stories

Monday, September 6, 2004 at 06:24:51 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Sorry for the lack of entries. Becky and I spent most of August camping in San Diego, and it was GREAT!
But for some reason, my guestbook won't add items now. Funny how things just mess up all by themselves.

Sunday, August 15, 2004 at 07:11:49 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
SKEWED STATISTICS: The following statistics are very easy to find.
I just read that 1 IN 2 PEOPLE DIE FROM SMOKING, PREMATURELY.
Um, now, I'm no math wizard, but isn't it true that 1 in 2 of all people die prematurely, depending on how you define prematurely? It seems like the scope of premature deaths varies depending on the statistic being presented.
The average life expectancy is 76 for men and women, black or white. If a premature death is considered to be anything prior to 76 years, half of all people die prematurely, if it's 10 years, all the premature statistics change. This simple technique is called skewing.
I also read that 1 in 4 people die from cancer (25%), 1 in 5 people (20%) of those people die from lung cancer (or 5% of all deaths are from lung cancer). 4 in 5 people(80%) who die from lung cancer smoke. Follow me so far?.
Now again, I'm no math wizard, but doesn't that mean that mean that 25% of 20% of 80% of the people die from smoking...or 4% of people all die from smoking. And if you're like the guru's that blame all deaths on smoking, 5% of the people die from passive smoke and smoking.
They also say radon gas causes 1% of all deaths in the form of lung cancer.
Have you ever even heard that statistic before. You won't, because its not fashionable. I got it from the American Cancer Society stats. The numbers don't add up right for passive smoke. Not at all.
These diversionary tactics are very usefully to those who seem to thrive off of hating smokers, but shouldn't the ordinary person be more concerned about what 95% of the people are dying from? I do know, I have the stats...and you should too?
Heart disease and diabetes are the 2 top killers, and obesity is associated with both of them the in same skewed manner as tobacco (um) abuse. So, now...what's the government going to do, put higher taxes on food...disallow eating in buildings, blame adolescent obesity on children watching adults over-indulge (passive eating). Are fat people going to be eating outside with the smokers in Florida? LOL.
I think societies bigots who 3 decades ago called black people niggers,and 4 decades ago segregated them in buses and schools...have passed on their hatred to the next generations using the same type of labeling techniques they used. That is to say, they hate anybody that's not like them, stupid and ignorant.
I've said my piece...so there...pltpltplt!

Sunday, August 15, 2004 at 06:24:51 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I wonder now. My Sprint DSL works GREAT, then it's a dog. I always blamed my own wireless networking skills. However, I was debugging a neighbors setup and his network was buggy too. Anyone else have intermittent DSL problems out there? Please write me.

Saturday, August 14, 2004 at 20:38:23 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Washed and cleaned out the truck. We noticed someone had filled up our dumpster with tree limbs 15' long and 4' over the top. Of course, the garbage people wouldn't dump it. So, Becky and I bundled the mess up in the dark. Then we mentioned it to a neighbor. About a half an hour later, I went out to see if it was raining and the tree limbs were gone. Picked up, not dragged. I scanned the neighborhood and they weren't anywhere. So bizarre.

Thursday, August 12, 2004 at 13:39:24 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
After playing with Dream Weaver MX for a couple of days, I finally got a photo album template set up.
Check it out ->The Malibu Experience.
Becky's already planning our next trip in San Diego. We picked up a better tent last night (15'x12'), a 5 gallon solar shower and the required wrist rocket sling shot! I'm ready!

Sunday, August 08, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>

<= Click here NOW. lol. I slapped together an eJournal of our trip to California.
Check it out and let me know what you think!!! At this point, I've only got a few pictures uploaded from the our trip. We're still crispy around the edges from the California trip. I spent the day deciding what software to use to create an eJournal of our trip.

Robert came over with a PC his uncle gave him.
Apparently, his uncle took the PC apart trying to fix something on the CD player, and put it back together wrong. Electrical engineers...jeese. Ya gotta watch how they put electrical things back together! Three wires were strapped in the wrong place. I was scratching my head in confusion working on this PC. The lights to the PC were plugged into the hard drive where you'd normally put jumpers. The TV card I installed in it on Christmas Day last year was all boogered up too. It was just odd, the way it looked and all. Some things still aren't working. I honestly think it's easier to build a PC than to fix one.
Three things you should always get a warrantee on are: a PC , a laptop (especially), and a washing machine.
Get it with in store replacement You can't afford not to. Leave the thing on all of the time! If you're lucky, the monitor/motherboard/power supply will burn out before the warrantee expires in a couple of years and you'll get a new PC/laptop. The way PC's are advancing, most PC's are out-of-date in a year or so. Things stocked last year are mostly obsolete. Always buy a warrantee on laptops and washing machines and you won't be sorry. It's the best bet in town.

Saturday, August 07, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Got home around 3:30am this morning and my brain is fried. All achee from 12 hours of driving, spent the day unpacking, then sleeping, then staring at the wall. Becky and I discovered our tent was stolen and it had to be someone we know. bummer.

Friday, August 06, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Packed up everything at Malibu RV Park
We hung out with some neighborly campers (Cindy and Donna). Everyone thinks they're gay. lol.
Met Mike Ginsburg in Hawthorn, CA..
We ate mexican food at Paco's Taco's near LAX. I told Mike we'd eat anyplace he wanted as long as it wasn't a Peter's Hotdog Stand (they actually have these there). Mike was looking good, and in good spirits.
We went back to his apartment, and what I found was strange.
Orange and LA County State Beaches don't allow tent camping.
Oh, and you're not supposed to smoke on the beaches either. LA is such an odd smoggy place.
We were exhausted from another day driving through LA traffic, and our only choices were to go home, or try to find a camping spot in San Diego. We decided we'd just go home.
When we got past Baker, CA, we took a nap off of some exit for about 30 minutes. I popped a movie (Stargate) into the laptop for the rest of the drive. The surround sound from the new truck speakers was incredible. The movie ended about 2 miles from home which was perfect.
We got home around 3:30am. Our vacation was over and we'll remember it for the rest of our lives as a high point.
It's nice to take some time out to enjoy life.

Thursday, August 05, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
We took off for Universal Studios around 10amish this morning.
There, we did Waterworld (***), the Tram Tour (***), Mummy's Revenge (*****), Jurassic Park (****), Backdraft (**), Van Helsing's Castle (***), Blues Brothers (***), Spiderman (***), the escalators/view (****), and Back to the Future (****).
The park closed and, we walked around Universal City (*****).
Universal City is a great place to hang out at. They have excellent food, shops and dance joints. The music was mostly from the 80's and the town kind of reminded me of China Town in San Fransisco. The buildings were about 3 stories high, and the streets between them were about 100' wide. I ordered a shrimp plate from a Cuban fast food place. Now, for $8, I got a plate wih 6 of the largest grilled prawns I'd ever seen. The sauce was great and the portions were oversized. It sure beat tha skinny little hotdog I got with a bag of chips for $7 inside Universal Studios.
We ended up at the Rumba Room watching people dance. I don't drink anymore, so we just spectated. It was fun watching these coked up people dance. They had to be coked up to dance like that. Either that, or my mind was going in slow motion. These people were dancing like Jackie Chan on fast forward scan.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
When I woke up and I had Becky pinned against one side of the tent. The slope was that bad.
Got up and made coffee. The slope was SO BAD, I kept spilling my coffee everywhere and my socks started to smell like cheese whiz from it all. We relocated. The new site was PeRfEcT! The showers were no longer a tiny speck on the horizon. They were right there, and the view was awesome!
We ended up spending the day on the beaches and driving around sight seeing.
I found out I could float like a boat, and belly surf like a whale in the ocean waves. Becky, on the other hand, didn't quite make it passed knee deep. Those waves tossed her around like a sock in a dryer. It was quite a sight! The water seemed cold at first, but once I cleared my nuts and nipples, all was swell.
We ended up taking NR-9 (California's idea of a road name) 20 miles to Calabasas. The hills, canyons and rivers along the way were spectacular.
Around sunset time, we stopped at Venice Beach. I'd swear that Venice fell out of time warp from the 60's. The shops were retro. The art was pshycodelic if not just plain odd. Most of the people were freaks. It was quite a thrill! We watched the sunset over the ocean. Once again (*****).
We picked up some samon and sord fish for BBQing, but by the time we got back, we were dead tired.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Took off at 8:50am on our way to heaven on the beach.
Caught some rough traffic on I15. Finally got to Malibu RV Park around 3pm. The site we got was all they had available at that time and it was sloped.. I can honestly say my cup of coffee was both half empty AND half full.
We unpacked to find we had NO TENT!!! OUCH!
So, we searched the beach stores everywhere for a tent. Finally we found one at Malibu Hardware. It was no bargain, and it was puny compared to the tent we should have had. I guess I should say it was cozy. My queen airbed filled it up...but oh well, it was home.

Monday, August 01, 2004 at 00:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Spent the day packing for the trip. I looked everywhere for my new tent. Somewhere along the line, I figured Becky or I packed the thing. Anyway, we got semi-packed, maps printed, eTickets for Universal Studios printed, and GPS working on my laptop. Everything seemed great until Becky and I started to play games at this new website. The games had somekind of virus and I ended staying up until 3am. blah.

Sunday, August 01, 2004 at 22:24:32 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I moved Chuck (a friend) to his new downtown apartment. Its pretty cool. $400 for a studio with it's own bathroom and fridge aint bad. Not bad Chucko! However, my hands are all sliced up with splinters, my back is killing me, and I must have at least 10 new bruises, All from two days of moving. Today was Chuck and yesterday was moving a truck load of carpet and a camper shell.
That camper shell must weigh 150lbs, and I put it on there myself. I have good techniques when it comes to moving heavy things, but I suppose there's a limit to what I can do. bwahaha-ouuuccchhh.

Sunday, August 01, 2004 at 11:06:46 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Thinking about programming and today's technology
What today's programming lacks is structure.
It used to be that you started coding every program with a paragraph of code that told the computer (and other programmers) what the program is going to do. For Example:
Program Main.
- Perform Buy-groceries.
Exit Program.
Buy-groceries .
- Perform Get-grocery-list.
- Perform Go-to-the-store.
- Perform Get-groceries varying grocery-list-item-number from 1 by 1 until all-groceries-items-are-found.
- Perform Pay-for-Groceries.
Go-to-the-store.
- If the-store-is-walking-distance then
-- Get-The-Keys, Goto-The-Vehicle, Drive-To-The-Store
- Else
-- Walk-To-The-Store
- End If
- ...and so on
In today's programming, you have to find where a program seemingly starts. It may be in the middle of the code (and it usually is). The real heart of the program, however, is not even in the code.
The heart of windows programming is a hidden loop that processes the keyboard, mouse and other incomming events. Everything is supposed to be simpler to the programmer because he just fills in how the program will react to various stimuli. I've written these loops before and they're simple if you can see the code. If you can't see the code for the loop, EG-it's in the compiler or in a library somewhere, you have to know what the code does by reading a book.
Honestly, about the only structured code I've seen in todays programming languages is HTML (what produces this web page), but it's all top-down coding. That means, instead of performing Buy-Groceries which performs each detail, you just do each detail which is tedious and lends itself to repetitive code.
I should write a book. Today's coding techniques, with its objects, properties, events, and properties seems scattered brained at best...consider these Visual Basic code events (Form-load, Form-Paint and Form-Initialize), which one comes first. There are several ways to figure this out: read a book, debug the program or learn from co-developers. And consider this, where a VB program starts isn't even confined to a particular name, it's defined by clicking deep into Visual Studios menus...it's not simple getting started in todays languages. You have to read a book or use a wizard.
Then to add to todays programming mania the ever changing terminology
Every new release of software development tools comes with its own new terminology. Everything is close to working like the old release, but it's called something different...EG: yesterdays Project Groups are now Solutions. Considering that this is what you double click on to start coding, its an unnecessary change. It looks the same to me, that is, once I've figured out that someone, for some reason, didn't like the old name.

Sunday, August 01, 2004 at 10:07:46 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Becky's kids are back with their GMa, now. We're free again!!!
We took Dustin and Jennifer home last night. I'm happier, Becky's happier, even the dog is happier. The birds are singing! How sweet it is to wake up at 9am! I doubt if I'm going to miss being woke up because someone can't find their socks.
I put a camper shell on the truck yesterday.
My neighbor (Rico) gave it to me. It's an aluminum shell thats not too big, but not too small. It's 25 years old. Honestly, it looks kind of odd on a late model Ford Truck, but it will do for now. We can finally go camping now.
We're going to camp off the ocean for several days.
I've got several spots picked out just north of LA, between Malibu and Topanga Canyon. When we get back home, we'll return to normal living.
I've got some books to go through (several thousand pages).
Visual Basic.Net: I'm pretty deep into it already. I acquired Visual Studio Architect awhile back, but haven't got to play with it much.
Dreamweaver MX: Dreamweaver seems to be pretty straight forward, but the books always have those little things you miss by just clicking around.
Web Development: It covers all aspects of web development.
EBay for Dummys: Actually, Becky's going to play with it. She's already gone through 80 pages.
I figure at the bare minimum, I'll get certified. Then, I can put a bunch of letters after my name that'll show I'm one of the good ol boys and that am back in business to stay. It's really to bad Rob didn't take a little time out to do the same thing.