Yes, this is yet another variant of what I consider to be the Aragorn meme, the one from I believe the third Lord of the Rings movie in which he says, "One does not simply walk into Mordor".
This past Monday, I was going to watch a movie on one of the PCs in the Secret Underground Lair (SUL). This particular Win XP PC did not have the necessary CODECs to view DVDs, so I downloaded the VLC player and inserted my movie Bolweiser (the English release was called "The Stationmaster's Wife). I think I was prompted to reboot after the VLC install, and when I did, the PC refused to restart. Whatever, I thought, and popped the DVD into a Win 7 PC which had no problem playing the movie. I watched a good part of the movie, and was moderately disappointed- I'm not a videot, but I like to be entertained when I watch a movie. This might have been a bit high-brow for me... dunno, but in any case it was a movie that had been on my "to watch" list which I could now safely scratch off!
In any event, the following morning I rebooted the PC. Nothing. I rebooted into the setup mode, and ran diagnostics on the HDD- I think it failed in ~5 seconds. Now, I'm not particularly cynical, but I was under the impression that modern HDDs had diagnostics built in which gave a user a warning when they were failing? Well, maybe some do, but not this one.
What could I do? In light of the impending end of Win XP support, and having already scheduled this PC for a Win 7 upgrade, not a single tear was shed. I reran the test in Mr. T's presence for his edification (as we share this PC), and then ordered a 1TB Western Digital drive from Amazon (*their #1 best seller in HDDs, apparently). Not long after doing this, I considered adding a RAID to this system, a Level 5 RAID. After doing some research, I was disappointed to discover that a software RAID 5 is not supported in Win 7. Four letter words! (*for non-native English speakers: most obscenities in English seem to be spelled with four letters, so if one sees a reference to a "four letter word", it generally refers to an obscenity).
Ack! Truth be told, my backup on this PC had been a bit sloppy... most of my "important" data was backed up or duplicated elsewhere. The only real data I lost was ~15 months of pedometer data. Not huge, but still a bummer.
The new drive arrived late Friday evening, just as I was getting ready for work. I unpacked it and took it to the Secret Underground Lair, giving it the opportunity to adjust to the ambient conditions. When I got off work on Saturday morning, I installed it in the drive cage, connected the power and data cables, and then buttoned up the PC. I then installed a fresh copy of Win 7.
So here I sit, approximately twelve hours later posting my first blog entry on a Win 7 box. All is good- Avast, Steam and Chrome are installed. The widely-reported non-availability of the software implementation RAID 5 on Win 7 is a bit of a blow, but since I don't want to spend another +100 USD on a decent quality RAID controller, I'm going to Plan B: permanently attached external backup, with optical backups as needed.
Alas and alack, as data and life intersect, I have no new juicy data news to report; then again, maybe my misadventure in BackupLand will be a warning and a lesson for someone... before you, too, lose fifteen months worth of pedometer data!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
STEM DIY?
Considering my less than stellar academic background, I'm probably close to the bottom of the list of folks whom one would envision to be an ardent STEM supporter. This is especially true considering my choice of academic pursuits. I don't think I regret the study of history and languages, as both are important in helping one understand the world and to interact with it, but quite honestly don't do much for one's career... or pocketbook! In fact, apart from a brief foray into pre-digital (silver-based) photographic technology, I had done everything in my power to avoid STEM-related education for myself.
Once again, its time for me to take a step back and talk briefly about STEM. STEM is an acronym which stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. It seems that here in the United States, we are sorely lacking in preparing college bound students for college-level math and science. According to the National Math + Science Initiative, 54% of high school graduates are not ready for college level mathematics, and 69% are not ready for college level science (for what its worth, I am also not a huge fan of the massive government-educational complex).
So, today's topic is addressing the person one sees in the mirror every morning- how to make the world a bit more educated in STEM by doing a bit to educate the person in the mirror. Where to start? Being very frugal, I'll start with the best place there is: free. I'm posting a couple of free educational resources right now that may help someone (or help someone to help someone else) to get some free skills training in Technology- specifically, computer programming. As time and space permit, I will add more in future blog entries.
One of my very favorite programming sites is W3 Schools. W3 Schools online tutorials are very web-centric, with coursework in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, PHP and JQuery. These are mostly webcentric languages, but the way W3 Schools is set up, the student starts writing code almost immediately, and can instantly see the results of their efforts. The site has a code window on the left (where code is entered) and a website preview window on the right (at least the HTML/HTML5 lessons are set up this way- I have not explored the others). And it couldn't be simpler: write the code, click the "Submit code" button, and the preview updates with the new code. Cool!
Interested in developing for Microsoft-based applications? Well, there's a website for you- check out Visual Studio Express! Here you can download the latest (lite) versions of some of Microsoft's most popular dev products, and then get up close and personal with them. While I'm on the topic of Microsoft, they offer very many free training opportunities... I suppose it behooves them to do so, because then they can sell more! Another Microsoft free site is the Microsoft Virtual Academy. I have not explored this site, but it looks promising.
That's all I've got for now. I'm still accumulating data, but not doing much with it (this week at work, I logged six days + overtime!)
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Once again, its time for me to take a step back and talk briefly about STEM. STEM is an acronym which stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. It seems that here in the United States, we are sorely lacking in preparing college bound students for college-level math and science. According to the National Math + Science Initiative, 54% of high school graduates are not ready for college level mathematics, and 69% are not ready for college level science (for what its worth, I am also not a huge fan of the massive government-educational complex).
So, today's topic is addressing the person one sees in the mirror every morning- how to make the world a bit more educated in STEM by doing a bit to educate the person in the mirror. Where to start? Being very frugal, I'll start with the best place there is: free. I'm posting a couple of free educational resources right now that may help someone (or help someone to help someone else) to get some free skills training in Technology- specifically, computer programming. As time and space permit, I will add more in future blog entries.
One of my very favorite programming sites is W3 Schools. W3 Schools online tutorials are very web-centric, with coursework in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, PHP and JQuery. These are mostly webcentric languages, but the way W3 Schools is set up, the student starts writing code almost immediately, and can instantly see the results of their efforts. The site has a code window on the left (where code is entered) and a website preview window on the right (at least the HTML/HTML5 lessons are set up this way- I have not explored the others). And it couldn't be simpler: write the code, click the "Submit code" button, and the preview updates with the new code. Cool!
Interested in developing for Microsoft-based applications? Well, there's a website for you- check out Visual Studio Express! Here you can download the latest (lite) versions of some of Microsoft's most popular dev products, and then get up close and personal with them. While I'm on the topic of Microsoft, they offer very many free training opportunities... I suppose it behooves them to do so, because then they can sell more! Another Microsoft free site is the Microsoft Virtual Academy. I have not explored this site, but it looks promising.
That's all I've got for now. I'm still accumulating data, but not doing much with it (this week at work, I logged six days + overtime!)
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Resolutions and other useless things
I've never been a fan of New Year's Resolutions. I grew up in the tradition of making these resolutions, and they were generally forgotten by the time the second week of January had rolled by. However, as I've grown, I've come to realize that resolutions are not necessarily bad things. Maybe we need to repurpose them as goals.
The preceding was written three days ago, and is a perfect illustration of why I still set goals, but am not horribly crushed when they are either not realized, or not realized within a stated timeframe. One of my 2014 blog goals is to write more than I did in 2013. If I publish this before the end of the month, I'll be tied with my 2013 January output. If I publish more more blog, I'll be ahead. There's just one little problem, and that is the intersection of blog and life.
I've had overtime on every weekly 2014 timesheet I've turned in so far. Now, don't get me wrong- overtime is quite the blessing to this salaryman, and Jennifer certainly appreciates it, but at a certain point one needs a bit of balance. After all, I've had my Raspberry Pi for ~a month, and because of both timing and equipment issues (and weather!), have barely had time to do much more than install Raspbian. This makes me moderately internet iSad (which means I'm not really losing any sleep over it). Today was a regular, eight hour shift, and it was nice.
The other challenges the Secret Underground Lair has experienced as an organization over the past month have been equipment related. I still need to acquire an inexpensive powered USB hub for my Pi. Daniel had a catastrophic video failure last week- fortunately for him, it was a cable that failed rather than the monitor or video card. Just our luck, I suppose, as cables don't generally just fail. Then, just a day ago, Mr. T's monitor failed. This scenario is actually more interesting- and frustrating. Mr. T has a Dell Win7 box with a 23" ASUS monitor. The monitor and video card are both less than two years old, so failure, while an option, is not highly probable. Jennifer and I had been out shopping when Mr. T texted Jennifer and informed her that the power at the house had gone out. Not soon after, Daniel texted a similar message. Not long after we got back, the power did a dipsy-doodle for a third time, and I called Commonwealth Edison (our electricity provider). I spent a couple of minutes doing the auto-attendant menu game, and finally got a work order to investigate the brownouts.
Mr. T's monitor eventually came back to life, but what I don't understand is why it failed in the first place? We have a whole house surge protector, and he has his system hooked up to an APC UPS. We talked about this issue for over an hour, and finally he mentioned that the monitor had an external power supply. We disconnected that, and then plugged it in to a different outlet. The power light came on (always a good sign)! I then showed him how to use a digital multimeter (DMM) to test the output of a power supply. Everything checked out fine, and he reconnected the power supply to the monitor. I don't think I was surprised at all when the monitor started up.
Once again, no real data news to report. I've made a very rough training template- its so rough its more suggestion than draft. This is more than a bit frustrating, as I have plenty of data, but no analysis or output.That's all for now. As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
The preceding was written three days ago, and is a perfect illustration of why I still set goals, but am not horribly crushed when they are either not realized, or not realized within a stated timeframe. One of my 2014 blog goals is to write more than I did in 2013. If I publish this before the end of the month, I'll be tied with my 2013 January output. If I publish more more blog, I'll be ahead. There's just one little problem, and that is the intersection of blog and life.
I've had overtime on every weekly 2014 timesheet I've turned in so far. Now, don't get me wrong- overtime is quite the blessing to this salaryman, and Jennifer certainly appreciates it, but at a certain point one needs a bit of balance. After all, I've had my Raspberry Pi for ~a month, and because of both timing and equipment issues (and weather!), have barely had time to do much more than install Raspbian. This makes me moderately internet iSad (which means I'm not really losing any sleep over it). Today was a regular, eight hour shift, and it was nice.
The other challenges the Secret Underground Lair has experienced as an organization over the past month have been equipment related. I still need to acquire an inexpensive powered USB hub for my Pi. Daniel had a catastrophic video failure last week- fortunately for him, it was a cable that failed rather than the monitor or video card. Just our luck, I suppose, as cables don't generally just fail. Then, just a day ago, Mr. T's monitor failed. This scenario is actually more interesting- and frustrating. Mr. T has a Dell Win7 box with a 23" ASUS monitor. The monitor and video card are both less than two years old, so failure, while an option, is not highly probable. Jennifer and I had been out shopping when Mr. T texted Jennifer and informed her that the power at the house had gone out. Not soon after, Daniel texted a similar message. Not long after we got back, the power did a dipsy-doodle for a third time, and I called Commonwealth Edison (our electricity provider). I spent a couple of minutes doing the auto-attendant menu game, and finally got a work order to investigate the brownouts.
Mr. T's monitor eventually came back to life, but what I don't understand is why it failed in the first place? We have a whole house surge protector, and he has his system hooked up to an APC UPS. We talked about this issue for over an hour, and finally he mentioned that the monitor had an external power supply. We disconnected that, and then plugged it in to a different outlet. The power light came on (always a good sign)! I then showed him how to use a digital multimeter (DMM) to test the output of a power supply. Everything checked out fine, and he reconnected the power supply to the monitor. I don't think I was surprised at all when the monitor started up.
Once again, no real data news to report. I've made a very rough training template- its so rough its more suggestion than draft. This is more than a bit frustrating, as I have plenty of data, but no analysis or output.That's all for now. As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Analog data is not entirely useless
To paraphrase The Boy Wonder of the classic 60's American TV series Batman, "Wholly I.T., Batman, data in the blog title!"
Yup, 'tis true, we're talking data today... and an epiphany about data, as well.
I was at the gym yesterday, pumping iron while the snow swirled outside (say that with your inner Arnold Schwarzenegger voice). I have a logbook which probably holds two or more years worth of lifting and cardio data. It's all very good, clean, raw data- ink on paper. I kinda feel Indiana Jones is ripping through my stream of consciousness, "It belongs in a database!"
Yes, it does. And therein lies a fundamental problem of data: no matter HOW good it is, it is no good if it is not accessible. And if it is accessible, it needs to be usable. The problem has an immediate partial solution: even though the data is analog, it is still searchable- it only requires a bit of patience on the part of the end user. And potentially a good amount of page turning, not to mention deciphering the gibberish written after a particularly intense training session.
As the person who is the owner of the data, the DBA and the end user, I should have a great deal of clarity here. After all, I recorded the data, and I have a rough idea of what I want the data to show me. Its just that... well, often in the data entry phase of my little databases, things change. Ad hoc queries lead to different ways of looking at the data, and so even though Jennifer would be the far better candidate for data entry, she will not do a better job because she cannot provide the feedback I need from perusing the raw data.
And so, this task falls upon my shoulders... more to follow.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Don't forget to check some golden oldies-
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/only-page-3-in-google-search.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/it-isnt-data-entry-exactly.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/midnight-at-noc.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/midnight-at-noc.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-panic.html
Yup, 'tis true, we're talking data today... and an epiphany about data, as well.
I was at the gym yesterday, pumping iron while the snow swirled outside (say that with your inner Arnold Schwarzenegger voice). I have a logbook which probably holds two or more years worth of lifting and cardio data. It's all very good, clean, raw data- ink on paper. I kinda feel Indiana Jones is ripping through my stream of consciousness, "It belongs in a database!"
Yes, it does. And therein lies a fundamental problem of data: no matter HOW good it is, it is no good if it is not accessible. And if it is accessible, it needs to be usable. The problem has an immediate partial solution: even though the data is analog, it is still searchable- it only requires a bit of patience on the part of the end user. And potentially a good amount of page turning, not to mention deciphering the gibberish written after a particularly intense training session.
As the person who is the owner of the data, the DBA and the end user, I should have a great deal of clarity here. After all, I recorded the data, and I have a rough idea of what I want the data to show me. Its just that... well, often in the data entry phase of my little databases, things change. Ad hoc queries lead to different ways of looking at the data, and so even though Jennifer would be the far better candidate for data entry, she will not do a better job because she cannot provide the feedback I need from perusing the raw data.
And so, this task falls upon my shoulders... more to follow.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Don't forget to check some golden oldies-
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/only-page-3-in-google-search.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/it-isnt-data-entry-exactly.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/midnight-at-noc.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/midnight-at-noc.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-panic.html
Monday, January 13, 2014
Migrating hoodies, or, This Pi has flown
I still need to write the Year in the Blog review in which I present some numbers about the blog and prognosticate, or something along those lines. No solid thoughts, as this will be the inaugural post of this sort. I have the numbers, I just haven't crunched them yet.... I've been working and shoveling snow. Someone has come up with the rather clever mashup of a name Chiberia (Chicago+Siberia) in honor of the extreme temperatures we've experienced in the area over the past few days. While not quite Siberia, it does make one wonder a bit about the concept of global warming: Chicago normally doesn't experience extreme lows like this because of the warming effect of Lake Michigan.
But the twin topics of weather and hoodies, I am brought back to the thought of migrating hoodies. As noted in my Darth Anna post, the HVAC in our office is challenged, so I normally wear a hoodie for around half of the time I'm working. The other half of my evening is spent with my sleeves rolled up desperately trying to cool off. During the cooler parts of the year (later autumn, winter and spring), I'll generally wear a hoodie as a layer of my outerwear, and during summer I'll carry it in my backpack (the backpack and my bag are another story altogether!).
This migration has given me a certain insight and possibly empathy with some concerns that modern nation states and I share vis-a-vis migrations. I think it is a given that most countries frown upon large incursions into their sovereign territory by itinerant groups. In a similar manner, I become increasingly distressed as time passes and the hoodie population at the foot of our bed increases. I don't think it has ever gotten past three garments, but the hoodies are seemingly relentless in their quest to squat on the bed. So, once every week or so, I am forced to grab some hangers and put the hoodies on the rack in the basement where they belong. They get there because our home office- the Secret Underground Lair- is always cool, and being something of a freezy-cat, I often don a hoodie whilst working and/or playing there. When I go back upstairs, the hoodie I'd been wearing generally accompanies me, and ends up on the bed. Worse, I work nights, so I often go to the office after "normal" work hours. Not wanting to disturb Jennifer, I grab a hoodie from the rack, and when it is bedtime, the hoodie catches a ride to the bedroom with me... and the following night, this behavior is sometimes repeated.
So, the end result is an aggregation of hoodies at the foot of our bed!
In data news.some got done, and much remains.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
But the twin topics of weather and hoodies, I am brought back to the thought of migrating hoodies. As noted in my Darth Anna post, the HVAC in our office is challenged, so I normally wear a hoodie for around half of the time I'm working. The other half of my evening is spent with my sleeves rolled up desperately trying to cool off. During the cooler parts of the year (later autumn, winter and spring), I'll generally wear a hoodie as a layer of my outerwear, and during summer I'll carry it in my backpack (the backpack and my bag are another story altogether!).
This migration has given me a certain insight and possibly empathy with some concerns that modern nation states and I share vis-a-vis migrations. I think it is a given that most countries frown upon large incursions into their sovereign territory by itinerant groups. In a similar manner, I become increasingly distressed as time passes and the hoodie population at the foot of our bed increases. I don't think it has ever gotten past three garments, but the hoodies are seemingly relentless in their quest to squat on the bed. So, once every week or so, I am forced to grab some hangers and put the hoodies on the rack in the basement where they belong. They get there because our home office- the Secret Underground Lair- is always cool, and being something of a freezy-cat, I often don a hoodie whilst working and/or playing there. When I go back upstairs, the hoodie I'd been wearing generally accompanies me, and ends up on the bed. Worse, I work nights, so I often go to the office after "normal" work hours. Not wanting to disturb Jennifer, I grab a hoodie from the rack, and when it is bedtime, the hoodie catches a ride to the bedroom with me... and the following night, this behavior is sometimes repeated.
So, the end result is an aggregation of hoodies at the foot of our bed!
In data news.some got done, and much remains.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Working out vs. Training
Technically speaking, the snow that fell in our area from December 31, 2013 to January 2, 2014 was a two year snowfall- after all, it took all of one year and part of another to fall. I'm glad it all fell when it did so I didn't have to drive in it. Well, it spanned two years, as Ryan astutely observed.
Yesterday, in the wee hours of January 3, the streets were pretty clean and the temperature was 3F (-16C). Jennifer and I had planned on going to the gym earlier, but the streets were still quite the mess, so we stayed home. On the 1st, we took a walk of ~2 miles (~4.4km), and after dinner I shoveled snow for about thirty minutes. I shoveled again on the 2nd, probably around an hour or so. I drove to work in not quite blizzard conditions, but by the time I got off at 0700, the wind was gone and the temps were in the low 20's (~-6C).
It is now technically the 5th of January- I say that because in my world its still Saturday (yesterday). The temperature is around 30F (-1C) and heavier than its been in some time. When I got home from work earlier, I made a path from the back door of the house to the garage- I'm interested to see what that looks like on Sunday.
That's all for now. No data. I'm just tired. :)
Addendum-
Sunday evening, and the all that is left of what turned out to be a pretty serious snow storm is a few flakes. It's tough to say how much the final total accumulation was due to drifts, but it was at least an additional 5" (~11cm). The path I had shoveled when I got home was gone- probably under a foot (over 26cm) of new snow in some spots. Jennifer got out the snow blower and I grabbed a shovel and we moved snow around for a few hours.
We had hoped to get to the gym today; we're uncertain if it was even open. Public works was out in full force plowing snow, and the streets were barely navigable. The high point of out day was when the snowblower ingested TWO plastic-wrapped newspapers that were buried in a snowbank. We had quite a laugh about that as we extracted the shredded, impacted remains of the Chicago Tribune from the impeller.
My final bit of weather news: the National Weather Service has issued a wind chill warning for the rest of tonight and going in to tomorrow. Wind chills could hit -40F to -50F; great weather factoid: the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales apparently only match up in one place- -41, so I won't bother with the metric equivalent here!
As always, I am hochspeyer, part-time amateur meterologist, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Yesterday, in the wee hours of January 3, the streets were pretty clean and the temperature was 3F (-16C). Jennifer and I had planned on going to the gym earlier, but the streets were still quite the mess, so we stayed home. On the 1st, we took a walk of ~2 miles (~4.4km), and after dinner I shoveled snow for about thirty minutes. I shoveled again on the 2nd, probably around an hour or so. I drove to work in not quite blizzard conditions, but by the time I got off at 0700, the wind was gone and the temps were in the low 20's (~-6C).
It is now technically the 5th of January- I say that because in my world its still Saturday (yesterday). The temperature is around 30F (-1C) and heavier than its been in some time. When I got home from work earlier, I made a path from the back door of the house to the garage- I'm interested to see what that looks like on Sunday.
That's all for now. No data. I'm just tired. :)
Addendum-
Sunday evening, and the all that is left of what turned out to be a pretty serious snow storm is a few flakes. It's tough to say how much the final total accumulation was due to drifts, but it was at least an additional 5" (~11cm). The path I had shoveled when I got home was gone- probably under a foot (over 26cm) of new snow in some spots. Jennifer got out the snow blower and I grabbed a shovel and we moved snow around for a few hours.
We had hoped to get to the gym today; we're uncertain if it was even open. Public works was out in full force plowing snow, and the streets were barely navigable. The high point of out day was when the snowblower ingested TWO plastic-wrapped newspapers that were buried in a snowbank. We had quite a laugh about that as we extracted the shredded, impacted remains of the Chicago Tribune from the impeller.
My final bit of weather news: the National Weather Service has issued a wind chill warning for the rest of tonight and going in to tomorrow. Wind chills could hit -40F to -50F; great weather factoid: the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales apparently only match up in one place- -41, so I won't bother with the metric equivalent here!
As always, I am hochspeyer, part-time amateur meterologist, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
New Year's Day- a relatively useless holiday
If one were to give honest consideration to the relative importance of holidays, I'm not certain New Year's Day would rate very highly. It's somewhat akin to being the Seinfeld of holidays- a holiday about nothing. I'll grant you that the date does have usefulness: it tells how old someone (or something is), and it tells accountants and other number crunchers that its time to reset their counters to zero. But its value as a holiday is pretty much a zero. Here's a brief rundown of some holidays celebrated in the United States; I'll let you be the judge of how New Year's Day stacks up.
1/19/2014- Martin Luther King Day**
2/14/2014- Valentine's Day
2/16/2014- President's Day**
3/4/2014- Mardi Gras
3/17/2014- St. Patrick's Day
4/20/2014- Easter Sunday
5/26/2014- Memorial Day**
6/14/2014- Flag Day
7/4/2014- Independence Day
*I think in August we just sweat
9/1/2014- Labor Day**
10/31/2014- Halloween
11/27/2014- Thanksgiving
12/25/2014- Christmas
**These are Federal holidays and are observed on a Monday, so the dates move.
Looking at this list, I say that New Year's Day is pale and insignificant. Of course, that's just my opinion. How am I celebrating it? Well, I get to go to work tonight. Although the presses are shutting down in the late afternoon, a few hardy coworkers and yours truly will keep the fluorescent lights burning in Data Services, staying ahead of the proverbial curve and some time around midnight we're calling it a day. I'll probably put the finishing touches on this blog (proofreading and rewriting), and then work on the database (or, maybe start work on the fitness workbook that I've been threatening myself with for months- Ryan and I have a plan which we roughed out last night), and maybe play a bit of Civilization V. As far as celebration goes, I'm going to whoop it up, taking down the 2013 Lego calendar, and unwrapping and hanging up the 2014 Lego calendar. Yes, we certainly know how to properly observe the flipping of a calendar page here in the Secret Underground Lair. I almost forgot- I've got some pickled herring in the fridge...in the immortal words of Abe Lincoln (as uttered in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)-
"Party on, Dudes!"
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
*The End-Of-Year-Addendum (not quite like The End Of Days or anything like That)
Okay, I admit to writing everything above this on the 31st of December. Its now officially January 1st, so its time for hoopla and stuff. First of all, Happy New Year. I think you got my ideas on New Year from what I wrote above, but if you're a big New Years fan, Happy Day! As some of you may be what are known as "resolutioners"- that would be those who want to get in shape in the New Year, might I suggest Iron Sanctuary. This is a weight lifting site dedicated to strength and overall wellness. If you like lifting, this is a great site.
Lastly, here (in no particular order) are the Top 5 blogs of 2013- I hope you enjoy and share them!
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-2k.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/normal-is-town-in-illinois.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/something-new.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/like-data-we-are-in-it-sense-fully.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/who-does-that-anyway.html
1/19/2014- Martin Luther King Day**
2/14/2014- Valentine's Day
2/16/2014- President's Day**
3/4/2014- Mardi Gras
3/17/2014- St. Patrick's Day
4/20/2014- Easter Sunday
5/26/2014- Memorial Day**
6/14/2014- Flag Day
7/4/2014- Independence Day
*I think in August we just sweat
9/1/2014- Labor Day**
10/31/2014- Halloween
11/27/2014- Thanksgiving
12/25/2014- Christmas
**These are Federal holidays and are observed on a Monday, so the dates move.
Looking at this list, I say that New Year's Day is pale and insignificant. Of course, that's just my opinion. How am I celebrating it? Well, I get to go to work tonight. Although the presses are shutting down in the late afternoon, a few hardy coworkers and yours truly will keep the fluorescent lights burning in Data Services, staying ahead of the proverbial curve and some time around midnight we're calling it a day. I'll probably put the finishing touches on this blog (proofreading and rewriting), and then work on the database (or, maybe start work on the fitness workbook that I've been threatening myself with for months- Ryan and I have a plan which we roughed out last night), and maybe play a bit of Civilization V. As far as celebration goes, I'm going to whoop it up, taking down the 2013 Lego calendar, and unwrapping and hanging up the 2014 Lego calendar. Yes, we certainly know how to properly observe the flipping of a calendar page here in the Secret Underground Lair. I almost forgot- I've got some pickled herring in the fridge...in the immortal words of Abe Lincoln (as uttered in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)-
"Party on, Dudes!"
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
*The End-Of-Year-Addendum (not quite like The End Of Days or anything like That)
Okay, I admit to writing everything above this on the 31st of December. Its now officially January 1st, so its time for hoopla and stuff. First of all, Happy New Year. I think you got my ideas on New Year from what I wrote above, but if you're a big New Years fan, Happy Day! As some of you may be what are known as "resolutioners"- that would be those who want to get in shape in the New Year, might I suggest Iron Sanctuary. This is a weight lifting site dedicated to strength and overall wellness. If you like lifting, this is a great site.
Lastly, here (in no particular order) are the Top 5 blogs of 2013- I hope you enjoy and share them!
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-2k.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/normal-is-town-in-illinois.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/something-new.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/like-data-we-are-in-it-sense-fully.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/who-does-that-anyway.html
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