My Sunday, 10K and not so big data

After 200+ blog posts, my addlepated brain isn't even going to request a fact-check on this one: I don't like running. Never have, never will. Our church has, in recent years, supported World Vision, which (among many other things) helps Africans obtain clean drinking water. One of their fundraisers is the team in the Chicago Marathon. It's a wonderful cause, and many folks from our church- including committed couch potatoes- have stepped up and taken up running just to be able to help out. It truly is a great cause, but it's not me. Any number of quotes could sum up my position here, but Donnie and Marie Osmond's theme song from their television series of many years ago sums it up pretty well: "She's a little bit country, and he's a little bit rock 'n' roll". Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" was even more spot-on: "A man's gotta know his imitations".

Yeah. "Don't like" doesn't even begin to describe my feelings about running.

When I was in the Air Force, running was a thing we had to do. The area I was stationed at was quite hilly, and I constantly had shin splints. We used to get together a few times a week after class (it was a training installation) to run. Yuck.

I've long since given it up, but at the time I smoked.

Sooo..., just before the command was given to start the run, someone would yell, "SMOKERS TO THE REAR!" and about a dozen of us would quickly move to the rear in Cirque du Soliel precision, and the run would commence. We would start off as soon as we had lit up. I kid you not: we smoked while running.

So yeah, even though I've quit smoking, I still hate running. I respect those that do run- for whatever reason- but it ain't me, babe. No, no, no, it ain't me babe.

So... 10K: it's not running. It's steps.

I've worn a pedometer on a regular basis for the past few years. I've considered other devices, such as a Fitbit, but in the end I've always decided in favor of my Omron pedometer. As much as I'm a fan of big data, there are just some things I don't want to put in the cloud, and my exercise activity is one of them. I download data from my pedometer to my PC, and I can view it in a nice frontend there. Or, I can download a .csv and use my own analytical tools.

10K steps is a good benchmark. There seems to be a concensus on the internet that 10K is a good daily goal to reach for us in the sedentary Western daily routine. As I have a desk job (AND work at night!), 10K is generally a challenge. So today was a good day.

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

Data Intellligence... and a "slight" oops

I want to start off by stating for the record (whatever that is) that although I'm okay with doing it, data entry is NOT my forte, and it is not something I normally enjoy doing. Mind you, I'm not bad at 10-key entry- I learned it through trial-and-error, and am not bad at it still. Still, it isn't one of my favorite data activities.  And yet, in the course of building Forty-Two (my database), I find that I am tasked to do data entry at every turn.

So, ... I do data entry... because I must.

I'm trying pretty hard to keep the blog from becoming a somewhat witty changelog for my database, so I'll throw out a few speeds and feeds and then move on blog-wise.

The other day, I had just posted something on twitter, and twitter's AI recommended a few connections. One of them them turned out to be a long lost relative. I'm not going to go into the details here, but I'm kinda excited, as this is the 1st time I've run into a relative online based upon a machine learning suggestion.

WAIT FOR IT...

I accidentally pressed "Publish" instead of "Save" the other day, and I think that's a first for me. For those who read the unedited, incomplete blog post, I apologize.  In any event...

It's Saturday night in my world. My Friday at work was pretty quiet, and for the first time in several weeks I got home at a decent hour. Got a decent amount of sleep, had a great time of worship at The Bridge, and then Jennifer and I took Meerkat over to our local Walmart Neighborhood Market, where (amongst other things) we picked up a couple of their most excellent take and bake pizzas. As its late, I'm just finish this with these few updates and call it a night.

My last task for the night is some Windows Media Player updates. By "updates", I mean I'm ripping several CDs and deleting a few from the library.

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

Down and out on a Sunday.

My Arduino Uno is sitting on my desktop in the Secret Underground Lair. It mocks me, sitting there connected to the PC with a 1M USB cable, it's onboard LCD flashing amber every second per its programming. And I am responsible for the programming. Tomorrow, though, all of that changes. Tomorrow is the scheduled arrival of "official" Arduino bases, and another Arduino. Jennifer will be getting my current Arduino, and I will be getting the new Arduino. Why, one might wonder... why indeed?

Because, Mr. T's Arduino has an Atmel 328 chip in a DIP configuration, whilst my current one is in an SMT package. I'm hoping to be 100% compatible with his board as we journey through the programming adventure together.

So, Sunday....

The weekend officially began for me around 0600 on Saturday morning, as it usually does. I got a decent amount of sleep before Jennifer, Mr. T and I headed off to The Bridge Community Church later that afternoon.We came home and Jennifer made tamales. They were incredible- and they are gone.

Sunday rolled around. When I woke up, my head felt like a balloon. Sinuses were off the scale in mucus output. I felt (*bleh*). I felt so (*bleh*) that I drank copious amounts of water for around eight hours. Kenji, our black and white tuxedo snowshoe cat, hung out with me for the better part of the day (he likes TV and he likes human presence while watching or listening to TV). I watched three complete football games. Not only is this unheard of- it is unprecedented. I was a couch potato- this is also unheard of.

That's how crummy and run down I felt.

The good news is that most of that seems to have passed. The bad news is that the weekend turned out to pretty much be a complete wash. That is, all of my plans were for naught. I had planned on a good walk, cutting the grass, fixing Jennifer's computer, and some quality "alone" time with my spouse.

None of these things happened.

It's now almost 0200, and I'm feeling much better, but my weekend is essentially over. Monday promises to be an adventure- Kenji and Kaley have their first visit with the veterinarian. Joy. 

The Monday recap- almost time to get ready for work. The cats survived their visit to the vet. It turns out that Dr. Chris is also a huge Lego fan, so much Lego discussion occurred while the cats were being poked and prodded. The new Arduino arrived along with the bases. I mounted the base to my old board first, and gave it to Jennifer. Then, Mr. T and I mounted the other two. I tested my new board out, and the amber LED started blinking immediately... I guess Arduino tests boards out with the blink program. So, for me to test it, I would need another program. The serial monitor program is the perfect sketch (program) for testing the Arduino for a couple of reasons. First, it's short- only two lines. Secondly, it tests two way communication with the board: write the program, compile, and upload. Then, open the serial monitor, and you should have a short message... this is the Arduino equivalent of "Hello, world."

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.

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.

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.