Tommorrow, my crap is going to smell like a ROSE GARDEN !!!
I did the right thing, and I'm a better person because of it.

....TWO DAYS OF TESTING TO CHANGE ONE LINE OF CODE....
Is that an average for any other shop in this country.
Mike once told me about three programmers from India that discussed changing one line of code in a system he worked on. He thought that was excessive. Now, I come here, and find its normal to talk small changes to death. And its normal to test things to death. And its normal not to have test data. Its normal not to have decent documentation. And its normal not to make obvious changes. And, if you try to improve anything, you are wasting time.
I tried to create a testing procedure for one program that took both Jeff and Mike each almost two days to test.  If my math isn't wrong, that's over 30 man hours of work for two lines of code. If I had finished that program (given a few more hours of work), it would never take anyone longer than a few hours to test changes to that program, because my program would have generated good test data.  So I'm dumb for doing that. I was wasting time. I was stupid for not editing 3x290 byte records in Edit, TEdit, Notepad or something simular. Thats smart...yea..sure. And, I created the only decent test documentation that exists. But, its smarter, it seems, to have to bug someone, and repeatedly ask them what you have to do to test one program, over and over and over again. Wasted time and wasted money at Uncle Sam's expense. If I were the one who was fiscally responsible for those systems, I'd keep someone like me, and get rid of the people that condone two days of testing for one line changes. And I'd get the coders good test data.

 

Speaking of test data, JP Morgan must have a decent test system.
They go over our changes. They have a QA staff. Why isn't their test system duplicated to our system. They surely have documentation. Why is all of ours written only by us?
Also, for a single line of code change, there is a minimal of three lines documenting the change.
To show what got changed. In 1987, I was the administrator of Control at Valley Bank. That's what it did. Anybody from the 1990's on up would say, why don't we let Source Safe do that? Source Save cost $200.Why don't we have version control? What century is this anyway again? To read the code, you almost need to delete all of the comments, just to see the current code.
Like I said, these systems are administered by people who don't want to keep current, don't want to simplify their jobs, and don't want to listen to suggestions. That door is closed.
I saw code errors.

If, I had pointed out the code errors I had seen, I would have been reprimanded.
And that is just not right.

I stood up for myself. I drew the line. I'd had enough.
I did what I did at the Showboat, I threw my apron in the garbage.
Back then, I didn't wait to get pompously fired for coming in 5 minutes late.

I quit after being repremanded for for not shuffling a losing deck of cards right,
and for asking a customer if he wanted a coctails when his drink was empty. (that really happened).
I'm a man. I expect to be treated like I treat other people.

Honestly, I'm surprised I lasted this long. I was ready to leave the first day.
This last month, I've kissed booty more than I have in the last 20 years.
That's a lot of booty for me. I don't mind a little butt kiss.
But every day is excessive abuse. And I, am just not going to take it.
CAUSE I DON'T HAVE TOO...HAHAHAHA!!!
I wouldn't have done anything differently though.
I'm so glad I'm here. I'm glad I quit. I'm glad I'm in a place where there's more opportunity.
I loved the trip out there. And I'm going to love seeing the rest of Florida.
Life takes us all on a ride. And we all go down one road or another.
I am glad I chose this one.
If I've burned a few bridges with people who didn't even bother to say howdy to me...so what?
I don't like being around people like. They scare me.
As far as burning a bridge with my headhunter...that's okay too.
This is the first time I'd ever gone route. I'm not going down it again.

I've seen code like this:
IF ACCOUNT-MASTER-NUMBER NOT NUMERIC
OR ACCOUNT-MASTER-NUMBER = SPACES

OR ACCOUNT-MASTER-NUMBER = THIS-ACCOUNT-MASTER
THEN Its an ACCOUNT MASTER KEY
Now lets think about that for a minute...
That code says:
If the account number is junk, or is nothing, or by chance = another account number it's good....
That's just bizarre code!!!
And their systems are full of code like that.
They have no real input data to use, we had to invent it all!
The code we wrote, tested the input data, which is what the input programs are supposed to do.
The database code edited the database's data.
...so these people never heard of GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT.
Why didn't anyone take the time to get test data.
In my opinion, if a computer professional does things that perpetuates his job, he should be fired.
So, since none of those people are improving the system...they shouldn't be working on it.

The last program I worked on contained 10,000 lines of code (I'm serious). I'm surprised it compiled!!!
I had to debug another program needed to run it...it contained 4,000 lines of code.
It was reading, and I'm serious again, a file, created from an edit file, that was three lines, each 290 characters long.
Have you have had to type in to a Word Document three lines, exactly 290 characters long.
That is crazy, and its stupid. I wrote a program that wrote the three lines. It was 100x better than what they'd been doing.
Now, this program with 10,000 lines of code had 3 functions.

One of the routines at the bottom of code was the routine I was working on.
I did a brief flowchart on the program.
There were 8 places where it was called, coming from a place that was called in 10 different places.
Those routines were called from different places.
In other words...the program was spaghetti.
It was full of GO TO's and performs and perform throughs and perform varying...my list showed over 2,000 of them.
So, why did they have 14,000 lines of code to sift through....Why didn't they break it up?
I mentioned this to Jeanne...
She said so...what's wrong with the code?

All Tandem programmer's should know this, in the first three months:

Take a given file, for example a file called ACCOUNT. This is the way it should be named:

- SELECT ACCOUNT ASSIGN TO $DATA.FILE.ACCOUNT
- FD ACCOUNT

- 01 ACCOUNT-RECORD.

  COPY ACCOUNT-RECORD IN COBOLLIB.
- OPEN ACCOUNT.

 

- The enable program should be:
   ACCOUNT-PROGRAM.
What do they call things?
SELECT ACCOUNT-FILE ASSIGN TO $DATA.FILE.ACCTFIL.

FD ACCOUNT-FILE.

01 AC-RECORD.
COPY ACCOBRL IN COBOLLIB.
- OPEN ACCOUNT-FILE.

 

- The enable program is called:
   REACTN-PROGRAM.
And it gets worse from there.
These things are just stupid code.
I asked myself, why didn't anyone take a moment and fix this?
Why did they leave this 3 month beginner programming code this way?
Then ask youself this...why does it take 3 days to make a 1 line change in their code.
If I were crass, I'd say, because they bill by the hour.

I have 3 time sheets to fill out. I'm very maticulous about filling them out.
Jeanne calls me into her office.
She says she can't understand how someone could make such errors on their time sheet.
She said, here you say you worked 9.5 days on this program, on this other sheet, it says you worked 8.5 hours.
On this other program, you say you worked 3 hours, on this other sheet you say you worked 1 day.
I told her about the funny things that I have proven to be wrong with their system times (which they don't care to fix),

and that I'd check it out.

I put together some printouts for Jeanne. There was no way my time sheet was inaccurate.
I go in to show it to her. She said, oh, I'm sorry, I was looking at Jeff's time sheet.
I told her, that's okay, I should have realized that. She didn't even bother to look at my printouts.
I accepted a project late on Friday. So, Monday, it shows as three days late.

Their stupid program doesn't care about weekends. Its says your late based on the Day, not time of day.

So, Monday, after working 10 minutes total on the project, it says I'm 3 days late.
I finish the project the next day, and she says why did I take so long on the project.
Then she said, next time you take 4 days to finish a project, let me know first.
I mentioned the time sheet thing, and that I didn't work on the program through the weekend.
From the very first day, I've apologized to that woman.
I've apologized to her at least 4 times a day since.
I apologized for coming in early. Then I apologized for not being at my desk, after she said I shouldn't be there yet.
Orientation was supposed to take three exactly hours.
I got a bunch of papers that didn't even relate to my job.
Jeanne sent me an email suggesting I'd been goofing off all day, five hours after I got there.
See, we all took lunch and it was a long one, and everyone got chewed out for it.  I apologized for that.
Then I apologized for not accepting a project after lunch.
All this, and I hadn't even been introduced to Jeanne.
That's right....Jeanne Meyers is...was my problem.
On my resignation letter, I told her what a wonderful manager she was.
That my resigning had nothing to do with work.
Then, that woman, said, well, I don't understand why you didn't turn it in earlier.
HELL, I CAN'T EVEN RESIGN RIGHT!

If I could sell one website per day...for 60 days,
with each site paying $100 a month (which, by-the-way, is 1/3rd the cost of a small yellow page ad)
I'd be making more money than I'm making now for years to come.
Without ever having to do anything else.
What I'm saying is, I only need savings to hold me over for maybe 4 months.
After that, if everything works well, I'm retired.
Babe, if your out there, please read this...I need your help...in 6 months,
we could live happily any where on this planet.

Are you there babe?

I think dial up would be faster....

Oooooo...I want so bad to finish this site, so I don't have to be doing what I'm doing now, for the rest of my life.
Its so close to being done babe.

Hey, do me a favor. Turn the thermostat all the way down.
Mikey was burning up last night too. We need find a good setting for it.

if you have a folders or favorites displayed next with your explorer.

because he had group health insurance. I don't mean it was reduced by the insurance company.
What his bill indicated was, that if he went to the hospital with a wad of cash, they would have charged him 40% more.
To me, that makes no sense at all. I'm sure to the insurance companies, its all money under the table.
Doctors probably receive perks by signing contracts with insurance companies to give them reduced rates.
In other words, everyone in America needs health insurance, even the wealthy.
Thanks to the doctors who sign these contracts with Insurance Companies.
Is that fair? The average person in this country is stuck with local health care.
Everyone should be able to seek competitive rates for the same service.
That should be how free enterprise works. Someone should be representing the average person.
Native Americans are being scammed. You'd think the ACLU would step in somehow.
The only way I've seen to escape the treachery of the medical profession is to be on welfare, or leave the US.
When I think about it...
If a commissioner sells government land to his friend for half the amount he would sell it to the public
Its a crime, especially if he receives kick backs for doing it.
It seem like the same thing should apply here.

I had a nasty tooth infection. Most of mouth was in pain and my teeth were wiggling around.
I swished hydrogen peroxide around for 5 minutes. I did this 4 times.
It works great!
And, I probably saved $200 if I still didn't have health insurance.

I'd hoped more people would be "chatting" in here, but that's not happening.
Hmmmm...maybe my next thoughts should be about developing a user base.
I know I've got a few problems to fix. But I'm sure I've got hundreds of problems I'm not even aware of.

I found out that only I could see the ads, because I created them.
I wonder how many people have visited this site, never to return, because of that.
I don't even know how long this site has had that error in it. It was a typo.

If I stay where I'm at...everyday is going to be consumed.
I'm not going to have time to be independantly wealthy.
This system I'm developing will probably just end up as a semi-fun, non-money making site.
This site won't add up to being squat.

I'm still kicking the thought around.
What I want, is for communication from the buyer to the seller to happen in these logs.
A seller should be able to see his ad with buyers responses.

An buyer should be able to see replies to his offer.
I think this will work: Show log entries where the user is either the seller or buyer.
hmmm...maybe.

I need to fix that. So, here, I have no contact with the outside world, unless I've memorized their email addresses.
Bummer.
Fixed it...turns out I was sending my emails to m2_corp.com

I'm modifying a program that has no existing files.
I'm having to create all of them.
It has no documentation, other than having been fixed before. It has no startup files.
It's got nothing.
The program reads 4 records, all in one read...it looks like the author didn't want to do a loop.
It's copy library has an impossible SELECT OPTIONAL filename with alternate keys.
You can't do that.
In short, I'm spending a day fixing a program someone slapped together in 10 minutes
and probably gave up on.
I'll do whatever I'm told to do at this job, no matter how meaningless it might be. It pays the bills.
But if I'm going to add some kind of value to my life here, it won't be coming from work.
It'll come in these wee hours before going to work.
I'm not doing anything meaningful with the hours spent on the job.

There are trailer parks next to the ocean.

Lots of them.
Isn't that the last place you'd put a trailer in the hurricane riddled shores of Florida?
Also on the shoreline, I saw two bail bond places.
Doesn't that seem kind of odd for a small town?
Most of Titusville's restaurants are across SR-1, away from the shore.
Not one of them had outdoor seating.
They're two largest shops were Sears and Penneys...but they were about a mile apart.
Becky said, "Jim, what did they do, run out of room in the Penney's parking lot for a Sears".
I thought that was funny. They've got nothing but land out there.
I'd think that Titusville could be a great spot, if the town managers had something more than a backwater town mentality.
You can mispronounce its name as Tit-us-ville, or Tight-Ass-Ville or anything amusing like that.
Its on the water, but they don't seem to exploit that.
Its a dingy little town.

At least I think it would be a database problem. I changed the Hdg for these log entries from a Text(80) to Memo field.
Apparently, if you try to cram more characters into a field than the database can hold, it bombs.
So, now, the Hdg field can hold 2 gigs...lol.

He was sitting in front of a pizza shop, trying to figure out his cell phone.
He said, with a slight southern drawl,  
"I can't think of anyplace. I've lived here all of my life. My folks live here. We just don't do that much."
Then I asked him if Cocao Beach had any decent restaurants he'd heard of.
He said, eyebrows down, as if searching the ground for a memory,
"Man, we just don't get out that much. I'm really sorry".
So, we drove 12 miles down the road, to Cocoa Beach.
Cocoa Beach had mall sized Surf Shops, several decent looking restaurants, and lots of hotels.
It looked like it could be a nice place to spend an afternoon.

Took off at 6pm. Got back around 11pm. Watched a full moon rise over the ocean.
The coast line along Florida is so very much different than what you see in California.
On thing that's missing is a beach. We hardly saw any sandy places at all.
At most of the places where we could see the ocean, trees and grass grew right up to it.
Kevin (at M2) said they actually truck the sand to the beaches. I guess I never thought of that...man made beaches.
528 takes you over a kind of bridge to Cape Kennedy...it's actually just a mound of dirt, that takes you two miles over the ocean. I noticed there were people camped near the water in their vehicles.
Cape Kennedy is on an island with Cocoa Beach. A sign said there was a casino someplace there.
We ate a Steak House in Cocoa Beach. My steak was smoked and it was great. Becky had sage chicken.
So, we were on the Atlantic Ocean, eating inland food...hmmm.

I can't wait to hear what the people at work did (if they even talk about it).
I'd also gotten a camper shell, and went to Seminole County's land refuse.
And, we saw a racoon, and buzzards bigger than Becky!

---It was pretty cool---

Actually, we were destined for the Hard Rock Hotel/Casino in Tampa.

Our purpose was to purchase a volume of cigs at a decent price.
As it turned out, the only deal they offer was no taxes.
They didn't offer discount brands, and they limited the quantity to three cartons per person.
In other words, the trip to buy cigs wasn't worth the gas it cost.
It would be cheaper to go to Mexico by boat, which isn't that bad of an idea.
The casino was different. They had slots and live poker...but next to no Video Poker.
Later, we explored Tampa, St Petersburg and Brandon. Its was okay, but I still like Orlando 100 times better.
One note about Florida drivers
We were driving across a 5 mile bridge over Tampa Bay. It had no exits and no reason to change your speed.
And the traffic was packed for miles.
People were still racing, switching lanes like crazy, slowing down, speeding up, creating clusters and open areas of traffic.
This would indicate Florida drivers are quite insane. But I like them. I can drive offensively too!
I actually like driving like a madman. If everyone's doing it, I fit right in.

That's what I get for using Internet Explorer's contenteditable tag.
I have no idea how to fully control the entries written in this blog area.
It seems flaky...some times I'll click on Bold, then Italic, and the font will change. Its strange...

I'm am proud of you, Robert. I'm so glad you passed that Class "B" test.
You're on your way to creating the kind of life you want.
You're doing so goooood dude!
You're customizing your life to being what you want it to be.  And that's probably easier than customizing Windows.
It won't be long before you become that big rig driver you picture in your mind, transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain...lol. 
Somewhere along the way, I'd realized that all the people that I had admired were just normal people like myself.
Something pushed them into the path they took. It could have been a job, a parent, someone they admired, or something they read.
So I studied electronics, air conditioning, dealing, and even went to college just to prove I could customize this life to anything I wanted it to be.
I proved it, too.
So, when you look at a big rig driver, an FBI agent, or even your doctor...you should know that you could be that person,
if something had pushed you enough to take that path.
Somewhere in my mind, there's a dream of a home in someplace beautiful, with me driving a truck that I own for a living.
I see you in that dream Robert. It could be real.
I'm going to blow off this place in maybe a year and try something different.
Maybe when you get you Class "A", and make some connections, I'll take a driving course, get a license, buy a rig, and we'll go into business.
In a dream, Florida, Colorado, or even Missouri could be great places to call home. What do you think?

It looks great too!!! And it's about 30% cheaper than what they wanted in Las Vegas.
Talked to Dad tonight. He called while we were enroute to Daytona Beach.

He's still stuck on his stock scam. For some reason, he thinks stocks have a predictable pattern, like a timed beat.
They do go up and down, but predicting when they're going to go either way is impossible to tell.
If it were possible, everyone would be doing it.
 Just like the new gamblers who come to Las Vegas and say, 
  "Winning is easy. You just bet more money when your winning and less when you're losing"

Dad is trying to predict the future by using probabilites...he doesn't understand the difference between odds and probabilities.
Daytona Beach is a party town...or at least is was tonight!
There was a Harley Davidson rendezvous party all over town tonight. For being just 40 minutes down the road, it's a pretty cool place.
The ocean looked so cool.
The next module I put in LVDUDE will be the ability to upload pictures! I need to show people what we've seen.
Robert called us when we were driving home tonight

He said Amy's starting to walk, but she's hanging onto things still.
The loan people repossessed his Ford Ranger. That's probably a good thing.

It relates to when I went back to Paducah and I couldn't find the house I grew up in. It was gone!
The roads I bicycled on, my elementary school, everything was gone or had changed so much that I couldn't recognize it.
When we go back to Vegas, it probably won't be home any more.
- Jennifer is going to have breast
- Dustin won't sound like Bart Simspon anymore
- Sonny's going to lose more hair
- Robert and Joy may not even be living in the Nevada
My only anchor in Vegas was Sonny, the condo and the house on Gabriel.
I feel homeless.

Just before the sun comes up.

I want to see the sun rise over the ocean. 
I've wanted to see this since I was a kid.
I want to see that special color I've read about that flashes as the sun just begins to touch the horizon.
It's supposed to be beautiful, but you have to be aware when it happens.
How could it not be beautiful though? Everything else here is beautiful.

And wondering if we made a mistake by coming out here.
Everything is so unfamiliar. Money is tight. We have only a few hours each day to spend together.

We've lost the luxury of freedom.
I've feel like a king who has chosen to be indigent just to be in someone elses world.
If I come clamoring back to Las Vegas after falling back a few steps here in Florida,
then I was just lucky in the decisions I made in Las Vegas.
However, if I can do well here, then what I did in Vegas wasn't luck, it was ability.
My life has been a perpetual experiment trying to prove this one theory 
- That we are the creators of our own lives.
- and that we (not some glowing entity in the sky) are the god that we pray to in our solemnity.
If this experiment fails, then my theory must be wrong.
I also think we chose to be here in this world. We aren't just an accident of nature.
But, I'm more than happy to wait to find out if that theory is true or not.

To those who ask the question "what are we doing here", the answer will reveal itself in the end.
I guess, no matter where I go, my soul searching will go with me.
I apologize to anyone who reads this and wonders why I talk this way. I'm just curious.
I believe that if Dorothy closed her eyes, clicked her heals three times, and said there's no place like home,
she could have been back in Kansas at anytime. 
Becky and I can do that too.
  :^)

I love when nice things happen to nice people like us...
I LOVE YOU TO PIECES!!!

We buy small quantities of groceries now.
We don't order pizza because the dumpster is 1/4 of a mile away.
Everything we do seems to be based on carrying things up or down the stairs.
Someone should invent a portable balcony wench for apartments like these, just to haul grocery bags up and down.

And also, it goes to the right spot now when you click on an entry.
I've got to remember to enclose my Href's with quotes.
It took about an hour to figure that out.

I still smell like curry fried rice. It was good food, especially the lemon chutney stuff.
This morning I got my Florida plates.
The Tax Assessors Office had no signs from the street. In fact, it was in the middle of a little mall.
There was no line, but there were a few snags.
- The tax guy needed to see my odometer (which has a mind of its own).
It didn't work.
- I could have gotten my personalized plates overnight,
but he said if my Schwab debit account didn't work, we'd have to do everything all over again.
- They took my Title to my truck.
I'll get a Florida one in 3 months. Now, I've got to wonder what will happen if I want to sell my truck.
The good thing about this is, I've got my ex's name off of the title.
The bad thing, of course is, I may never get my title back.
I've hit snags before, where a date/something didn't match, and I ended up with nothing.
Whatever the case, its all much cheaper than Vegas.
My plates cost $230, my insurance is $260 (I think), and I don't need a smog test

He's moving to Pleasantville, Ca.

I love your eyes and your smile. It's great to be in love with you!

Paging back and forth was a mess. As it turned out, I got to rip out a bunch of code.
VB has a DateAdd("m",-1,mydate) function that manipulates dates very nicely.
Finding these functions is a pain without a manual or online help.

He's 1/4th of the reason we came up. The reason definitely wasn't money.
My reasons for coming out here were
- Health Insurance

- See the East coast and get out of Las Vegas
- Fix up my Resume with current activity

- Hang with Mikey, because he's one of the few friends I have left.
Oh well, if he goes to San Francisco and works full time, maybe he'll be able to pull me in. That would be nice.
San Francisco now seems stained though, since Skip died there.

Here in Florida, the Tax Collector takes care of vehicle license plates, and there's not many of them around.
To make things worse, they're only open 8:30am to 5:00pm., the hours I work.
So, I HAVE TO TAKE TIME OFF, and that sux.
Becky and I went to Tony Roma's last night. Man, that food was very good, and reasonably priced.
We also swung by Walmart to pick up a sheet, table, and clock. Much needed stuff.

And I don't get something in Tampa, we should become truck drivers...what do you think?
We could have a little house near Ida...

** Smiles **

He's got an interview next Tuesday with a company in San Francisco. Yippee!!!
I think he's going through a headhunter named Kaiser.

You're logged on as me right now though...so it looks like I told me I love me....haha

I love you so much. I felt really bad about what you
said yesterday. I know you didn't mean what you said.

I know that you would ever leave me,we are too good
for each other. We love each other so much. I do miss
you when you are at work. It makes me feel good
when you call me. Today I'm doing laundry, watched
the movie Phatom of the Opera. Now I'm watching
ZZtop the music vidoes. I love this screen it is so cool.

 

 

 

 

                 Love you

                 Becky

I wanted Becky to overcome her fear of riding roller coaster's.
I told her an 8 year old that was riding this one coaster was braver than she was.
And then I told her if she didn't ride the coaster, she'd be on the next flight out to Vegas.
That makes me an asshole.

I don't know why I'd say something so cruel to someone as special as my sweet Becky.
I must be changing for the worst.
I don't like my job.
I don't like being poor again.
I don't like what the future is going to turn out to be if I stay in this situation.
I'm going to make a choice soon. It will be finishing LVDUDE or truck driving.
With either decision, I'll get to finish the condo and get some permanent income coming in.
None of the above is an excuse for saying what I said to Becky though. That was inexcusable.

Channel 8 in Las Vegas rewrote their website. It kind of looks like this one, which is scary.
LVDUDE has a very open format. There isn't anything else like it on the internet.
You can copy links, enter a personal blog and easily enter ads.
If I don't do something with this site in a year, the design will be worthless. So, I've got to keep trying to improve its looks and functionality. This is one of my opportunities to get rich. I must either finish it, or give it up.

The rides were great! We almost rode everything in 8 hours. A few of the rides were closed.
The worst thing that happened was when I ate a leg of turkey and the darned thing got stuck.
Man, that's painful. I kept riding the rides though. The pain lasted for two hours this time. sheesh.
We'd gotten what turned out to be an excellent deal on Universal Studios from Costco.
$64 for three months in either Universal Studios, or Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure.

The gate price for 1 day, 1 park is $54.