Ahhh....Rod called about 6:30 am asking if I needed a ride.
What a guy!!!
The Ford people (three blocks away from the apartment) gave me a ride to work.
At first, they said they couldn't give me a ride back after 3pm,
then at 4:30pm they called and said they could.
They also said my truck wouldn't be done until tommorrow,
then at 4:45pm they said it was done.
YIPPEE!!!
I feel like a new man!
By the way, Ford gave me an oil change for only $12 and a new battery for $80. What a deal!!!

The truck just barely runs. Sheesh. I think its the fuel pump.
I would replace it myself, BUT, I don't have any place to work on it..and if I did, my tools are in Vegas.
I could think of worse places to be though.
We hung out with Peter, Tim, and Susan for about an hour, then went to the Saddle Ridge.
Surprisingly, while this looks like a guys bar, there's usually as many, or more, girl customers than guys.
Women out number men here in Louisville...look it up.

I'm so old, I waited for a stop sign to turn green.
Why did the dog lick my hand? Cause I ran out of toilet paper...ewwwe.
My girlfriend is so pretty, the older I get, the better she looks. Thats not a joke though.
If a marriage is an institution, and love is blind, then chapels are an institute for the blind.

Visable Changes - Linda
5304 Bardstown Rd, Louisville, KY 40291
502-499-1430 

The world was on fire
No one could save me but you.
Strange what desire will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you
And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

No, I don't want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
No, I don't want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you

What a wicked game you play
To make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
To let me dream of you
What a wicked thing to say
You never felt this way
What a wicked thing to do
To make me dream of you
v And I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
And I don't want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]

{World was on fire
No one could save me but you
Strange what desire will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you
I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

No I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart
No I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you

Nobody loves no one

I don't know...what do ya want to do? I'm open.
Becky thought there was a Rick Springfield concert for $20 at 8pm tonight at the Palace.
The Palace is two blocks away. I told just about everyone at work that.
BUT...it was Caesars Palace in Indiana, $25 - $35, and started at 7:30 pm....OOPS!!!
I hope nobody showed up...good thing most peoplle don't listen to me...haha.
So, if someone showed up with $20 at the Palace, they'd find out the concert is 30 minutes away, then they'd find out it was over, then they'd didn't have enough money ANYWAY....bwahahahahahaha!

The truck is on the fritz. I gotta replace the fuel pump and fuel filter at some time.

Awww what the...I wanna come over!!

They are known for their Hot Brown creation.
A hot brown is an open face turkey sandwich with cheese sauce and bacon.
We tried it! We liked it!
The Browns Hotel is very old. Its in what looks like a rough area, but the hotel is exquisit.
The hotel is very elegant. Its a must see in Louisville.
Old man Brown is said to haunt the place, with apparitions and strange occurances.
We learned about Al Capone's lost tunnels to the river. It is rumoured they used to hide out in them and play poker.
It was quite a walk to get there.
On the way, we ran into a bum who said he was born in the 17th century. He wanted $2 to buy a beer for his mom.
We ran into two more bums that were just as crazy.
We also saw a cop car, speeding 30 mph in reverse, looking for a place to turn around.
Another cop car was trailing him.

Louisville's Most Wanted

The Place: Louisville, KY The Time: September, 2007 The Crime: Trafficking in Happiness.

If you should spot these suspects on the street, be careful. They are armed with humor and aren't afraid to use it. These pictures were taken from my little IPhone. Its lens is about the size of a pin head! What do ya think?

I can't even get a 'yes' when I offer to buy people lunch AT A STEAK and LOBSTER house thats only 200' away!
I got rejected today. Now thats pretty bad. I must be disgusting. Am I that bad?
Its no big deal.
I can eat lunch with a lot of people here. Just not the ones I work with.
Me, I think good PR is very important.
We never know when the tables will turn, and it is a very small world.
I believe that networking is important too, even if I don't really like the people I'm networking with.
I want to leave where I'm at, with at least a handful of email addresses and phone numbers.
The networks I like are based on trust and a promise.
And I people in my network to know, that if I'm ever in a position of power, I'll pull them in.
Thats kind of hard to do though, when you can't even have a power lunch. lol.

Its my toy, and I think it does a great job.
I also believe someone from the future brought the plans here, and Apple produced it.
It just doesn't seem like it belongs in this time. Its way ahead!!!
Here's what I've found so far:
Its really easy to understand. I generally don't like working with Icons, but these look good and make sense.
I can walk around, and it will connect to whatever it can find for the internet.
Using Wep with a hex key was tricky because it wants a password, and doesn't give you a hex key operation.
You have to set up any Wep/hex key before the IPhone discovers it. You can't just join it.
Unsecured networks, it just connects to. So far, its connected to almost every business on 4th street.
Its graphics are great.
Data entry is a breeze. I like how when I key in Jom, it shows a little drop down box showing Jim.
I think the speaker phone, bluetooth and regular phone work wonderfully.
Setting up outgoing mail, I had to key in smtp.1and1.com:587 because 1and1 doesn't use port 25.
That kind of stuff you have to set up in Settings. Once you understand its there, its not so bad.
I'm very impressed.
I think its got a great phone.
It cost $399 with no rebate.
I got Becky a Palm Treo.
I wanted to get the biggest discount on a phone, since we had to sign a two year contract with AT&T.
We did good. The Palm Treo is pretty easy to use. Becky loves it. I love it. It will cost $99 after the rebate.
Its better than any other phone that I've had so far.
However, its not nearly as easy to use as the IPhone, and its graphics are good, but the IPhone is just excellent.
I got some extras...I think the hole mess with activation and the accesories cost $600.
But we have all kinds of rebates coming. I just hope we get them. I've been let down a lot with mail-in rebates.
This is what I work for.
Not to just dole money out to other people because they ask for it. I work for myself.
And now I have something that represents the fruits of my labor and thats a good thing!

1) Think of a number, any number. Write that number down: ________ (EG: 4261)
2) Multiply the number by 9. Write that number down: _______ (EG: 4261 x 9 = 38349)
3) Add that number's digits across Write the result down: ______ (EG: 3+8+3+4+9 = 27)
4) Repeat step 3, until all the digits added across are less than 10. Write the result down: ____ (EG: 2+7 = 9)
You answer is always 9.
You can do a lot of mind games with this trick.
But you can use this trick to figure out REALLY quick, if a number is divisible by 9.
EG: For example
     123,456 = (1+2+3+4+5+6) is 21 = (1+2) is 3, which is not divisible by 9. 123456 / 9 = 13717.333333333334
     1,234,566 = (1+2+3+4+5+6+6) is 27 = (2+7) is 9, which is divisible by 9. 1234566 / 9 = 137174
Boring, I know, but it can be useful at times.
Every number seems to have its tricks.

Got up this morning, and it was raining. Stopped by the local Starbucks to grab some joe, and took this pic.

Lusting for the IPhone, as I have been, we swung up to the St Mathews mall to check it out. My contracts not up with Verizon until Tuesday, so the waiting is really RUFF!
We left the Mall, decided to go right instead of left, and ended up in Middletown, KY. They had Blue Grass bands playing in the park.

We struck up a friendly conversation with a couple of people there. This guy had stories to tell for days. And he'd heard of Julian Carrol...I was surprised! My old neighbor in Paducah had made it all the way up to Governor of Kentucky. (I still owe him a quarter).
 
Before you'd know it, I was shaking hands with Byron Chapmon. He told us to come back October 7th, for the next concert. It was going to be made up of Church Choirs. I should add, not everybody there was happy

But this guy was ready to say HOWDY!

I mentioned that Yucca Mountain (the nuclear dump facility), the bottle house, Rhyolite (a ghost town) and the western entrance to Death Valley was with 20 miles.
I also mentioned that what probably put Beatty on the map was Sherry's Ranch (and no, they don't offer horse back riding). If they took off for it, they probably had a pretty interesting day.
Its kind of a long, boring, desert drive out there.
Becky and I just laid around all day, cuddling.
That's always nice. I should mention there was a "House" marathon on the USA channel, too.
We love "House"! The doctor is such a genius and a jerk.
We ate at the Pub
It was extremely dead. The University of Kentucky was playing Louisville. 
Talked to Peter out in the parking lot for over an hour.
He bought us dinner the other night, so we have to listen to him...har har! Just kidding.
Peter is an excellent conversationalist who loves people, is about my age and is a successful programmer/musician when he wants to be. It seems good programmers and muscians share a lot of the same traits (organizational skills, abstract reasoning, and a sense of harmony which is a better word for multi-tasking).
I wonder if he realizes what he did tonight though. 
He talks about his insecurities, but when a grifter was trying to charge parking fees out in the parking lot, he walked in front of us to confront the guy.
We were in downtown Louisville, in a dark parking lot, and headed towards a guy who was probably insane.
Now...I'm not afraid of much of anything, but I wouldn't have gone out there by myself, and if I went with people, I wouldn't be in front.
It was good to see him do that.
I put in some code to send hackers to the nastiest, most invasive, web site I could locate.
LOL. I love doing things like that.

Isn't everything you look at, simple on first glance, but complex on scrutiny?
I don't understand how nothing can travel past the speed of light, when light travelling towards light is possible.
I don't understand how the universe has bounderies...what is past those bounderies.
I don't understand infinity, at all. Does it loop? Can there be a forever anything?
I was looking at a tree leaf.
It had a pattern. I looked at another leaf. It had simular pattern.
Then I compared them with another tree's leaves.
They were the same kind of tree, but each had its own special pattern.
Each tree had its own signature, its own pattern. They had personalities.
There are infinite tree leaf designs, all close, but each unique, and they all came from a seed.
I picked up a rock from some gravel.
It was melted magma of some kind. The shape of it, with its bubbles and its melted swerves, the Earth was hot when it was made. It was formed billions of years ago.
It was just a rock to most people, but to me, it was magnificent.
I know, I'm crazy...but these things I see. The reason I don't see.
And I've been looking all of my life for just one thing...and that is, what is the reason for life.
Why am I here?
I appreciated everything. This is a beautiful life!
I'll never be smart enough to understand anything, but I sure can try observe everything.
Everything is beautiful, in its own way. (stolen phrase).

Just hanging out so far. We went to TGIFs with Peter and Susan.

8 slices of bacon
4 slices of turkey breast
4 slices of toast
4 slices of tomato
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup millk
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese 
Cook the bacon until crisp.
To make the sauce, in a saucepan, melt butter and add flour to make a paste. Add milk and stir constantly over medium high heat until sauce thickens. Add cheese and stir until well blended.

Place toast in a baking pan placing a slice of turkey on each piece of toast. Pour cheese sauce over turkey and place a tomato slice in the center of each sandwich. Then put a piece of bacon on either side of the tomato. Place under the broiler until the cheese starts to bubble and begin to turn slightly brown.  

Thanks much friend Rod.
Becky's got a cold.
She took some cold pills. Then she took some nasal stuff her mom recommended to her.
Then she bought a new tooth brush.
And thats about it.
Sonny, my brother, finally got the air conditioner's compressor installed.
He fell off the ladder twice, but he landed in the dirt, so he was ok. He installed the new compressor, pulled a vacuum on it, put 6 ouces of R22 in it, and discovered the thermostat wasn't working, so he installed a new one of those. hmmm.
And thats about it.
Me, I installed some software this morning
I was assisted by the aid of Resource Jose, Resource Ron, Resource Rob and Resource Lisa. Thats a lot of resources for a column on a report. lol.
First off, Resource Jose complained about being called a dehumanized Resource...I thought that was funny.
One of the other resources started freaken out, and started to yell at Resource Jim (me) about something that didn't look right. I just said with sad eyes, and a face only a mother could love..."Why are you yelling at me?".
Next thing you know, everything was fine between all of the resources. And all of the resources apologized to all of the other resources.
But if I hadn't said something to cool things down, my stuff would have been backed out again. And, no way, was I going to type out another 300 pages of documentation and go through all those meetings again.
It was all about their installation software, 
It seems to fail for a lot of reaons. It does a lot of magical things, its way too complicated, and takes way too much work.
But after looking at this installation software for 1 minute, I saw a routine that was 100 lines long that could be replaced with 3 lines, so, its complicated by bad logic).
Could that be my next project? We'll see. I'm having a meeting Monday about some of it.
And thats about it.
So, I'm perking up.
If all goes south, I'll just become a truck driver. Maybe I'll haul nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, NV.
Now there's something I haven't tried yet!
And thats about it.

Las Vegas, Nation remembers 9/11
On the sixth anniversary of one of the worst tragedies to occur in the United States, the city of Las Vegas, Clark County and the Metropolitan Police Department will remember those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and the families and friends of those lost who still suffer today.

Where are we going to be in few months?
What am I going to be doing to make a living?
I worry about these things.
We're in a strange place, thousands of miles from home, and home won't be home when we get back.
I see life as being a dream in the making, but for right now, we're lacking the dream.
Its strange. Life is going in a downhill slope when it should be going up.
Good times meets bad, and whoosh, we've got nothing.
Life is a foggy place right now.

Thats good, cause it matches my mood.
Its 70 degrees out there folks, and its cloudy, dark, dank, and damp.
-- Good Time Jimmy's Got the Blues --
I'm waiting on a meeting, where I may or may not be involved, where 100 people may attend, where they may decide if my report column belongs on a report or not, and if they don't get to me after an hour, I'll get to spend another month trying to install the same report, again. Now that's not cool. On the other hand, I get to hang out longer, which is cool, kind of.
-- On the flip side, I put together an email program that runs off the Tandem. Now that's cool.
Of course, if anyone learns I have it, it'll probably be purged, and I'll probably be fired. And that's not cool.

10 years ago, I controlled millions of lines of code, everything on the Tandem, including its operations and had access to all of Mgm's online systems.
Now, I'm adding a column to a report, and it pays almost just as well.
Go Figure? A lot can change in a few years.
I'm actually doing very well compared to the programmers at Valley Bank and Mgm Grand. Some became store clerks. Some struggled to retire. Their are programmers in Vegas that are still working, but can't change jobs. They're stuck.
I guess what really gets me down though is
This contract was supposed last longer. I already had the total earnings calculated before I moved.
But my contract turned out to be a mess. It got sold, then delayed for a month.
And my business in Vegas started to really take off right after I accepted this contract. The Yellow Book ad made it work.  But I knew if I didn't take this contract, my programming career would be over.
So I'm not sure what I've accomplished here. 
I must be crazy! I don't want to go back to Vegas. I'd like to stay here.
But I can't unless I figure out some kind of solution. I still have a house and my Nevada corporation is good, even here.
I doubt having a Segway dealership would work out
Unless I could get a contract with the Police, or maybe FORT KNOX...haha.
Anyway, I'll probably be done at the bank before November.
We have the apartment leased until February, so there's going to be a lot of time to think about our next move in life.
However, financing is so much easier to get when you have an active income. So, the pressure is on.

The closest one is in Cincinnati.
Click here for the link: http://www.segway.com/about-segway/become-a-partner.php
It might pay to visit that store at:

Segway of Ohio 1053 Gregory St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 Phone: 513.225.1583

Sales Contact this dealer Map this location Website 89 Miles

They are also looking for a dealership at the Lakes, NV, and Red Rock, NV.
These things have a range of 24 miles.

We saw them doing a tour in San Fransisco, and we thought they we so cool.
I've always thought it would be fun to do something like that.
I thought the Florida Keys, or Louisville might be a good place for it.
In Vegas, at a St Patricks Day parades, the Air Force had a platoon of them!!!

What a wonderful friend !
He got out of his running cage, out of the backyard, and as is so predictable of him, he ran up to Mountain Vista.
Rico, my neighbor, did a search and found him.
He called animal control to scoop him up.
He went out in a blaze of glory.
He got to see beyond the boundaries of his universe.
He sailed into the horizon and fell off the edge of the Earth, so to speak.
He made it to Mountain Vista !
We had a toast to him today.
We celebrated his life. Its great he lived enough to be loved.
I'll miss playing fetch with him, and playing rag drag.
I'll miss his getting jealous whenever I'd hug Becky.
In our short time here, it was great to have him as our guest.
It was great to have known his personality.
We loved him.
He was one of my best friends.

Click this to watch it: Thunder and Lightning Show
There are a lot of great things about living in a high rise downtown.
One of them, is looking out a window and seeing clouds float by.

We ate at the buffet which was kind of pricey, but it was good.
We sat at Resee's station and she comped us to see Anthony Cools hypnotist show.
Pretty cool. Of course, I am always a skeptic.
The show was pretty lewd. Would shy people really do those things?
I tried to volunteer, cause I've always got to see things happen for myself.
We talked to an older lady who was in the show, on our way out.
She was picked from the audience, and did some pretty naughty things on stage while hypnotized.
Her husband said he knew the hypnotist and he was a really decent guy.
Now I wondered how he could say that, if she was picked at random from the audience, and just left the show.
hmmm.

I just read Harvard (Harvard?) has found trans fat, less than that found in a large order of McDonalds fries, increases your chances of a heart attack by 25%.  Read the article in the Courier Journal.
They say it causes more than 200,000 deaths a year.
New York is going to illegalize it.
Ever wonder exactly how they do these wonderful studies?
What do they do, take a bunch of people who died of old age that have died from heart attacks, find out what they ate, then say they died from eating McDonalds french fries?
Groucho Marx smoked cigars until he died at 87 years old.
He should have died at 70.
It should be obvious by now, that the medical guys are terrible at predicting the life spans of people.
The average live span in the United States is still 76 years old.
It will stay that way until the medical profession discovers how to cure old age.
The blame game always irritates me.

That would be Allen H. He'll be about 40 miles NE of here.
We went to Livingston High School together. He even lived in Colorado with me in the 70's.
This life is full of coincidental circles, aint it?
I was born in Kentucky, I moved west, then I find myself working in Kentucky 30 years later. Allen lives in Montana, now he's working 40 miles away. And there's Rod, one of the few friends I have left from the 90's, who is living 10 miles away. I would never think we would end up here, near Louisville. Its just not very likely.
Sometimes I think there are no coincidents at all.
At times, it seems like everything has been planned for us.
That would mean there is no chaos, and nothing we do is by choice
Our lives would be like just another book, on the shelves of a infinite library. 
My favorite stories are where the end takes you back to the beginning.
I wonder if moths think of light bulbs, the way we think of bars.
Maybe they're not circling the bulb, pointlessly. Maybe they are flying in circles to get high, while waiting for their cocoon buddies to come and hang out...hahaha.

Peter is taking off in 3 days...
He's doing a programming stint up north.
If you're reading this, good luck Peter. We'll miss ya.
Hope to see ya hangin around the blog.
Just kick back, take your shoes off, put some foil on your head...
and write us a line or two.
Ate steak at the Saddle Ridge.
Great Food, and at great prices.
And its probably cruel of me, but I love to chuckle at people who get drunk...and try to dance.
They actually dance better than I do when I'm sober.
See, I skipped learning the 2 step, and created the 100 step method of dancing.
Its kind of like a little kid inventing his own language.
My slow dancing is more like groping.
Just talked to Miss Beatty downstairs
She's an interesting person who's seen a lot, has an attitude, and is not afraid to be blunt.
I like that.
She said "People never change. You can't change people".
I said "People are like rocks on a mountain. You can destroy them, but why not just enjoy them, walk around them or climb them".
She said "Becky, he just called you a rock". I said, "Well, I have climbed her, and I do enjoy her. She is my ROCK".
No air conditioner tonight.
Its going to be a long, hot, summer night.

Purple - Intelligence / Mental Focus
Green - Success / Decision Making
Black - Self Control / Willpower
Red - Self Confdence / Positive Attitude
Silver - Healing / Balance
Yellow - Patience / Serenity
White - Wealth / Financial Confidence
Orange/Yellow - Harmony / Peace
Pink - Love / Romance
Grey/Brown - Relaxation
Gold/Tan - Creativity / Artistic Ability
Blue - Healing / Problem Solving

Answer over 23 and Mensa considers you a genius. Only 2 Mensa geniuses have answered all of them.

01. 26 L of the A (hint: 26 Letters of the Alphabet)
02. 7 D of the W
03. 7 W of the W
04. 12 S of the Z
05. 66 B of the B
06. 52 C in a P (W Js)
07. 13 S in the U S F
08. 18 H on the G C
09. 39 B of the O T
10. 5 T on a F
11. 90 D in a R A
12. 3 BM (S H T R)
13. 32 T in a D F at which W F
14. 15 P in a R T
15. 3 W on a T
16. 100 C in a R
17. 11 P in a F (S)T
18. 12 M in a Y
19. 13 = U F S
20. 8 T on an O
21. 29 D in F
22. 27 B in the N T
23. 365 D in a Y
24. 13 L in a B D
25. 52 W in a Y
26. 9 L of a C
27. 60 M in a H
28. 23 P of C in the H B
29. 64 S on a C B
30. 9 P in S A
31. 6 B to an O in C
32. 1000 Y in a M
33  15 M on a D M C

Non-XP terminology (?), not quite synonymous with ProgrammerTest (a UnitTest measures a unit of software, without specifying why, while a ProgrammerTest assists programmers in development, without specifying how).

---

(Note that although most of the text on this Wiki uses the term UnitTest, the canonical ExtremeProgramming name has been changed to ProgrammerTest.)
UnitTests are programs written to run in batches and test classes. Each typically sends a class a fixed message and verifies it returns the predicted answer.
UnitTests are a key component of software engineering, and the ExtremeProgramming discipline leverages them to permit easy code changes. Developers write tests for every class they produce. The tests are intended to test every aspect of the class that could conceivably not work. (Do test adding and removing, don't test accessors.)
Key here is to CodeUnitTestFirst.
UnitTests are all combined into a huge suite of tests, using e.g. KentBeck's TestingFramework. When developers go to release new code, they run all the unit tests, not just theirs, on the integration machine. The tests must run at 100%. If any test fails, they figure out why and fix the problem. The problem certainly resides in something they did ... since they know the tests ran at 100% the last time anything was released.
Of course, sometimes the tests let something slip through. When that happens, developers unconditionally enhance the unit tests so that that problem, and any similar one that comes to mind, won't happen again.
Regression testing is any type of software testing which seeks to uncover regression bugs. Regression bugs occur whenever software functionality that previously worked as desired, stops working or no longer works in the same way that was previously planned. Typically regression bugs occur as an unintended consequence of program changes.
Tandem has Unit Testing available
Kind of. Tandem doesn't really have objects in the sense this term implies.
You could write classes of programs, but I've never seen anyone do that.
And you could test it with unit testers, and test scripts.
However, you have to purchase ENCORE (Capture and Replay) to use it. I set it up in my first job.
I haven't seen anyone use it since.
So, when BA Merchants talks about unit testing, I'd guess they don't know what they are saying.
They don't even have ENABLE or ENLITEN.

:)