were off. We arrived at the Bridge and sat down on one of the padded benches in the vestiblue where we usually wait for the doors to the auditorium to open. Tonight's wait was a bit longer than usual, and there were none of the customary sound checks. I overheard someone saying that some technical difficulties had been exerienced. Not long after, however, the doors opened and we funneled in. As we headed toward our seats, I noticed Karl Clauson with a microphone. It was going to be a great service.

I think I've mentioned Karl once or twice before in this blog. His life can only be described as "amazing".

Here's where everything sort of hits the proverbial fan, though. This blog is entitled, "Another look at resolutions".

I don't really recall if it was Friday or Saturday, but Jennifer and I had briefly discussed resolutions. I've never been a fan of resolutions (see Resolutions and other useless things), and Jennifer and I agreed on this point.

Karl spoke on resolutions. Gotcha!

I don't know what it is about our church, but the "gotchas" seem to happen all of the time! Karl's teaching should be up on The Bridge's website in a few days- click on the "Watch or listen to last week's sermon" link to see/hear it.

No data today. The floor of the Secret Underground Lair is covered in the confetti that is the byproduct of shredding old paperwork.  I took that picture about an hour ago- it looks worse now! I think that shredder manufacturers really need to come up with a more user friendly way of transferring shredded paper into one's recycle or trash. Each and every "consumer/SOHO" shredder I've ever used has had this challenge- and this is only a small part of the mess.

I stopped not long after bag #3 was almost full. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I tentatively have three things on my agenda: to finish the shredding and clean up the mess, to put the new motherboard in Jennifer's computer, and to test my new monitor. I guess that's actually four.

At some point in time, I need to get back to working on my database, and to resume my adventures in programming in Python. I suppose that those are worthy tekkie resolutions for 2015.


As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Christmas in the Boot

Happy/Merry Christmas to all.

In an historically unprecedented move, I'm writing a second Christmas blog. There's a few reasons for this. First, it's been a really busy month for me at work- this will be the first week out of three where I'll have less than eight hours of overtime. Mind you, I don't mind the overtime at all- it really helps with bills and such, but it does cut into time that could be used for other things- blogging, for example. Second, I've only penned (typed) a few blogs this month, so I figured I'd write one. Lastly, I had a thought that made me smile, something of a pun which would require a bit of explanation- a teaser title.

Stay with me now.

Every so often, I like to remind my kind readers that the unifying theme of this blog is data. Now, to be fair, I don't always get around to "real" data, and often the data is somewhat forced. The past few weeks, though, have seen an interesting trend: I've seen a very large rise in Chinese readers. So, before I forget, thanks to all of you Chinese folks who are visiting my blog!

So, what's with the boot? Intentional (international) confusion, punning I suppose.

We've had an extremely mild autumn and winter in the Chicago area so far this year. In fact, there was a blizzard warning for Hawai'i's big island, and the forecast high temperature for Chicago was 43F (5C). That's normally pretty good news (our high temperature, that is)-after all, we can get some pretty serious snowfalls. It had been much cooler a few weeks ago, but then suddenly the temperature rose. This is bad for me. I don't know for certain, but when there is a sudden rise in temperature in winter, I get this pain and inflammation in my foot which I attribute to arthritis.

I do have an interesting device, though, that helps me out with this. And here's the explanation of the pun and the additional Chinese connection.

In any version of the English language, a "boot" is a piece of footwear. Like many words, though, it has several other meanings. For example, in American English, a boot can be a person entering basic military training, also known as boot camp. One can also be given "the boot"; that is, thrown out of an establishment.  The meaning I was aiming to make a bit of a pun out of, though, is found in the Queen's (or British) English, which I believe is what is normally taught outside of the United States. In the Queen's English, "the boot" refers to the part of the car we Americans refer to as the "trunk". So, the joke ended up being this: I didn't really spend Christmas in the back of a car, but rather by wearing my orthopedic device- a boot made in China. See? Full circle!

The idea of the boot is to immobilize the wearer's foot. The entire top and front of the boot is open, as is the toe area. My boot is one of the short variety designed primarily for the foot- there are taller ones designed to support the entire lower leg. The boot has two major subassemblies- an inner soft "shoe" and an outer rigid frame. The shoe has two fabric flaps- one at the toe and one at the calf- which are secured by velcro after you place your foot in the boot. These primarily function to keep the boot in place as the three straps are secured. Two of the straps are visible in the photo- these go across the top of the foot and provide bit of compression- wearing an extra or thicker sock, or adding a bit of padding, can also augment compression. The strap at the top is probably the most important one: while the lower ones provide a bit of compression, the top one secures the boot to the wearer's leg. I always tuck my pant leg into the boot.

The outer rigid frame of the boot is simultaneously brilliant and simple. The sole has a rubberized, weather resistant finish, and and has a slight arc which promotes a natural gait whilst the wearer is walking. The sole is rigid, and has a metal riser which parallels the wearer's leg. The most important effects here are that the foot and ankle are totally immobilized: in fact, as I write this, my legs are crossed under my desk, and my ankle and heel don't really sense this position.

Lastly... Christmas!

We've simplified and downsized our Christmas celebration over the years. When the kids were little and there were no cats, we did lights and the tree and ornaments (we have some beautiful handmade ornaments we got in Germany). Lately, though... our youngest is legally an adult, and we have four cats. The high point of our Christmas celebration is dinner. This year we had a wonderful turkey accompanied by broccoli, potatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms and rolls.  As far as gifts go, we don't really exchange gifts like one might see in the movies. Generally, if someone needs something or really wants something, we'll get it. Christmas has become more of a time of gathering for us. This year was a lot of fun, as we swapped a good number of "was stories".

War stories are closely related to fairy tales. The main difference is how they are told. A fairy tale starts out with, "Once upon a time,..." while a war story starts out with, "There I was, ..."

After all of the stories that were passed around the table on Christmas, I've gotta wonder how the U.S. won the Cold War.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

12.24.14 or 24.12.14

Before I write anything else, I'd like to wish a Merry Christmas to all of my followers who celebrate either version (secular or religious) of Christmas.

I felt it was important to start out with this introduction for a couple of reasons. For starters, in the United States, Christmas seems to be a religious holiday that has taken a good deal of secular baggage. In some circles, the "secular baggage" has overshadowed what many to believe is the real "message" behind Christmas. For those who are not fans of Christmas, Halloween is also a holiday steeped in religious tradition, but which has also been usurped (or maybe just watered down).

In any event, I'm writing this primarily for my readers in Asia, who probably have NO understanding of what Christmas means. As you all should know by now, this blog's first mission is data and data analysis. Fully 10% of my readership is now in China, so I have to do a GREAT deal of thinking about this audience. I'm sorry to say that I don't have any Chinese friends; the closest I come to an Asian friend is an off-the-boat Japanese friend, and we rarely talk these days.

However, I know that the Christian Church is very strong in China, and I assume it is hard to share the Good News of Jesus Christ on a street corner in China. So, because I have a strong Chinese following (who may NOT know what Christmas is all about), I'm going to take a few paragraphs to try to communicate what "Christmas" means to a "Christian'; that is, a believer in Jesus Christ.

For starters, we don't believe in reincarnation. Some outside the faith have said that Christmas and Easter are examples of reincarnation.

Nope- do you celebrate your birthday or anniversary?  In the Christian faith, it's fairly similar. We celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Jesus.  Christmas- to a Christian- is nothing more than acknowledging (celebrating) the arrival of Jesus on Earth. To the rest of the world, there are all sorts of things which have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus- like Santa, Rudolph and shopping. If you have an understanding of a birthday celebration, then you should be able to see what Christmas is all about: it's merely our way of commemorating and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

Speaking of which, much has been made recently of the fact that Jesus' birth was not in December, but probably in a much warmer month. I think most Believers have little problem with this, as the Catholic Church is famous for doing all sorts of things to assimilate nonbelievers.

I guess that's all for now. Have a joy-joy Christmas!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Meerkat's Greatest Adventure (of 2014), Part 2

Y'all know that the unifying theme of this blog is data. It's my data primarily, with occasional nods to Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT). Meerkat, our Subaru Outback, and Ziggy, our Garmin GPS, are members of the Internet of Things. But don't say that near them... they're people, as M*A*S*H*'s Radar O'Reilly might say.

Since Merkat is bigger and older than Ziggy, I've decided to turn the keyboard over to him (I think Meerkat is a him...), and let him revisit our trip. Take it away, Meerkat....

*********************************************************************************

Okay... so there we were,

With 1.9 miles on the tripmeter, we departed the SUL. Ziggy immediately started chirping instructions. It was Monday morning- 0738 local, and we found ourselves enmeshed in rush hour traffic. If the pilot had any common sense, we would have been moving through traffic at least fifteen minutes earlier. As it was, we found ourselves ensconced in a "popular" intersection, with nothing to do but wait our turn at the left arrow.

We finally got our turn and proceeded south.

To make this story more interesting, we drove south and west for a long time and arrived in Texas. I sat in the driveway for a day, and the rest of the time I slept in the street, while Ziggy got to go inside.

Afterwards, things got interesting.

The humans did all of their "visiting" and had all of their meetings, and then it was time to go home. Because of all of the unrest in Ferguson, MO, we decided to spend our tourism dollars in safer areas and avoided the St.Louis area entirely.

As we approached Oklahoma City, I sensed a irregularity in one of the mechanical systems, and promptly alerted the pilot. Not long after that, help arrived. A squad of shock troops deployed, led by a dude that could only be described as a cowboy: while the rest of the unit was in full battle dress armor, there he was in cowboy boots and denims, 9mm strapped to his side as if he did this every day.

In any event, he got us to where we needed to be, barked some orders, and in a few hours we were back on the road.

********************************************************************************

I promise that's the last time I will EVER let Meerkat write a blog entry! Well, I'll never let ANY individual that can be classified as a member of the IoT guest write in my blog. I really thought Meerkat was going to make it really interesting... I was wrong- sorry.

In the wonderful world of data, I FINALLY backed up my Omron pedometer data. Some of you might recall that in February (One simply does not raid the SUL) I lamented the loss of fifteen months worth of pedometer data due to a HDD crash. Well, even some us "old hands" are a little slow at times, but tonight I FINALLY downloaded the data to the desktop. I'll back it up to the external HDD once I clean it up a bit.

Clean?

Yes, the data- specifically the dates- are improperly formatted for my use. When I downloaded the software from the Omron site, I got the European version rather than the American version of the software. It doesn't really matter too much as I'm okay with kilometers and the energy expenditure is shown in kcal's rather than joules, but even though I'm okay with European dating, my copy of Excel sorts American style (for the unaware, Euro=day/month/year, American=month/day/year) So, the dates need to be edited before being backed up. There's a funny story about those dates... well, it's funny now, anyway.

Back when I was in high school, I was introduced to Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame (see "Imagination"). The resources I used for this game were all published in England, so I became accustomed to the Euro dating system, so much so that when I got my driver's license, I entered my birthday Euro style without thinking, and when I received my license, my birthmonth was listed as May rather than September. I had to go back to the license facility, explain what had happened and get them to issue a new license.

There may be some "big" data news in the next blog... probably. There may be a Christmas blog as  well.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to

Meerkat's Greatest Adventure (of 2014), Part 1

Monday, November 24th- a day that will live in history.

Well, they all do, don't they, but for different reasons.

It's officially December which means its time to recount the adventure which was ... THANKSGIVING WEEK!

I've traditionally taken the week of Thanksgiving off from work. It comes late in the year, but as the company provides two paid days off, it's tough to resist as a holiday. Jennifer and I don't normally travel, but with a bit of careful planning, I can generally get three weeks of vacation out of my allotted two weeks with a bit of creative scheduling.

The problem with my plan is that vacations don't always go to plan. I'm not sure how things work in your part of the world, but the "expectation" in the United States for a "vacation" is that one will travel somewhere. For a myriad of reasons, this has not been possible for Jennifer and I for many, many years. This year, though, we had the opportunity to travel. And so we did... to visit the parents!

We had originally planned to leave on Saturday or Sunday, but I had been experiencing a bout of weather induced tendonitis starting around Friday evening. I popped a lot of little blue pills (naproxen), and by Sunday evening the symptoms were all but gone. As I've dealt with this over the past several years, I had a good idea that the worst of it was over and that I was good to travel. Jennifer and I talked this over quite a bit, and finally decided that the trip was on.

As we had a pretty good idea of how the trip was going to be, we were able to pack with even the short notice that we had. The only major change to our original travel plans was simple but significant: instead of swapping out drivers and driving for as long as possible, we reverted to our tried-and-true method of Chris driving and Jennifer navigating. Win-win!

We took off at 0738 local on Monday morning, and promptly lost precious time in rush hour traffic. Once clear of the greater Chicago area, we experienced a mix of snow and rain and as we approached Missouri, the weather cleared entirely except for gusting winds which stayed with us for all of Monday and part of Tuesday. In our vacation planning enthusiasm, we had thought that there was an outside chance of making the trip in one day, and avoiding a hotel stay. Between the traffic delay when we first set out and a GPS issue outside of St. Louis, we decided that a one night hotel stay would be the best course of action. At approximately 1800 local, we found ourselves in a sort line at the La Quinta hotel in Springfield, MO to get a room for the night. Once we got settled in, we drove over to the Bob Evans restaurant for a nice dinner. I don't recall what either of us had, but it was delicious!

That was the evening when the Ferguson grand jury results were announced. We had a really nice breakfast at La Quinta the following morning, and were bombarded with more Ferguson news. It was at that point that we decided to take an alternate route back home, avoiding the St. Louis area completely.

We drove on, out of Missouri and into Oklahoma, and finally into Texas. As you can see, the "grass" in Texas is more brown than green- Jennifer says they're in year seven of a drought. After driving through more construction than I've seen in quite some time, we arrived at Jennifer's folks home in the suburbs of Fort Worth, TX.

Unlike most traditional "go, Go, GO!" vacations, this one was all about family time, and we didn't do anything "touristy". One of Jennifer's sisters also came to visit, and on one day all three sisters were able to get together. A good time was had by one and all.

The Ferguson grand jury decision was announced when we were in Springfield. Upon seeing the reaction to the decision on the news, we decided to stay as far as possible away from St. Louis as possible- deciding to be flexible and drive north or east. The only major city we went through on the return trip was Oklahoma city, which turned out to be quite fortuitous. Around 800 miles (~1760km) from home, we found ourselves northbound on Interstate 35- right around Norman, OK-, and the oil light came on. Now, I've got to say that both Jennifer and I actually remained quite calm through this adventure. She pulled out the manual and began to familiarize herself with the yellow light. I pulled off the road and found a Firestone repair shop. I parked in their back lot and shut the engine off. I pulled the dipstick and it looked full (silly me- it was A dipstick, but we soon discovered it was not THE oil dipstick). So, we got back on the road and within a few miles the light came on again!

VARIOUS AND SUNDRY FOUR-LETTER WORDS!

Actually, no four-letter words were uttered. We pulled off of the interstate once again and called Subaru roadside assistance. One thing we learned from this trip was to keep one cell phone 100% charged or charging at all times- this was especially important as Jennifer's phone was dying. It was about noon when we called, and then a whole bunch of little miracles followed.

We had parked in front of a long-defunct honky tonk, and the tow truck operator ( a self-proclaimed "rhinestone cowboy") knew exactly where we were. It turned out that he was the owner of the towing company. On his left hip he had a pouch with a spare magazine for the nickel plated semi-automatic holstered on his right hip. His partner was a rugged looking fellow, about six feet tall (just under 2m), sporting cowboy boots, denim jeans and jacket, and a straw cowboy hat. We were in good company!

The local Subaru dealership, Hudiburg Subaru, was only about five minutes away. This is not amazing on the surface, but it turns out that we had broken down near to one of the only THREE Subaru dealerships in the entire state! We rode in the back seat of the truck, and were soon at the dealer. It was 12:50.

We met with Brian the service manager (I think... I should have grabbed his card!), and he immediately said he was not sure the tech was in, as service closed at 1300! He dashed off, and a few minutes later returned saying he had found the tech and Meerkat would be seen. A short while later, Brian came to the waiting room- the problem was merely low oil! Topped off, we thanked Brian profusely and were on the road again.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, apart from the one lane gravel roads in Oklahoma farmland and the crazy meth dealer.

The one lane roads were rather nice, except they seem to go on forever, and it seemed to take an hour to escape them. The crazy meth dealer, on the other hand, freaked me out. There we were, back in Clinton, MO after surviving the backroad that went through Truman Lake. We were in a strip mall parking lot behind a gas station, checking hotel prices on the internet when suddenly a car pulls up parallel to ours. I did not see the driver- all I knew was the vehicle was a beater. I put Meerkat into gear and we drove to the gas station and stopped. The psycho meth dealer followed us, and I think after she got a good look at our out of state license plates she sped out of the gas station. Jennifer said she was an older lady with at least half a dozen yappy lap dogs in the car. I could not WAIT to get away from that psycho lady!

No data tonight- sorry. The closest thing I have to data is miles per gallon: the best MPG I observed on the rolling MPG that the cabin instruments report was 31.5. And that's AWD traveling between 75-80 mph  (165-176 kph).

Finally, there may be a part 2 to this story, told from the SUL perspective. It'll be fun- I promise!