Data, evolving

Quick- fill in the blank: I do some of my best work in ______________________.

If you filled that blank with "the bathroom" congratulations! You, Freddie Mercury and I think alike. I believe Freddie Mercury claimed to have come up with the idea and melody for "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in ten minutes while soaking in the bathtub in Műnchen (Munich), Germany, and the same thing happened to me Thursday evening!

Well, sort of... I didn't actually come up with a #1 U.S. Billboard chart single for a supergroup in a hotel in the Black Forest in Germany, but I think I've come up with the way I want to get my Lego data into Access.

A few years back, I had designed a flat database for my Lego collection in Microsoft Excel 2003. It was pretty nice and fit my needs at the time quite nicely. It was composed of several pages where the data was entered, and then a couple of pages which gave some bird's eye level analysis via links to the data pages. The project was scrapped mainly due to my impatience with data entry and my inability to actually get an accurate count of all of those elements- besides, they are much more fun to build with than count.

So, my plan is to go back to that format, but instead of merely having links within the workbook, have links from the Excel 2007 workbook to the Access 2007 database. And why 2007 rather than 2010 or 2013? Expediency: the Legos are close to a machine in the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) which runs 2007. The SUL redo is going very slowly, but if I am successful in liberating space for my laptop in my corner of the SUL, then it will be done on the 2013 versions of Excel and Access.

I'd like to get started on this first- creating the spreadsheet with the data, and then importing the data into an Access table and then (hopefully!) linking each data cell in Excel to its corresponding Access field so that the database can be updated via Excel. Its been some time since I did this, and it was on the "pre-ribbon" interface, so it looks like I'm going to be relearning some Excel tricks.

In other data news, Jennifer and I have been walking more as the weather has become a bit more pleasant. My replacement pedometer (identical to my expired Omron model) is chugging along, but its going to be at least another month before I have daily month-to-month data available.

As to my new glasses: the lady who fitted me for frames was slightly surprised as to how quickly I adjusted to my new spectacles, although I think I'm still breaking them in. She also said something that caught me off-guard: I wear my lenses lower than most folks.

 I've never worn gradient lenses before- I've worn reading glasses since the age of eighteen and I'm now 50+; my new specs have three prescriptions per lens: top for distance, middle for computer work and bottom for reading. Although the glasses really do a good job (especially while driving), they are singularly ineffective in the place where I need them the most: computer. Here's the deal: before I went in for the exam, I had made some careful observations and mental notes about my work environment and how I typically used glasses, as well as my concerns about night driving. The gradient lenses the optometrist came up with (pretty much six prescriptions- three per lens!) are fantastic for general purpose applications (life!). My hope in getting this type of lens would be avoiding a second pair of glasses. To quote "Mad Dog" Tannen, "You thought wrong, dude." (*BLAM*) I was very quickly able to pick up the reading area of the lenses, and the distance area (which I don't really need but seems to be beneficial in low light/nighttime conditions) also "snapped" into place pretty quickly.  I really need the computer part, though, and this is where I'm experiencing issues. Simply put: the lens cannot focus on the whole screen- even when I push the frame up tight to my face for the best focus. In the "good ole" 15" CRT days, these glasses would have been miraculous; with the 23" CRT's I have at work and at home, the lenses are just not up to it. And honestly, at home it really doesn't matter, because I'm generally not looking at the whole screen. At work, though- I do a lot of page layout and composition, and I generally NEED to take in the whole 23" diagonal screen at a glance- and more often than not, at a 90 degree offset. So, after only two days, I was back getting fitted for single vision computer glasses! (Just a hint here: when your livelihood depends upon a durable medical appliance- even if your employer or insurance doesn't pay for it: BUY IT!) The good news is that the second par of specs was massively discounted, and I should have them in time for my return from vacation.   

One final note before I call it a night: my twitter account @CjoelHarrison grew 10% in twenty-four hours!

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

No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy

Well, that's how I learned this particular truism. According to von Moltke the Elder, "No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength" (or "no plan survives contact with the enemy"). His idea of warfare seemed to be plan, plan and then make some more plans- maybe not too bad an idea for business? Such has been my experience with the first day of Mr. T's and my grandiose plan to bring Order and Balance to the Chaos which is currently the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) in only seven days. Monday is done, and quite honestly, our chances for success are looking rather bleak.

Still, I'm an optimist.

We've decided to tackle the project in fairly easily manageable stages. The first stage involved the relocating of a small bookcase and its base from the east wall (next to Mr. T) to the west wall. Not a big deal, but Jennifer is also moving things outside of the SUL. What she is doing is important in our little world and needs to be done, but our home is not large (by American standards) so my progress was greatly hindered, but in a good way. I ended up tackling another area in the SUL, which needs to be tackled and will help out with the upcoming work of the next few days. Still, at the end of the first day, I had hope for more progress. But, as Vivien Leigh (as Scarlett O'Hara) said in "Gone With the Wind", "After all, tomorrow is another day". And Tuesday is done.

It's Wednesday evening, and this is my last SUL update for this entry. Jennifer and I got up early today and took our trusty Subaru Outback, Meerkat, for a Springtime checkup. We drove down to Grand Subaru for an oil change, tire rotation and a surprise complimentary wash- which included our epically salt-encrusted floor mats. On the way home, Jennifer heard about a special sale a local bakery was having, and although we knew of them both by their reputation and having sampled their products, we had never been there before. We decided to check the sale out, as it was not too far out of our way home.

Chicago's National Hockey League (NHL) franchise, the Blackhawks, is in the playoffs for the Stanley Cup- the League championship. So, Central Continental Bakery is having a merchandise promotion: when the Hawks win, Continental Bakery will have a special discount on one of their items the following day. The Hawks won last night, so today's special was a 20% discount on eclairs. Let me state firmly and without reservation that I love eclairs. As a family, we seldom have desserts, and when we do they are generally something Jennifer has made.  So, to go out of the way to actually purchase a dessert is nearly unheard of.

The bakery is commonly known as Continental Bakery, and features a dizzying variety of what seems to be primarily pastries of central European origin (Danish, German, Polish, Austrian, Slovak, Moravian, Czech, Swiss). When we first walked in, our experience was this: we were smacked upside the head with EUROPE. It was like walking into Dr. Who's Tardis in Chicago and stepping out in Hochspeyer, Echternach or Tønder. The bakery's customer area is laid out in an L shape, and not a bit of space is wasted- even the decor drew us into a happier time across the Atlantic... had I looked out the window, I would not have been surprised to see a German vendor selling Itälienisch Eis from his little truck or a Citroën 2CV idling at the stoplight.

I said I had tried their wares before. Continental Bakery is famous throughout Chicagoland as THE baker and purveyor of pączki. The interesting thing about this pastry is that it is only available on one day each year at Continental Bakery: the day before the Catholic feast of Ash Wednesday, or "Fat Tuesday". On this day, the bakery is open and operating for twenty-four hours, cranking out pączki. This event is often featured on local television news.

So, we walked into the bakery with very high expectations and were not disappointed. The eclairs were beyond my words to describe, and we also picked up some soft cheesy garlic breadsticks, as well as sampling a few of their butter cookies. To quote Arnold; "I'll be back".

This is a bit lengthier than my usual posts, so I'm calling this a wrap- data next time! 

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

The SUL at the crossroads

Does anyone remember the 1986 movie Crossroads? It had some great big name talent in it, but I'll always remember it for Ralph Macchio (with his stupid big city hat), Steve Vai, and the really cool guitar battle at the end of the movie... sort of like the Charlie Daniels Band's song The Devil Went Down To Georgia, except for most of the details!

By this time, some of you gentle readers may have become accustomed to my segues, where I attempt to create a humorous, clever, or tenuous transition from the introduction to the main topic of the post. As "crossroads" is an apt description of where our beloved Secret Underground Lair is right now, I thought I'd start things out with the movie reference.

Everything started the Saturday before this last (April 11). I went down to the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) and logged in to a computer or two. After a bit of catching up on twitter, I started moving things around. At some point, Mr. T joined the party and ended up cleaning out the rolltop desk which is next to his computer desk. We would have done more, but it was way past my bedtime.

Sunday started out as a beautiful, sunny day which gradually clouded over and eventually saw some light rain. Meerkat, our trusty Subaru Outback, reminded me that I had not taken any pictures in quite some time, and there were a few subjects in the neighborhood that were under construction that were just BEGGING to be photographed. Who was I to argue with our car? I proceeded to charge camera batteries, and not long after that I was in search of photographic adventure!

I love construction- during the course of our church's renovation, I shot ~1500 frames on a compact digital point and shoot camera. These days, my "weapon of choice" for digital photography is the Nikon D3200. This camera is considered an entry level digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR), but I can't think of a way in which it doesn't completely blow away any of my old 35mm Minolta film cameras. When I went out this past Sunday, I shot ~170 frames of some building construction and of my main subject, the (literal) expansion of the tollway that runs through our city; they're adding a lane in each direction. The thing that is most interesting to me about the project is the fact that the roadway is elevated on a sort of berm rather than being at ground level, so there is a MASSIVE amount of construction going on.

When I got back to the house, Mr. T asked me if I was ready to move the desk. I said I was, and I think we spent close to four hours on that part of the project, cleaning, disassembling, moving and reassembling as necessary.

Before

After

The SUL is not currently pretty, but what would one expect from any location with "Lair" in its name? We successfully were able to move both pieces of furniture with a relative minimum of difficulty: at the end of the day, no furniture was broken, no humans were injured, and most importantly, no cats were stepped on. After catching our collective breath, Mr. T was quick to point out that current location of the entertainment center (the "After" picture) would not suit our purposes, because the television s really not viewable in its current location (we do not intend to watch broadcast programming on this TV; it will be used for videos and games). This (hopefully) final phase will start Monday, as I've taken some vacation time more or less for this task.

You may have read the rumor (started by me!) somewhere that the unifying theme of this blog is data... well, it really is! I am happy to report that my new pedometer is broken in and functional, and I have accumulated ten days worth of data. I have the older data on another computer, and intend to move these .csv files over and put everything together in a new .xlxs file at some point. I've done next to nothing with my main database project, so nothing new to report there. Data tracking for the blog is being continuously updated, and I'm hoping to hit the next "magic number" of viewers (10K) within the next few months- I'm currently averaging  ~320 viewers spread across forty-eight countries and six continents... shameless plug here: does anyone know anybody in Antarctica? It's the last frontier, and my only "untapped" continent!

My plans for the coming week include (of course) a complete makeover of the SUL- there should be at one new blog from this adventure, so stay tuned!

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

On new specs

I (finally) had/made the opportunity to get a long overdue eye exam this past Tuesday. For those who do not live in the United States of America, I'd like to offer a bit of a background on healthcare in the good old U.S. of A. before getting into my new spectacles.

For starters, you may be familiar with or at least have heard of the debate that has been going on for the past several years about the atrocious state of the "health care system" here. Well, in a rare occurrence for this blog, I'm dipping a toe into political waters and voicing my opinion on a political topic. There's an old saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." To which I would add, "You can't fix what doesn't exist."

So in short, there is NO such thing as "the U.S. Health Care System". Really? Yup. Truth is, excellent, best in class health care is available in the United States if one can afford it- I guess the Shah of Iran could.

In any event, medical care here in the USA can be both high tech AND high touch. Over the years I've had a number of good experiences with the medical community. Where we (patients in the USA) run into problems is when the medical community, the insurance industry and various levels of government bureaucracy intersect. All of these intersections add complexity and cost to one's healthcare bill. My recent eye exam and glasses purchase are a typical example of this.

For starters, unless your particular healthcare provider consults feathers twirling in a boiling pot of river water for your diagnosis, its likely that he or she has been vetted through some sort of residency program, accredited by a school of higher learning, and then licensed by some sort of governmental agency. I'm personally all for some sort of vetting or certification process.

Likewise, your insurer probably wants to keep costs down, and over time has developed a table of reasonable and customary charges and procedures for any given diagnosis or course of treatment. This is also reasonable- in theory, these cost savings should be passed along to the insured.

And, government entities, in their stated best interest of the people, have put reasonable restraints on the insurers so that the consumers' (patients') rights are protected.

Which brings me back to my particular situation with a relatively simple durable healthcare appliance, namely eyeglasses.

The last time I had a vision exam was approximately four years ago. For some, this may be unremarkable, and for others it may be shocking. There's one thing I can say about vision and the patient:  the patient pretty much has 24/7 feedback and is constantly observing (if not actively monitoring) key aspects of their eye health.

Four years ago, I knew I needed new glasses. I'd been wearing reading glasses since I was eighteen (I was my fifties then and now). We searched through our insurer's in-network list of providers and found one. We drove out and he was actually quite good. The lab that made our lenses, though, stank. As I understand it, reading glasses are a more simple prescription, but I had to have mine redone twice; Jennifer has a more complicated prescription and hers were redone three times. This is important. Why?

Mostly because the lab totally goofed up and really should be out of business because of their incompetence and shoddy manufacturing techniques.. The real complaint I have, though, is that there is an eye doctor within walking distance of our house. Four years ago, they were not in our insurance network. This year, they were. I'm not certain that four years ago we would have had any different results with the lenses, but we would have not have had to waste an hour driving to get the glasses. In the end, though, the glasses were fixed, and they lasted me for four years.

Fast forward to today.  My employer has changed vision insurance providers, and the folks that are within walking distance are now in our provider network. We visited them this past Tuesday for my exam. We actually stopped by and made the appointment on Monday, and I actually could have been seen that same day, but we had "stuff" to do, so the exam was scheduled for Tuesday.

I found the exam to be interesting. They did the routine "looking" tests with the letters on the wall, and then many of the standard optometry tests. There were one or two which I was not acquainted with- especially the one with the blue light that apparently touches the surface of your eye.... BLAARGH! Blech! Yuck!

In the end, though, my eye health was deemed pretty good.  We then got to the tough part: choosing frames and lenses.

I've been wearing specs for thirty + years, so this part of the process is familiar. However, in each of the past three exams, I had thought each time it might be the time to take the step from readers to "seeing" glasses. The first two times I was wrong. This time, my distance vision was still very much in the "doesn't need correction" range, but would benefit in certain circumstances- specifically in night driving and artificial lighting (pretty much night driving). So, as I work at night,  I opted for the new and improved gradient lenses, which are essentially trifocal lenses: the top half of the lens is for distance; there will be an area in the middle for "computer" vision", and and an area near the bottom for reading. I want to make a small side comment here, because we don't typically note our own eccentricities: the lady that fitted my frames seemed to be very good at her job, and noted that I typically wear my glasses a bit lower than most folks. I suppose I might, and it would certainly not surprise me if this was the case.

In any event, I selected a frame that had sunglasses included as a magnetically attached sunglasses element- they look pretty cool, and eliminate the need to purchase a separate pair of prescription sunglasses or clip on shades.

So that's my week in a nutshell. I should have my glasses in another week or so, and to be honest I'm kinda excited: these lenses should allow me to see everything in and around the car with equal clarity!

Data  news: I have to keep on reminding myself (and my readers) that the unifying theme of this blog is DATA! I finally configured my new pedometer last night. Its the same model Omron pedometer; the previous one died after ~ two years of use. I did a test of it, and it downloads data without a hitch.

Stay tuned for the SUL upgrade, which will be covered in painful detail in the next edition of this blog.

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

Childhood, reclaimed?

Growing up in Chicago in the 1960's, I never realized it but I was quite blessed to be exposed to an incredible variety of not-necessarily-traditional-mid-American foods. My family's heritage (on my Dad's side) is primarily Polish- and we're talking 2nd generation, so a fair amount of Polish was spoken in my home when I was growing up (my first "colorful" words and phrases were Polish, in fact!). My Mom's family was German and Swedish, but I did not have a great deal of exposure to that culture- probably owing to my Mom's passing at a very early age (she was in her early 30's- not long after my 5th birthday).

Anyway, fast forward a few years. My Dad and I are living with his parents in a typical Chicago bungalow on a 30' (~10M) lot on the Northwest side of Chicago- Cragin or Hanson Park..., depending on how you demarcate those those neighborhoods. There's a Kroger grocery store (later to be Dominick's) directly across Central Ave. from our house. The prices are good and it's the neighborhood grocery store, and it's across the street, so we shop there fairly often.  Sure, there was Pauli's just a block to the north, and an A & P near our church, and later on a Jewel in the Brickyard Shopping Center. But the Kroger/Dominick's was right across the street, so that's where we did most of our shopping back then.

Remember the T.V. series Quantum Leap? Well, in this post, I'm reprising Dr. Sam Beckett's character, time traveling within my own lifetime! Keep a mental bookmark on that bungalow in Chicago on Central Ave across the street from Kroger/Dominick's, and fast-forward to 2015. For the past few months, I've been looking around for a childhood sandwich staple that my Dad and I used to purchase there nearly every week: minced ham.

As far as I have been able to determine, minced ham was one of those "working class" foods- something that your Mom or Grandma would have made a samwich or two out of for your dad or granddad, which would have been taken to the factory or construction site or some other dirty, honest, blue collar locale. It was a pretty large, as sausages go- probably around six inches (a little over 15cm) in diameter with a medium mottled sausagy/meaty coloring and flavor. It was slightly softer in texture than bologna (where the bologna I'm accustomed to is a bit firmer than einfachwurst), and had a bit more complex and slightly darker flavor. We ate a lot of this in sandwiches for lunch, and it was a fishing trip staple in our family....

A couple of Fridays ago, Jennifer and I were at Shop and Save, and I was perusing their most excellent deli. I had previously established that they do not carry anything called minced ham, but have something which looked very similar called "beer sausage with garlic". I tried a sample, and it was very close to what I remembered minced ham tasting like. We bought some and I had a few sandwiches for lunch. In the "for what it's worth column", balogna has always been fairly inexpensive. Minced Ham, as I recall, was also inexpensive, but the beer sausage we purchased was close to $7 per pound, around three or more times the price of balogna!

Later on at work, I asked on of my coworkers if he had mined ham when he was a kid. Yes, he replied, but he had also not see it for some time. So, I decided to get to the bottom of my puzzle. I started searching online and came to the Crawford Sausage Company's homepage. They make their sausage under the "Daisy Brand". What's interesting is that they make both minced ham and beer sausage, so my next task is to find a local deli that sells the Daisy Brand of minced ham AND beer sausage, and do a taste comparison.

Back in the wonderful world of data...

I've been trying to get back to this blog for a bit, but have been stymied for a number of reasons. There are two main culprits, Twitter being the first and the Secret Underground Lair being the other one. I like to look at Twitter as much more than a way to "toot my own horn"; indeed, very little of what I tweet on @CjoelHarrison is original- my raison d'etre on that site is the exploration and promulgation of Big Data and the Internet of Things (by "promulgation", I mean "to make widespread").

Data work has been slow but has started to pick up lately. I have a project which involves the manual renaming of ~46GB of data (around 15K file names); this project also has some additional file organization involved. I'm also starting to do more programming at work, which is especially nice as my job title includes "Programmer"! I've also started more regular updates of my blog viewers spreadsheet: it's not Big Data by any stretch, but I'm enjoying watching the readership increase. Still no one in Antarctica- shameless plug for someone, ANYONE, in Antarctica to please read this blog!

Lastly, there's the SUL. I've finally reclaimed a corner of the Lair and have a small cluster (a group, not a "real" cluster) of three HP PC's and a workstation. The SUL is more of a no budget operation than a low budget operation- one of the monitors is an ancient 14" CRT! I've got a couple of Trendnet KVMs which enable all of the equipment to operate simultaneously. The two with the silver bezels are Win7 boxes, the next runs Ubuntu and the last one is an unnetworked WinXP box. The only work left in this corner is the spaghetti mess between the two monitors! Well, there's also a spaghetti mess of power cables on the workstation where I'm writing this as well, but that stuff can wait, as this is only the 1st phase of some very exciting stuff going on in the SUL.
(cue the John Wayne voice)-

"So buckle up tight, kiddos, it's gonna be a wild ride!"

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