Today I went to lunch with my friend and former co-worker, Javier. We headed to the nearest Red Robin and were enjoying some french fries when all of the sudden 6 guys from Alt-N (my other former co-workers and Javier’s co-workers) showed up at another table. Doh! Alt-N rocks 🙂
Monthly Archives: October 2005
Day Two
Today is my second day in Texas. I’m here on a working work (instead of a working vacation) and I’m due to head home Thursday, early in the morning. Jessica is due next Tuesday. I’m not too nervous, but I’m also not sitting around thinking that it would be impossible for Jessica to go into labor.
Heck, next week some time I could find myself the father of yet another beatiful girl. Or in 24 hours that could be the case. Either way I’m excited about going home to see my bride, daughter and mother-in-law again.
Apologetics – WorldViews
This is really part one of a two part series on worldviews, the 23rd’s on Relativism and Postmodernism is a part II of sorts. Apologies for my definitions of Inductive and Deductive reasoning not being accompanied by better examples.
The 17 MB file can be downloaded here.
Straight Man
No, that’s not a reference to my sexual orientation, nor is it my new role in a sit-com. Instead it is the fact that today at lunch I played Yahtzee with Jessica and Linda (my mother-in-law) and I rolled 5 large straights and 2 small straights throughout the game. That is a guaranteed recipe for losing. It was so frustrating that I started to scream at the dice and jump up and down, chanting before throwing yet another straight of some sort. If you need a Yahtzee, starting out with 1,2,3,4,5 is not a great plan.
Anyway, it was kinda funny, but really annoying 🙂
Faked You Out
Sometimes when I look at Abby’s goldfish, Goldy, she’s floating up to the surface with her tail higher than her head. And I start to panic. Then, just as I start to think, “Goldy’s a goner,” he/she/it starts swimming again. The fish was sleeping. Doh! This is not a huge deal, but it is amazing to me that this fish is even still alive. And she’s growing, too. Abby likes to feed her and to pet her, and take her for walks. However, we only let Abby feed the fish, all other activities are strictly imaginary.
When the fish floats to fake me out, I’m frightened, but not forever. [a light alliteration to practice my alliterational skillz]
Folgers: Another Word for Blah
I’ve been drinking good coffee for some time now. My buddies Brian, Craig and Josiah have really opened up my eyes to quality coffee. However, while my mother-in-law is here she requested Folgers’ coffee because it is cheaper and less intense on her stomach than the stuff I was buying (Peaberry’s FlatIron blend). I just brewed a pot of Folgers… blah. The flavor is just sad. I can’t recommend this in even the slightest. While I don’t like Starbucks’ burnt beans I just can’t stand this stuff. You buy a tub o’ grounds and lament it if you can handle it. But such is life… its time for me to get back to work.
December is Looking Good for Evie
I get asked pretty regularly if Evie has decided to come out of Jessica yet. Well, I talked to Evie this morning and she said that December was looking like a good month for her to come out. Jessica and I agreed that this was unacceptable behavior and we’re rooting for ‘by the 25th’ but ‘after the 20th.’ We’re taking bets on whe she comes out. When do you think she’s coming out?
The Latest Catastrophe
I’m amazed at the number of lives that have been lost in the latest quake over in Pakistan and India. I’ve prayed specifically for them several times now during family prayers and each time I see news reports or some sort of reminder I’m boldly going before the throne of God to (Hebrews 4:16) to ask for the safety of those who survive and for quick aid and medical attention. I’m also praying for the missionaries that are in that area because right now there are a mixture of religions, lots of tension and a lot of social and spiritual things to try to handle at once.
Fortunately, I know God’s big enough and infinite enough to be ‘up to the task.’
Snow Girl
Abby played in the snow this morning with Grandma Forland. Fun was had by all. In this picture she was actually trying to carry snow that would be lobbed at me. In the house. In my socks. Holding a Camera that literally cost me more than I would like to replace due to it getting wet.
The ‘Less is…’ Controversy
Within the last couple years I have gotten more into design methodology, planning methodology and the evaluation of code quality verses quantity. I read several blogs that attempt to broach this subject: lesscode.org and 37signals‘ blog. They’ve had a disagreement recently, which is fine, its none of my business… I don’t care. However, Jason’s post that I read about 2 minutes ago reminded me of something: Steve Wozniac. Steve was the keynote speaker at the Gnomedex several years back and that speech was presented as an MP3 on IT Conversations. What really grabbed me about his talk was not just the funny stories, which were sometimes hilarious, but also the that he took the limitations of his components to be a challenge of their optimization. If I can only have X then how can I make X as fast as possible? This is the mindset that all hardware designers, coders and product developers should have (unless the device is SUPPOSED to be slow 🙂 ).
Learn how to write already faster code. For example read books on speed optimization so that when you code you automatically use the loop type that is quickest for the language in your scenario (that means you need to know what type of loop is fastest in what scenario). I know in PHP that various appending operators for text strings are faster (‘,’ is faster than ‘.’), using single quotes instead of double quotes makes the page get processed faster because double quotes are always parsed for PHP variables. I recommend that you learn your language, know why C++ uses character arrays instead of string objects on a more basic level. In fact, learn why Java does that as well… if you’re using Java. But learn it and know it, you’ll be glad you did, and so will your employer if you have one. And if you’re self employed… this should be old news for you.