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!

Meerkat's first snow

As you may have surmised, it's been a slow news month here in the Secret Underground Lair. In the Chicago area, we had our first snowflakes on Halloween. For the record, there was no measurable accumulation. Tonight, however, I think we have a "real" snowfall".  Back up a few steps....

As I was crossing the street to go to church earlier Saturday evening, a thought came to me that "maybe a good idea for a blog might be a comparison and contrast piece between churchgoing now and when I was a kid". I'm not certain how this might be received in my little corner of the blogosphere though, as well over 25% of my readers are reading this somewhere outside of North America. However, I'll give you the short version.

I had parked Meerkat (our trusty Subaru Outback) across the street from The Bridge Community Church. I locked the doors and set the alarm, and Jennifer, Mr. T and I walked across the street. I was wearing a layered combo of a Scottevest hoodie and vest.  The Bible I currently use is the English Standard Version (ESV) and it was in the right pocket of my vest on my Amazon Kindle Fire. In my left hand I held a Monster in a nondescript Rubbermaid container.

Okay- the "commercial" is over. The point is this: none of this stuff even existed when I was a kid. In fact, none of it even existed when our kids were... kids.

But, I digress. Tonight was Meerkat's first official snow.  And for those out of the loop, there's a difference between "snow" and "official snow". I googled "recordable snow" and found a link from NOAA to Chicago snowfall statistics. Mmmmmm.... DATA! The problem is- it did not answer my question: what is an officially recordable snowfall (from the FWIW department, I think it is one inch [2.54 CM]). NOAA seems to categorize snowfall as being either "trace", "measureable" or "1 inch or more". This year's first snowfall occurred on October 31, and it was definitely a trace. Tonight's snowfall (November 15) has not ended as far as I know, but is definitely at least an inch... by any standard, this is a "recordable" snowfall!

While I'm on the topic of data, I'd like to share an epiphany (from my FWIW department, a few years back, IBM did a few television commercials with the theme "epiphany", and the whole concept of epiphany stuck from that point on). Several months ago, my cell phone died. However, in the nature of cell phones, it did not loose all of its functionality- it just could not make or receive telephone calls. So, being a modern day Renaissance Man, I repurposed it as an MP3 player. It seems to be happy in the role of an MP3 player, but its software needed a bit of figuring out.

When it comes to music, I'm all about the music, of course- but after that, there's the data. The music player software on the phone is pretty user-friendly (BASIC!), and it does what it should do- play music. A cool feature for me, though, is "playlists". Even though I have less than 400 songs in my library, there are some that I listen to more than others. I like the Top 50 played songs playlist more than all of the others, and I had been using it for a few weeks before I realized that no matter how much I played with it, the order of the songs on the list did not change. So, I had pretty much wasted those weeks, trying to influence something which turned out to be static. In order to change the order of the songs ( and eliminate some from that list), I had to go back to the library (library= all songs) to influence the Top 50.

That's all for now. As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Stream of consciousness

(cue the dream sequence music)

I was having this dream. In the dream, Thor was underwater. As is typical of my dreams, I can recall much of it in great detail- and in color. And for the record, no, it wasn't really that Thor: it wasn't the Norse demi-god or the Marvel© superhero of movies, comics, or larger format monochrome comics. No, it was a Norse dude, though, who possessed some sort of super powers, but here's the scene: his dad and family (along with his Dad's once-best-friend-who-is-now-his-worst-enemy) are all underwater, chained at the ankles with their hands bound behind them by an unknown super villain. My dream's hero, Thor, somehow is not chained or bound, apparently as he is estranged from his family but not allied with the other family. So, as the dream (sequence) opens, I see Thor regarding this scene. The other thing that makes me understand that this is not the "real" Thor is that there are two mighty hammers. For some strange reason (hey, this IS a dream, and I'm really not making up any of it), there are two mighty iron-headed hammers with oaken handles wrapped in strips of leather, and they are suspended underwater, floating heads-up and held by the base of the handle by the same iron chains that bind the other folks that Thor sees. He knows the only way to make things right with his father and to reclaim his "Thor-ness" is to grab one hammer in each hand, and get them spinning at a furious speed, and then bring the two spinning hammers into contact, which will free everyone. Of course, physics still apply underwater, so getting these two beast-like hammers to spin at all requires a Herculean Effort on Thor's part. But, he's whatever/whoever he is in my dream, and he rises to the task. He grasps the leather strap handles and begins to spin, and as the RPMs  increase, he starts to sweat (underwater!). "MUST... INCREASE... SPEED!," he says in superhero-speak.

(That was probably my longest blog paragraph ever!) I need to take a brief pause here to talk about superhero-speak. I googled the phrase, and I think I may have actually coined it, but the actual concept of superhero-speak is well-known among both comic book and screenplay writers. In English (at least- I'm sure many other languages rely on a similar formula), superhero-speak is evoked when the protagonist (and/or often the antagonist) of a story is faced with a scenario in which they can save their life, or do what is best (or most evil, in the case of the antagonist). In addition to the (usually quite easily resolved moral dilemma), there is the forementioned Herculean Effort required to complete the task which will save (doom) all of Mankind. Because of this effort, the hero can only gasp out the most important words, and generally only three words.

The first word is an auxiliary verb which is probably the first thing on the superhero's oxygen-deprived mind- generally, something along the lines of MUST or CAN'T. Capitalization is vital (it is in English- the entire three word sequence MUST be capitalized! and end with an exclamation!). The next word is a transitive (action) verb, and describes what the superhero needs to accomplish. The last word is a noun, which can be singular, plural or collective. So, true superhero-speak is something like, "MUST... INCREASE... ENERGY", and not, "MUST EAT DONUTS."

So, "Thor" finally got the hammers rotating at tremendous RPMs, and then brought them together; the shockwave shattered the chains and caused the bindings to wilt, and everyone floated to the surface and was safe....

And this is when I woke up. At 0300.

Sleeping arrangements for me are generally something of almost a compromise. Jennifer and I have been married for twenty-seven years, and we both snore. Not a big deal- after that many years, allowances are made. The previous weekend threw me for a loop, though.

One of my coworkers is off on a leave of absence which will last approximately through Christmas. In this time, everyone will need to pick up a bit of the "slack" caused by this absence.

... and this is where everything really started, as my "normal" sleep cycle was completely thrown off the past weekend... the end of Daylight Savings Time.

In the United States, clocks get pushed back an hour ("Spring Ahead, Fall Behind), except that thanks to the "well meaning" US Congress, there is no logic to base the resetting of clocks.

And so here I sit, penning a blog at stupid-thirty because I can't sleep, hoping someone will read it.

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

Tables and chairs

In my previous post, The Elusive Balance, I had mentioned that my goal was to enter twenty-three CDs into the Media_Title table. I am happy to report that this goal was reached, and the rack they were destined to fill is now completely occupied. After doing the updates to this table, however, I discovered some flaws in my "main" media table, which has caused me to reconsider the design of my database.

I wish I could remember where I had read this, but someone once wrote that the best way to start a database is to design it with pencil and paper. Although I've always agreed in principle that this was a great idea, in all of the databases which I've designed, I've rarely heeded this sage advice. This is partly because planning things often results in frustration and headaches for me, but also partly because I can "see" with my mind's eye what the database will look like and what it will do prior to a single keystroke being executed (note to the faint of heart and the true database newbs: semi-professional DBA on a closed course. Do not attempt at home or work. Especially at work).

One other caveat is necessary when discussing database design: don't be too afraid of change.

When the idea of Forty-Two first came into my mind is hard to say- it predates this blog by a few years at the very least. The concept was fairly modest, at first, and didn't even actually have music or media as its primary focus. It was actually my Lego collection. This was another project that grew by fits, false starts, and occasional bursts of inspiration and diligence. And it was done entirely in Excel. Over time, though, I saw the possibility of building something more powerful (and consequently more useful) in Access.

The earliest Access versions- starting in Access 2003, then moving to 2007 and finally 2010- were not grand by any stretch of the imagination, and were at first only intended to catalog music CDs. Eventually, movies seemed to be a natural addition and were incorporated, followed by books, software, console games and finally books in the latest iteration. And all of it goes back to Lego.

One of the problems I have with Lego elements is that although I do not have a large collection by many AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) collectors' standards, I have enough to necessitate them being stored in different containers and in different locations in our home. As I was working in Excel, I found that I didn't have a really good way of taking this into account. When I realized that Access could handle this particular problem, another thought occurred to me: I could do this with media as well, and eventually incorporate things that were totally unrelated, and this could be useful in insurance planning.

That's the short version of the history of Forty-Two. The immediate future, as alluded to in the first paragraph, will see the end of what I often refer to as the "primary" table. It will be replaced by several (relatively) smaller tables, each being tasked with holding a specific type of media: music, videos, books, etc. Other tables will host data on Legos and electronics, for starters. And lastly there will be the helper table which exist primarily to normalize the database.

Whew! A whole blog post devoted to data and nothing but data. At this point some may be wondering what is up with the chairs in the title? Well, "Tables" alone sounded boring; "chairs" is pretty much an attempt at a hook to draw a potential reader in.

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

The elusive balance

This is a little bit off of the beaten path for me, but something brought it to the fore last week. I was playing an online game when I got into a bit of a "contest" with a rival player. The rival wrote a very eloquently virulent multi-post letter about how evil my actions were and consequently this player needed to resort to extreme actions in the game. Neither of us was entirely right in our in-game stances and actions, and I did bristle on the first reading. After rereading it, though, I became convinced of something much more important than in-game behavior, and that is that I was spending too much time with this game. Make no mistake- this game is right up my e-alley and is well-designed. The problem is that it is a 24/7 RTS (real time strategy game), and therein lies the rub- it CAN be a major time suck. And I do have an offline life.

So, I made an announcement in-game that I had languishing projects, and have drastically cut back my involvement. I don't know how much time I've reclaimed, but I do know I've resumed work on my database.

The thing I find interesting about balance is that while it is ultimately a positive in one's life creating and maintaining it is certainly work- and not the fun sort of work. I'm certain most everyone experiences some sort of work which they really enjoy... for me, that might be blogging or photography. For Jennifer, it's creating delicious meals in the kitchen. For Mr. T., it's digital modelling... I could go on, but you could probably give an example or two from your own life.

Balance, I think, requires planning, steadfastness and a certain dash of practicality. As I was wrapping up my last job of the day, I had a few options for what to do when I got home. I don't usually go right to bed, but wind down a bit on a PC. I thought about a bit of weight training, which I desperately need to get back in to, but our training area outside of the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) is still not ready for prime time. So, Plan B was implemented: catch up on the aforementioned game, and get a blog entry at least started. I'm also trying to do a bit every day with my database in the SUL- this had been a goal when I first started working on it, but as many things go... well, the plan sounded good on paper!

Today, though, I have a very concrete data entry goal: enter or update twenty-three records in the Media_Title table. Twenty-three? Yes- it's a strange number, but it's the number of slots I have open in a small CD rack, so that is my goal for the day. They are stacked up behind me on a folding table, gently whispering just below the whizzing of three computer fans, calling out with their data entry siren song....

Right. Data entry was, is, and will always be... WORK!

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

Saturday Night Blogging- or, This Blog Won't Write Itself

I've got Saturday night off, which is a nice thing. Saturdays tend to be a bit odd for me, at least in comparison with most other folks I know. For starters, as I work nights, I spend most of my Saturday in bed. When I don't work on Saturday, Jennifer, Mr. T and I attend church at The Bridge, where we are members.

I was particularly excited about this evening's service, as Karl Clauson was scheduled to be speaking. Karl is a fascinating man and a wonderful speaker who never disappoints. As we approached the entrance, we saw a few folks wearing neon green Celebrate Recovery tee shirts.

Something was up.

Something indeed- CR was celebrating five years at The Bridge. The service started early, with lots more neon green tee shirts all around. And music. As AC/DC so eloquently phrased it, "the music was good and the music was loud". After the music, Heather spoke. I'm not going to spoil the surprise or muddy what she had to say by trying to summarize- I think her presentation will be available on The Bridge's website in a few days.

In the wonderful world of data, this past week has seen progress with both of the databases that I own. I had the opportunity to spend some time on Saturday morning with my work database- this will be a truly cool and useful tool once it is up and running. I did a few updates to a few tables, and solved a somewhat simple naming convention problem. All of our jobs are known by a numeral, but because some jobs have multiple versions (but are essentially the same job), I decided to add the alphanumeric designator which is normally associated with the job right after the job number for these jobs, thereby keeping each job number unique (sotto voce aside:yes, I am aware that I used "job" seven times in one sentence- eight if you count this one!). There are a few other types of jobs which further complicate things, in that they are under one job number but are really different jobs; for these, I've added a "Version" column to the table. So far- with just a little over a month's worth of data, the system is working.

Back in the Secret Underground Lair, data is also happening- and so is a new energy conservation initiative. Because of September's power outages- and in an attempt to conserve a bit of electricity- we've purchased a number of battery-powered motion sensing lights. In the short time we've had them, we've used them as emergency flashlights and area lighting in lieu of electrical lights. I've also taken to turning off a surge protector, which has a few "vampire" devices attached to it. I can't report with any certainty that we've lowered our electricity usage' but we do have fewer lights on.

My "big" database is coming along quite nicely. In spite of not being a huge data entry person, I had a surge of "git'r done" this past week and managed to update well over 200 entries this past week, mainly in the "Media_Title" table but also in the "Names" table.

That's all for now- I vacuumed and need to "freshen up" a bit before dinner.

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

Autumn, Mr. T and WTF?

It's my thinking that new blogs are often gestated in the final closing thoughts of a blog that is on the cusp of publication. Such is the case with this post.

I got off work fairly late this past Saturday morning, which was fine as we had a scheduled appointment with our HVAC guy to have our furnace checked out. As I pulled into our driveway, I decided that autumn had officially arrived, as there was a light coating of frost on the grass which was still in shadow. Once our furnace was given a clean bill of health, I finished editing my previous post, published it and went to bed.

The previous evening, Mr. T did something he had not done in some time- he got up on his soapbox and donned his virtual "little professor" white lab coat (I've been doing some cinema/television references of late- the "white lab coat" is an homage to The Angry Beavers "Stinky Toe" episode in which Norb acquires the dreaded "stinky toe", and Daggett vows to find a cure; Dagett finds and dons a white lab coat, and one of the scientists observes that Daggett MUST be a scientist because he's wearing a white lab coat). I  was pinned to my chair in the Secret Underground Lair for fifteen minutes while Mr. T waxed eloquently about video games and video game characters, specifically comparing and contrasting Deadpool and Duke Nukem. To be honest, I have scant familiarity with either, but Deadpool has been in the news of late, as there is a Deadpool movie coming out sometime next year. This is particularly interesting to me, as actor Ryan Reynolds will play the Deadpool character, and my good IRL buddy comedian Ryan D. Reynolds is a huge Deadpool fan.

In actuality, Deadpool has been a fairly hot topic for over a week. When Ryan's not doing stand-up comedy, he supports himself by being a custodian. As his job is not particularly fast-paced, we sometimes have time to discuss things like Deadpool. Ryan's been on a quest to lose weight, and to date has dropped a significant number of pounds- I don't have exact numbers handy, but I believe he's dropped ~10% of his mass YTD (and he's NOT a small fellow). In any event, the casual reader is by now thinking, "WTF does this have to do with Deadpool?"

For starters, I love the concept of "the aside", even though I don't always return to the topic at hand. As Ryan has lost weight, his clothes have started fitting differently. He's been cinching up his belt so much that his beloved Punisher buckle broke and so he was forced to purchase a new buckle... you guessed it: Deadpool.

He and I had been discussing all of this when the topic of the Deadpool movie came up. Now, frequent readers of this blog have probably grown to be accustomed to my writing style and the fact that I keep it pretty clean. I've addressed this at least once before- its not because I'm a prude, but because I want as many folks of all ages and backgrounds to be entertained and informed by my blog. However, "WTF" came up in the discussion Ryan and I were having about Deadpool, so it is worth at least a quick recap here....

Here's the rub: the proposed rating for the upcoming Deadpool movie in the United States is PG-13. As I've said, I know little about Deadpool, but apparently he's quite the snarky, womanizing, violent one-liner wielding human weapon of mass destruction, and many an interwebz commentator has been so dumbstruck at the PG-13 rating as to respond in the only way possible: WTF?

I, however, do my best to keep my online persona pretty clean. Even though I might be thinking "WTF?", I generally make every attempt to be polite. In light of the fact that there are so many three-latter organizations out in the world- many of which few have heard of- I came up with my own: the World Trade Federation. Ryan said he would use Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot to get around the autosensors, but when he heard my solution, he had to laugh and said it was brilliant.

That's it for today. No data to report; I did spend some quality time in our IRL archives and culled out quite a bit of old billing statements, so I give myself a pass.

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

The October Sexperiment and Blogger's Rules, Part Deux

I should warn you- it's been my experience that sequels are generally not as good as the originals. I share a home with at least 3.0 videots... um, the math and logic get really fuzzy here, as I am video-challenged in comparison to the others in our home. Our oldest son is truly "the little professor" when it comes to all things video; his areas of expertise include anime, action films and the weapons in these movies,  as well as soundtracks and is an almost on a par with The Oracle of Bacon when it comes to connecting actors, actresses, producers and directors. Jennifer's film knowledge is more mainstream, and includes a lot of small-screen (television) knowledge as well. Mr.T reserves his Sunday nights for video entertainment. In selecting his video entertainment, he will consider suggestions from his interwebz posse as well as the three of us. He has one overriding rule: if it's a series- movie or television-  he will not watch it out of order.

Me? I want to enjoy a movie- I like explosions, gunplay and special effects, as well as clever dialogue. I love parodies, and every time I say "Part Deux", its my homage to Hot Shots! Part Deux, which was probably the finest sequel ever produced. Period. Hot Shots! was an excellent example of a parody, but somehow Part Deux eclipsed it. In the realm of movies that had only one sequel (that is, not being a trilogy or a "franchise"), Part Deux stands head and tail feathers above the rest (*movie reference). Of  movies which were trilogies, Part Deux  blows away The Empire Strikes Back, steals the thunder from Back to the Future Pt 2, and ... The Two Towers? Really! I'm a Tolkien fan, and while the movie is beautifully done, it is STILL a second. Our daughter was reading the trilogy, and I asked her what book she was reading.  "The Two Towers," she innocently replied. Nonchalantly, I swooped in for the kill and asked, "Are you at the part where they're walking through forest*?" "YES!," she replied, "how'd you know?"

(*For those who have never read it, it seems that approximately 50% of this book is spent walking through the forest).

So here I sit, writing a Part Deux to a blog.

The original blog did quite well, but it strangely enough was actually a commentary on an earlier blog. I just took a look at the numbers, and the last two blogs are getting slightly better numbers than previous blogs, and I've received a relatively disproportionate number of hits from China and France, but to be painfully honest, I've never written a blog before about implied sexual escapades, and I'm not sure I could even do a reasonably entertaining sex blog. The only stab in the dark I can make about the increased views from China and France is that sex sells bigger there, Or not... after all, this IS the interwebz,

It's a good thing for me that this blog's unifying theme is data.

On the blog side of data, I just wanted to reiterate that sex does seem to work. In all honesty, I did enjoy the wordplay, but I don't see  myself writing another piece like that anytime soon.

Getting back to data, it's autumn here in North America, and Jennifer and I separately came to the conclusion that some cleaning and organization were long overdue. A couple weeks ago, I moved some file cabinets from the basement to a more strategic location, and yesterday we discussed updating our filing in earnest. We picked up some additional supplies at Sam's, and are now officially loaded for (filing) bear.

In the database part of data,I just finished updating the Media_Title table with a couple shelves' worth of data, bring the Media_Title count to nearly 1K. That's not hugely impressive by most standards, but I'm pleased for a couple of reasons. First, I'm getting back to putting time into the care and feeding of the database, and second- the database is helping me to better organize the physical media that I'm cataloging. I've cataloged approximately 40% of our known digital video titles; once these are done, I'll tackle the VHS, and then its time for music, and then Daniel's anime.

And then games. Ugh. To paraphrase Kurtz' most excellent soliloquy in Apocalypse Now, "I've played games, games that you've played. But you kave no right to call me a gamer." 

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

The October Sexperiment and Blogger's Rules

It's high time I coined a word, and "sexperiment" seemed like a good one... except it turns out I didn't coin it. There's a book that was written a few years ago by Ed and Lisa Young with "Sexperiment" being the main word in the title. I've obviously not read the book, so I am not equipped to comment on it. My sexperiment is my previous blog, "My Night In a Cage with a Hot Woman", in which I sought to see if a suggestive title and a bit of teasing, along with accompanying keywords, would boost readership by a significant amount. As of right now- a little more than a day after publishing it, the answer is a guarded "maybe".

The numbers have not been huge, but there's been a bit more geographic diversity than I've seen of late- France, Poland, Canada and a country in Africa (the country in Africa has experienced some unrest over the past few years, so I won't be giving it a shout out). Before I forget Jennifer corrected me on a particular datum from that post- our anniversary is in a few days, not a few weeks. It's not that I don't know the date; I'm not the stereotypical husband when it come to that, at least. Then again, in the U.S. date convention, October 10, 1987, is rendered 10/9/87, so there is absolutely NO reason for me to forget it. Of course 10/9/14 falls on a Thursday this year (it was a Friday when were wed), so chances are good we won't be doing anything special on our "special" date, as Thursday night is our busiest night of the week, and I work nights, so we'll try to do something special on Saturday or, more likely Sunday.

I should also mention a couple of rules I try to follow in blogging. I try to avoid writing anything that may be morally questionable. This is generally not difficult to do, as  I generally filter my writing and have no natural inclination to expound on salacious themes. Whenever I write on a topic that causes the hair on my neck to rise, I ask Jennifer to proof it before publishing. I'm certainly not a prude, but I write under the understanding that- I.R.S. assertions about emails aside- nearly everything that happens on the interwebz is stored somewhere. And I do not want my writing to come back and bite me. I also do not want to embarrass her. I'm also fairly certain that I've never used anyone's name without their permission. Jennifer, Anna and Ryan, for example, have all given me verbal permission to use their names. And apart from Ryan, I never use last names. Ryan D. Reynolds is a special case- he's an aspiring comedian, so this is publicity for him. Mr. T is also an exception of sorts: he's our youngest son. When he was first mentioned in a blog, he was under eighteen (the age of majority in the U.S., a.k.a. "adulthood"), so I felt a certain amount of anonymity was required. He is now eighteen, but his persona of "Mr. T" has been established in this blog, so he remains to be known as Mr. T.  

I've also always had a very compact, terse writing style, so I try to keep my blogs relatively short and readable, although as I look at this particular blog, there are atypically large chunks of words. My writing style has pushed me to the brink in the past.

I've never been a model student, but have always had an interest in history. In high school, even though I was in the top third of my class, I had to beg, plead and petition to get into the senior Advanced Placement European History class (and for the record, I also applied for the A.P. English class, but my high school cancelled the class because they had decided that the incoming seniors' writing skills were deficient). Near the end of the school year, I took the AP History test, and decided to take the English test- even though I had absolutely no idea of what to expect. The AP classes not only taught the subject, but prepared the students for the test. At the time, the tests were graded on a scale of one through five, with a three generally guaranteeing college credit. I scored a four on the history test. On the other hand, I "only" scored a two on the English test. I should mention that I got this score with zero prep or mentoring, and I was the ONLY senior in a class of approximately 330 that even took the test.

Flash forward to freshman year of college.  My then-girlfriend Dolores (sorry, Dolores, I couldn't find you on Facebook) and I were sitting in the Student Government office one day, and she casually asked if I had a term paper that was due soon. I looked at my planner- she was correct.

I had a paper due the next day.

The thing that I often forget to mention in this story (which has been told a number of times) is that the instructor was quite the feminist, so much so that she was know to grade males harsher than females, The college had been, until quite recently, an all-women's institution.

When the assignment was first given, I immediately had an idea for the topic. Each member of the class was  to pick a Renaissance leader and show or prove how they fit the criteria as defined in class. The problem was this: the leader I had picked was Napoleon Buonaparte (as I write this, I have a red squiggly line under the word Buonaparte; however, this is not a misspelling- when he first joined the French army he was a Corsican and only in his mid-twenties changed his name to the more French-sounding Bonaparte). Discounting the popular feeling that he was not particularly "enlightened" and that he came to power at the dawn of Romanticism I felt I could successfully argue my case.

I had my work cut out for me. And the paper was due tomorrow.

Now, in my defense, when the paper was first announced,  I hauled myself over to Rebecca Crown Library, and as was (and still is) my standard practice for doing research, I pillaged the shelves for anything related to the subject. Because of my daily ritual of visiting The Sutlers' Wagon, I had a good background in the Napoleonic period. However, because of my as yet undiagnosed ADHD, those books ended up sitting in a rather tall stack in the Student Government office. What happened next was the stuff  of which legends and epic songs would be written.

As this was in the days of prehistory (that is, before computers), my paper needed to be typed out. I had an outline in my mind, and wrote as I found information to support my ideas. When I finished a page of handwriting on a looseleaf  page, Dolores would type it. We labored for several hours, and in the end I had eight and a half pages of double-spaced text- Sister Kaye Ashe's minimum was ten pages.

To summarize: I wrote a paper the day before it was due, a page and a half short of the minimum, well outside the specified period, and handed in a rough draft which was submitted to an instructor who was known to be a rough grader.

The paper got an "A". Like I said, I'm a terse writer.

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

My night in a cage with a hot woman

My life is pretty conventional- boring by some standards, I suppose. In a few weeks, Jennifer and I will celebrate our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary (yay, us!). Well, all things considered, maybe we're not conventional in that sense. Conventional more in the manner of Bilbo Baggins: no drama, no adventures. We mean what we say and we say what we mean.

This past Wednesday night was different, though- at least for me.

I work nights, of course. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but the "double-wide in the sky" is a secured office. Our entire facility is secured, of course, requiring credentials just to enter the building, but because of the nature of the work and the data that is handled in my department, there is additional security. I naturally can't go into the specifics, but only a small percentage of employees in the plant can simply walk in.

Chloe (not her real name, but in certain circles it might be thought of as exotic and sexy) came up to the office Wednesday night and knocked on the door. As she is well-known in the plant, she was admitted.

I should also mention that our plant is quite noisy, and I have a rather large fan on my desk because the HVAC in our office is challenged, to be polite. I was engaged in a project, and between the noise of the factory and my fan, I didn't hear the short conversation that took place between Chloe and Hagar (also not a real name- he asked to remain anonymous!), even though his desk is barely 15' (~5M) away  from mine. Out of the corner of my left eye I thought I saw something apprehensive in his face, and then he gestured toward me. She seemed to sashay  over from Hagar's desk to mine. She was casual but comfortable in her walk. The clap of her dust spotted, stained, steel-toed black boots seemed to accent her faded, form-fitting blue jeans and ink-stained t-shirt. I looked up, and she explained what she needed in her been-around-the-world alto voice. I looked up at Hagar, and he gave me that all-knowing "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" look. I said to her, "Sure."

I pushed my work aside, and we went off to the cage. This was the first time in my life that I'd ever been alone with someone of the opposite sex in any cage, and this one was watched 24/7 by cameras. In the harsh fluorescent  lighting, I could see the glitter of the gold pixie dust on her face mixed with sweat which accented her plaintive eyes.  When we arrived, she showed me her problem: her box. I hoped no one was watching (remember, there are cameras everywhere). I grabbed the box, and gently blew on it. Some- okay, a lot of dust came off, but the LED on the front panel continued to flash yellow. Paraphrasing the spokesperson from a popular Dell commercial from several years back, I said, "Dude! You got a Dell!" Even though her problem was not fixed, she laughed at this.

I'm not an A+ technician... in the real world where I work, HR doesn't even know what to do with me and my coworkers, so I like to think of myself as semi-I.T. On a good day I'm not too bad at problem-solving, so I thought this through: if I had a PC with a flashing yellow light under the power button that wouldn't boot- what would I do? The best answer that came to mind was this: untangle the spaghetti mess in the back of the PC: USB, power, Ethernet, and monitor cables all snaking around each other like in an Indiana Jones movie.

However, in the real world of home and church, I do provide technical support, so I did what anyone would have done: I got rid of the spaghetti mess. I unplugged EVERYTHING from the back of the PC, and then, after untangling the cable mess under the table, I blew on the all of the I/O ports and reinserted each cable.

I was not surprised when the PC booted normally.

She thanked me, and I returned to Data Services and my waiting project.

It is said that "sex sells". Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't really know how to write about sex- this little true story was my first foray into "off-color" writing- I hope a few laughs came out of it.

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

A cautionary tale of fixed values used in calculating extrapolated fields

Since writing A Tale of Two Databases, I've dusted off my Excel worksheet that I use to keep tabs on blog readership. Yes, deep, deep, way deep down inside of me- somewhere- there's a tiny bit of statistician. And this statistician, who lives somewhere on the Continuum-, er, that is, the Spectrum- likes to keep track of statistics about the blog.

A bit of background is in order at this juncture. I've long been a fan of collecting facts and figures- at least since high school. The year I was a freshman in high school, a new store opened that was on my way to school. The shop was named "The Sutler's Wagon", and Jeff Urquhart (the store has long since closed) was the proprietor. It was a hobby shop. Even back then, I LOVED hobby shops.

Prior to The Sutler's wagon opening, there were three shops I frequented whenever I could get my Dad to take me to them. One was Pilot. I don't remember the whole name of the business, but Pilot was more of a hardware store with a pretty bustling O scale and S scale tinplate selection and HO scale model railroading. Pilot was actually pretty close to Jeff's shop, and was derisively referred to as "the Pirate". Stanton in Chicago was a fairly large store, stocking everything from N to G scale railroading, as well as rockets, RC, plastic models, flying balsa planes... pretty much anything one could ask for in hobbies. The last store was Hill's in Park Ridge, which seemed to have a product range similar to Stanton but smaller selection.

The Sutler's Wagon was different. No trains. A couple of rockets. Some model cars. Everything else was military. Books. Models. Boardgames. Paint. Brushes. Miniatures. Miniatures in 15mm, 25mm, 54mm, 1/35th, 1/72nd, 1/144th, 1/700th, 1/1200th  and 1/2400th scale. The 15's, 25's, 1/144th, and 1/2400th were generally diecast metal; the others were generally plastic. He had rules for the games- these miniatures were not just for looking pretty- they were meant for action!

And this has what to do with anything?

I've mentioned this game before. In a very real way, Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame taught me long division. While playing the game is fun. I think I had almost as much fun making the ship (data) cards. In the game, each ship has a point value. The point value is based on a number of data which need to be factored into an equation. That's the easy part. From the total point value, one must then create a damage table which shows how a ship's performance is degraded as she takes damage. So, say a ship has a point value of 10,000  and a max speed of 20 knots. The ship takes 1000 points of damage. 10,000/20= 500, so for every 500 points of damage, the ship would lose 1 knot of maximum speed.  It's not perfect, and is designed to work best with WWI and WWII vessels, but it does work rather well. There are other factors that can make the game quite involved, but overall it is great fun.

From this point, I started looking at music. On the same block as The Sutler's Wagon was a music store called RPM records. Along with Rolling Stone Records in Chicago, I would scour their bargain "cutout" bins. I discovered a lot of great music in these bargain bins, and by the time I got to college, I had a few hundred albums.  My earliest music databases were handwritten on loose leaf paper- I counted an album as being played when I had listened to at least one side.- this worked for both LPs and cassettes. I did have some 8-tracks, but I did not track these.

Flash forward many years. On a normal day I'm on a PC or two at work, and three PCs (simultaneously) at home. In all honesty, a lot of what I do currently is online gaming, but I also write this blog, do a bit of research, maintain a few spreadsheets, and work on my database, Sometimes, I even take a bit of time off to play a game or two on Steam (user= drehenthalerhof).

Here's a lesson for all of you budding data analysts, data scientists, statisticians and anyone else who uses spreadsheets and databases: if the datum doesn't look right, don't assume it is. Check it- even if you are the one that entered it!

So there I was Saturday night, updating the Excel blog readership spreadsheet. This is not a particularly complicated spreadsheet- fifty rows and thirteen columns. As I've repeatedly mentioned, Google's free analytics aren't too deep- they're pretty much stats, and they only show the Top 10. And- because they're real time, if I miss a day or two, I can potentially miss some data. So I've had extrapolate to get a more accurate picture. At some point, though, I accidentally overwrote a formula- and my beautiful table of extrapolated data suddenly was being calculated by a constant instead of a variable! I figured out the error quickly enough, but one can't count on an easy fix every time. When I suspect a problem, or when I need to do a QC on an Excel worksheet, CTRL+~ is my goto.

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

A Tale of Two Databases

Every so often I have both the opportunity and inspiration to write. I've been quick to lament virtually all summer that I haven't had much time for anything except for work. I've also mentioned that it's not the end of the world, as I do get overtime pay these days. Still, a part of me laments the lack of balance... I had copied a number of photo folders the other night, and was quite honestly shocked to see the date stamps of my last two folders from my camera. The first was dated  July 6, 2014, and the latter was dated September 22, 2014. In other words, ~2.5 months where I did next to nothing with my DSLR. I made up for it a bit this past Sunday, but photography is something I'm fairly passionate about, so I should be doing more- like getting into Lightroom and Elements, and trying to get some of my work published as photostock. In any case, I'm quietly working to get some balance back.

I hope the photos I've shared over the past few blogs were enjoyed. Tinka and Schwarz have been seen in China, Germany and the U.S. as of this writing. I think they're both on Pinterest as well. As far as I can tell, neither is impressed.

Besides the cats, I've published a few photos of the local flora. Still, this blog is about my adventures in the wonderful world of data- my data, to be precise. I've been doing a bit of work in the Media_Title table. This table currently has 950 records, and what I've been doing recently is updating the Media_listed_as column. Quite honestly, this column doesn't do much right now, and partially duplicates data on another table (but not really), as this column and the Format column from the Media table both pull data from the Format table. What I can do in the future, however, is query against the Media_Title table and find out specific information about movies- specifically, I can see all of the media which is associated with the a title, such as a movie, soundtrack, game or book. The other table, Media, lists the boring details associated with each piece of media- UPC, ISBN, publisher, format, etc.

I had a bit of a watershed moment at work last night... a pretty "watered down" watershed- if that is possible. Maybe an epiphany is a more appropriate description; perhaps in the end it was just an "A-HA" moment. Here's what happened.

Thursday nights at my office are the busiest time of the week for my fellow Nightstalkers and yours truly. I pulled into the parking lot and had to flash Meerkat's headlamps before Anna recognized me. She was all smiles and said, "You have to read your email- we have a new supervisor." We exchanged a few more words, and then she was off to her home and I was off to the double-wide in the sky (E-Man's quaint nickname our office). I climbed the nineteen stairs, swiped my badge, and I was back in action. Not surprisingly, the data for the big job was not yet in, so I grabbed another job and checked email. I found out who the new supervisor was and fired off a quick congratulatory note, and then dove into my job. As it was a variant of one I had tackled on Wednesday, it took relatively little time to complete, as I didn't need to keep on referring back to instructions. I signed off on it, and checked email again. I generally get between 50-100 or more emails per day, and I am happy to report that as of 0630, I have a Zero Inbox: absolutely NOTHING in my inbox- everything has either been relegated to folders or deleted. Nice. While I was waiting for the evening's main event to commence, I decided to open up the database. This database is very much a work in progress, and I am only in the beginning stages with three tables. At this juncture, I don't foresee too many other tables being added, primarily because the primary reason for this database is to be a quick and dirty way of getting some basic information about previous jobs related to what someone is currently working on. Last night's "A-HA" involved a simpler and more comprehensive way of finding and classifying jobs.

Two databases. One post. Excellent.

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

Data, data everywhere....

Queen Tinka I

Schwarz- Alpha cat

Tinka and Schwarz reminded me that they'd like to become world-famous. Who wouldn't? And since they've told me that they can't read (c'mon friends, anthropomorphizing aside, they're cats!) I've told them their cat Daddy's blog is read on six continents and in over forty countries. I've gotta say, as you can see by the photos, they're pretty impressed! They're pretty friendly, too- I'm sure that if the Zombie Apocalypse occurred at night, they'd be kind enough to tell the zombies where the slow people slept.

I took both of these shots in May, and although cats are not know for their expressive faces, their poses and places tell all.

Tinka (above) does not guard our home. She merely collects data on events in and around the home, and assesses threats to her own safety. She is  I.T. cat. After the Zombie Apocalypse and the complete demise of humanity, she will more than likely become the queen of the cockroaches. Schwarz (below) will probably survive until a zombie figures out that the cat is hungry. He is Alpha cat.

So, yeah, I just wanted an excuse to post a few photos- I haven't really done this in some time, so there you go- two of our four cats. One final note about publishing in general and the Google platform in particular- getting the layout right for the photos and text was a bit of a challenge- if anyone has ever done layout for print or electronic media, you'll agree that WYSIWIG sometimes only works with text, and the rule of thumb is preview, preview, preview!

I've got some big news (relatively speaking) on the data front. Tonight was not exactly a quiet night at work, but the work I was involved with gave me some time to do a bit of research during the running of some processes. In the course of my research, I was finally able to nail a good name for not one, but two websites. Of course, as I haven't registered them just yet, I'm not at liberty to divulge their names. I plan for one to be about data, but the second one is a different sort of project, and I'm really not at liberty to discuss it yet, save for it being a pet interest of mine. More to follow if and when either of these projects ever leaves the ground.

My main reason for even thinking about a website is education. I've never been a good school (formal) learner- if that's even a term- but I do pretty well hands-on at my own pace. I'm hoping that a venture into the real estate of cyberspace will give me the impetus to do something cool and useful.

The downside of this is that I don't really have a cohesive vision for my data site. I'd like to do some cool, interactive stuff, but most likely it will be quite a niche site- I figure 10 visitors on a good day.  On the other hand, the other site WILL be a niche site by design, but will probably be much more popular.

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

Goodbye Summer, 2014... the affair is officially over

Summer officially ended in North America (Sep 21, 2014). I can't say that I'll miss it, in part because of the amount of overtime I put in at work, and also in part because it's not my favorite season. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the combination of heat and humidity. On the other hand, I do enjoy photography, and I do think summer has the inside track on being the easiest season to take pictures- after all, its the season when everything is green or blooming and wildlife is plentiful. For photographers, its a win-win. Spring and Autumn, of close, are close seconds when it comes to photographic topics.


As we're pretty much "officially" out of panic mode at work, I had this past Saturday off. This was really nice, as strong thunderstorms had been predicted for our area. We were thankfully spared from getting hit by the storms and had a quiet night. Sunday ended up being a "heavy" day- the humidity seemed to be off the scale, and we moped around for the better part of the day. I turned the television on around 1330, hoping to catch a part of the Chicago Bears' game. I mentioned in a previous blog that I enjoy watching the Bears. At noon on Sunday. Last week they played @1900; this week they're playing on Monday night. I work on Monday night- at this rate, I may not ever get to see a game this entire season. I could care less.

The photo above was taken with my Samsung Galaxy SIII; it shows my Nikon D3200  with dual battery grip, tripod, wired shutter release, 40mm Micro Nikkor lens and hotshoe mounted tri-axis level. It's a nice combination of equipment- I shot ~120 frames in 90 minutes. In a previous blog, I had introduced Darth Anna, Defiler of Planets. This past Friday I had brought my camera in to show her the battery grip. She seemed to be a bit puzzled about the need for two batteries, and I didn't try to explain my reasoning for the battery grip; suffice it to say that I shot for ninety minutes this afternoon without doing anything except for swapping a lens.

It turned out to be a glorious late afternoon photoshoot. There were definitely some photos that just did not happen because l had "lost the light"... that's one of those stock phrases that is SOOOOOO true; it's especially important in my subject area- railroads, where browns and reds predominate. Before this gets too boring, I want to pop in a photo that is important to me right here and right now- the very first image I captured with a DSLR (earlier this year).

No data to report, but one number: 2489. Not even a prime number... I thought it might be, but the internet said otherwise. It's the number of photo files I moved over to Adobe Lightroom. I had hoped to do a bit more than move files, but Adobe wanted updates, so I did the updates instead of real work. I have a few thousand more files on another couple of harddrives that also need to be moved over for renaming and archiving as well. One of those drives also has my music library, which is in serious need of deduping. I STILL need to replace the motherboard in Jennifer's computer. And, last but not least on my I.T. laundry list.... Mr. T. has apparently given up on his dream of building a computer with DDR4. It is his considered opinion that this new memory will not be reasonably priced in the foreseeable future. Last night, he said he had seen a 4GB stick for around 100USD; I laughed and told him that our first Windows computer had a pair of 4MB sticks that cost 78USD- and that was cheap!

In any event, Mr. T. has suggested that he can build a DDR3 PC pretty inexpensively. His plan is to wait for the Black Friday sales. In the interim, he'll be researching options... for building a dual graphics card box. I'm not seeing the "inexpensive" here.

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

A credit card slogan that relates to traffic

Let me be the first to admit that I hate traffic. And there's no worse traffic than rush hour traffic.

"Rush hour" is a massive oxymoron, larger by magnitudes than classic oxymorons such as "jumbo shrimp", "old news" or "bitter sweet". I don't know what it's like where you are, but in my world it means "slow to a crawl" (or, in Latin [per Google translation]), "tardus autem ad repere". This, in turn, humors me, as I did a Latin to English translation just for fun: all of you Dr. Who fans out there may be disappointed/perplexed/or, in the know, that Tardis= "slow" in Latin.

The thing about rush hour traffic, though, that is particularly horrendous, is that you can actually count the grains of the sands of time sliding through the hourglass of your allotted days here on this planet, and there is nothing legal or civilized you can do to prevent them from slipping away. For example, I was in a left turn lane yesterday morning at a relatively short light trying to get from a side street on to a through street. The light turned green, and the two vehicles in front of me did not move. Finally, after what seemed like the half life of barium had elapsed, the first vehicle's brake light was extinguished. Progress!

But NO! Abandon hope... the second vehicle was also operated by a sleeper! Sheesh! Once the second vehicle started moving, I was on the throttle. The sad thing is that these folks are not only inconsiderate, they are unskilled drivers of vehicles with automatic transmissions. What is so bloody difficult about applying pressure to the accelerator (gas/petrol) pedal when the light turns green? Move your foot from the brake (the squarish one) to the gas (the tall one) for Pete's sake! In contrast, I have a manual transmission- I actually have to think when I get behind the wheel. To make a long story short, I passed #2 and then passed #1, and then suddenly #1 was behind me because I had passed him before he started tailgating a large truck (lorry).

It's times like these when I am reminded of a credit card slogan: "(credit card name), it's everywhere you want to be". I substitute "traffic" for the credit card name... "Traffic, it's everywhere you want to be".

I comfort myself slightly by recalling a term used in Formula One commentating- "lap traffic". The only difference between my situation and say, Interlagos, is that F1 drivers know how to drive; I cannot assume that anyone else I share the pavement with does.

Once again, no data (or programming) to report. The past week at work has been slightly odd; much else other than that I can't say. Before I forget, I'd like to repost the Top 5 most popular of my blogs, and my Top 5 favorites.

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-2k.html I honestly don't have a clue why this one is so popular, but it's #1

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-free-night.html  Short and sweet- this is #2

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-official-end-of-winter.html   #3- this one was fun... what's not to like about borscht?

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/01/resolutions-and-other-useless-things.html  This one was pretty cool. #4

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/who-does-that-anyway.html  #5

The posts above are listed in order of popularity. The following are my favorites, in no particular order.

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-personal-supermodel.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/08/mind-blown.html  Although I said in no particular order, this is probably my favorite recent post.

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/05/may-fourth.html  A fun romp through summer days in Germany.

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/04/tuddi-toots-or-night-in-life-of-wreakles.html  Another fun romp through the past... well, it was fun for me, anyway!

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/02/one-simply-does-not-raid-sul.html  Last, but certainly not least, a bit of a feast (well, a light snack, at least!) for my hardware buffs!

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