I got all puffy eyed reading it. I'll be going to my interview today with Puffy Eyes because of you...lol.
I touched it up a little (put some periods in it, and fixt sum spelling). haha. I love writing like that.
Becky just asked me what color underwear and socks I wanted to wear.
In my mind, I'm thinking - - - For the interview?

Wow...what a picture my thoughts painted for that! LOL.
She always picks out the clothes I'm going to wear each day. In the moment that she asked that, my mind saw me sitting in front of the interviewers. They're all dressed up, and I'm wearing underwear and socks.

I feel a sense of pride about it. Out of simple thought, I've created something new, that doesn't exist anywhere.

I think I'm almost done. A few things need to be changed for commercial purposes.
The Guest Log needs to have buttons for responding to a Log entry. It will work like Email.

The ad creator will then have a simular button to respond to that person, in their log.
Clicking on an ad's heading needs to create an entry in the Ad creators log, and not go to email.
Also, I need to create a live, working site. I'll probably use LVDarlings.com to that in.

Tuesday at noon - Lunch with Enricci 407-551-1319 or 213-408-0236
Tommorrow at noon - Raymond James interview in Tampa.
Remain calm, if they ask about M2, say:
- M2 wasn't what I was looking for.
- I'm looking for personal growth in a challenging environment.
- I'm also looking for stability and long term employment.

Jimbo, man, you look marveloussss.....lol.
Shoes, suit, pants, and two ties cost $160. That's not a bad price to pay to look snazzy.
We also got a portable Dvd/Cr Reader/Writer.
If I don't back up some of this stuff, I'm going to lose it.

Life is good! I've got an interview coming up, and severally really great prospects in mind.
The way i figer it, i kant doo any worsser than wat i jest dun.

Select Properties, Desktop, and click on something like Autumn. Thats a nice one. In position, select Stretch.

Or am I the only person around that's ridden in a laundramat's clothes dryer (on fluff dry of course).
You can't do it on the cotton setting, that would be bad...
lol

I apologized for just about everything I did there.
I'm sorry I came in early. I'm sorry I'm late on this assignment. I'm sorry I turned in my resignation in the afternoon and not in the morning,....on and on.
I bought these guys 2 large pizza's as my going away present to them.
I wanted to see if any of these people had manners enough to come by my cube and say thanks.
One manager thinks eating animal by-products (cheese) is wrong, another doesn't eat pizza, another said "hmmph".
One programmer can't have cheese because of IBS, Mikey is on a diet.
Three programmers came by my cube to say thankyou.
Another programmer called me on my cell phone, and we're doing lunch.
I told two of these people that I'd contact them if something good came up.
The whole time I was there, I met one manager, and we didn't get along.
She cost me $120 too with her complaining. I spent 12 hours on a project and got reprimanded. I didn't bill for the time she complained about. However, this other fellow and I spent more time on a very simular project, and we were told - great job. That was the proof I needed  I was being picked on. , maybe it was because I came in early the first day.
- All of the other managers would walk by me and look away. I noticed they did that to everybody.
I may never know why these people acted the way that they did.
All I know is, I'm glad I'm out of that place.
--- There I go, turning the page, and ending another chapter. We're on to the next chapter in our lives.  ---

What a great guy! We think alike. Its nice to talk to a like mind.
I needed to find some kind of solace in my decision. He gave it to me.
He was a Tandem guru since it first came out, so he understood everything I told him.
And it was nice to hear from another developer.
He said he absolutely.hated doing maintenance code.
He did it at Bank of America on Base24.
Same thing I was doing...add a chunk of code, then talk or document it for days.
He said he talked to Kevin McDonald and he's the head of some IT department for BOA.
Good ol Kevin. What a die hard. I should call his butt an give him a hard time.

Hmmmm. Its nice to be known by people in high places.

You can change what you've typed in by clicking the Blue edit button...
But you have to register and sign in.

You don't have to register every time you come here. But you may have to logon.

I quit my job today...so we may be hitting the road soon. If we move to Tampa, we're gonna live on a boat!!!

I'm buying two large pizza's today for everyone here. I want to see if anyone has enough manners to say thank you.

With this job, I saw myself doing the same thing I was doing on the first day I started:
-  30 minutes: Being told about a line of code they want added
-  10 minutes: Adding that line of code and recompiling.
-360 minutes: testing that line of code

-  25 minutes: documenting it that line of code, in the code (5 lines), in a document, a time sheets and a task list.

-  60 minutes: talking about that line of code, if I did anything other than exactly what I was told to do.
From the times above you can see that one programmer who just coded could replace all of the other programmers.
But, that's what maintenance programmers do, I guess. They don't code, they test and document. Thats messed up.

Development programmers use their time as follows:
- Designing and programming are interactive with the user and takes up about 90% of the time.
- The users are almost always happy to create the documentation. The design specs change in the development cycle.
- It's typical to write several hundred lines of code each day.
I can honestly say I didn't learn anything new in the last month.
If I stayed, I would have learned how to mindlessly write sloppy code. I can't do that. I care about the quality of my work.
The worst thing I saw about this job was: myself slowly going broke with no reputation to show for it.
In programming, if you don't gain new skills, you are almost worthless.
The only way to keep a job without learning new things is to lock yourself in. You can do that working for the government, or some big corporation where noone knows what or how you do what you do.
Usually, the people who have seniority in a programming shop, are the people with the fewest skills.
They haven't learned other ways of doing things, and they usually think their way is the only way.
They almost always say, "Thats not the way we do it here". 
Any programmer who reads this, should realize it is the truth.
Bad coders get promoted, while the good coders move on.
About job recruiters. They're great for when you don't know anyone, and you haven't established a reputation.
However, once you've been at a place for awhile, if you do exceptional work, people will talk about what you've done. When you leave a job, people will call you wanting to hire you. If they don't, then you have either a bad reputation or none.
We all sell ourselves by what we do. If we don't care about what we do, others will see that.
And there was no way I was going to get a good reputation at a place that controlled every thing I did.

We talked about that tonight and it sounds like a great idea. They don't cost about as much as an apartment does.

Today is my last day on this job.
I told them to Take This Job and Shove It (that's a joke).
No, seriously though, it just wasn't the right spot for me.

What you see, and what we see are different on this site.
The menu's above are almost completely customizable.
You can add menu items and delete them.
I think this is the only site on the whole web that lets you put your favorites online.
And I mentioned about the logs.
The Guest Log is the only log everyone can see, unless they have a link setup.
Right now there's oodles of logs on this site. 

Stop giving me that pop-up ad for Classmates.com!
There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn.

Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull.
People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout? Luckily, it was only a finger! If it was a whole hand, Congress would have voted to keep it alive.

Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged.
I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards. 

If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you're gay.
If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you're a grown man, they're pictures of men. 

Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone.
Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done. 

There's no such thing as flavored water.
There's a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That's your flavored water.

Stop f***ing with old people.
Target is introducing a redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And the top is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it, his ass will be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you just solved the Social Security crisis. 

The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole.
If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge azzhole. 

I'm not the cashier!
By the time I look up from sliding my card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount, deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my Almond Joy. Paper, plastic? I don't have time for that. I've just been called to do a cleanup on Aisle Nine! 

Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual.
It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high. 

Competitive eating isn't a sport.
It's one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're already doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."

I don't need a bigger mega M&M.
If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms, I'll go nuts and eat two. 

No more gift registries.
You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking up the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting.

New Rule, and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if he's supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don't want to be on your web cam, dude. I just want to wash my hands. 

When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in months. "27 Months."
"He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't care in the first place.

I threw a picture on your log. You can delete it if you want in your Sign In screen (under Your name on the menu on top).
Nobody can see this log unless they copy a link to it.
Also, when your in your log (this log)
- You see everything you've written to anybody on this site
- You see everything everybody's written to you.
- When you are entering something into a log, press SHIFT ENTER to begin a new line.
I haven't figured a way around that yet.
Cool, huh?
I've been working on this site a little everyday, which only works out to about an hour a day.
It's been hard to get too since I started working full time.
WELCOME TO THIS SITE !!!

I threw a pic of yours in your log and left you a note in your log.
Welcome To This Site !!!

I got a call from Pete Strickland (702-425-413-1580)

I have an interview on Monday 11/7 12pm, at Raymond James
Ask for Lisa Tomberlin in the IT Contracts Group, she works with Brian
It's at 880 Carillon Pky, St Petersburg, Fl 33733
I should dress up and the interview may be somewhat technical.

                  

It seemed like the third part of the task was missing, forgotten or unassigned.
I asked Jeff about it and he told me he had the third part of it.
No one told me, and I've learned I'm not supposed to assume anything.
Now thats just fucked up.

Its not available for everybody yet, but it's getting there.

How are you doing there all "HOME ALONE" in that big, creaky apartment?
It's been quiet in the ol' BLOG front, so I thought I'd add a few blurbs

Once again, someone has said something demeaning about Smoking
I've known hundreds of smokers in my lifetime. Of them, only one has died from cancer.
Only one. I don't know if she smoked, but she almost died at my house on Gabriel Drive.
They've died of heart attacks, accidents, sucide and pneumonia.
In my opinion, several of them would have lived longer if they didn't have surgery.
But, that's just what I've seen with my own eyes.
Please note that the following does not mention deaths caused by old age, or deaths occurring after major surgeries.
Leading Causes of Death in the US (2002):
 1-Heart Disease: 696,947
 2-Cancer: 557,271
 3-Stroke: 162,672
 4-Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,816
 5-Accidents (unintentional injuries): 106,742
 6-Diabetes: 73,249
 7-Influenza/Pneumonia: 65,681
 8-Alzheimer's disease: 58,866
 9-Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 40,974
10-Septicemia: 33,865

11-Suicide: 31,655
12-Liver Disease: 27,257
13-Hypertension: 20,261
14-Homicide: 17,638
15-Pneumonitis: 17,593
Other Causes: 407,900

What you don't see is this:

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-1/e1-4.htm

Journal of Theoretics Vol.1-4
Oct/Nov 1999 Editorial

Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer

(According to WHO/CDC Data)*
By:  James P. Siepmann, MD

Yes, it is true, smoking does not cause lung cancer. 
It is only one of many risk factors for lung cancer.
I initially was going to write an article on how the professional literature and publications misuse the language by saying "smoking causes lung cancer"1,2, but the more that I looked into how biased the literature, professional organizations, and the media are, I modified this article to one on trying to put the relationship between smoking and cancer into perspective. (No, I did not get paid off by the tobacco companies, or anything else like that.)

When the tobacco executives testified to Congress that they did not believe that smoking caused cancer, their answers were probably truthful and I agree with that statement.
Now, if they were asked if smoking increases the risk of getting lung cancer, then their answer based upon current evidence should have be "yes." 
But even so, the risk of a smoker getting lung cancer is much less than anyone would suspect.  
Based upon what the media and anti-tobacco organizations say, one would think that if you smoke, you get lung cancer (a 100% correlation) or at least expect a 50+% occurrence before someone uses the word "cause." 

Would you believe that the real number is < 10% (see Appendix A)? Yes, a US white male (USWM) cigarette smoker has an 8% lifetime chance of dying from lung cancer but the USWM nonsmoker also has a 1% chance of dying from lung cancer (see Appendix A). 
In fact, the data used is biased in the way that it was collected and the actual risk for a smoker is probably less. 
I personally would not smoke cigarettes and take that risk, nor recommend cigarette smoking to others, but the numbers were less than I had been led to believe. 
I only did the data on white males because they account for the largest number of lung cancers in the US, but a similar analysis can be done for other groups using the CDC data.

You don't see this type of information being reported, and we hear things like, "if you smoke you will die", but when we actually look at the data, lung cancer accounts for only 2% of the annual deaths worldwide and only 3% in the US.**

  

- My last day at M2 is Friday.

- Next week I want to finish our tour of Florida.

- I may end up getting a job at Raymond James working on Web Development. I want that.
- If I don't find work, I'm going to work on my website, with marketting being my goal.

- If, by January, I haven't made any money off of my sites or found work then I'm going to take a Truck Driving School. 

- We'll live either here or in Las Vegas, depending on our money situation.
- If do go into Trucking, my goal will be to own a truck, then a fleet of trucks.

Maybe its getting near time to get conveniently sick. I assume you get sick days (I don't...lol).
Well, if you're not burned out, I am. We've been doing something special every day. It gets so tiresome.
And now we've got daylight savings time, so when I leave work it's dark and gloomy.
It'll be nice when you get your class A license..

Dang...I really wanted to talk to Mike Muscato (the owner).
His resume reads exactly like mine.
All I wanted was 5 minutes of his time, but it doesn't look like I'm going to get even that.
I think I'll bust a nut to see the man.
I know if we talked about the old times with the ATM's and the switch networks, he'd place me someplace more appropriate than the change one line of code and talk about it for an hour position I've been in. There's a chance he's even heard of me. The Inn switch is probably as well know as the Star Network in Nevada (I think).

Tommorrow, I'm going to make the Classified Ad's heading data driven.
Right now, it's hard coded.

I'm hoping you get your "A" class license soon.
The more I think about it, the more truck driving sounds appealing.
If I can't make some $ selling this site, that's what I'm going to go for.
We'll be making a decision on that by the end of the year.

I guess there was supposed to be a Halloween Bash, but, maybe we came too early.
They've got lots and lots-a-bars and bars down there and they're all themed up. It was cool.
The only thing I didn't like seeing was this metally slow fellow digging threw the trash for food.
I dropped a tear and gave him some money. He wasn't begging. Anyway, he said "ooooo, fank you mister...fank you". Why do we let people starve?
A highlight was when a fellow dressed as Willy Wonka came by, and posed for my camera...he was great!!!
EVERYBODY IN FLORIDA IS WONDERFUL!!! With exception of a few people, the state is great.
Becky and I don't really want to move back to Las Vegas.
We'll eventually end up back there, but, we're not going to be in a rush.
I think...no...I know,  we've seen more of this state than anybody we've met. It's a blast!!! 

 

Bwaaaahahahahaha!

The condo was nice, but I felt like we were imposing somehow. It didn't feel right.
Plus my aunt wouldn't let us pay for anything. She insisted on paying for 2 lunches and a dinner.
It was hard to get her to smile. I was being my perky self, and Becky's always perky.
She like Becky a lot, but, I suppose all of the things she'd heard about me from my Dad and Kelly got in the way of things.
I bought her a Billy Bob Big Mouth Bass Plaque. She said her cats would like it.
She kept going on about how we were killing ourselves by smoking.
Both her and her husband had smoked. She still drinks a little. He died this year.
I kept saying that we all die from something when we get old. Old age is never listed as a cause of death.
She implied that I wanted to die. I just told her, no...I'm just not afraid of living.
Then we got on the thing about the medallion. She said her mom made a mistake by letting dad have it.
Then she said she was surprised Sonny let me take it out of his safety deposit box. My jaw dropped.

We openned the box and put it in there. It got stolen when I was documenting it. Someone broke a window to get into my house. I have a police report...sheesh!
When we talked about Kelly, I mentioned how Kelly could be dangerous.
She told everyone, including people I worked with that I dropped LSD and drove 24 hours her to Colorado Springs, which is stupid. I said, I had tried LSD, but that was long ago, and that Kelly mistook NoDose for drugs.
Kelly was badly mistaken.
My aunt got stuck on the LSD part. She asked why I did it and I said, everybody was doing it back then. She said, her kids and grand kids never did drugs, but her son might have smoked pot. I wanted to say, yea, right.
Then she got off on how poorly my Mom must have raised me.
How I must have gotten a lot of my traits from the Rogers.
I told her the Rogers were basically dull but very dependable people.
They'd get a job and work it all their lives, and they were very predictable.

I don't think Becky heard a lot of this because my aunt is such a low talker.
I doubt we'll be going back up there to visit any time soon.

 

Most the people in Florida are great! You'd love Florida.
I'm still not planning on hanging around here for over a year though. It's just not home.
We stayed on Daytona Beach last weekend.
The views were fantastic from the 15th floor of my aunt's condo.
I hardly slept at all during the weekend.
Saturday morning I watched the sunrise, and it was great!
The pelican's kept swooping by. I doubt if they noticed me though.
I kept throwing them pieces of an English Muffin, and they'd just fly right by.
The muffin pieces kept landing in the pool 15 stories down so I quit doing that.

Becky and I walked 4 miles up the beach on Sunday (4 miles back too).
My legs are SO SORE TODAY! Walking up the stairs to the apartment was a killer.
Sunday, we went to the Light House for lunch.
We ate outside on a pier. Some nameless singer was singing Jim Croce songs.
The service was excellent.
I fed the gulls with some of the hush puppies. That was a hoot.
I don't think my aunt noticed me doing it though. We're smokers.

I'm sorry I missed you at lunch. I sat out back watching the frogs eat.

I reduced the code by 66% in RCBHLD. By removing cluttered logic.
In SCBHLD, I reduced the code by 41%.

And, I added functionality.

Maybe they'll finally set the clock at work...lol.
The Tandem command is: SETTIME OCT 30, 2005 02:00
At least I think it is.

He needed a little representation on this site.

We're ordering it, we pay for it and  I'm surprised I don't have to pay for all of it, since I'm the new guy.
I still haven't been introduced to everybody yet. Not even at the meeting today. wow.
Oh well.

Now if you go into log activity, you see all of the guest log, and your activity
If you go into your log, you see everything you've done in all logs.
It seems confusing to me at the moment, but I'm working on eliminating the need for email on my sites.
Eventually, an Ad viewer will be able to click on an ad, and make arrangements with the ad owner for purchase in the owners log.
I'll finish that code maybe Friday morning before work.

Tandem System's Analyst.
In 1986, Universal Reservations Services was the first airline system in the continental United States to use a Tandem Nonstop computer for hosting an airline reservations system. The system was written in Sweden for the Swedish Airline Systems (SAS). It was adapted to United States standards by Bedford Incorporated. In conjunction with a travel agent system (MERS) written by Transaction Software Incorporated (TSI), and with links to Air Inc, the system was a one of a kind for the Tandem. The system hosted the Royal West Airlines, Suncoast Airlines, an American Travelers Incorporated. I was responsible for new development and daily operations.
Caesars Palace-Programmer Analyst.
This is my favorite business card!
Caesars Palace had developed the only Hotel and Casino system in the world hosted by a Tandem system. Its services were employed at the Desert Inn, Caesars Tahoe, and Caesars Atlantic City. "Jim came on board in 1989. His reputation was proceeded by his development skills at Nevada Automated Betting Systems (Nabs). Jim gained responsibilities for new development of both PC and Tandem based system and soon became the point man for all operational problems."
I really enjoyed Caesars Palace. They gave me the freedom to create new programs and objects unseen to the world.
And then there's Valley Bank/BOA where I did the ATM Fee system.
We processed over 300 transactions a minute. I was the point guy on call! 
"Jim was the lead technician responsible for building the INN (In Nevada Network) switch supporting debit cards and credit cards in a shared environment. It was the first of its kind. Jim was responsible for engineering, database management, network engineering and planning data center operations and customer service for the In Nevada Network to primarily support Debit cards in a shared environment. He engineered the pilot system for the an acquirer based ATM fee system in 1987. After Bank of America's take over of Valley Bank, Jim and the team of Valley Bank programmers converted their systems to Base24."
"Those were the days my friend"
And now, I'm a maintenance programmer who's futzing with welfare system that mainly processes food stamps,
not Credit Cards, and not Debit Cards. They are basically government issued gift cards. I wonder if Home Depot's gift card processing consumes millions of lines of code that display "Your monitor is turned off, please press the on button".

Wow. I just mentioned a couple of things of buggy things I found.
I'm actually afraid to mention any errors that I find anymore.
I showed someone an error that basically said "The Tandem Transaction System isn't working".
I mentioned that since it came from the Tandem and transaction processing is mostly what the Tandem does,
that it probably wouldn't ever be displayed, because the Tandem System would be down...DUH!!!
The response was "Nah, that could happen. If the server got too many transactions."
I wanted to say "Saddam Hussein could get the Nobel Peace Prize too."

This server processes one transaction, then dies, which in itself is queer.
But in this case, the 50 (not 3) lines of code used to display that crap causes this program to be spaghetti.
I asked Mikey if I should point anything out anymore, he said he gets an att-a-boy when he does at times.
I keep getting, naaah, we need that, or we shouldn't change that.
If I stayed here, I'd end up being SO depressed.
I'm depressed now.

Check your log.

She's the dominating person I'm having troubles with here. She was carrying in a 12 pack of water.
Just to be polite I said
"I wonder if anyone in the 50's or 60's every thought that in the year 2000, people would be buying drinking water".
She didn't say a word. She just kind of half smiled and walked away.

I feel like I'm on Pluto and the Plutonians don't respond well to manners.

LOL.

It's cold outside and it's cold inside too.
I talked to the manager at this little cafe inside the building. I told her I was leaving.
She asked me who I worked for and she said, awww, those people always are so nice, so quiet.
I just told her I've been working under my own direction so long,
that it was hard to be a robot for anyone.
She agreed. She said she worked a job like that for a long time and was miserable.
Now, she's got responsibility and freedom to make decisions.
Which hit the nail right on the head.
Here I have no responsibility, I don't make decisions, I do as I'm told, and how to do it.

I suppose I'm gonna get reamed again today.
Instead of adding a ?SAVE PARAM, ASSIGN in my program I put

?SAVE ALL in the program I'm working on.
There is no local docs saying I have to do it either way.
Something will be said about it, and if I am told to change it to ?SAVE PARAM, ASSIGN,
its going to cost these guys money when they finally discover STARTUPTEXT exists!!!
I don't think they're aware of that. The only program I've seen use it is a C program...which is pathetic.
LOL

I'm sure he'd understand the significance of a decision that cost him $200.
It was just one email, one decision, and another day of management error.
Add that up over a year and you get $5,200.

It almost happened, but it didn't. Everything wend gracefully, like I'd hoped.
I knew I was pushing the line when I put down zero hours for last Friday.
Jeanne asked me if I worked Friday
I replied "If I wasted our time on this project, I can't, in all honesty, bill for it. My loss."
Now, I know damned well its their loss, probably to the tune of over $200.
She came back and said "Let's split the difference, put down 4 hours".
Jeanne is so funny. She's lost her focus.
I may have lost $120, but the company lost at least $200.
And I would call that another bad management decision. LOL.

I'd almost say it was a semi-dull weather day.
I was up most of the night watching the weather outside, and watching the weather channel.
The worst thing that happened was trash blowing around in the streets.
** YAWN **

And so did Taz....