Paul is very busy. Very busy indeed. He is upgrading right now. Upgrading to the new PHP 5.2 which has a bunch of benefits that I will not bother explaining. Maybe the server will get all crazy tonight.

Yesterday, my boss and I, were waiting at the ATM when a guy went by with jugs marked radioactive, hm. I wanted to get a pic but by the tie my phone loaded the camera app it would have been over. I really need to buy a camera with the money from this side project I did for my boss. I am so sick of not being able to point and shoot even if the camera has the advantage. Once I have that and my new fancy heater you will see more of me on my journal.

On the work front I am busier than ever but I still like the job a lot. A project I projected would take 2-3 months ended up being delayed by other people for months until this month and now it is due on Nov 28th. I have no idea if this is realistic or not. I have made a lot of progress but today the database adminstrator locked out my password by accident when refreshing the test database with data from the production database this morning. Then when that was worked out my user did not have permission granted to view my custom tables, then the tables had triggers which went haywire after the upgrade from the production database.

I really believe that in this case having to work with a database administrator has only made the process a hundred times slower. Every time I want to make a change I have to run it by administrator and then they make the change to the tables that I need for the application, argh.

Sidenote: I have a hard time giving up any control over the development process.

Luckily, most of the database building is over. Now it is really time to work on the data. Basically, the system is made to allow for online evaluation of thousands of employees which is a complicated multi-tiered process. A person's supervisor initiates the review of an employee. This would be easy if the system that records who is who's supervisor was accurate but hundred of people have supervisors other than who is their actual supervisor which makes things more complicated. There are also a multitude of unions which negotiate the questions that are used to evaluate the employees. This means that normalizing the questions on the forms is generally impossible because the questions themselves have been negotiated by the unions.

To make matters more complicated many of the questions are questions to. e.g. the question and the answer are both blank and are dependant on the individual user position and are filled out by the supervisor at the time of review.

Once the supervisor is done reviewing the employee, the review is passed onto the reviewer, which is generally the supervisor of the supervisor but is also often not the case. They can add comments, then the employee gets to respond. Then the head of HR and then finally it is over.

I actually have it pretty under control. The only problem is the shear volume of the questions would are still being inputted.

P.S. It feels so freaking good to not be in school anymore!

I am going crazy because there is some dns problem at telcove which is upstream from us on the net. It is making it so that I cannot reach the site through my adelphia connection but it works fine for (e:twisted) in san francisco and fine for me on my sprint cell phone.

I wish so bad the server was in the house with my own connection. I can't even call telcove because they aren't my host.

Argh, I really need to just raise around $1200/year to host it at home. Any ideas?

What a strange day. We went down to Jamestown to see a fireplace dealer that Dave met at a nudist place somewhere in the 90s. In the summer, we see this dude everywhere it seems, no matter what state we vacation in.



Ironically, dave was delivering a picture the guy took of us with Dave's camera in Rock River in Vermont last year which lead to a discount in these top of the line, super efficient gas fireplace stoves - which works for me. This will also save us a fortune in heating bills.



They are the Hearthstone Tucson model. They don't require any electricity to run so will work even in another arborgeddon. Dave bought one too. They will save the environment and make the selected rooms toasty warm, moist and carbon monoxide free without a vent.

One such room is my office which will now be exceptionally warm and usuable.

I found this information at about.com. It just reiterates the fact I cannot have a hypoallergenic dog and neither can (e:lilho).

What does "hypoallergenic" really mean?
To be hypoallergenic is to have a decreased tendency to cause allergies. Hypo means less, not none. Hypoallergenic dog breeds will still produce allergens, but because of their coat type, will typically produce less than others. People with severe allergies and asthma will still be affected by a hypoallergenic dog.

There is no such thing as a non-allergenic dog.

What coat-type makes the difference?
There are two coat types that produce a lesser amount of allergens: single-coated dogs, who do not have a thick undercoat, and hairless dogs. However even hairless dogs can produce enough dander to to affect a highly allergic person.

This is a Chinese Crested Dog (WIKIPEDIA - Chinese Crested Dog). If I could get a hiarless dog it would be this kind. (e:enknot) told me about them.



Speaking of crazy shit check of the Hobbit Cattery is a sub page of this and has dwarf hairless hobbit cats. There is something totally wrong with these cats.

UPDATE: 03/12/2008 I received this message about the person claiming copyright on the image. Sadly, I didn't even take the image from their site. I took it from the hobbit cat site which had stolen the image from them.

The photograph of the hairless dwarf cat is copyright Helmi Flick and you have not provided a copyright credit. I also suspect that you have not got her permission. Please clarify the situation. On the face of it this is a copyright violation. You can be sued for damages.

Michael
mjbmeister@gmail.com

I think I will just stick with tortoises and sugar gliders.

I went with (e:matthew) to see Marie Antoinette tonight. She traveled far in a horse drawn wagon. The movie was really beautiful like a painting but didn't have much substance in terms of story line, dialog which really didn't matter so much. Kirsten Dunst is just hot.









(e:mike) would really like this. It is a collage slide show that someone made about the movie. If I thought he had access to the media, I would swear he made it.



On the other hand I was looking at some pictures of the space shuttle on google news and I realized just how outdated those piece of crap sapceships are.



Remember making space shuttle cutout models back in the 80s. Oh my freakin god, I found the cutout online I am so making one tomorrow at work.

I thought the shuttle was so fucking high tech. Remember the NASA guy coming to your school to talk about the spaceships of the future. I assumed the future was 2000 at the time. I never thought they would still be using space shuttles in 2006. I definitely never thought I would be using a gas based car in 2006.

Think how fast stuff changed in our grandparents day in terms of transportation. My grandmother went from bikes to space shuttles. Did it just stop there? I guess that ended the transportation revolution and we started the information revolution. I suppose there is less pressure to travel faster now that information can proceed us and video and VR realities can project us.