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New Blog Site

2011-12-08T15:15:00.001-08:00

I'm moving my blog over to http://earl-of-code.com/ so please head on over there!

Music to Code To - Part 2

2011-11-22T19:46:00.001-08:00

If you actually care to read about my background in music, please check out Music to Code To - Part 1, this port is going to be primarily about the songs that I really like to code to and would highly recommend for anyone to try out.

Music to code to has to have a couple of attributes for it to be good for coding:

It can't be too overbearing
It has to improve thought processes
Sometimes it needs to pull you away a little from what you are doing.

It can't be too overbearing

Overbearing music is music that does not let you put it into the background to focus more on other things. There are some caveats to this (see attribute #3), but in general good coding music can sit in the background while still providing value to the coding experience. Really good examples of this attribute are:

Allison Krauss - Maybe

I normally don't like country music, but who can argue with her voice? This is subdued enough that it doesn't get in your way. It's mellow. It has good harmonies. Even the chorus is not overbearing, it just rides along and lets you listen without putting too much though into it.

Dvorak's "From the New World" - Adagio

This just happens to be one of my favorite classical pieces of all time. It's one of the greatest pieces of music I know of to code to. It lays in the background, but peeks out at you a little bit (but not too much). It's also a nice long piece, so it can help you remain focused for a longer period of time (about 12 minutes depending on the group performing it).

Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining

The melody in this song is awesome. It flows very nicely and I even find myself humming along to it, even when I'm not really paying attention to it. It's not complicated at all, which lends itself to being in the background. I contend that strings and other classical instruments improve the minds ability (see attribute #2) and this song has both.

It has to improve thought processes

The three songs mentioned above all fall into this category as well (the last two better than the other); however, in addition, there are some songs that I will put into my playlist more so than other songs to help my mind get working. These songs come into the foreground just a little bit more than the once previous. The idea behind these songs is that they engage the mind to a point of interest, but don't take over the thought process. Trust me, this is a little bit different from attribute #1. Most of the songs in this category end up being classical songs for me.

Basil Poledouris - Hymn to Red October (Main Title)

While "The Hunt for Red October" is one of my favorite movies, that doesn't overshadow how awesome this piece of music is. The male choir at the beginning sets an awesome tone that picks up as the song goes along. A similar piece to this is "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" from the movie "Crimson Tide" (yes, I know it was around before that movie, but it is where I heard it for the first time). Both of these pieces have and ebb and flow to them in terms of intensity, which I find to be very good at getting the juices flowing in my mind.

Boots Randolph - Sleep Walk

You have heard this song a billion times. It is part of pretty much every movie that is about the 50's or 60's almost without fail. The original is by Santo and Johnny, but I prefer this version. The original is a bit more laid back (if possible) and a bit more ballad like. The nice saxophone sound on this one is enough to keep the mind going and get me hopped up a little. Before you poo-poo this song, remember the purpose of songs while coding, don't get in the way, grab interest now and then and improve the thinking. I think the instrumental nature of this song, the upbeat back tempo and the sweet sax do all those things.

Brad Mehldau - Dear Prudence

If you know me at all, you know I love The Beatles. I don't just like The Beatles all by themselves, I love their music, in many of its different forms. This is probably one of my favorite covers of a Beatles song, I think it does the song complete justice. At the same time, it definitely helps improve my train of thought with the nice slow tempo, with the clean piano over the top. It's a simple melody that is very familiar which lends itself coding very nicely.

Sometimes it needs to pull you away a little from what you are doing

This attribute brings out some harder stuff from my collection, because sometimes you need something to pull you away from what you are working on to give you a breather, but also to let you mind get free of the current train of thought.

Buckcherry - For the Movies

This is one of my old favorites, it's not too heavy, but has some spots that pull you out of staring at the computer screen for a short time. That short time of being pulled away can gear you back up for another go at the problem at hand. I find this can be like a little pep talk. Give you a little breather and let you rock out for a minute before getting back to the code.

Camille Saint-Saëns - Air et Danse Bacchanale

This is a classical song with some great parts that pull you away. Once the bells start shaking, this one gets my attention near the end. It builds up to that end very well. Some parts allow you to work through a problem and have it sit in the background, and then when you need it, it grabs you and lets you relax for a minute with some great brass and percussion.

Now, these are just a few examples of the songs I have in my coding playlists. Sometimes, I don't listen to any music at all and sometimes, I can barely function without music playing. For me, the three attributes I mention above are not always the rule either. Sometimes, I need something that will kick me in the pants while I code and pump me up a little.

What are some of the songs you code to?

Music to Code To - Part 1

2011-11-22T07:16:00.001-08:00

I go through spurts of time where I almost have to be listening to music for the creative coding juices to flow. A great coding song is one that can sit in the background, but provide a little bump now and then. Generally speaking, classical music is great for me to code to. I received the Classical Thunder CD set when I was back in high school doing a lot of music.

I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, so let me give you a little background on music in my life.

Music plays an important role for me, I was originally a music education major when I started college (yes, only one semester though). When I was getting ready for junior high, we had the option of taking band, orchestra, choir, or something else that I don't remember. I had done a minimal amount of singing in church stuff, but it didn't really interest me, neither did orchestra and whatever that something else was that I can't remember, it didn't seem like something I would like either. Then there was band. Both of my siblings had done the band thing in junior high. My brother played the clarinet and my sister the trumpet. I don't remember ever going to their concerts or hearing them practice, but something made me feel interested in band. The next decision was what instrument to choose. Clarinet didn't seem interesting and neither did trumpet, but trombone, now there was an instrument! I wouldn't have to worry about pressing keys! So, I put trombone down on my registration form.

I played trombone, with some success, through junior high. I played in the top groups at the school and was the lead chair in those groups. I don't claim to have been great at all. I was probably more confident than the other trombone players in my group, so I put myself out there more and tried more things. My freshman year, I decided to get into marching band. I had a blast doing the summer parade band and decided I wanted to do the fall marching band as well, even though freshmen were at a different school from the sophomore through senior students. The fall marching band was a great time and I was starting to feel like music was what I wanted to do with my life.

High school was a whirlwind of music. I continued playing in the top groups and was invited to play in the full symphony my school had. I learned more about classical music that year than I had ever known before. I had often thought that classical music was just Beethoven and Bach, which I didn't like at the time. My musical world was opened up to Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Offenbach, Sibelius and others. My sophomore year, we played Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony Finale which I still love. We did not play a watered down version of it, it was the same as in that video. I purchased a lot of classical music that year. I was also involved with the top concert band at the school, where I learned about famous march composers such as Sousa, Reed and others. I loved playing.

Fast forward to the end of my senior year. I was completing AP Music theory, playing in the Wind Symphony, Symphonic Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, a second year drum major in the marching band and also the pep band. I was accepted at Utah State University into the Music Education program. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

My first semester of college was an eye opener, as it is for many people. On the semester system, I had 11 classes at 17 credit hours. I was learning to play piano, clarinet, flute, percussion and playing in the marching band, regular band, jazz band 2 and in the trombone choir. I took private lessons from a great trombone instructor Dr. Todd Fallis. I think that Dr. Fallis knew I was not really cut out for what I had chosen, but he didn't let on, he worked hard with me on getting better.

After my first semester, I was exhausted and was not enjoying music very much. The love of playing was not there anymore and I could see that the other trombone players were a lot better than I was. I got started into my second semester one week and decided I needed to make a decision. I wasn't enjoying the music anymore and didn't want to do it, so I looked back on some of the other classes I had taken in high school to see what else I might be interested in. I had taken only one programming class in high school, which was AP Computer Science. That was the last year they taught the class using C++, so the credit from that would get me out of the first semester of CS classes and I had really enjoyed that class. So, I went in and switched majors from Music Education to Computer Science.

The amazing thing was that I had 18 credit hours, but only 6 classes! I actually had a life. I wasn't constantly practicing or going to rehearsals and more importantly, I was enjoying music again. I continued in the CS major and received a BS with an emphasis in Digital Systems (I took some EE classes as part of the degree). I was really enjoying the classes and I was really enjoying music again. Music was still a big part of my life. My roommate was a big music person too and we shared bands and songs back and forth a lot, but it was no longer a burden.

Now that I've given the background on my history with music, in the next part I'll actually get to some of the songs that I consider essential programming music. You may understand a bit more why I choose what I choose with the background info.

Dart and the Future of Web Development

2011-11-13T11:47:00.001-08:00

Recently Google released information about the Dart programming language. Google touts it as the best way to overcome the shortcomings of JavaScript. I agree that there are issues with JavaScript. I've seen and dealt with many issues that I've shaken my head at for the implementation decisions, or things missing from the language (need I mention automatic semi-colons?).

While I agree that there are problems with JavaScript, I disagree that Dart is the best way to solve them. In my opinion, there shouldn't be ONE specific language for the web. A common runtime that other languages could target would be great. I'm not talking things like CoffeeScript, or even Dart that compile to JavaScript. I want to remove JavaScript from the equation completely and introduce something like Mono or the JVM into the browser. I want to use my favorite language to target the web.

I've seen this idea proposed before, it is not new. Miguel de Icaza brought this up on his blog last May. The idea took hold in my head and I haven't been able to forget it since then. I think it's a great idea. No, not just great, genius.

Google is going down a similar route with NaCl, but I think they are missing the point there too.

Web development is hard. I believe it should be easier, we shouldn't have to learn new languages as developers to write for the web. JavaScript is not terrible now, but the future of web development requires something better. That something better should allow developers from all backgrounds to come to the table and contribute in a language they are familiar with. Python on the client? Absolutely. Haskell? Sure. Intercal? Why not? If it can be targeted to the common runtime, it should be available.

Google needs to go one step forward on their idea, Dart is not enough to revolutionize the industry, but allowing developers to write in a language they are familiar with and good at, THAT would revolutionize the web.

Developers, developers, developers, developers...

2011-07-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been feeling the desire to change the way I do development. I've been using and developing with C# and .NET since pre-1.0 days (beta versions) and have stuck mainly to that set of tools for most of my development. My core development platform is Windows, but I would like to branch out. I've dabbled with Python, and looked at other languages (Go, Vala, etc), but have never made the jump to actually developing something meaningful in them. I haven't even gotten into Python enough to have written a full set of tools. In addition, I've looked at tools like Scons to replace make at work, and would love to do it, but it seems like I never get the chance to sit down and learn it and become proficient enough in it to make the move.

So, the question I pose is, how can I change my development life? I feel like I need something new. Something to keep development exciting. Just another .NET library or tool won't make the difference here. I feel too safe and secure with .NET, I need something that forces me outside my comfort zone a little and keeps me on my toes.

This is why I go through a period every year where I want to rewrite the main suite of tools I develop using C++/boost and friends. It would be something new and something that I haven't done in a while which would make me less comfortable. How do you do XML or JSON processing in C++? I don't know right now. How would I do a plugin architecture? I don't know right now. It would be the thrill of learning something again. The thrill of not knowing the answers to some questions and having to search and discover the way to do it.

I miss that right now. I still enjoy my work. I am writing both Windows apps and doing embedded development, but there isn't a lot of "new" going on there. I'd like to rekindle that by exploring new ways of developing; whether it be tools, languages or platforms.

There are so many cool projects out there, and I wish I could be part of them. I enjoy contributing and have picked up contributing a few things to a couple projects, but I'd like to start something as well. Something that would be useful to people. I guess that's the goal of most developers, providing something that is useful to someone.

Best Cover EVER

2011-01-07T19:38:00.001-08:00

This may very well be the best cover song EVER.

Mono.CSharp

2010-10-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

Back in April, I read this post by Miguel de Icaza about the C# REPL (read-eval-print-loop) feature coming to MS.NET framework (previously it had only run on the Mono framework, for reasons detailed in the blog post). I was pretty excited. The feature looked really awesome when Miguel first blogged about it back in 2008 and I was pretty bummed that it was only available for Mono.

I hadn't had an opportunity to play with it as I had been pretty busy doing other stuff at work and really didn't want to touch the application that I wanted to add it to because it's pretty touchy for some reason. It's a very multithreaded application with networking, database and a bunch of other stuff, so trying to touch it can cause rippling effects. It's something I've really wanted to rewrite for a while anyway. I finally decided to implement a couple new features in the application and brave the problems that would come.

I implemented the features and it seemed like everything was working fine until the day before I went on vacation. Everything went to pot. Right down the drain. I patched up the app as best I could before I left and received some frantic pages from a colleague before I actually hit the road.

Once I got back from my vacation I set about to correct the application correctly. You know, actually implement mutual exclusion and so forth so that it wouldn't die a horrible death every couple days. I switched some of the threadpool stuff over to the new TPL (Task Parallel) that was released in .NET 4.0 and that has had a great improvement in speed, but I still wanted a way to break in and debug stuff at runtime. Enter the Mono.CSharp library.

I wrote a very simple network interface that received commands from a raw connection, would evaluate them and then print back the results to the client machine. I still have a few kinks to work out, but all-in-all the solution is AWESOME. I can now remotely login and run commands to see what is happening internally in the application. I used some of the code from the example csharp.exe that Miguel released in order to have some pretty-printing and other similar features, but nothing real intense.

If you haven't checked out the Mono.Csharp library, I highly recommend you do. It has some potential to be very powerful. MS has promised a similar feature for the next revision of C#, but you can have it now, and very easily by just using the Mono.CSharp library.

If you'd like more information about Mono, check out http://go-mono.com.

The Widow's Mite

2010-10-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

This is a booklet that my sister wrote. She is an extremely talented woman and I look up to her. Buy lots of these, it is really good!

This is her blog. http://myamateuradventures.blogspot.com/

Boost.Spirit

2010-10-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at replacing an application at work that was original written in C. The application has it's own little language for defining hardware register sets and also takes care of managing slight differences between register sets for different products. I would normally write this application using C#, but it needs to be able to run on systems that may or may not have .NET, and it is not an installed utility, but something that is checked into our source control system.

I thought originally about just updating the application to be C++ because it really is a good candidate for inheritance and polymorphism for the different register types, and having the STL is always a nice bonus for string manipulation. So, I need to write a parser. I've looked at Boost previously for other applications, but never at the Spirit library.

The library sounds really nice in theory, but I the examples for the latest version don't seem to follow the need that I have, or I am not understanding the examples very well.

Has anyone used the Qi library for writing a complete parser for a real life language? I'd like to see something like that.

Without a Beard You're the Same as Every Other Woman and Child

2010-09-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

BEHOLD!

http://thebeardly.blogspot.com/

I don't read backwards

2010-08-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

I really like xkcd, the online comic strip. So, here are a couple of xkcd posts that I like. Each image is a link to the original post, which contains captions.

I feel like this every time I walk into a store and the sign on the automation door says "Automatic Caution Door"

I'm supposed to read it as "Caution: Automatic Door," but that's NOT what it says! You read left to right, top to bottom. Jerks.

I've recently converted my brother to using Python at work. He loves it. He's a pretty hardcore low level C programmer normally, but Python really hits the spot for a lot of the processing tasks that he needs to do. Plus, ANTIGRAVITY!

I like this one because it reminds me that no matter how well I think I've written a piece of software, someone always comes up with a way to break it that I couldn't even dream of.

I was a band geek in high school and I still walk in time to the music when I'm in a store. Sue me.

For all those who are still kids at heart.

I do something like this once or twice a day. Save the world with regular expressions that is.

I had a high school physics teacher who used to harp on this all the time.

So there you have it, a few of my favorite xkcd's. I don't recommend going to the site if you have important, or even semi-important things to do. I usually get sucked in pressing the "Random" link for about thirty minutes at a time. Enjoy.

Hudson

2010-07-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

For a while at work, we've been using the Hudson continuous integration server for managing our builds. We use it in a couple different ways.

We poll ClearCase for changes to the source, and kick off a build if there are any changes. This uses the SCM polling plug-in along with the the cron plug-in to check every hour or so to see if there are any changes. Based on the result from that SCM polling check, we kick off a bunch of other jobs that will do the actual calls to make to build our binaries.
We have a nightly job that builds all the binaries (even if there haven't been any SCM changes) and then launches a series of sanity tests on the various platforms to make sure that the build is still "healthy."

We used to use a home grown solution that was tied very closely with make and specific options being passed, we quickly grew out of this solution.

There have been a couple of hurdles that we've had to overcome, but Hudson is extensible enough that is hasn't been too hard.

Our SCM expert didn't like some of the ways the pre-packaged ClearCase plug-in worked, so he wrote some batch script tasks that did things the way he wanted them done.
We wanted to keep track of the Hudson configuration in ClearCase, so that we could go back to a previous version of a job if need be. This was pretty easy for our SCM guy to implement as well. We just store the config.xml file for each job into ClearCase for each nightly build.

Hudson is one of the first open source projects I have contributed to. I wrote a simple plug-in to publish artifacts (things that are created during the builds) to a CIFS share. CIFS, for those of you who may not know, is the file system that Windows uses for sharing directories. So, to make it simple it allows files to be copied to a Windows share from either another Windows machine, or a Linux machine (or anything that jcifs works on).

Hudson is really nice. It is very configurable, and really easy to extend to implement what you need it to do. My next job at work is to try out SCons to see if it will work well as a replacement for make.

The Streamer Frock Grosgrain Giveaway

2010-06-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Streamer Frock Grosgrain Giveaway

I'm posting this for my wife, she is in love with this dress. She might even prefer it to me were she given the choice to save one of us from certain death :-)

Rock Band Beatles

2010-06-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

My family got me Rock Band Beatles for Father's Day. You may be wondering how I know this the day before Father's Day. Well, it just so happens that we are terrible with dates around here. Back before Mother's Day, I thought I had another week to get things done, but lo and behold, it was the next day. I think things turned out pretty well, considering I had to run out with the kids and find some presents. We got her a "Princess For A Day" thing at a nearby spa. A little cliché, but what you gonna do? She'll enjoy the massage and such, who wouldn't?! So, we come now to Father's Day. We all thought it was last Sunday, so the rest of the family "snuck" out of the house on Saturday of last week and went to the store and purchased some gifts. It wasn't until we went to a BBQ at my brother's house that we found out it wasn't until the 20th. My son was having a really hard time keeping secrets about what the presents were (he told me a couple times what was in a couple of them). So, they let me open some of the presents early. I was really excited about Rock Band Beatles when it came out. I _really_ enjoy the Beatles, they have been my favorite band since middle school. I only got to play it one night last week, because we had something going on every night. I played through about 10 or 12 songs and loved it. The songs are great, the guitar parts are fun to play, and the music is much better for the kids than the normal Rock Band (we really want to get Lego Rock Band for that reason). I'm looking forward to tomorrow, there is still one more present to open, and my wife is making me biscuits and gravy, one of my favorite breakfasts! She is amazing!

It didn't happen

2010-06-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

If you remember this post, I was hoping to be back down around my low point by the summer. That didn't happen. Not even close. I am up, up, up. It's been interesting this time going back up, because I've noticed my increase in weight, and I can actually feel the extra weight on this time. Something I had never noticed before when I regained lost weight. I'm not sure what the difference is this time. Perhaps it's because I got lower than I was even in high school so the change was more dramatic, I don't know. I would really like to get back down there, it felt great. I felt the best I have ever felt. My back didn't hurt as much, I slept better, all around just a better feel day in and day out. So, wish me luck as I try again to embark upon the downward path.

The worst cover of a Beatles song ever

2010-05-08T21:04:00.001-07:00

My Mom

2010-04-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

Children don't often get the chance to tell their parents that they are proud of them. My mom has always put her heart into her work and showed me what it meant to truly do well at a job. She deserves this and much, much more.

Rolayne Day is Honored With the 2010 ACBSP Teaching Excellence Award

The Association of Business Schools and Programs proudly announces that Rolayne Day, Salt Lake Community College, in Salt Lake City, Utah, has received the 2010 Teaching Excellence Award for Region 7. The award is presented in memory of Lt. Col. Edward Ortowski. As a regional recipient, Day will now be considered for the 2010 ACBSP International Teaching Excellence Award, to be announced in June.

Overland Park, Kansas, 6, March, 2010 ¬¬--- Rolayne Day, Salt Lake Community College, in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been named a regional recipient for the 2010 ACBSP Teaching Excellence Award. The Association of Business Schools and Programs recognizes individuals each year who exemplify teaching excellence in the classroom. The International Teaching Excellence Award is being presented this year in honor of Lt. Col. Edward Ortowski.

Day will be honored, along with other regional recipients, at the 2010 ACBSP Annual Conference, June 25-28 in Los Angeles, www.acbsp.org. She will receive a medallion and a $100 check. Two International Teaching Excellence Award recipients will be announced at a special Salute to Regions luncheon, one from a baccalaureate/graduate degree-granting institution and one from an associate degree-granting institution. As a regional recipient, Day is now a candidate for the international award.

"I have observed first-hand how Rolayne truly makes a difference in her students’ lives," said Lynnette M. Yerbury, C.P.A., M.B.A., division chair, computer systems, marketing and paralegal studies at Salt Lake Community College. "She makes them her first priority. She offers them countless hours of support both in and out of the classroom, helping them reach out and achieve their true potential. Whether the support is in the form of helping with a project, polishing up a presentation, or offering helpful advice, she makes herself available," Yerbury said.

The Associate Degree Commission of ACBSP established the International Teaching Excellence Award in 1995 to recognize outstanding classroom teachers. In 2002, the Baccalaureate Degree Commission created a similar award to recognize excellence in teaching at the baccalaureate degree level. ACBSP is the only specialized accrediting body for business schools that presents an award recognizing excellence in teaching.

"It is more important than ever for business programs to produce graduates who are ready to enter the global marketplace," said Douglas Viehland, ACBSP executive director. "ACBSP has a mission to develop, promote and recognize best practices that contribute to continuous improvement of business education. Recognition of teaching excellence is one way we achieve this goal." he stated.

ACBSP currently has more than 729 members in 32 countries and nine regions. Salt Lake Community College is located in ACBSP Region 7, which represents colleges and universities in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and the Canadian Provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Canadian Territories of Yukon Territory, Nunavut Territory, and the Northwestern Territories.

8-bit Wonders of the World

2010-04-06T22:41:00.001-07:00

Recently on digg (or maybe it was reddit) there was a link to an 8-bit version of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” What is an 8-bit version of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” you ask? Well, if you have ever played an NES game, the soundtrack to that game is 8-bit music. Here is an example from the 8-bit “Dark Side of the Moon.”

The “Dark Side of the Moon” cover is even replicated in wonderful 8-bit glory as you can see.

Now, I never knew there was a group of people who took songs and remade them in this wonderful format, but apparently there are other people in the world who enjoy this type of music like I do. I don’t know what it is about it; maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe, I just appreciate the time taken to do such a good job on something like this, or maybe it’s just a passing fancy, but I’ve been searching out more 8-bit musical wonders and there are plenty out there!

My Chemical Romance “Black Parade”? Sure, here you go:

The Used “The Bird and Worm”? Why yes!

Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody”? And how!

Green Day “21 Guns”? Why the heck not!

Some of these remind me a lot of playing games like Tetris and Metroid. I could spend all night looking up songs and posting them here, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for you, the reader.

P.S. If you find a version of “Lass mich nie mehr los” in 8-bit, let me know.

LDS.org - Support Materials Chapter - “Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction”

2010-03-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is the lesson I am teaching today in Gospel Doctrine class. I really like the story of Joseph and how he turned his trials into blessings both for himself and his family.

LDS.org - Support Materials Chapter - "Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction"

The Future of Energy

2010-03-08T20:17:00.001-08:00

This talk is awesome. I really hope becomes mass produced.

Dan Nocera: Personalized Energy from PopTech on Vimeo.

Guest Post

2010-03-07T08:36:00.001-08:00

I guest posted over at my wife’s blog, check it out.

Guest Posting

2010-01-31T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm guest posting on my wife's blog once a month for a while to talk about music and what we're currently listening to in our house. Check her blog out at http://uniquety.blogspot.com. She's a righteous babe.

And so it begins...

2010-01-24T18:53:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I start into my healthy kick again. I know that sounds kind of like an arbitrary day to start, but for the past two weeks we've had some people visiting our site from Germany, and we've taken them out and shown them to some good restaurants. Yes, another excuse, but no longer! I am going to get back into the habit of using my BodyBugg and entering my food consumption on the website. I hope to be back down around my low by summer time and I hope to stay there instead of going back up. Wish me luck.

Motivation

2010-01-19T13:42:00.001-08:00

Last year between January and May I dropped about 55lbs of weight and felt really good. I did this using a BodyBugg device and being a stickler about entering my food intake and uploading my calorie burn. Jogging with my wife almost every night to help her train for the Wasatch Back Ragnar was also a large factor. My problem since May of last year has been the eating. I really enjoy food. Different foods, with different textures, with different spices really interest me. My wife is a great cook and she makes pretty healthy stuff, but I eat too much of it. That is my problem. I do like healthy foods, they satisfy my interest in different types of foods with different textures, tastes and spices, but I eat too much of them. Even healthy foods, when eaten in large quantities, will add to one's waist. I've been trying to get the motivation to be a stickler about entering my eating and calorie burn like I did last year, but I can't seem to do it. I don't know why, I felt way better in May of last year than I ever have in my life. I weighed less at 28 than I did in high school. Any tips would be appreciated.

Old Times

2010-01-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

In the past, my wife has asked me to play my trombone again. It's a "talent" I have and really enjoyed middle school through the first year in college. I started out in college as a music major. I really wanted to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Polychronis, my high school band teacher, and teach music to high school kids. Then, reality set in my first semester of college. I had 11 classes and 17 credit hours. I had to practice a huge amount and I realized I wasn't really that great at the trombone. I can play in groups pretty well and contribute a good sound, but I don't think I would ever be good enough to teach trombone to other people and have them turn out that great. It was a hard lesson I had to learn. So, after the first week of my second semester in college, I made the decision to switch majors. I went to the registrar and switched my schedule to be that of a computer science major. This decision was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I enjoyed computer science classes way more than the music classes, but I still played in a couple bands and enjoyed that. I think it was my second year in college that I stopped playing trombone at all. I didn't really have time in my schedule and I wasn't a music major, so I just quit. I've missed playing in a group. There is something about being in a group of musicians, and playing a piece of music that is really moving for me. Music speaks directly to my soul. Some pieces of music have the power to elevate my thoughts and feelings (this is mostly classical music; Dvorak's New World Symphony is an example). I haven't played my trombone regularly for about 6 years. I haven't practiced regularly and the only time I've played it is when my kids really want me to. My wife asked as a Christmas present to her that I audition for the EVMCO, an LDS music group that has children's choirs, adult choirs and an orchestra. I told her I would. I filled out the "I'm interested" form a week ago and received a response telling me about auditions and so forth. I'm nervous. I haven't played regularly in so long, I wonder if I am wasting the time of the audition people to go in there. I do love music; it has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. I miss it. So, Merry Christmas, My Love, I'll do my best.

Cover Me

2009-11-25T04:35:00.000-08:00

I saw this link on Digg that said "Neil Young sings 'Fresh Prince'" (or something similar) and was instantly hooked. I love covers, especially when someone completely outside the genre of the original does the cover. Johhny Cash singing "Rusty Cage" by Soundgarden?

Love it.

Me First and Gimme Gimmes doing "100 Miles" by the Proclaimers? Awesome. (Couldn't find a video of this one).

Matt Weddle singing "Hey Ya" by Outkast?

Great.

I don't know what it is about covers, I just like to see other takes on a piece of music. Generally, if the musician doing the cover is good at what they do, they put their own style onto it and I get to hear something that is sometimes completely different from the original, but still holds the essence of that original.

Here's the video of the Fresh Prince cover.

War and Peace

2009-11-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

For about 10 years I have been trying to read the book War and Peace. The first time I started, I got about 20 pages in, got bored and moved onto something else. A few years later, I got about 100 pages in, something came up and I didn't get back to it for a while and by that time I had forgotten everything I had read before. The time after that I got about one third of the way in, something came up again and I gave up one more time. Recently, I was looking for something to read and saw that old nemesis War and Peace sitting on the shelf. I don't know why I wanted to read War and Peace so much. I might be that it's a long book and supposedly a challenge to read and I like challenges. It may be that I am interested in history enough to want to read the book, or it could just be that I like classic books. I've enjoyed Crime and Punishment, The Count of Monte Cristo, and some other classic books, so why not give War and Peace a shot?

I decided that this time, I wouldn't let anything get in the way of finishing the book. This was especially hard because about half way through War and Peace, the 12th book in the Wheel of Time came out, and I've been waiting for that for a long time. We also purchased the 2nd and 3rd Books of Ember and those tempted me too. Something was different this time; I read the whole book and enjoyed it. I don't think it's a fantastic book, it doesn't rate in my top 10, but I did enjoy the book.

I found some things to be a little annoying in the book. Pierre Bezukhov seemed to change too often; we're not just talking a little change, but his whole outlook on life seemed to change frequently. It does seem to be a big of his personality to find something to grab onto and go after head first, but it seemed that every time Tolstoy was describing his story, he changed his life in some large way. He becomes a Mason, he decided he loves someone, then he loves someone else (this seemed to happen to many characters). I did like how Pierre changed over the course of the book, but I think his intermediate changes were a bit drastic.

Nicholas Rostov was one of my favorite characters, along with Andrew Bolkonski. They seemed opposite ends of the spectrum of characters and ended up in the end at peace with who they were. I think Denisov was great too. He showed courage and compassion throughout the book, but never ended up the way that I would have expected. He didn't turn out as heroic as I thought he should.

I did enjoy the book, but I don't think I'll read it again, unless something makes me rethink that in the future.

I'm on to the Books of Ember and The Gathering Storm for now; I also have a couple more books by Jack McDevitt that I need to read.

SpiderMonkey

2009-07-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

The other day at work, I had a great idea come to me. For the longest time the hardware team at work has been wanting some way that they could write simple debug tests for our test boards, but they didn't want to keep a whole source tree with everything up to date, so I thought to myself "wouldn't it be great if I could write a simple little script parser for them?" Their needs are not great, generally just reading/writing registers on the processor and board, maybe some sort of logging and stuff like that; pretty simple really.

I started thinking I should brush up on my flex/yacc/bison/etc when it occurred to me that there had to be a simple script parser out there already that I could build into my embedded, bare metal, environment. So, I opened up google and typed in "C javascript engine" to see what I could find.

Lo, and behold, one of the first responses was for SpiderMonkey, the JS engine that is used by Firefox. Now, when I saw that, I thought there was no way that SpiderMonkey could possibly work for what I wanted, but I decided to take a look at it just to see what it looked like.

I had previously looked at the v8 scripting engine for another project and so I was expecting a rather large source tree, but SpiderMonkey 1.7 was only 1MB tar gzipped. So, I spent about 30 minutes hacking up the makefile a little bit so it would work for cross-compilation, got onto #jsapi on irc.mozilla.org and asked a couple questions about the custom implementation of dtoa and then got my first static library compiled.

Now, anyone who has ever ported something knows that compilation is a pretty big step, but just having something compiled doesn't mean that it will work, so I didn't have much hope.

I grabbed some simple embedding howto code that evaluated the JS code "22/7" to approximate PI and fired up my trusty compiler. Again, I had little to no hope that it would actually work, but to my surprise I got a nice print-out on my screen of the approximation of PI.

I spent another 30 minutes implementing some wrappers for some native functions (logging, etc) for JS and wrote some simple little test scripts.

I was very impressed by SpiderMonkey 1.7, it was easy to hack up a little to get it to cross-compile, it doesn't require a lot of external libraries (none really) and it runs very nice on my embedded target.

My next step will be to try with one of the releases that includes TraceMonkey and the speed improvements that come with JIT.

I have yet to show my idea to the hardware team at work, but I think they will like it. I will support a simple executable that takes a script on the command line and executes it. They just need to write the simple test vectors they need and don't have to worry about the whole code environment.

Thanks SpiderMonkey!

The Coming of the Quantum Cats, part deux

2009-07-01T16:11:00.001-07:00

So, originally I was going to post on every chapter of this book. It was a really quick read (I finished it a couple weeks ago). I've been pondering what to write. I liked the book. I didn't love the book. It jumped around a lot between a couple different viewpoints. Basically, we get to know the same character from a couple different universes. I really liked how different the three versions of the same person were. Depending on the history of their world, they turned out remarkably different.

One of them was a low level mortgage broker, another was a high level scientist and the last was a US Senator. They didn't talk about where each one's history differed to get to the point they were at, but it was interesting to see.

I don't know if I would recommend this book to anyone, but if you want to borrow it I think I still have it.

The Coming of the Quantum Cats

2009-05-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

We have a great little used book store somewhat close to us called Pass the Book. I was able to find a couple books that I have been looking for to fill in my SciFi collection a little bit which is always nice. I was there the other day while waiting for my pizza to get done when I came across this book:

Yes, indeed. "The Coming of the Quantum Cats." How could I possibly resist buying this book? It was $2.00 to start with, and they were having a 25% off sale, so I paid a remarkable $1.50 for this gem. I've decided that I will do a post for each chapter. I will try to not give anything away because I am sure everyone will want to go out and purchase this exceptional literature achievement, but if I do, I'll mark it with "SPOILER ALERT" so you have ample warning. I go into reading this book with the expectation that it will be laughably horrible, but I could be pleasantly surprised and it could be fantasic. I am not holding my breath.

Chapter 1 review to follow shortly.

The Nameless One

2008-12-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

My wife is into naming cars. Her first car was named Meridith; this is what Meridith looked like:

(Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company)

That's a 1993 Ford Escort. The color was black. Stick shift. Nice little car. I taught her how to drive it (she hadn't driven stick before) and she was great.

When we got married, we had the Escort and a 1998 Chevy Cavalier that looked like this:

Apparently she didn't like this car very much because she named it Donkey Ass. I assume she was just using two synonymns for the beast of burden. She couldn't possibly mean anything else.

Then, I got into a car wreck in Donkey Ass and it got totaled, so we went and bought a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which she named The Rugged Gentleman, obviously she liked this car much better.

The Rugged Gentleman was a great drive. It handled really smoothly and was by far the best car I had ever owned. We decided that the payments were too much for us and that we wanted to get out of debt, so we sold it to my mom (she still drives it now).

With the money we got from the sale of The Rugged Gentleman, we purchased two vehicles.

One, a 2001 Mazda Tribute for my wife to drive; she named it The Lasso.

I don't think we ever took ours anywhere quite this nice looking. Ours didn't have a sun/moon roof either. I liked the Mazda. It had some pep to it, nice engine for a smallish SUV and it fit our needs for car seats at the time. We drove it until the air conditioning started going out (a sure sign of death in Arizona!). We traded it in for our current vehicle, which I will get to in a minute. She named it The Lasso after her brother sent her a picture of his facial hair, which was side burns that wrapped into a lasso on his cheek. As a fan of facial hair, I was intrigued and liked it. I'll try and find the picture to post here.

The other vehicle we purchased was for me to drive; a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer.

It's a stick (and definitely not as shiny as the one in the photo). I'm using it as a commuter car (~40 miles round trip per day, to and from work). One of the hubcaps is missing and the front left tire has some issue that I need to get looked at again (yes, I had it looked at a month or so ago).

I refuse to name this car. My wife may very well replace "Lancer" with "Judge Reinhold" or "Fritz McGovern" in her mind when we talk about the car. I just don't know. I don't know why I refuse to name my car, perhaps I just don't get attached to vehicles the way she does. I see a car as something to get me from point A to point B. As long as it has A/C (we do live in Arizona after all) I am ok with just about anything (except a New Beetle...don't like those).

Now, on to the car we got when the A/C started going out on The Lasso. It's a 2008 Honda Odyssey.

She named this one Dusty Miller; even my daughter calls it that. I really love this vehicle. It drives VERY well, the features are great (DVD, MP3, headphones for the screen, leather, back-up camera, etc). I even love the color of this car. It drives smooth...smoooooooth. It gets pretty good gas mileage, and fits our car seat space needs at this point. Lots more room for travel too.

I NEVER refer to these vehicles by the name that my has given them. I say "the van," "the Lancer," "the Mazda," "the Cavalier," etc. Again, I don't know what I have against it, perhaps if I were talking to a shrink they might suppose it's because I don't want to become too attached or something, but who knows. Maybe one day, I'll give in and name the Lancer, but I don't think so.

Senor Cardgage owns Norton Furniture

2008-12-14T21:00:00.000-08:00

If you aren't familiar with who Senor Cardgage is, please see the following Homestarrunner Wiki entry

The voice of Mark (you can count on that being his name) reminds me so much of Senor Cardgage.

One Hit Wonders

2008-11-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

I often find a song from a band that I really, really like. The problem is, I think to myself, "Gee, if I like this song, I will probably like more of their songs." Most of the time I am sadly disappointed.

Let's look at a few examples:

1. The Redwalls - Summer Romance

Sadly, this is the best video I could find on YouTube...doesn't do the song justice.

I can listen to this song over and over. To me, it sounds like something that The Beatles would have put together. The slow build, rowdy interlude and back to the slow melodic verses. I really, really like this song. So, again, I thought to myself, "I have to check out the rest of their stuff, it's probably just as awesome!" WRONG. I couldn't find another song by them that I liked. Perhaps I didn't give them enough of a shot; perhaps I was asking for too much out of them, and maybe I'll check them out again. I put them on my list of one hit wonders; bands that I can only find one song I like.

2. Avenged Sevenfold - Seize the Day

The first thing I have to mention about this is the part of the video where the guy starts into his guitar solo on top of the coffin. CLASSY. I want someone to do a guitar solo on top of my coffin when I die. That would be awesome. Back to the song.

This song has a certain raw quality to it that I really like. The lead singer's voice is both melodic and raw at the same time. The guitar solo in the middle has a great sound to it and I like the speed change in the middle. Again, I went looking for other songs by Avenged Sevenfold, didn't find a single one that I could even listen to more than one time.

3. M.I.A - Paper Planes

Paper Planes Video

I have a buddy who HATES this song, which might be part of the reason I like it so much. Actually, I really, really like the beat on this song, and I like the usage of the gunshots and cash register as percussive "instruments." The lyrics are pretty much nonsense to me, but they are ok. It's a good song to relax to, as the beat is nice and slow and doesn't require a lot of thought. I listened to some of M.I.A.'s other stuff and thought it was crap, pure and utter crap.

I don't know what it is that catches my fancy on some of these songs, they just inch their way into my head and I dig them. I wish I could find another band that I liked more than 3 or 4 of their songs (I like a majority of the Beatles), but I haven't found a band like that yet.

Code looks terrible

2008-10-28T16:03:00.002-07:00

Source code looks terrible on here...any tips to making it look nicer?

Update: adding a pre tag around the code makes it at least format somewhat correctly...

C++ is fun again!

2008-10-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

Lately at work I've been playing around with C++ and the Boost libraries; specifically I have been using Boost.Any, Boost.Filesystem, Boost.Program_ptions, Boost.Python, and last but not least Boost smart pointers.

These libraries, in conjunction with some of my own macros and setup have made for a very nice transition back to C++ from C#. The awesome things about C# are the class libraries and the syntactic sugar (foreach, lambdas, anonymous methods). Similar things can be done with C++ and Boost (Boost.Foreach, etc).

I'm going to talk about the way I've setup my command line options parsing, to give you an idea as to how I am using Boost.

First off, I have a static class called OptionsParser which looks like this:

class OptionsParser 
{
public:
  static bool isParsed(void);
  static void parseOptions(const std::vector<std::string>& options);
  static void registerOptions(const std::string& owner, const boost::program_options::options_description& options);
  static void printAllOptions(std::ostream& output);
  static const std::vector<std::string> getUnrecognizedOptions(void) const;

  template<class T>
  static T getValue(const std::string& option, T def)
  {
    T result = def;
    if(!isParsed())
      throw std::exception("You must call parseOptions before trying to retrieve values");

    if(_variables_map.count(option))
      result = _variables_map[option].as<T>();

    return result;
  }

  template<class T>
  static T getValue(const std::string& option)
  {
    T result;
    if(!isParsed())
      throw std::exception("You must call parseOptions before trying to retrieve values");

    if(_variables_map.count(option))
      result = _variables_map[option].as<T>();

    return result;
  }

private:
  OptionsParser();

  static boost::program_options::variables_map _variables_map;
  static bool _parsed;
  static std::vector<std::string> _unrecognized;
  static boost::program_options::options_description* _all_options;
};

The real meat of this class are the two methods registerOptions and parseOptions.

registerOptions is used from the constructor of some static class instances I have which setup the options when statics are initialized (before main).

The OptionsProvider class is what I use for this, along with some macros:

class OptionDefinition
{
public:
  OptionDefinition(const std::string& option_string, boost::program_options::value_semantic* value, const std::string& description);

  const std::string& getOptionString(void) const;
  const boost::program_options::value_semantic* getValueSemantic(void) const;
  const std::string& getDescription(void) const;
private:
  std::string _option_string;
  boost::program_options::value_semantic* _value_semantic;
  std::string _description;
};

class OptionsProvider
{
public:
  OptionsProvider(const std::string& owner, const std::string& description, OptionDefinition* options[]);
  virtual ~OptionsProvider(void);

  const std::string& getOwner(void) const;
  const std::string& getDescription(void) const;
  const boost::program_options::options_description& getOptions(void) const;

private:
  std::string _owner;
  std::string _description;
  boost::program_options::options_description _options;
};

#define BEGIN_OPTIONS_ARRAY(owner) static OptionDefinition* Options##owner[] = { 
#define DECLARE_OPTION(option_string, value_type, description) new OptionDefinition((option_string), \
new boost::program_options::typed_value<value_type>(NULL), \
(description)),
#define DECLARE_BOOL_OPTION(option_string, description)   new OptionDefinition((option_string), \
(new boost::program_options::typed_value<bool>(NULL))->default_value(0)->zero_tokens(), \
(description)),      

#define DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION(option_string, value_type, def_value, description) new OptionDefinition((option_string), \
(new boost::program_options::typed_value<value_type>(NULL))->default_value(def_value), \
(description)),
#define END_OPTIONS_ARRAY()  NULL };   // add terminator to the end of the list

#define DECLARE_OPTIONS_PROVIDER(owner, description) static OptionsProvider OptionsProvider##owner(#owner, description, Options##owner);

#define OPTIONS_PROVIDER(owner) OptionsProvider##owner

Now, here is an example usage of these macros:

BEGIN_OPTIONS_ARRAY(TestManager)
DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION("testid", unsigned long, 0L, "Step ID from automation")
DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION("timeout", int, -1, "Number of seconds before stopping a\ntest with a timeout result")
DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION("board-path", fs::path, fs::path("boards"), "Path to directory containing board libraries")
DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION("test-config", fs::path, fs::path(""), "Path to file containing the test configuration")
DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION("manager-path", fs::path, fs::path("managers"), "Path to directory container manager libraries")
DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION("output-dir", fs::path, fs::path("output"), "Path to output directory")
END_OPTIONS_ARRAY()

DECLARE_OPTIONS_PROVIDER(TestManager, "TestManager options")

This sets up the array and then creates a static OptionsProvider instance which will register the options with the OptionParser static class. Then I can just call OptionsParser::parseOptions(vector_created_from_argv) and it will parse all the options into the boost::program_options::variables_map.

If I have a plug-in class that is loaded later, I just do something like this after it's options have been registered:

OptionsParser::parseOptions(OptionsParser::getUnrecognizedOptions())

I could probably just have an overload of parseOptions with no parameter and have it automatically use the unrecognized options, but I haven't decided on that yet.

Then in my classes I can do stuff like this to get option values:

_testid = OptionsParser::getValue<int>("test-id");

to retrieve the value. If I used DECLARE_DEFAULT_OPTION, it automatically sets up the default value since the boost library sets that up. If I don't, then I'd probably call the getValue overload that takes a default value.

Unexplainable

2008-07-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

I won't prepare you for this photograph except to say: this is one of the greatest photographs ever taken.

Kids

2008-07-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

A couple people that I have reconnected with on Facebook have asked for some pictures of my kids. So, since I think my kids are pretty much the cutest (and what self respecting father doesn't?! the only difference in this case is that I am right...buahahahahah!)

This is one of my favorite pictures of my daughter. She looks so completely innocent that it makes me smile. Then you add the puppy face makeup on top of it, and there just isn't anything more I can say. She got this face paint do-up at the open house we had when the market didn't suck as much as it does now (it still sucked then too though). We had a couple people come look at the house, but I think this picture might be the highlight for me...oh...and the AWESOME florescent green with gold faux overcoat paint job in our bedroom. I didn't sleep well for several weeks.

This is the Girl in all her Joy School Graduation glory. She was smiling to humor me I'm sure, as she would have much rather been outside playing with her school mates. She did great during her program, she kept an eye on the boy who was rubbing his eyes the ENTIRE time during singing. Afterwards, she asked "Why was so-and-so rubbing his eyes during all the songs?" I didn't have a good answer, but at least she made sure he was ok and didn't let the singing interrupt her watching him.

No, my boy is not staring at the wall. What you can't see is the television that is in the little alcove not 2 feet in front of him (ok, more like three or four). His favorite spot for television is one of two places: as close as he can get physically to the television, or tucked nicely in next to me on the sofa. I prefer that latter.

Slide-o-Wife made this outfit for my boy from a button up shirt she found at the DI. I've been trying to convince her she should sell them based on the number of comments I've gotten at church from various mothers as to how they wished they had one. I haven't had success yet. The wheelbarrow in the background sat in that position for roughly 8 months after my wonderful wife went out and did some weeding for the first time ever in her life (j/k). I piled more weeds on it about a month after this picture was taken and then finally disposed of it all when half of it blew around the yard during a storm. Sweet.

So, there are my kids. Enjoy.

Don't Read My Blog

2008-07-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

I'm trying some reverse psychology on the lot of you...

Chili con Family

2008-07-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

My family has been out of town for nearly a week (Tuesday). When my family is out of town that usually means I stay up REALLY late writing code, browsing the web and general geekery. This time has been completely different. I've stayed up REALLY REALLY late writing code, browsing the web and general geekery.

I miss my family quite a bit. It's the small things that really get to me and make me into a sappy dork (which I don't mind). I miss when my wife wakes up just a little bit when I am leaving and says "I love you" in her sleepy voice, and then falling right back to sleep like it never happened. I miss my daughter wanting to type her name on my computer. I miss my son getting so excited when I get home that he shakes a little bit. My wife is the noticer and rememberer in the family (she can remember outfits she wore when she was three, I have a hard time remembering what I wore yesterday without looking in the dirty clothes hamper), and it's not until I don't have something that I realize how much I notice and how much comfort it brings me.

My wife would insert a comment on how sappy I am...I miss the way she makes fun of me... :-)

This coming week I am committing myself to running again. I used to run 6 miles a day (3 in the morning and 3 at night) and I actually really enjoyed it. It's hard to start back up again after 3 years of not doing it though. I can often find rationalizations for not going out, but once I'm out and hit my stride, I do like it.

The intervals program I did a couple weeks ago was pretty good as well. It is supposed to increase the amount of oxygen your body can process, and increase your speed over all. I liked the results (and the workout I got from it) when I did it and need to get back doing it.

Dirty Little Secret 6

2008-07-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

Macy Gray - I Try

What the crap am I thinking?

Let's tally up the things against her (and this song):

Her voice is scratchy and annoying
The guy in the video is more feminine than she is
All her songs seem to be about someone leaving, beating or betraying her...sucky for her
the hair...I mean...wow
she's not Serj Tankian
the video is about as exciting as watching dirt

You can see below two videos that relate to this song. The first is the actual music video from this pile of crap that I can't stop myself from listening to over and over. Why, oh why do I love crap?! I guess I can't really call it crap since I like it, but I should think its crap.

I think it's the chorus of this song that really gets to me. I like the progression during the chorus and later in the song, the raw sound that she has in her voice. It also has the infamous step up that I once heard is what makes a lot of songs popular and mainstream, people like that change in key.

Here's the video and then a parody following it by the Wayan's Brothers.

Macy Gray - I Try
Uploaded by hushhush112

ExML

2008-07-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

We have been using an open source library called ExcelPackage at work for generating spreadsheets based on some data from a database. I really like the library, the API is nice and easy and allows for some powerful stuff. There are some things that I would like added (and some other people have things they want added), but the developer seems to have disappeared.

I decided to fork the project and so have created the ExML project on CodePlex. I was originally thinking of calling it ButterCover (I was tired when I came up with it), but changed to ExML later.

Please put requests in the discussions are on the project and I'll try and implement them as quickly as I can.

Schmuck...That's Right! Frank Schmuck

2008-06-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

Photo: Brant Clinard, Ahwatukee Foothills News

While driving to work one day, my brother (who I carpool with) pointed out a sign that read.

"Vote Schmuck...That's Right! Frank Schmuck".

I laughed out loud for several minutes and made several jokes with my brother ("They let any schmuck run for office these days", "Boy, another schmuck in office...what's so new about that?" and so on and so forth). Then I began to realize how genius the ad campaign is. How many more people will remember a sign for a guy with the last name Schmuck?! It seems to me that if you have a last name like Schmuck, you've got to use it to your advantage.

On, Mr. Schmuck's website there is a note about the origin of the name Schmuck (German for jewel or jewelry...which makes me wonder how it got the negative conotation it has in the US). This lead me to wikipedia, where I found the following article explaining how schmuck came into the English language from Yiddish. (Yiddish is a cool word by the way).

Anyway, I don't know much about Mr. Schmuck in terms of his positions on issues, nor do I live in his voting district, but he has my support purely on the merits of his ingenious play on his last name.

Dirty Little Secret 5

2008-06-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

This is another really really shameful song that I like. I just looked up the video for the first time today and it made me like this song even more. There are just those songs that you wonder what the crap makes you like them and this is one of them. I can seriously listen to this song over and over, much to the chagrin of my wife I am sure.

I don't know that there is anything I can say to redeem myself from this song, so I leave it up to you, the reader to find one thing you like about this song. Just one little thing!

Sadly...I can find many...

Poop Freeze

2008-06-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

I really hope the people who came up with this product make a lot of money off of it. I'm not saying that because I would ever buy some, nor would I ever probably use it. We don't generally take my dog on walks where he drops a load (nor are his loads that bad to deal with since he weighs a whole 4 pounds).

The sales pitch by the inventor must have gone something like this...

Inventor: "So, I have this product that will make it easier for dog owners to retrieve the dog waste while they are out on a walk. It will completely revolutionize taking your dog for a walk!"

Company: "Some sort of pole that you can carry to make it so you don't have to bend over? Maybe some sort of device to instantly desinigrate the feces so you don't have to deal with it at all?"

Inventor: "No, even better! It's a spray can that you spray the feces with to freeze it!"

Company: *blank stare*

Inventor: "Frozen feces will be much easier for people to get a handle on and the feeling is much better, no one likes picking up the warm feces from the ground."

Company: *blank stare*

Inventor: "The best part is the name I came up with, are you ready for this?! 'Poop Freeze'!"

Company: *blank stare*

If you, or anyone you know has ever used 'Poop Freeze,' please leave a comment with your experience.

Also, here is the website and commercial.

http://www.poop-freeze.com/

Dirty Little Secret 4

2008-06-16T09:49:00.001-07:00

This one is a whopper. I should prepare you for this one. This is probably the one I am most ashamed of liking. The sheer crap factor that this band has is roughly a 10 on a scale of 1 to 5. They are horrible, and yet I love this song.

The first time I heard this song, I thought it was a remix of a Jackson 5 song, which ups the respectability of the song (a little) because it would have originally been done under the Motown label. Come on, Motown people!

Later I found out who really sings the song (after I had downloaded it and listened to it for a while) and I was floored. I had heard of the band, and participated with my friends in making fun of them.

My wife even has a story about them where a friend mentioned that he didn't like their music but the one chick was hot. Note, there are no chicks in the band.

So, for the big reveal I'm going to leave it to you to go to the YouTube link below and see the stinker of a song that I can listen to over and over and over and not get tired of it. I must have sinned in my childhood to like this song.

Video

This one is not embedded because the people over at Universal wanted to keep this gem all to themselves.

Dirty Little Secret 3

2008-06-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

Donna Lewis - I Love You Always Forever

My wife recently asked me why most of my dirty little secret songs are sung by women. It made me pause and consider for a moment, until I realized it was pretty simple. Women don't generally sing the kind of music that is in my normal genre areas (rock varieties such as alternative, hard, etc). Also, much of the other music I listen to is mostly instrumental (jazz, classical, etc) so, this leaves little room for women singers to be in my main genres. They fill up my dirty little secrets rather well though.

This dirty little secret is and older song, 12 years old in fact. I was 15 years old 12 years ago. This is a song that I don't really know why I like it so much. Her voice is soft and sweet and the rhythm is nice, but that's not usually enough to get me hooked. Perhaps its the "girl next door" nature of Donna Lewis. She sounds like a nice girl that lives down the street.

Anyway, the video is below. Her hair and clothes are awesome 90's clothes. Good times.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2008-05-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

I'll be honest at the get go on this one. I never heard this song until I saw the awesome 8-bit music video from below. The video was what originally drew me into my enjoyment of this song. The full 8-bit glory of Rivercity Ransom and various other video games is great. It took my back to my childhood, back to those glory days of summer playing Zelda or Tetris for 9 hours and stuffing my face full of snacks. I wonder if that has anything to do with me being overweight...nah.

This song is one I enjoy outside the confines of the 8-bit music video these days. I don't know if this song would be characterized as techno or not (which I normally don't like very much techno...very little in fact), but the mix is great. This is one of the songs I really enjoy for working out. The tempo is good for a jog or for getting pumped up on the free weights.

Dirty Little Secret 2

2008-05-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel

Let me start this post out by saying how much I really dislike country music in general. I don't like twangy, country drawl music. The most amusing thing about my liking this song is how twangy it is and how much they sing with a country drawl. Everything I despise about country music is epitomized in this song.

The redeeming part of this song is the harmony. I love really good harmonies in songs.

My favorite part is the third chorus:

Walkin' to the south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly
Had a nice long toke
But he's a headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee
And I gotta get a move on fit for the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh
At least I will die free

This part has good harmonies with the backup singers in a'capella.

As much as I dislike country music, I can listen to this song over and over and over. Just ask slide-o-lovie.

Typing

2008-03-29T23:47:00.001-07:00

My friend Cauley took this test and challenged me to it.

88 words

Speedtest

This was on my home keyboard which I don't type on a lot. I'll try on my work keyboard later.

Dirty Little Secret 1

2008-03-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

To start of my "Dirty Little Secret" series of music blogs, I'll start out with a real kicker.

Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone

Oh, why, oh why do I like this song?! Many times my dirty little secret songs are not clear to me why I like them. This song is no different. It combines several things that I normally do not like.

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson

Teeny Bop Music Kelly Clarkson

As you can tell, I am not a fan of Kelly Clarkson at all. I don't like American Idol (shock!) and anyone to come from American Idol is a marketing ploy at best. Which is why it shames me to say that I love this song. One redeeming quality of this song is that it was written by Avril Lavigne who is a somewhat better musician than Kelly Clarkson.

I can't tell you why I like this song; it does shame me to say I do.

Embedding was disabled on this one, so you'll have to click here to see the video.

Please leave comments on why I should be ashamed for liking this song, or about songs you have that are your dirty little secrets. I'll continue with another winner next time.

dirty little secrets

2008-03-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be taking my music exploration into a little different direction. I know everyone has these, they don't want to tell their friends, their significant other, their family, or even their dog; they love those songs that they "shouldn't". These are what I call my dirty little secrets. Songs that I love and can listen to over and over, but have no depth, sometimes very little musicality and sometimes are so cheesy you could make nachos. Over the next couple of posts, I will be introducing you to a few of my dirty little secrets; putting them out there for the mockery and shame that should be mine for liking them. You be the judge, shame me, mock me, do whatever you like, but I will always hold these dirty little secrets in high regard. If you're brave enough, maybe you'll comment with some of your dirty little secrets too.

B.Y.O.B

2008-01-23T20:26:00.001-08:00

System of a Down - B.Y.O.B

I really like System of a Down (mainly because of Serj). I like the lyrical nature of their songs, that they mix in with heavy, heart pounding, head banging rock and roll. I think that's what I like most about them; the contrast they have in their music. Serj tends to be more lyrical, as is shown in his solo efforts (while the other guys from SoaD tend to be the heavier influence). I still like Serj's solor stuff, but not much of the other guys' stuff.

The particular reasons I like this song are as follows:

The driving rock at the beginning would make any older person roll up their window quickly if I pulled up next to them while blasting the song in my car (I really like doing that for some reason).

The "la la la la la la la la la" part is a great little ditty that sticks in my head for a long time. I normally don't like that, but with this song, it works for me.

I really like the guitar part in the bridge before the "la la la la la" part. It is a cool little syncopated rhythm.

This song is just fun to listen to. I am a software developer by trade and this song is a good one to program to.

Make up your own reason why I like this song, do I have to spoon feed you people?!

Here's the Lego version of the music video.

And here is the real version. I really like how Serj looks like an evil Weird Al Yankovic.

Chop Suey!

2008-01-23T20:23:00.001-08:00

System of a Down - Chop Suey!

Another one in the System of a Down series.

I just really dig a lot of System of a Down stuff. I dig the harmonies, the different guitar sounds in the same song (hard and soft riffs), and I dig some of the subject matter.

Why I like this song:

The guitar riff at the beginning has the sound of a good Spanish-in-your-face dance number, then grows with the drums into a driving force of pure joy.

I once played this song for a co-worker who is 20 years older, he asked me when it came to the heaviest sections "What's the point?!" Referring to what he thought was the lack of musicality or lyric nature of those parts. My take on them is that they provide a distinct antithesis to the lyrical parts of the song. When he then goes into the "trust in my self righteous suicide" portion, the distinction is rather clear between that and the driving parts.

As with most System of a Down songs, I really enjoy the harmonies on this song. They fit well with the background and kind of pump me up.

I found this really cool Lego version of the music video on YouTube and couldn't resist. Enjoy!

Lonely Day

2008-01-23T20:19:00.001-08:00

System of a Down - Lonely Day

Lonely Day was one of those songs that I heard on the radio that I thought to myself, "That song is awesome, I wonder who it is." I had listened to a lot of SOAD by that time, but this one sounded a little different at first. I figured out later that is was mainly because Serj was not the main singer on the track. I do like Serj quite a bit (see this post), but the other main singer Daron has the perfect voice for this song. SOAD is great on their songs because, like the Beatles, they choose the singer based on the song, they don't try and force every single song to one singer.

Why I like this song:

It contains soft, medium and hard elements. I love music that can fit into many categories.

The harmonies, as with most SOAD songs I like, are great. The mix of Serj and Daron's voices is perfect, especially on this one where Serj doesn't dominate as in many other SOAD songs.

The guitar riff at the beginning is simple and leads well into the opening vocals "Such a lonely day...and it's mine"

The poor grammar of "the most loneliest day of my life" is a perfect fit for the message of the song.

I'm a software engineer and this song is great to code to. Perfect mix as I mentioned above.

See the video after the jump.

I found some awesome new videos to use on YouTube. They aren't the official music video from the band, but I think you'll enjoy them. Starting next post.

Empty Walls

2008-01-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

Serj Tankian - Empty Walls

I really like System of a Down. The harmonies they use are awesome and the driving beat is cool too. They have a pretty wide variety of styles that they play, although heavier is definitely their style.

Serj Tankian is the lead singer of System of a Down. The band to a hiatus from making albums and Serj came out with a solo album. The first time I heard this song, I thought it was SOAD, but when I looked it up, it was Serj. You can tell who has a lot of artistic involvement in SOAD's songs.

Why I like this song:

There are several different styles: soft melodic, hard driving, crazy sounding lyrics and more!

Serj's voice is perfect for the type of music he sings. He has some hard edges, but underneath is a good set of pipes.

The harmonies in this song are great. The background singers seem to take the place of the second singer in SOAD pretty well, although nothing can really replace the harmonies he and Serj sing in Lonely Day

This song is great to code to, it doesn't take a lot of thought to listen to in enjoyment mode (deep thought mode works with this song too, the message from this song, and the video is quite clear, something SOAD has lacked a little in their most recent popular songs).

To Build a Home

2008-01-19T09:07:00.000-08:00

Cinematic Orchestra - To Build a Home

I don't remember where I first heard this song. I think it was linked on some music blog, but I thought it was one of the greatest songs I had ever heard. It reminded me of Coldplay before their second album (which I don't like by the way). The melody is fantastic and the lead singer's voice is perfect for this song. The simple piano under the voice, just emphasizes the simplicity of the first part of the song. I think I played this song so much that Wife doesn't like it much anymore, but I normally do that with any song that I really start liking. This is one of those songs that I can listen to over and over, and have done so on several occasions.

Why I like it:

Starts out very simple, and builds to an awesome climax. The simplicity of the piano at the beginning, and then the addition of the strings as it goes along is awesome.

I am a sucker for piano and strings in rock/pop music.

The lyrics are not overdone. They are simple, to the point, yet deep. There are some good metaphors for life and stuff.

My favorite line in the whole song is "I climbed a tree to see the world." I don't know why it is my favorite, but it is.

This is not an official video from the song, but I thought it was pretty good.

Next post will be about something harder.

You're Beautiful

2008-01-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

This post is about James Blunt's "You're Beautiful"

My wife turned me on to this song. She hears things on the radio, or on TV and asks me to find them for her. At first, I really didn't like this song, but as with many songs that I don't like at first, as I listened to it more I found things that I really liked about it.

The clean guitar that starts it all out is fantastic. I love the riff and how it melds in with the background stuff that is going on.

I love how parts of this song almost feel like they don't fit, but then they do. Near the end when he sings "There must be angel with a smile on her face, when she thought up that I should be with you" it almost doesn't fit with the rest of the song. It's saving grace to me is the rhythm he sings the second part in

This song fits into my guilty pleasure arena with it's "cheesy" nature, but it seems to do it with a lot of depth. It's the same old story of someone seeing someone and falling in love but knowing they will never be with that person, but in this case I think it's done a bit more classy than the 80's butt rock that used this theme very often.

Apparently, as you can see in this next video. James Blunt likes to be alone in weird places, doing weird things. In "You're Beautiful" he is alone and taking off his clothes in a very cold place. In this one he is alone in a weird room sitting in a chair singing to no one and running through the woods by himself. An odd man.

Hocus Pocus

2008-01-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

In the coming weeks I will be highlighting some of the songs that I think are really cool, especially live. This week, we'll be looking at a Dutch group from the early seventies called Focus. I haven't heard anything else by them, ever. This is the only song that I have ever heard and I have to say, I even like this version better than the album version. The great things about this video are:

The lead "singer's" (I put it in quotes because he mainly just yodels, I don't if that is officially singing in my book) facial expressions are great in comparison to the lackadaisical looks on the faces of the rest of the band.

This seems to be about 125% of the speed of the normal album cut, and yet, again the lackadaisical looks on the faces of the band members.

Overall, this song is just a great mix of different stuff. It's got some Jethro Tull type stuff in there (obvious one with the flute), but it also has some stuff that reminds me of Deep Purple, and some other bands.

Take a listen (and watch it too, for pure entertainment value) and let me know what you think with a comment.

post

2007-12-09T16:27:00.000-08:00

This is not really a post.

Vacations and Returns

2007-10-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

Had a nice long vacation this past week. A whole week with basically no structure and nothing that HAD to be done. Sometimes I think it would drive me crazy to be retired and have nothing to do, then something like last week happens and I wonder if I can retire sooner than later. I had a great time camping on the beach in San Diego. The food was awesome (the tacos we had were AMAZING), the people were great to hang out with and I got to spend a lot of time with my family. Sounds pretty perfect. I am even willing to put up with a really sore back (I threw it out of wack boogie boarding of all things) for the good time I had on the trip. I am glad to be returning to work tomorrow, hopefully with a new outlook and new vigor in completing the stuff I need to get done.

I haven't gotten much farther into "Getting Things Done" yet, but hope to this week. I'm still hoping it will also add to a renewed sense of vigor in completing stuff and allow me to be much more productive. I'll keep you posted.

filibuster vigilantly

2007-10-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

The title of this post really has nothing to do with what it is about. It comes from a song by They Might Be Giants named "Birdhouse In Your Soul" if you are interested. It seems from my googling of it, that this is a somewhat popular blog entry title.

I've started reading a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen in hopes of improving my efficiency and productivity. I figure the more I can get done in a more efficient time period, the more time I will have to spend with my family. The interesting thing about this book so far (I'm only on page 5) is the way that Mr. Allen refers to work. I tend to separate my life into work and home, Mr. Allen tends to say that anything that needs to be done is work, and his system will cover all "work." I really like this.

Whether it is mowing the lawn or finishing the power measurements at the office, these are things in my life that need to be completed. They are work items, that if I can plan for better, I hope to complete more efficiently and have more time with my wonderful family. Every minute that this program buys me with my family is a great return on any investment in my time it takes to learn the program.

sloppy coding

2007-08-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

Sloppy coding has to be one of my main pet peeves. I hate looking at code that I have to pick up and maintain and realize that the person who came before didn't care one jot or tittle about the maintenance aspect. For hours at a time each day it seems like I look at code with huge blocks commented out. I don't think people understand that when using a source control system, YOU CAN GO BACK TO PREVIOUS VERSIONS!

It's not just the large blocks of commented code. I also deal with large amounts of poorly thought out code. Examples are people who use C++, but don't USE C++. Many times it seems like people just code in C, but name the file .cpp. What good does that do? What benefit is there? If you are going to use C++, use it for what it can be good for.

Then there are those who like to pretend they know about software development. They claim that their code is well written, that they follow good design principles. These people can have the worst code of all. They over comment, considering it "built-in documentation." If their code was well thought out, they wouldn't need as many comments, the code would comment itself.

The most frustrating thing is watching new projects head down the same road. I watch as people continue to put in hacks where a well thought out solution would do so much better in making the code maintainable and portable. Long down the road some poor sap like me will have to go through the code and wonder how it ever came to be.

I try and try to influence people to write good code, but alas the battle is never ending, uphill both ways in the snow.

apathy

2007-08-12T21:21:00.001-07:00

Apathy is killing America.