I had about 50% of what passes for a normal length post written when I decided to scrap it and start afresh. I think I've mentioned that I truly hate rewriting anything, but the post just wasn't going anywhere. More importantly, I had no logical transition to a data breakthrough.
For the past few weeks I've been working on my Peeron-based database (Working with someone else's data and Meanwhile, back in the Secret Underground Lair...). It had been slow going, and I asked a coworker about it. My shy coworker suggested that my solution might be found in Excel.
I thought about that for a bit. I'm not bad with Excel (and that statement alone could be the subject of SEVERAL blog posts!), so I did a bit of exploring. In Excel 2007, on the Data tab, resides "text to columns". As I recall, this feature has been available for some time, but this has been the first time that I've used it. Recapping my challenge: I've got a text file (the Peeron data) which has the part numbers I need, plus much other ancillary data which I may or may not need. Important part: my source data is a .txt file.
So, I copied the master file to create a new working file. In the old master file, I executed text to columns; in the new (working), and then copied column A to the working file. This accomplished a few things: it preserved Peeron's numbering, as well as their descriptions.
Skipping a few steps, what I have now are four columns: Column D is unmodified Peeron data, column C is a size column, column B is called "Base w/mods" and column A is the "Base" column. I plan to add at least one more column at some point which will be a custom "internal" part number.
But... for now, I'm happy with my data, which is more than I've honestly been able to say about it for a few years! Seriously, this is one of those rubber meets the road blogs,where the plan actually comes together and progress is made! As promised, I've added another sheet to the workbook, and have begun extracting the extraneous data entries from the main spreadsheet, such as stickers, obsolete and moved part numbers.
Most all of the remainder of the process is going to be manual, but the text to columns wizard probably saved me upwards of sixty+ hours of work, assuming 300 rows per hour with the old cut and paste method I had been using. And I say upwards, because I think I only achieved 300 rows per hour once; generally, I've been at 200 or fewer rows per hour.
I'm desperately trying to get this published. I've said on more than one occasion that sometimes blogs just seem to write themselves. Well, this is not one of those occasions.
I'm going to close with a few speeds and feeds. As best I can tell, there were 18,512 rows of data in the original Peeron file. With the new and improved format, I've culled out close to 900 rows of data which are of no use to me. I still have quite a way to go, but for the first time in some while I'm seeing that there is a pot of gold at the end of this particular rainbow.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Showing posts with label Nightstalker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nightstalker. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Suburbia 302: Nightstalkers
"He says there's a storm coming."
"Tell him I know. I know," Sarah Connor replies to the gas station owner at the end of the original Terminator movie just before she drives off towards the mountains, the storm and the epic Terminator music score.
I sorta knew what Sarah Connor was thinking when I pulled into my driveway this past Saturday morning. I opened the door of Meerkat, our trusty Subaru Outback, and did a quick survey of our yard. Yep, the grass was due for mowing- and the local meteorologists all agreed that the Chicago area was going to be hammered by wind, heavy rain and hail on Sunday- all day. Four letter words, each and every one of them!
Time for an aside here.... Back in my college days, I used to do a fair amount of creative writing, both for class and for personal enjoyment. Stream of consciousness was often used, partly because my typewriter (my manual typewriter) was horrid, and the "t" did not work properly. It was so bad that I once wrote a short paper for a freshman English class and I was struggling so badly that I slipped into stream of consciousness (SOC) without even knowing what SOC was whilst writing this essay. The paper itself was bad, but my salvation was my viewpoint- after several typos, I started SOC and the paper ended up getting a very good grade simply because I took the topic and a bad situation, and managed to get a laugh out of my classmates and our instructor through my commentary.
That was English 102. Fast forward thirty-odd years to 2015. I present Suburbia 302: Nightstalkers. And actually, this is not really for Nightstalkers. It is about Nightstalkers, and why we do things in the manner that we do.
Let's set the stage properly. At 0700, do you want to be wakened or have your morning disturbed by a lawnmower? Of course not! I'm not certain if this is a local ordinance, but the convention seems to be no mowers or other noisy equipment are to be in operation prior to 0800. I generally arrive home sometime between 0500 and 0700. Apart from the fact its bloody early, its also generally fairly wet, as the grass is covered with dew. So, I have the following windows available for grass cutting: Tuesday through Friday 1700-1900, Saturday 1800-2000 and pretty much all day Sunday and Monday. (And Sunday is the only full day of the entire week that I do not normally have to work for my employer.)
The bottom line, though, is that the grass does get cut, although sometimes because of meteorological conditions, it sometimes gets a bit shaggier than some of our neighbors' lawns who employ lawn services. For example, in May when Jennifer was out of town, I was always behind in my grass cutting because of Mother Nature's gleeful demonstrations of deluges, downpours and general dampness. Many of our neighbors had lawn services that seemed to suddenly appear with their high-powered self-propelled mowers the moment the rain stopped. Me? I had to wait until the grass dried- often a day or more. I once cut the grass in the rain, just because it was in dire need.
Its not quite like I see our suburb anywhere near the Monkees' Pleasant Valley Sunday, but I try to make our home and property look nice. And yes, I am aware that the song is NOT about nice or pretty (for 60's fans, please see also Proud Mary)
On the data front, not much has been going on. As some may be aware the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) has been undergoing a remodel. Mr. T., in an honest effort to move things along, committed a tactical error which has created a setback. In my previous blog, (Around) 2.5 Years Ago, or, my personal Interwebz v2.1, I had noted that the major moves were complete, and what was left was arguably the hard part- getting everything back in the office. Mr. T. decided to expedite the process by unboxing a great deal of old software to save some room. The net result of this was the complete occupation (wasted space) of nearly two shelves of formerly unoccupied space. It has been a week since he did this, and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to re-package this software.
Lego data has not been worked on. But- some Lego elements have been organized for ease of counting.
Lastly, Jennifer came to me with an odd problem- she was trying to read a document, but it would not download properly. At first, the website was blamed, but after a bit of troubleshooting, I discovered a much simpler error: Microsoft Office was not installed on her PC. Fiften minutes later, everything was good.
Now if I could only find the interface cable for my DSLR....
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
"Tell him I know. I know," Sarah Connor replies to the gas station owner at the end of the original Terminator movie just before she drives off towards the mountains, the storm and the epic Terminator music score.
I sorta knew what Sarah Connor was thinking when I pulled into my driveway this past Saturday morning. I opened the door of Meerkat, our trusty Subaru Outback, and did a quick survey of our yard. Yep, the grass was due for mowing- and the local meteorologists all agreed that the Chicago area was going to be hammered by wind, heavy rain and hail on Sunday- all day. Four letter words, each and every one of them!
Time for an aside here.... Back in my college days, I used to do a fair amount of creative writing, both for class and for personal enjoyment. Stream of consciousness was often used, partly because my typewriter (my manual typewriter) was horrid, and the "t" did not work properly. It was so bad that I once wrote a short paper for a freshman English class and I was struggling so badly that I slipped into stream of consciousness (SOC) without even knowing what SOC was whilst writing this essay. The paper itself was bad, but my salvation was my viewpoint- after several typos, I started SOC and the paper ended up getting a very good grade simply because I took the topic and a bad situation, and managed to get a laugh out of my classmates and our instructor through my commentary.
That was English 102. Fast forward thirty-odd years to 2015. I present Suburbia 302: Nightstalkers. And actually, this is not really for Nightstalkers. It is about Nightstalkers, and why we do things in the manner that we do.
Let's set the stage properly. At 0700, do you want to be wakened or have your morning disturbed by a lawnmower? Of course not! I'm not certain if this is a local ordinance, but the convention seems to be no mowers or other noisy equipment are to be in operation prior to 0800. I generally arrive home sometime between 0500 and 0700. Apart from the fact its bloody early, its also generally fairly wet, as the grass is covered with dew. So, I have the following windows available for grass cutting: Tuesday through Friday 1700-1900, Saturday 1800-2000 and pretty much all day Sunday and Monday. (And Sunday is the only full day of the entire week that I do not normally have to work for my employer.)
The bottom line, though, is that the grass does get cut, although sometimes because of meteorological conditions, it sometimes gets a bit shaggier than some of our neighbors' lawns who employ lawn services. For example, in May when Jennifer was out of town, I was always behind in my grass cutting because of Mother Nature's gleeful demonstrations of deluges, downpours and general dampness. Many of our neighbors had lawn services that seemed to suddenly appear with their high-powered self-propelled mowers the moment the rain stopped. Me? I had to wait until the grass dried- often a day or more. I once cut the grass in the rain, just because it was in dire need.
Its not quite like I see our suburb anywhere near the Monkees' Pleasant Valley Sunday, but I try to make our home and property look nice. And yes, I am aware that the song is NOT about nice or pretty (for 60's fans, please see also Proud Mary)
On the data front, not much has been going on. As some may be aware the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) has been undergoing a remodel. Mr. T., in an honest effort to move things along, committed a tactical error which has created a setback. In my previous blog, (Around) 2.5 Years Ago, or, my personal Interwebz v2.1, I had noted that the major moves were complete, and what was left was arguably the hard part- getting everything back in the office. Mr. T. decided to expedite the process by unboxing a great deal of old software to save some room. The net result of this was the complete occupation (wasted space) of nearly two shelves of formerly unoccupied space. It has been a week since he did this, and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to re-package this software.
Lego data has not been worked on. But- some Lego elements have been organized for ease of counting.
Lastly, Jennifer came to me with an odd problem- she was trying to read a document, but it would not download properly. At first, the website was blamed, but after a bit of troubleshooting, I discovered a much simpler error: Microsoft Office was not installed on her PC. Fiften minutes later, everything was good.
Now if I could only find the interface cable for my DSLR....
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Sometimes even Nightstalkers drink decaf
I don't make a habit of drinking anything decaf... I'm a Nightstalker, for Pete's sake! My normal routine is a cuppa tea before going to work, and then a second once I arrive at the office so that I can be calm whilst reading my email. Tonight, thought, is the tail end of a three day weekend, so I'm not a Nightstalker. I'm more closely related to Mr. Mom than anything,
Before I get to the Mr. Mom thing, though, I'd like to talk a bit about tea. Quite literally, before Jennifer and I got married, I was the quintessential comic book/cartoon knuckle-dragging Neanderthal tea brewer (those readers who are from areas where there is a strong tea heritage might want to skip this part, or have one of those inflight distress bags handy. In fact, you might need a trash can). Back in my bachelor days, my morning tea ritual went like this: get a shallow sauce pan and fill it with cold water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Without reducing the heat, carefully drop in one Lipton tea bag. Continue boiling until you can see a brown ring which marks the original "full" level of the pan. Turn off, discard teabag, and pour into a cup. Add a teaspoon of sugar. What were the attributes of this tea? Well, most lava flows in Hawai'i were less viscous that this stuff, and NASA has black holes on record that emitted more light than this tea reflected.The "flavour", if one could describe this brew, was somewhere between "turmoil" and "despair".
I'm not certain of what exactly it was that caused my tea preparation habits to change, but when I got married I went from Neanderthal to tea snob. My tea tastes have broadened quite a bit, although I generally still drink mostly black teas from the likes of Lyod, Tetley and Thompson's- as well as one or two Indian brands. For the most part, though, all of them are prepared in a similar fashion. Prepare cup by adding a teaspoon of sugar then the tea. In the case of bagged tea, it goes in the cup before the water. For loose tea, I have a red tea filter that is very close to the red that the Swiss company Bodum uses in their tea and coffee products. A rounded teaspoon of loose tea is placed on the filter, and when the water reaches a boil, it is poured into the cup- on top of the bag or through the filter. A timer, which has been set to one minute, is then turned on. When time has expired, the teabag is retrieved from the cup and given a gently squueze to coax the last of the amber liquor from the teabag; for the filtered tea, the filter handle is given a slight tap, and then it is allowed to drip a bit into the cup before being cleaned out. I have a slight variation to these procedures at the office. Although I have a filter and loose tea, I generally drink bagged tea- primarily because the coffee machine (which has the hot water dispenser) is on the opposite end of the office.So, in lieu of a timer, after the cup has been filled with water, I put a lid on it and walk back to my desk. With the pouring of the water, affixing the silicone lid, walking back to my desk and seating myself, approximately a minute has passed, so I remove the lid, give the bag a loving squeeze, and I have my beverage of choice.
So, decaf? Yessir, yessir, two cups full. Jennifer is still out of town, and while Mr. T has been quite good at emptying the dirty clothes hamper, he hasn't really bothered notifying me that the laundry is full. So, tonight I had three loads to wash and dry. In my defense, we've had a fair amount of rain the past few days, so I've had to wait for that to abate.
But I digress.
Some of you may be familiar with the saying, often attributed to Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli, but actually coming from an article by Leonard H. Courtney: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Truer words have probably been spoken, but as frequent readers may be aware, the unifying thread of this blog is data. And with that, ...
I received a letter from Commonwealth Edison, our electrical utility. Now, ComEd, like most if not all utilities, is trying to be "green". It's a sensible position to take, quite practical, and makes them look like good corporate citizens. As someone who is keenly interested in data and applications thereof, I read the letter with great interest. Now, I've received letters from them like this before, and they're quite interesting. A couple of graphs, some numeric comparisons, and some helpful suggestions on doing your part to conserve energy.
Judging by the graphs and numbers, we're energy pigs. According to their statistics, we used 84% more energy than our neighbors last summer.
We're just plain bad, right?
Well, maybe. Maybe not. You see, our family is different from the other families in our neighborhood in a couple of significant ways which the lies- er, stats, cannot reflect. With few exceptions, there are two types of families in our neighborhood (and in our neighborhood, all of the homes are free standing, single family houses). One type is a young family with school-aged children (grades K-12), and the other type is retirees, including singles, couples, widows and widowers. Our family has four adults; the two adults who work outside the home have very nonstandard hours. Our older son works in retail, and his schedule can have him working any day of the week, sometimes getting up as early as 0530. I work nights, and usually get home around 0500, but often later. Because of the strange hours, my wife usually does not get to bed until 0100 at the earliest. So, during the week, our house might see four to five hours of "normal" nighttime. During the day, two or three individuals will be awake and active.
How about the other families? Mom/Dad get up at 0500-0600 to get the kids off to school and get themselves off to work. Dinner ~1800, bed for kids 2000-2300, bed for parents 2200-0000. These homes will have a "normal" nighttime of closer to seven hours.
Singles and retirees? Similar to the family hours, with retirees probably closer to eight or more hours of normal nighttime. Also, much less cooking, laundry and climate control.
All things considered, I don't think we're doing badly at all. In fact, given the additional information I've considered, there aren't really that many "efficient" neighbors that are actually efficient. Just one example for your consideration: in the past week, I think I've done five large loads of laundry; I'd bet that the widow down the street may have done one small load in the same period. Who's more efficient?
For truth in data, I've got a few speeds and feeds from my growing Lego database to share. From a development standpoint, it currently consists of four datasheets- I've done nothing so far with the fourth, as it is going to be the summary page. I'm fairly certain that I'll be adding a few more worksheets- what I currently have are basic bricks, plates and Technic. The current grand total of all elements (parts) is 6,475. In the For What It's Worth Department, I think the highest count I've ever gotten is 24,000.
Before I get to the Mr. Mom thing, though, I'd like to talk a bit about tea. Quite literally, before Jennifer and I got married, I was the quintessential comic book/cartoon knuckle-dragging Neanderthal tea brewer (those readers who are from areas where there is a strong tea heritage might want to skip this part, or have one of those inflight distress bags handy. In fact, you might need a trash can). Back in my bachelor days, my morning tea ritual went like this: get a shallow sauce pan and fill it with cold water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Without reducing the heat, carefully drop in one Lipton tea bag. Continue boiling until you can see a brown ring which marks the original "full" level of the pan. Turn off, discard teabag, and pour into a cup. Add a teaspoon of sugar. What were the attributes of this tea? Well, most lava flows in Hawai'i were less viscous that this stuff, and NASA has black holes on record that emitted more light than this tea reflected.The "flavour", if one could describe this brew, was somewhere between "turmoil" and "despair".
I'm not certain of what exactly it was that caused my tea preparation habits to change, but when I got married I went from Neanderthal to tea snob. My tea tastes have broadened quite a bit, although I generally still drink mostly black teas from the likes of Lyod, Tetley and Thompson's- as well as one or two Indian brands. For the most part, though, all of them are prepared in a similar fashion. Prepare cup by adding a teaspoon of sugar then the tea. In the case of bagged tea, it goes in the cup before the water. For loose tea, I have a red tea filter that is very close to the red that the Swiss company Bodum uses in their tea and coffee products. A rounded teaspoon of loose tea is placed on the filter, and when the water reaches a boil, it is poured into the cup- on top of the bag or through the filter. A timer, which has been set to one minute, is then turned on. When time has expired, the teabag is retrieved from the cup and given a gently squueze to coax the last of the amber liquor from the teabag; for the filtered tea, the filter handle is given a slight tap, and then it is allowed to drip a bit into the cup before being cleaned out. I have a slight variation to these procedures at the office. Although I have a filter and loose tea, I generally drink bagged tea- primarily because the coffee machine (which has the hot water dispenser) is on the opposite end of the office.So, in lieu of a timer, after the cup has been filled with water, I put a lid on it and walk back to my desk. With the pouring of the water, affixing the silicone lid, walking back to my desk and seating myself, approximately a minute has passed, so I remove the lid, give the bag a loving squeeze, and I have my beverage of choice.
So, decaf? Yessir, yessir, two cups full. Jennifer is still out of town, and while Mr. T has been quite good at emptying the dirty clothes hamper, he hasn't really bothered notifying me that the laundry is full. So, tonight I had three loads to wash and dry. In my defense, we've had a fair amount of rain the past few days, so I've had to wait for that to abate.
But I digress.
Some of you may be familiar with the saying, often attributed to Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli, but actually coming from an article by Leonard H. Courtney: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Truer words have probably been spoken, but as frequent readers may be aware, the unifying thread of this blog is data. And with that, ...
I received a letter from Commonwealth Edison, our electrical utility. Now, ComEd, like most if not all utilities, is trying to be "green". It's a sensible position to take, quite practical, and makes them look like good corporate citizens. As someone who is keenly interested in data and applications thereof, I read the letter with great interest. Now, I've received letters from them like this before, and they're quite interesting. A couple of graphs, some numeric comparisons, and some helpful suggestions on doing your part to conserve energy.
Judging by the graphs and numbers, we're energy pigs. According to their statistics, we used 84% more energy than our neighbors last summer.
We're just plain bad, right?
Well, maybe. Maybe not. You see, our family is different from the other families in our neighborhood in a couple of significant ways which the lies- er, stats, cannot reflect. With few exceptions, there are two types of families in our neighborhood (and in our neighborhood, all of the homes are free standing, single family houses). One type is a young family with school-aged children (grades K-12), and the other type is retirees, including singles, couples, widows and widowers. Our family has four adults; the two adults who work outside the home have very nonstandard hours. Our older son works in retail, and his schedule can have him working any day of the week, sometimes getting up as early as 0530. I work nights, and usually get home around 0500, but often later. Because of the strange hours, my wife usually does not get to bed until 0100 at the earliest. So, during the week, our house might see four to five hours of "normal" nighttime. During the day, two or three individuals will be awake and active.
How about the other families? Mom/Dad get up at 0500-0600 to get the kids off to school and get themselves off to work. Dinner ~1800, bed for kids 2000-2300, bed for parents 2200-0000. These homes will have a "normal" nighttime of closer to seven hours.
Singles and retirees? Similar to the family hours, with retirees probably closer to eight or more hours of normal nighttime. Also, much less cooking, laundry and climate control.
All things considered, I don't think we're doing badly at all. In fact, given the additional information I've considered, there aren't really that many "efficient" neighbors that are actually efficient. Just one example for your consideration: in the past week, I think I've done five large loads of laundry; I'd bet that the widow down the street may have done one small load in the same period. Who's more efficient?
For truth in data, I've got a few speeds and feeds from my growing Lego database to share. From a development standpoint, it currently consists of four datasheets- I've done nothing so far with the fourth, as it is going to be the summary page. I'm fairly certain that I'll be adding a few more worksheets- what I currently have are basic bricks, plates and Technic. The current grand total of all elements (parts) is 6,475. In the For What It's Worth Department, I think the highest count I've ever gotten is 24,000.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Data, defined (part 2)
Right after I hit the "PUBLISH" button on my last blog, I realized that I wasn't done. I know I had the option at that point to pull the piece back and add the other thoughts, but I don't like to throw out a wall of words just because I'm not done... I'd much rather give the reader a break and come back another day, and so here we are today with a continuation of sorts, taking a closer look at microdata.
But first, an update from the home front.
Sunday the 17th was the third Sunday that Jennifer had spent in the Dallas area. Our older son was off at a convention, leaving Mr. T and I a very quiet weekend. That's a good thing, too, as I still managed to rack up a sleep deficit. I've mentioned a few times that I'm a programmer that works nontraditional hours. I refer to my band of coworkers and myself as Nightstalkers. The big plus and big drawback of being a Nightstalker is that one often gets to stay at work until the job is done, which can sometimes mean a fairly long day, but the plus is that we are compensated for that time. Saturday ended up being a late day for me- nearly eleven hours, and then a technician was coming over to the house for the Spring air conditioning checkup at noon. At some point before noon I decided that I could not stay awake, so I asked Mr. T to wake me up when the tech arrived. The tech arrived and did his thing. I wrote a check for his service, and then went back to bed, getting up some time around 2030. Looking back, I really don't remember too much of what I did except for a bit of work on the Lego database. I was back in bed ~0430, and up Sunday a little after 1230.
Sunday was warm and the humidity was palpable. I opted for some breathable training attire to cut the grass. I have to say that I am perfectly capable of wearing some pretty nice-looking clothing combos, but fashion has little place in my workout or working outdoors clothing choices. As it was both sunny and windy, I had an Aussie-inspired wide-brimmed hat with a chinstrap. The short sleeved shirt and shorts were both black sweat wicking workout attire, and the footware: orange sneakers. Blood orange red, actually. New Balance all terrain running shoes. Peer reviewed, double blind studies utilizing FLOOS and LRBL have verified that these shoes allow me to cut the grass 19.3% faster than the average suburbanite. You read it on the Internet- it's got to be true!
After cutting the grass, I figured I'd take a walk. One would think I'd have learned my lesson from the last time I did this (two weeks ago, actually). No. No I didn't. I grabbed a fanny pack (these workout shorts don't have pockets) and headed out. Approximately an hour later I walked back into the house, drenched in sweat carrying an empty half liter water bottle.
All of that is a great segue to microdata. Why? Well, for starters, I have an Omron pedometer. I have the option of publishing my workout data to their website- in which case, my data would be a part on Omron's small data, and quite possibly, fitness big data. My choice, though, is to upload the data to the Omron tracking program on my computer, making it MY microdata. In the FWIW category, I logged 6.2 miles (13.64km) today- my best day in nearly two months of tracking.
The Lego database is growing slowly. I'm using Excel 2007, and having to relearn some things. I'm sometimes asked what should someone learn in Excel to be useful on the job. Well, it depends on the job. Every place where I've used Excel I've needed at least a few things that no one else asked for- and none of these were financial or statistical environments (which tend to be a lot more predictable in terms of desired skills). The Lego counts stand as follows: Basic bricks- 1 part number, 12 colors, 1666 elements. Plates- no counts as yet. Technic- 3 part numbers, 3 colors, 1049 elements. Total elements (pieces)- 2715.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
But first, an update from the home front.
Sunday the 17th was the third Sunday that Jennifer had spent in the Dallas area. Our older son was off at a convention, leaving Mr. T and I a very quiet weekend. That's a good thing, too, as I still managed to rack up a sleep deficit. I've mentioned a few times that I'm a programmer that works nontraditional hours. I refer to my band of coworkers and myself as Nightstalkers. The big plus and big drawback of being a Nightstalker is that one often gets to stay at work until the job is done, which can sometimes mean a fairly long day, but the plus is that we are compensated for that time. Saturday ended up being a late day for me- nearly eleven hours, and then a technician was coming over to the house for the Spring air conditioning checkup at noon. At some point before noon I decided that I could not stay awake, so I asked Mr. T to wake me up when the tech arrived. The tech arrived and did his thing. I wrote a check for his service, and then went back to bed, getting up some time around 2030. Looking back, I really don't remember too much of what I did except for a bit of work on the Lego database. I was back in bed ~0430, and up Sunday a little after 1230.
Sunday was warm and the humidity was palpable. I opted for some breathable training attire to cut the grass. I have to say that I am perfectly capable of wearing some pretty nice-looking clothing combos, but fashion has little place in my workout or working outdoors clothing choices. As it was both sunny and windy, I had an Aussie-inspired wide-brimmed hat with a chinstrap. The short sleeved shirt and shorts were both black sweat wicking workout attire, and the footware: orange sneakers. Blood orange red, actually. New Balance all terrain running shoes. Peer reviewed, double blind studies utilizing FLOOS and LRBL have verified that these shoes allow me to cut the grass 19.3% faster than the average suburbanite. You read it on the Internet- it's got to be true!
After cutting the grass, I figured I'd take a walk. One would think I'd have learned my lesson from the last time I did this (two weeks ago, actually). No. No I didn't. I grabbed a fanny pack (these workout shorts don't have pockets) and headed out. Approximately an hour later I walked back into the house, drenched in sweat carrying an empty half liter water bottle.
All of that is a great segue to microdata. Why? Well, for starters, I have an Omron pedometer. I have the option of publishing my workout data to their website- in which case, my data would be a part on Omron's small data, and quite possibly, fitness big data. My choice, though, is to upload the data to the Omron tracking program on my computer, making it MY microdata. In the FWIW category, I logged 6.2 miles (13.64km) today- my best day in nearly two months of tracking.
The Lego database is growing slowly. I'm using Excel 2007, and having to relearn some things. I'm sometimes asked what should someone learn in Excel to be useful on the job. Well, it depends on the job. Every place where I've used Excel I've needed at least a few things that no one else asked for- and none of these were financial or statistical environments (which tend to be a lot more predictable in terms of desired skills). The Lego counts stand as follows: Basic bricks- 1 part number, 12 colors, 1666 elements. Plates- no counts as yet. Technic- 3 part numbers, 3 colors, 1049 elements. Total elements (pieces)- 2715.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Friday, September 26, 2014
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.
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.
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