Yet another way to exercise the brain muscle...

I found a little game on Miniclip that keeps me from being totally bored at work. It's called Sudoku (Yiddish for "damn that makes me think too freakin hard"......not really). Three different difficulty levels and there is a new puzzle for each difficulty each day; any good CS major should be able to do easy in less than 15 min.

Competition update...

The competition I support is still in somewhat of a grey area. One of the instructors (let's call him S) has actually been doing a good job keeping his end of the bargain up. He's delivered (or soon will) the kits for the kiddies to use. Supposedly the other faculty members have actually put in three days worth of work and did get a few things straightened out. My sources are still very doubtful as to the quality of the final product.

Is "I told you so" wrong....

Rumor has it (well it's not really rumor when it's true, right?), that a certain 4-year school has dropped the ball like a 10-ton piece of granite in dealing with a competition that was near and dear to my heart. Apparently, a certain collection of terminally-degreed individuals couldn't seem to make it happen (or get off their butts). No need to identify the heart of the now defunct operation. What a friggin shame....

The good news is that my non-genetic mother is still on top of things and the great people at Davidson High School are going to pull together something and make the competition happen. It is currently unclear if I am to be involved in any formal or informal manner. Though I have no doubt that I will be involved in one way or another now that "the witch is dead".

King of the crossfire...

Today at lunch, the Dread Pirate Big'J (not his official pirate name) and I met once again in glorious battle. A timid Pirate Scooty Sides was seen plying the high seas as well, but he remained on the fringes for fear of the massive cannon displays the rest of us were toting.

The blood flowed freely as I suckered the Dread Pirate Big'J into a crossfire of my two main warships (a 5 mast battleship and a 4 mast cruiser). In a dizzying display of cannon fire (12 shots in total with cannoneer's, captains, & musketeers) the enemy's flagship/battleship was decimated. In retaliation, (Big'J)'s frigate (2 masts) rammed (and was boarded by) my cruiser, causing the only mast loss of the battle for me (cruiser down 1 mast to 3). Of course this left his frigate right in the firing lane for my battleship and cruiser, so add one frigate to Davy Jones's locker.

After the total slaughter of Dread Pirate (Big'J)'s combat fleet, my flagship continued to dominate the combat and eliminated two of the Pirate Scooty's destroyers (3 masts) in one volley a piece. This left my two remaining ships (a cruiser missing 1 mast and a frigate) to collect the remaining treasure and win the game, both morally and economically.

YARRRRRR!!!!!!!!

Beer, the ultimate opportunity maker....

Anyone want my job? I'm thinking about pursuing an opportunity that has presented itself. I took a work-related trip out to Allen, TX last week. I was out there for "training" on our next product release (though there was very little "training" and a lot of me asking questions getting a response of "I/we don't know."). My boss's boss went and a few other people from our office. Their trip was to sit down with a bunch of other "supposedly" smart people and start hashing out a new, from scratch version of our product.

Well, after many beers (and a few flammable beverages), the R&D manager (also the guy who started this "let's make a product that doesn't suck" process) begins to talk to his new project architect about how he envisions this new development team. During this conversation it dawns on me that the guy (R&D manager) is referring to me as one of the primary (though not lead, thank the heavens) developers. So I kinda freak out, but we talk a little bit more about it.

Next day, I'm a lot more sober and I ask the R&D manager if he was serious about the previous night's discussion. His response was, "I am very serious about it." Now nothing is firm (so I can't give my job away just yet) and it will be a couple of months before anything comes of it, but I'm pretty darn sure that if the guy offers, I'll be searching for housing in Texas. If this were to happen, I'd really like to find someone that doesn't suck to replace me here in B'ham.

On a side note, I sure do like green dresses at the Golden Globe awards! ;)

Shoe squish....

Today's Foxpro lesson: it is better to have one large file filled with data, than 1.21jigawatts worth of files with just a tinsie bit of data in them. The cost grabs you in the opening and closing of connections to each file, not to mention the FAT entries.

Life lesson: It is even funnier the second time you put mayonaise (about 3 packets worth) in someone's shoe and they put the shoe on. What can I say, they didn't get the hint that they had smelly feet the first time.....

Today's lessons....

Big'J sent me a link to a series of free webcasts from Microsoft on building games using C#. The series begins Jan. 16, 2006. Looks like they run Mon-Wed from noon to 1pm CST. If you're interested here's a link.

When using the Foxpro ODBC driver to insert data into your tables (of which each table is represented as a file and the collection of files are all in the same directory representing a "database"), the driver automatically forces the cdx files to update. A cdx file represents the index(ices) used for it's same-named table/file. So reindexing is not neccessary unless you actually want to change the structure of your index(ices).

Welcome....bitches.....

Welcome to the new year everyone!!

New Year's resolutions:
1) Not to buy an XBox 360 - they are WAY to expensive
2) Stop running with scissors - they might be sharp and I like my eye's to be unpunctured
3) Defeat the Dread Pirate Big'J at least once - I'll use overwhelming odds if I have to!!
4) Become an advocate for selective breeding practices in the U.S. - there are WAY too many stupid people in this country
5) Play more guitar - chic's dig guitars
6) Use the word "flugenhopper" in a constructive sentence - everyone needs a challenge!!!

Hope your resolutions are as well thought out as mine ;)